Make a Halloween Baby Carrier Shark Costume

Get ready to turn heads with the cutest baby in town on Halloween! 

Last year when the cute baby in the photo above was born to my niece, I asked my niece what she wanted or needed for the baby. She told me all she wanted was a baby carrier costume. Music to my ears! Costumes I can do! They're one of my favorite things to create! But a baby carrier costume? I was stumped. I honestly had never heard of such a thing. 

I asked my niece to share photos with me of what she had in mind. She showed me this image of a shark costume. Since the article only explained how to create this costume, but failed to offer a pattern or photos, I'm expanding on this Halloween Baby Carrier Shark Costume idea with a FREE pattern. Trust me, it'll make things a lot easier! 

So... here we go! Get ready to create the easiest, most darling baby costume in town!

HERE is the link to the free baby carrier shark costume pattern. Make sure you print the pattern without shrinking it. 

Let's get started!

Supplies needed

Grey felt

Black felt

Red flat bias tape

White pellon, 1/8 yard

Fiber fill

Grey thread

2 large googly eyes

Glue

4-6 Medium to large safety pins

Directions:

1. Cut out 2 of the bodies from grey felt. Cut a hole for the shark mouth in one of the bodies. 

2. Cut a piece of black felt a little larger than the mouth opening.

3. Cut out teeth from heavy white interfacing like Pellon.

4. Sew the teeth in place. 

5. Sew the black backing behind the teeth.

6. Sew red flat bias tape around the mouth mitering the bottom corners so you get a sharp pointed edge.

7. Right sides facing, sew the grey felt bodies together, leaving an opening to turn them right side out.

8.  Clip the corners and rounded edges.

9.  Turn the shark body right side out.

10. Lightly stuff the shark body with fiber fill.

11. Sew the opening closed.

12. Glue the googly eyes in place

13.  With large safety pins, from the back side of the baby carrier, safety pin the shark body to the carrier.

To complete the costume, dress in black, add swim goggles for you and your little one, and throw on a multicolored blue tutu skirt... you know... because your outfit is going to need a little splash too (pun intended)!  

Happy costume making! And Happy Halloween! 

xoxo Grandma

More costume ideas:

The Flintstone Family Costumes

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Linen Napkin Into a Bag - A Tutorial

If you follow me, you may remember that I inherited quite a few linen napkins several years ago. When given these napkins, I was challenged to use them and transform them into something else. So, here is one of the ideas I created... a darling linen hand bag.

To create this small, fully lined zipper bag, I used one of those linen napkins for the front of my bag.

I wanted my pocket to hold my cell phone. When I go on international trips to visit a few of my grandchildren, I take a backpack onto the plane.  I wanted to use this little bag to tuck into my backpack so that when I'm at their homes I still have a smaller bag to take with me shopping and sightseeing. This bag is the perfect size.

To make this project, you'll need:

• Fabric scraps at least 8 1/4" square
• Light weight batting
• 1) 7" zipper
• Coordinating thread
• Bag handle - 12" long (I found mine at the 100 yen store in Japan called Daiso.)

Cut as follows:

• 3) 8 1/2" squares - fabric bag back & bag lining
• 1) 6 1/2" long x 8" wide - fabric rectangle cell phone pocket
• 2) 6 3/4" long x 2 3/4" wide - fabric pocket flap (The lining can be from a different fabric.)
• 2) 8 1/2" square - batting

*All seams 1/4"

1. Right sides together, fold the pocket fabric in half and pin.  Sew the 3 sides together leaving an opening to turn the pocket right side out and iron.
2. Round the bottom corners of the flap.  Right sides facing, pin the flap together. Sew the flap leaving an opening at the top of the flap.  Turn the flap right side out and iron.  Top stitch around the sides and the bottom of the flap.
3. Center the pocket onto the bottom portion of the linen napkin an at least 1" from the bottom.  Pin the pocket in place and top stitch around the sides and bottom.  1/2" above the top of the pocket, pin the flap.  Top stitch along the top of the flap.
4. Unzip the zipper and sew one side of the zipper into the linen napkin.  Make sure the zipper pull is facing the right side of the napkin.  Turn the napkin over and on the right side of the napkin, top stitch along the edge.
5. Turn the project over and add the other side of the zipper to the back of the bag.
6. Take the bag linings pieces and baste the light weight batting to the linings. Sew one side each to the top, wrong side of the zipper. 
7. Top stitch one more time to keep the lining and the front of the bag from getting caught in the zipper.
8. Another detailed look at the top of the bag.
9. One last detailed look of the top stitching on the back of the bag.
10. Turn the front and back of the bag right sides together and pin.  Sew together pivoting at the corners.  Clip the corners.  Make sure the zipper is open for this step.
11. Repeat step 10 with the lining pieces only leave an opening to turn the whole bag right side out.  Clip corners and turn right side out.  Tuck the lining into the bag.  Either machine or hand sew the opening closed.

12. Clip the bag handle onto the zipper's pull tab.

I hope you have fun repurposing your linen napkins! Maybe your own little linen bag will get to go on some fun adventures too!  xoxo Grandma

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Fabric Bunny Basket - Free Pattern

Spring is my favorite time of year. When I was a kid, I always equated it with my birthday and Easter. Two celebrations that meant lots of treats and lots of family time. 

So to kick off this Easter season, I'm sharing with you how to make this cute fabric bunny basket. It's perfect for filling with treats or goodies and giving to a grandchild or anyone else. 

Bonus, this container also works great as a bread basket for your Easter meal. Since it's lined with batting, the batting will help keep bread warm. Keep reading because I have a rare treat for each of you. 

Here is the free downloadable fabric bunny basket pattern. Print the pattern at full scale or if you want a doll bunny basket, shrink the pattern down by at least 75%.


Supplies needed:

• batting
• coordinating thread
• embroidery floss, white, black and pink
• (1) 3" white pom pom
• 1 /4 yard of fabric
• 1/4 yard fabric for lining
• 1/4 yard of light to medium weight interfacing
• 1/4 yard of heavy weight interfacing for the bottom of the basket

Directions:

Using the pattern above, cut out all the pattern pieces.
For the handle, cut out a 5" x piece from the lining fabric.
*1/4" seams unless otherwise noted.

1.  Sew ear lining to ear fabric, right sides facing.
2.  Turn right side out and clip the curves.  Iron. Top stitch around the ear.
3.   Fold the bottom of the ear in half.  Sew 3/4" up from the bottom & 1/4" from the edge.
4.  Your bunny ears will now look like this.
5.  Hand embroider the face onto the bunny's head. Pin interfacing & then batting onto the head.
6.  Baste in place.
7.  Pin the sides to the bunny's head.  Sew in place.
8.  Baste the ears onto both sides of the side seams.
9.  Pin the bunny sides and head to the bottom, easing as necessary.

10. Trim interfacing & batting down by a little less than 1/4". Baste interfacing &  batting onto bottom of lining. Add batting & interfacing to the sides of the lining. With the lining fabric, repeat steps 7 & 9.
11.  Add interfacing to the handle fabric.  Take the handle fabric and iron it in half width wise.  Fold the width in toward the ironed fold and iron the raw edges. When finished the handle's raw edges will be in the center of the handle. Top stitch both edges of the handle.
12.  Sew the handle edges onto the middle of the fabric basket.
13.  Right sides together, handle tucked into the middle, pin the lining to the basket.  Sew around the basket's top edge, leaving a 2" opening to turn the basket.
14.  Turn the basket right side out.  Iron the edges.
15.  Top stitch around the edge of the basket.
16.  Hand sew the pom pom to the back, bottom edge of the basket.
17.  Completed front view.
18.  Completed back view.

Now it's time to fill that basket with old fashion goodness.
 

Here is my little treat for you (so thanks for reading if you got this far)! This recipe is my husband's grandmother's recipe for potato yeast rolls. And they are divine!

My husband remembers having contests with his cousins and brothers to see who could eat the most rolls. These rolls are soft, light and melt in your mouth kind of good. (Add butter, cinnamon and sugar and the dough works great for making cinnamon rolls too.)
   

Grandma Cox's Potato Yeast Rolls

1/3 c. warm water
2 packages of yeast
3/4 c. sugar
2 c. milk
1/2 c. shortening
8-9 c. flour
1 medium potato
2 tsp. salt

Add yeast to warm water.  Stir until dissolved.  Stir into yeast and water the sugar. 

(This is a great way to test your yeast and make sure it’s working…the sugar will make the yeast foam).

Peel the potato, dice into pieces.  Boil 1 potato in 1 1/2 c. of boiling water (until the pieces are really soft). 

Do not drain off any water which has not boiled out of the potatoes!

Add milk and shortening.  Beat until really smooth.

Add 2 tsp. salt and yeast mixture.

Stir in flour.  When the mixture is too thick & you can’t stir any longer, start kneading the flour into the dough.  Do not add too much flour, the mixture will feel a little sticky. 

Spray a bowl with cooking spray.  Add the dough into the bowl.  Cover the dough with a clean tea towel.  Let the dough rise in a warm spot.  About 1-2 hours.

Roll the dough out until it’s around 1/2” thick.  Cut out your rolls using a round cookie cutter.  Dip one side in melted butter and fold over.  Place onto a cookie sheet.  Cover your rolls with a clean tea towel and let rise again until double in size.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

Throw these rolls in your new bunny basket and your Easter is off to a really good, yummy start! Enjoy Easter with your family.  xoxo Grandma

Refashion a Skirt into Two Dresses

The warm tints and shades of green and yellow from the original skirt make the perfect fabric for today's Spring refashion. 

I used that skirt to make two dresses for two of my granddaughters. Keep reading to find out how easy they were to make...

The first dress has tulle over the skirt, because the almost three-year-old, opinionated girl it was made for will only wear "ballet" style dresses. 

The second dress utilizes the beautiful pleats found in the original skirt.

  

The first thing you'll need for this refashion is two t-shirts in the sizes of your two little girls.

To get started with your two dresses, cut open the back seam of the skirt. If there isn't a back seam a side seam will work too.  

For the first dress, I measured from the hem up to the length I wanted the skirt part of the new dress.  Now follow these 4 steps for an easy ballet style dress:

1.  Unpick a few inches of the old hem at both ends of the back seam. Then, match the skirt from the bottom up, sewing a 1/4" new back seam.
2.  Re-sew the hem where it was unpicked.
3. Measure tulle the same finished length and width of the skirt. Sew the back seam of the tulle. Pin on top of the fabric skirt. Add two rows of gathering stitches to the top of the skirt, one at 1/4" and the other at 1/2". Gather the skirt to fit the t-shirt. Pin the skirt to the t-shirt.
4. With a sewing machine, sew the skirt to the t-shirt using a 5/8" seam. Optional step, top stitch the skirt to the t-shirt at 1/4".  

 

The final step was to add an accent to the t-shirt top left side. For this dress, I cut out a flower from the skirt's fabric and machine embroidered that onto the t-shirt.

For the second dress, I measured 6 3/4" from the top of the t-shirt and cut the remainder of the t-shirt off.

I carefully unpicked the beautiful pleats of the original skirt. I ran a basting stitch along the top of those pleats so they'd stay in place.

Then I measured the total width of the pleats, added a small seam to both sides, and sewed this skirt onto the t-shirt. The next step was to add a hem.  

For this dress, I used the three covered buttons from the original skirt's opening and sewed the buttons to the top center of the t-shirt.

Not so funny fact: when I finished my youngest granddaughter's dress using the length my daughter supplied me with, it looked too short - keep in mind I hadn't seen this granddaughter in 4 months, so maybe I was just imagining her taller. I sent my daughter a text telling her my thoughts-- that the dress looked too short. She assured me if I used what she provided, it would be right. The next day, I received a text from her telling me she measured wrong & the dress needed to be 4" longer.  UGH!

I ended up using the lining from the original skirt to add the light green border onto the bottom of this dress. I'd already made a diaper cover out of the same fabric and luckily had just enough fabric for this border.

In spite of the measurement frustration, these dresses are perfect for Okinawa's spring weather with their green and yellow fabric and the long sleeves for the breezes and frequent rain storms this time of year.  Happy dress making!   xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Project Run and Play

Turn a Basket Into a Doll Cradle

This project is one I started more than three decades ago. After years of play, it needed a little refreshing.  

Back when I was a young mom, I made doll cradles for my little girls. I used wicker baskets and added rockers to convert those baskets into doll cradles. 

One of these cradles has been sitting in my storage area for a long time. I pulled it out to give to my daughter last year when she came to pick-up all her things, but since it no longer looked clean and new, she didn't want it for her little girls. Well, I couldn't just throw it away, it held too many memories. So I decided to refinish it. I removed the old, dirty cushion, that had obviously benefited from years of love and play and gave the basket some new life. 

Here's what it looked like after I refinished it:  

If you want to make your own doll cradle too, here's a list of the supplies you'll need: 

• Basket, (The basked pictured is 16 1/2" wide x 20 1/2" long x 9 high.)
• Foam
• Batting
• Fabric for cover, blanket and pillow
• Fiber fill
• Thread
• Plywood
• 4 wood screws
• Good quality wood for rockers, 3/4" thick

Take that basket and follow these steps to turn it into a cradle:
   

1. Cut a piece of plywood the size of the inside base of the basket.  

2.  With a saw, cut two rockers from good quality 3/4" thick wood - do not use plywood.  (My father-in-law cut these for me - I don't use electric saws, I'm afraid I'd cut off my fingers.) The size of my rockers are 15 1/4" long x 4 1/4" high x 3/4 thick.  Get the free rocker pattern HERE.  Print at full size two copies of this pattern and tape the sides together to make the rocker pattern complete.  Sand the rockers as needed making sure all edges are smooth.  (Keep in mind, the rockers pictured are over 33 years old and if I'm in the mood, they may get a little sanding but it's snowing today and I refuse to sand inside my home.)

3.  Using four long, wood screws, drill them through the wooden base and into the rockers, securely connecting these pieces. Also see the photo next to step one for screw placement.

4.  Make a paper pattern of the inside shape of your basket. Use that pattern to cut out a foam base which will become the cradle's mattress.

5.  Cover the mattress with batting.  I sewed the batting together to form a pillowcase shape.  Then I slipped it onto the foam and hand stitched the batting's opening closed. (On the original covering, I hot glued the batting in place and the mattress was very lumpy because when the glue dried, it gets hard. I do not recommend using hot glue with foam.)

6.  Use fabric to make a cover for the mattress. For my mattress, I used flannel.  I used a fabric marker to trace the foam mattress shape onto the flannel. Add a seam allowance around all the traced fabric. Cut out two pieces of this fabric. Measure the distance around the mattress and measure the height of the mattress. Add 1/2" to these two measurements to create your seam allowance to the height and width and cut out from your fabric the side of the mattress cover. Sew the side seam together along the width. Sew one of the side pieces to the top piece. Now sew the bottom piece to the side piece leaving one end of the mattress cover open. Slip the cover onto the batting covered foam and hand stitch the opening closed.

7.  Make any style of doll blanket making sure the blanket is a little bigger than the inside of the cradle.  You'll want to add enough width for a doll to go under the blanket. For my blanket, I took the scraps of fabric that I used to cover the mattress. Then, I cut the fabric into 16, 4" squares. I sewed those squares together alternating the fabrics so that I had 4 rows across and 4 rows down. Then with a fabric marking pen, I drew lines diagonally through the squares as shown above. Then using my sewing machine, I machine quilted along the lines. To get rid of the lines, simply rub with a wet rag or spray with water.

8.  Make a little pillow for the doll's head.  Any size of pillow will do as long as it's scaled to fit your basket. I added a 2" ruffle to the left side of my rectangular doll pillow and stuffed the pillow with poly-fill. 

Do you know a child that would love one of these cradles? I'm now positive my granddaughter will be thrilled to get this cradle for her doll.   xoxo Grandma

Here are the supplies I used:

    

Shared at: Threading My Way, Featured Here

How to Create Bingata - Okinawa Fabric Art

Have you ever heard of bingata? I was first introduced to it when I visited Okinawa, Japan in 2014.  It's different from painting on fabric because you use a stencil to create your design.  A stencil means anyone can learn to create bingata.

Bingata is Okinawa's traditional way of dying fabric using stencils and bright dyes.  This art form has been around for over 500 years and was used by the samurai-class and the royal family in the Ryukyu Kingdom. 

I'm certainly not an expert on the history of this fabric art form, but I do know that I love the bright colors associated with it. It is beautiful! And since I love learning about fabric art, bingata intrigued me from the moment I saw it.

For more information about it's history, go to Shuri Ryusen site. 

During my latest trip to Japan (where my daughter and her family lives), my daughter and I took a class from Bingata Kijimuna which is in Nago on the island of Okinawa.

These are the brushes we used to create our bingata.  Every color of dye needs it's own set of brushes.  The smaller brush is used to add the shadow dye to the fabric and the bamboo brush is used to scrub the shadow color into the fabric. The bamboo brushes were made by the shop owners. Their bristles are short and stubby. They are made from bamboo that grows on this tropical island with bristles that are actually human hair. In the background, you'll notice a darling flower shaped paint pallet. I just love how cute this paint pallet is!

To give bingata a whirl, follow these steps below. You may just love it as much as I did.

1. Start with your choice of a stencil.  This is the stencil I used. (I'm the older lady in the white shirt.)
2. Lay the stencil onto pretreated fabric (pretreated fabric just means you've washed the fabric and dried it in a hot drier). Squeegee on rice paste through the stencil onto fabric.
3. Carefully remove the stencil.
4. Use a blow drier to completely dry the rice paste.
5. The dried fabric will look like this.
6. Get out the fabric dyes and put into small containers or a paint dish. 
7. Using a small brush for each color, paint the dyes onto the fabric with the brushes by rubbing them into the fabric.
8. This is my daughter and I working on our projects in the shop. Once your basic colors are brushed onto the fabric, use a blow drier and completely dry them.
9. The second layer of paint is added next.  These are the shadow colors. Add the shadow colors into selected areas of the design with a smaller brush.  See the chart below to know which shadow colors are used with which basis dyes.  With the bamboo brush, scrub the dyes, feathering the dyes into the main color.
10. Once finished painting the shadow dyes into the fabric, blow the dyes dry.  Below is a close-up of what the fabric will look like before the rice paste is washed off.

This color chart for creating bingata was made by the shop, Bingata Kijimuna, where we took our lessons. There are only 12 dyes used in bingata. The 12 colors are yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, burgundy, kelly green, sky blue, brown, grey, navy blue and a dark brown. The second column on the chart shows which four shadow colors are used with which main dyes. The only shadow dyes used are red, brown, navy blue and kelly green. (Any thicker fabric dye should work.)

Once your dyes are dry, you must wait at least 48 hours to wash the rice glue off your fabric.  This step is done by putting your fabric in very hot water and letting it sit there for about 4-6 hours.  At the end of that time, some rice glue may need to be scrubbed off.  I simply turned on the hot water and with my fingers scrubbed those areas.

This is my finished bingata design. This design is called "cherry blossoms and running water." To see the variety of traditional designs, go here. There are some beautiful designs to chose from! 

My daughter painted her design onto a tote bag. This design is called "cherry blossoms."

The owners and artists, of Bingata Kijimuna are shown on the left.  They were friendly, warm and very helpful in teaching us how to create Bingata.  My daughter and I both loved our class! If you live near, or visit Okinawa, go take a class. If you love fabric art, be brave and gather the supplies to experience this fun, traditional art form.  xoxo Grandma

For Supplies go here:
 

For more information on bingata see these books:

    

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