The Nifty Foodie's Life

I’m starting a new little series on the blog about sewing patterns with my reviews on them. I’ve been learning new techniques with these patterns, and I thought it’d be fun to blog about these!

Earlier this month, I visited family while the hubs was away on a business trip. I knew there were going to be major Columbus Day sales at the local JoAnn’s, so my Mom and I went there for the sole purpose of making Millie into a sea monster. The reason? Well, PetSmart was having a costume contest and I thought she’d have a great time with the other dogs.

To note: Millie is about 40 lbs. now. Not a super large dog, but to Simplicity patterns, she was too big to get a costume pattern for. So, I had to get creative and base it off of a dog coat pattern (Simplicity 9520).

After that, I started looking in the cottons for something green that screamed “sea monster”. I couldn’t find a thing. However, in the specialty Halloween fabrics, I came across a polyester mermaid print. It was perfect, but I was intimidated, because this was a very shiny, slippery fabric that I’m not familiar with sewing.

I also bought blue felt with plans to add some spikes…it ended up being a really cute touch! I also originally wanted to add wings, but I was promptly reminded that sea monsters swim. She would need fins instead. Thank goodness for leftover quilt batting!

There was a HUGE pitfall to this pattern. When I originally started cutting and piecing this together, I realized that this pattern was way too large for my dog. It was a one size fits all thing…sort of lame, no? So, I ended up tailoring it to size, using lots of Beggin Strips and saying ”don’t eat that” repeatedly. Apparently, polyester looks appetizing to my dog..sheesh!

Also, when I started sewing the polyester, it started to fray…a lot. So, for the polyester, I ended up lining it with some muslin. It helped a lot with the sewing, and also probably felt better on the dog.

After a good bit of thought, I ended up nixing the hood, as well as the sleeves. I know Millie, and she isn’t a fan of being clothed. She’d try to rip those off for sure!

When I finally tried the finished product on her, it was a pretty good fit!  Thank goodness.

However, there was another pitfall. Those fins were her newest toy. She was literally trying to rip them off, unless I held up a treat (as I did to snap this picture. In the end, I pinned them back a bit, and it ended up being OK. After 5 minutes, she barely noticed her costume!!

Unfortunately, she didn’t win the contest at PetSmart. Dracula, a wagon full of yorkies dressed as Playgirls and Hannah Montana beat her out. I guess next year, I’ll try to go more trendy.

By the way, if you can take a second to vote for Millie in Blue Buffalo’s Halloween Costume Contest, I’d totally appreciate it. Just go to this site, search for “Millie”, click her picture and vote! No log-in needed!

Rating out of 10: 4. Dear Simplicity, dogs are NOT one size fits all, and the pattern writing/diagrams left me fairly confused. :\

After months of dreaming and hoping, I finally got the courage to open an Etsy shop.

It’s a huge leap for me. Just last November, my Mom was laughing at the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to thread my Singer. She forced me to sew a dishcloth after Thanksgiving dinner. I owe it all to her for getting me started, seriously.

I now really enjoy sewing. In fact, I regularly find myself in stores telling myself that I can totally make this (in way cuter fabrics). It’s pretty fun when I actually make that happen too!

When we first got Millie, I brought her to the groomer for a bath and nail trim. They offered us a bandanna, and I just loved how cute it was on her! I had to make her MORE.

As you can see, these don’t tie on. Rather, they loop through the collar. These can’t fall off of your pup!

Millie now owns about 10 bandannas. What can I say? I love the way she looks in them!

After a few months of working on these for her, I looked to Etsy to see if they had reversible versions. I could have poor Etsy searching skills, but I was happy to see that there weren’t any out there!

I’ve had so much fun making these, and there was no doubt in my mind that these would be the product of my Etsy shop debut.

Keeping up with the whole “nifty” theme, I got some great help from my friends to help me name my new little shop.

Forgive my lack of GIMP skills. This is all I can really do. I like it though…simple like my blogs.

Here’s the link to my Etsy shop!!

So, without further ado, check out my first product, The Nifty Woof!!

Halloween/Autumn

Christmas/Winter

These come in three sizes: Small, Medium and Large.

I also have a few fun print Nifty Woofs in my Etsy shop. More of those will be coming up soon, but I really wanted to make some holiday ones first.

Of course I wouldn’t just put you through this long post without a giveaway, right? To celebrate the debut of my shop, I’m offering one reader a free “Nifty Woof” of their choice!

To enter, just leave a comment letting me know which Nifty Woof is your favorite in my shop or even a suggestion for an upcoming Nifty Woof!

For an extra entry, follow my new Etsy shop’s Twitter: @thisseamsnifty and comment that you did!

**This giveaway is valid for residents of the continental US only. Comment by Wednesday, October 20th to be entered for the giveaway!!**

A couple of weeks ago, my dear sewing machine broke. I was working on a shopping cart cover (avoid this pattern for dear life…it’s written TERRIBLY and the steps just made no sense), and in the finishing steps, the nylon webbing decided that it didn’t like my needle and took it out on my beloved machine. According to the repair guy, the timing was off and some needle hook thing broke. Erg…never working with nylon webbing on a machine again….

This lovely repair costs $99. $99?! Totally not cool, but since I’ve been trying to open my Etsy shop a while, I really had no choice but to get this taken care of ASAP. Good news: My machine will be back on the table tonight, sewing Etsy things like it’s nobody’s business.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks involved no sewing. It kind of blows, but stupid me realized that while my machine is out, I can still cut fabric, which is SO not fun, but needs to get done.

So, I cut patterns and fabrics for Christmas gifts.

Don’t you just LOVE this? It’s going to be made into a laptop bag (this pattern/this fabric). Delightful.

I also decided that my dog should dress up for Halloween. I’m that puppy mom, and I think she’d have a blast at the costume contest that Petsmart is hosting. She loves that store! So, she’s going to be a sea monster…check out the fabric to the left. It’s a shimmery looking fabric with fish scale print. I’m sort of winging it with a simple dog jacket pattern, because they don’t make costume patterns for 40 lbs. dogs. Go figure.

To the right is a handbag that will be made with this fabric. The pattern looks simple enough, but we’ll see how this one goes. My first lined handbag…whoa!

Oh, and packages have started to come in for the quilt block swap! From what I’ve looked at so far, the fabrics are awesome, but I’ve only received 2 packages. I’m hoping the other 3 come in soon! ::hint hint to the participants:: I can’t wait to bundle these up and send them out. Since my sewing machine broke, I didn’t get to finish all of my blocks, but I’m pretty sure I can hammer those out this weekend too.

And, new project, of course. Instead of trashing the pillows we have in the house, I’m pretty sure Millie is getting a new dog bed and our sofas will be adequately decorated as well. I want to reuse this crazy amount of pillow fluff…I’d feel terrible trashing it all now, and the gears in my head would never forgive me . I think I have about 10 pillows total to tear into….whoa.

I’m sure most of you are thinking that I’m just plainly wacky for all of these projects looming around, but I told myself that I really need to use up some fabric. I really have too much in my basket, and don’t really have room to sprawl out with a huge stash, sadly.

I can’t believe it’s already October. I walked outside of my Louisiana home and was greeted with weather in the 40s! I had to dig out my sweater and have finally surrendered (happily) to the fact that it is now Fall. Whew!

Being that it’s October, I just wanted to give a little update on the Christmas Quilt Block Swap! For those of you participating, you should have received an email a little over a month ago with details and an address to send your blocks to! I already received one package of blocks…super cute! I’m so excited to see what everyone comes up with.

Just a reminder, the deadline to get the blocks in is October 15th! That’s 11 days away!

I ended up being a cutting/ironing machine over the weekend. These pics are taken using the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone. It’s so fun!

Here’s a little sneak peek of the three fabrics that my blocks will be made of. The “ribbon” will be Kona Snow and a Kona cotton in some red color. Shows how much I pay attention to detail.

Aren’t those fabrics so fun? I tend to lean towards whimsy with Christmas.

A minor hiccup though…my machine is acting up. It needs to go to the shop to get looked at or something. I hope this doesn’t take too long, because I can’t WAIT to show y’all the final blocks!  

Are you guys super excited to see what everyone is coming up with? I know I am! For those of you who are participating, how are your blocks coming along?

I can’t believe I’m typing this less than a year after forking out a sewing machine for the first time ever. I completely made a quilt. Yes, I made a quilt before, but that was yarn-tied and not properly binded (after doing some research), so I will call this one my first quilt also.

The idea sparked after my local quilt shop had a 50% off sale. I raided the store for Amy Butler fabrics, as well as the charm pack and backing for this quilt.

Fabric is: Lily and Will charm pack, backing fabric is Plume by Tula Pink

The quilt pattern is from Oh, Fransson’s blog. It’s fabulous for a first quilt, because charm packs are pre-cut, and all you need to do is cut some of these in half for the colored strips. Then, cut a few strips of Kona cotton and you’re good to go. Easy and quick!

Of course, I laid out all of the squares and arranged them around. I think this was the most fun of the project. I love the pastels and designs.

I used Kona Cotton in Snow to put between the colored strips of fabric, and I think it just ended up looking fantastic!

I used a walking foot to quilt this in (not so) straight lines. That foot is my new BFF. It looks so puffy and cute!

Gosh, I hope the Mom and baby LOVE this quilt. This quilt was definitely a learning experience for me. My binding is not perfect in the least, but I will agree with the majority in saying that it’s fairly therapeutic to sit down and just finish off the binding by hand.

Next up? Time to work on my Christmas quilt block squares. There’s still time for you to join in the fun! We’re working on group 2.