This is a fun little project I did last year, and it took me maybe an evening to complete. I don’t really embroider, so I went for a hand-sewn look to this that is cute and fun, and easily replicable by any of you guys. I’m sure this could be done so much better by someone with sewing skill, so take this tutorial and let me know if you create an even better one!

Materials:
Brown Fleece
White fleece felt
Embroidery floss in several colors.
(obviously, pick the colors you prefer)

The Process:

Step 1: The Design
You can use any design, but here is the pattern for the little robot I like to call Claude. It’s CC licensed for personal use with attribution, so go ahead and click through and grab it.

Step 2:
I cut out the body and the hands out of my white felt, following the pattern.

Step 3:
Then, I stitched on the robot face and buttons on the body with embroidery thread, part of the charm of this being the ‘hand stiched’ look, so don’t worry if you can barely sew! (I used a lime green, but lesson learned was it would probably work better in a darker, more contrasting color)

Step 4:
I cut the brown fleece into a scarf width, slightly larger than the robot pattern (I laid out the pieces on the fleece to decide placement), and slit the ends for fringe. Since this was a child’s scarf, I just used the width of the bolt as the scarf length (for an adult, you’d need to go longer). Another lesson learned – I would probably double the width and stitch it up into a tube, so the back would be clean and you wouldn’t see the stitching.

Step 5:
Body: I sewed the robot body to the fleece using a blanket stitch. I did a simple stitch across his neck line to define the head.

Step 6:
Arms: I used white floss to sew arms directly to the brown fleece. No fancy embroidery here, just made it up as I went along.

Step 7:
Hands: I placed the balls for the hands over the ends of the arms where I thought they looked good, and sewed them on using the gold floss, similarly to the body.

Step 8:
Final touches: Added “ears” and antenna with gold, and lightning bolts in green.

All in all, a fun, relatively quick project, with lots of learning opportunities. and that is the purpose of this blog, to just TRY IT!

Lessons learned:
– I envision better than I can hand sew. I swear I need minions, maybe elves, to actually execute my visions.
– By the time I was done I was sewing alot better and my fingers hurt.
– Fringe should be cut wider on a child size scarf. And i should take the time to cut it straight.
– I should have used darker floss for the robot decorations (eyes, etc) for better contrast.

All the pics and instructions are also here, as an Instructable!

I know, we’re trying to buy handmade and make things, and that’s great! But sometimes we also need to buy other stuff too. And I like Amazon (they’re doing a great thing with their new Frustration Free Packaging program to reduce packaging and waste). So if you’re going to shop anyway, buy online!

I figured I’d spice up your Black Friday with a few gift recommendations (plus I love playing with Amazon Widgets).. Here’s a few for those hard to buy for people:
Amazon.com Widgets

Also, gift ideas for preschoolers! My 3 year old being my source of expertise for this.
Amazon.com Widgets
(Gifts for 3 yr olds)

Finally, for the crafty woman (or man!) on your list. Crafty Books that I either have read or are in my plan…
Amazon.com Widgets

So, taking a quick moment today to you guys how thankful I am for all of you, the Dabblers out there… I wouldn’t write this stuff if I didn’t have you to read it!
THANKS!

… Tired of just hanging out with family? A little bored? Turkey coma? Go Try Something New and enter it in the Dabbled Holiday Contest!

I’ll be featuring the entries here on Dabbled as they are entered. Remember, any handmade holiday project — from gifts to decorations, or whatever — , which has some element of recycling/upcycling to it, is eligible. To enter, just tag your photos ‘dabbledholiday’ on flickr! Full details here.

I’ve talked about Rachel’s great site before, but she continues to amaze me with her fabulous knack for finding great stuff on the web and posting it in such a lovely manner.

Some definite things to check out for the holidays:
– The Fall Roundups – Yes, we still have thanksgiving and fall to celebrate before we get to Christmas and the winter holidays! A collection of great craft projects and ideas all fall related. Love ’em!
– Handmade Gift Guides – A great collection of handmade holiday gift ideas, so well organized into categories like ‘for men’, ‘for babies’, ‘for pets’, ‘gifts to make’, etc. Check them out!
– Christmas Roundups – Crafts, how-to’s, and inspirations from around the web. Here’s the latest.

Stuff you might have missed in the flurry of things I posted yesterday:
… be sure to check out our first Holiday Contest entries, from Chica & Jo. Get yours in!
… Holiday Handmade Shopping Links Page is Live–check out what we have thus far…and check back, because there’s more to come! Find out more about getting your shop included here.
… Buttons! Get Contest and Dabbled Holiday buttons here. Support Handmade – Get Handmade Holiday buttons here.

*What? You don’t use a feed reader? How do you keep up with all the great sites you follow? There are lots out there, I use Google Reader because it’s easy and suits my needs. Wanna add Dabbled to your Reader? Click Here (or here, if you want condensed Dabbled + extra stuff)! Wanna add One Pretty Thing – go here…

Oh, and a big thanks for featuring Dabbled’s White Elephant Party Rules and Invitations on One Pretty Thing this week!

Since everyone who has sent me links to their shops have been Etsy sellers, I’ve decided to try out doing it using the Etsy Mini feature. I’ve created a starter page with some of those who have sent me their shops. (Sellers, if you don’t like the items I picked, just email me)

Check it out here!

Wanna participate? Just put one of these nifty buttons on your site*, and send me the link to 1 or 2 of your favorite items in your shop. (Let me know if we need a different size-these are 200 wide) Send to holiday (at) dabbled (dot) org. I’ll at least link to 1 item, and 2 if we have room.
[*Don’t have a website or blog? Link to the page in your etsy shop, or promote on craft forums instead. The idea is to promote both your shop and the shops of other cool indie crafters!]

Don’t forget! Enter the Contest!

I’ll be featuring the entries here on Dabbled as they are entered. Remember, any handmade holiday project — from gifts to decorations, or whatever — , which has some element of recycling/upcycling to it, is eligible. To enter, just tag your photos ‘dabbledholiday’ on flickr!

Full details here.

Tree Skirt from a Bridesmaids Dress – So Clever!

Make your Own Snowglobes! Such a fun little project with tons of possibilities!

All Holiday 08 Posts

Add this button to your blog to promote the holiday contest!:

More to check out – The Gift Guide from Artisan Beaders — Too much cool stuff to link it all on this page.

Beauty was of the opinion that the Beast was not exactly the man she was looking for.. OK, I’m reaching here for this to meet the theme, I admit it! But I had to show this off :)

(click through for larger)

Related:
Alice in Wonderland in the Rose Garden
The Wizard of Oz: Poppieees

Here’s the version I did just for Heather — Do you like her better as a brunette?

PS: Don’t miss the How to Throw a White Elephant Party from earlier today!

So, my dear sweet adorable handy hubby requested a pie for his thanksgiving luncheon at work. And after suggesting the many fine pies available at our local Publix, I relented and made one. Don’t be intimidated, this is really as “easy as pie” to do, so put this one in your toolbox for friends & family events coming up. Here’s a recipe and tutorial! (Recipe and instructions below the pic)

Dot’s Mom’s Blueberry Pie:

Ingredients
Pastry for top & bottom of 9 in pie *
4 c fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen ones from my parents haul this summer)
3/4 c sugar
3 Tbs flour
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind (doh! no fresh lemons on hand today, so I left out)
dash salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs butter
*Although it’s certainly not that hard to make your own piecrust pastry, I cheated here and used the all-ready type rolled pastry you can find in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, near the cookie dough rolls and biscuit dough tubes.

(row 1)Combine sugar,flour, spices and peel in a large bowl
Toss with blueberries
Line 9″ pie pan with pastry.
Pour blueberry mixture into shell
(row 2)Sprinkle with Lemon Juice, Dot with butter.
Top with top crust**
Crimp crust edges together, squeezing with your fingers.
(row 3)To avoid too brown crust edges, use aluminum foil to make little strips to cover the edges of the pie. (Unless you have a pie crust shield like this or this)
Sprinkle with xtra sugar and cinnamon.
(row 4)Bake 375 for 35-40 minutes (reduce heat if needed to keep crust from over browning)
Pie is done with nicely tan on top, and blueberry juice is oozing through the holes in the top. Mine took about 15 min longer than the recommendation above.

**For my top crust I used a handy cheat – basically a giant cookie cutter that gives the appearance of a lattice crust. You can do anything you want here (if you use a solid sheet, be sure to prick the top of the pie), including making a ‘real’ lattice top, or using cookie cutters to cut out shapes.

If you click through to flickr, the picture above contains notes explaining all the steps – a one stop recipe!

EDIT: You can get a Fox Run Lattice Pie Top Cutter HERE!

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