what do you do with some old jeans, beloved too small shirt and foam scraps?

Here are a couple of pictures of my daughter's Christmas present this year--a "beanie bag" (as she calls it) This was a lot of fun creating something that she could feel snuggly in, as well as preserve her outgrown t-shirt.

I have a stash of old jeans that work well in a multitude of projects. I think my favorite thing about recycled jeans is that they are both soft and tough at the same time & blue seems to work with most everything.

I used "heat-n-bond" for the appliques--all you have to do is iron it on the wrong side of what you want to applique, remove the paper backing, then iron it onto the other fabric. You don't have to stitch it on--hurray!

I got the foam scraps in a huge bag from the fabric store and then we had to cut/tear them into small pieces. (Easy, but time consuming!)

And here is the completed 'beanie bag' at the base of her bed.

Tomorrow I will be fixing up suits, replacing zippers, and making doll clothes. Sounds like fun :)

Restored pillow

Here is a project that turned out especially nice. (This first picture is obviously "before".)
My client had a pillow that was coming apart. It was a particularly special pillow to her, as it is an applique of the first house they bought.

As you can see, the fabric was pulling away from the applique at the house edges.

So...the house had to be delicately removed and applied to new fabric and remade into a pillow. The cord around the outside of the pillow was re-used. The original fabric was ultrasuede, which is a non-woven fabric. As a woven polyester, the new fabric should be much more durable.

My client loved it. This is just an off-beat example of things I can do, besides alterations and custom sewing.