2011 Show & Tell

1. Betty's beehive, 2. new doll, 3. pink bunny, 4. Scrappy Mug Rug 4 ~ Little Robot!, 5. AhH58EuCQAAlCuc, 6. Bunnies on the shelf, 7. bunnyjack1, 8. DSCF0072, 9. Finished Rainbow Girls beanbags, 10. DSC_1614, 11. DSC_1601, 12. His and Hers Beast Bags, 13. IMAG0819, 14. Raining Rainbows, 15. Get to Work Apron, 16. Needle book with embroidered cover

I thought it would be nice to end the year with a little mosaic showing just some of the things people made this year with patterns from Shiny Happy World. You can see more in the Flickr Sewing Group and Embroidery Group.

Happy New Year!

Best,
Wendi

Snow's Coming embroidery pattern

Solstice has passed and the days are getting longer, but we still have a lot of cold, snowy days ahead of us. So here's a snowy embroidery pattern for you to stitch on a cold winter night - preferably in front of a toasty fire with a warm beverage at your side.

The stitches are easy ones - mostly running stitch, backstitch and straight stitches for the snowflakes, with a handful of French knots thrown in for fun. The pattern has links to video tutorials for all the stitches used - and a link to a video showing you how to use applique with your embroidery, as I did for the bird and the branch. No time-consuming fill-stitches here! It's all easy outlines and you can finish the project in an evening - maybe two.

Purchase the pattern here and get stitching! This will take you to the new shop-in-progress. Sorry about the ugliness. :-)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Best,
Wendi

Shiny Happy Resolutions

So far I've shared my personal resolutions for 2012 with you - I'm going to start drafting patterns and making clothes for myself, I'm going to tackle my UFO pile, and I'm going to learn to make amigurumi. I'll be posting my progress on these every Monday - noting progress made is a good way to start every week, no? And I invite you all to play along if you have your own resolutions you'll be working on.

So those are some of my personal goals for the year. But I have some big plans for Shiny Happy World too. Most of this work will be going on behind the scenes, but some bits and pieces will be trickling out as I go along. Here are just a few of my Shiny Happy Plans for 2012. . .

• I'm working on a new shop. It'll be very similar to my Etsy shop, but it will have better searchability, the ability to put something in more than one category, and some other nice features. I've already started to link to the new shop for some items, but it's still ugly and incomplete. I hope to have it ready for a Grand Opening in the second half of January.
• I'm working on a proposal for a new book. (You can find my first book here.) This one will be a sewing book for kids (girls and boys) and I'm really excited about it.
• And finally - I have wanted to design fabric for as long as I can remember. This is the year I'm actually going to work on it. I already have a very clear idea of what I want a collection to look like and I'm excited to spend some time painting. I'd like to upload some of it to Spoonflower so I can have actual fabric to make things with, but ultimately I'd like to license the designs to a fabric manufacturer. I'll definitely be sharing this as I go, but I probably won't have time to start painting until February.

2012 is looking like an exciting year! Hope you all have fun plans too!

Best,

Wendi

Learn How to Make Amigurumi

So far I've shared my 2012 resolutions to draft patterns and make clothes for myself, and tackle my teetering UFO pile(s). I've also decided that this is the year I will learn to crochet amigurumi.

I learned how to crochet as a kid, but I have trouble following patterns because I can never remember the names of the stitches I'm doing. So most of what I do is simple and flat. :-) No more! I'm venturing into 3D shapes with cuties like the mini monsters you see above. Aren't they adorable? There's a free tutorial here that looks great and it's what I'm starting with. I figure I can make a bunch of them to get a feel for different yarns and shapes.

I don't know where I'll go from there, but I'm hoping that by the end of the year I'll have progressed enough that I can tackle the awesomeness that is this Bob Ross. Happy little trees! Happy little clouds! Just thinking about him makes me smile. :-)

You can get the Bob Ross pattern here and lots of other cute ones here. Dwight Shrute! Wonder Woman! Oompa Loompas! My geek head is spinning with the possibilities!

I love the small size of amigurumi - it feels realistic to try to do at least one a month. But I'm also pretty enamored with this book full of patterns for larger crocheted softies.

So cute, no? You can buy the book here. It looks adorable! I'm not starting with these - oh no - but I hope to be there later in the year.

What new skill are you planning to learn this year? If it's sewing clothes for your kids, take a look at this Pattern of the Month series. And if it's learning to applique, check out this workshop starting January 1st and running for 6 months.

2012 is just around the corner!

Best,
Wendi

Tackle the UFO Pile

Yesterday I shared one of my New Year's resolutions with you - drafting patterns and making clothes for myself. Today I'm sharing resolution #2.

Tackle the UFO Piles in My Sewing Room!

You all know what UFOs are, right? UnFinished Objects. Where do they all come from??!? It started out as a small basket. See it up there? It's got some doll clothes that need repair, a skirt that no longer fits my daughter but that she loves and wants me to remake in her size, an embroidered tea towel that just needs grommets added so I can hang it as a curtain, some vintage trim my daughter asked me to make into a belt, etc. You know the kind of things, right? No single project will take a ton of time, but there they sit. . . accumulating. . . until you have to add a larger basket. . .

. . . and then that's overflowing too and you start accumulating things in a pile on the floor. . .

. . . stacked really tall, of course, because otherwise it would really be three piles and you'd trip over them and be unable to vacuum up all the thread bits that constantly accumulate on the floor of your sewing room.

No more! I know it's not going to happen overnight, but over the course of the next year I want to get my UFO pile back into the nice, manageable small basket you see in the first photo. I promise myself that every week I will make some progress on the UFO pile. No matter how small! I know that small steps taken regularly add up to lots of finished work.

I'll share my progress every week - showing you what I've finished - and you can do the same. Who's with me? Please tell me I'm not the only one here with a mountain of unfinished projects mocking me every time I turn around, making me feel guilty for every new project I start. :-)

Best,
Wendi

Pattern of the Month Club - The Shirt Off Daddy's Back

This morning I shared one of my New Year's resolutions - to get better at drafting patterns and making clothes for myself. I'd love for you all to join me! But if your own goals for the new year involve learning to make clothes for your kids, then I have a new class for you.

This is a new format for me - based on feedback from those who took this class as a two-month workshop last summer. You all are busy! You don't have time to pack a bunch of crafting into a few short weeks - or even a couple of months. You want me to spread things out a bit. I hear you! So this year you'll see a few Pattern of the Month Clubs. You'll get one pattern every month until the class is finished. Those of you I talked to said making one thing a month was doable - and they liked the idea of progressing from easiest to hardest, so that you're adding new skills every month and practicing old ones. Done! Here's the first Pattern of the Month Club. . .

The Shirt Off Daddy's Back! Learn to refashion men's T-shirts and dress shirts into skirts, shirts, dresses and aprons for girls. Some of the patterns work for women too - but they all work for girls.

You'll learn. . .

• how to make a straight skirt from knit T-shirts or woven button-down shirts - no serger needed.
• how to make those skirts with elastic or comfy yoga-style knit waistbands.
• how to draft patterns for both gathered and fitted A-line skirts.
• how to make a convertible skirt/tube top dress - with no itching under the tube top :-)
• how to make an A-line dress out of a T-shirt or button-down shirt. (I provide a pattern for girls sizes 3-8.)
• how to make a gathered half-apron and a full apron with an adjustable neck strap.
• how to draft a pattern to make an easy, breezy summer sundress. Yes - you will draft a pattern and it will fit!

Every month you'll get an email with a downloadable PDF pattern AND a link and top-secret password to a companion video, taking you step-by-step through the entire construction of the garment.

All of these patterns will eventually be available for sale individually, but they'll end up costing a total of $69. When you sign up for the pattern of the month club you get them for $40 - plus they arrive magically in your mailbox without you having to do a thing. A friendly little reminder that this is a skill you want to learn. :-)

Sign up for the Shirt Off Daddy's Back Pattern of the Month Club here. Please note - this link will take you to a new shop I'm building. It won't be finished until later in January - so for now please ignore the ugly colors and incomplete product selection. It's going to be awesome (I'm bringing back the "shop by time needed" feature!), but right now it's not at all pretty. :-) Thanks!

Best,
Wendi

Learn How to Draft Patterns

Hello all! I hope you had a terrific holiday weekend! This last week of the year always finds me thinking about my New Year's resolutions - and this year is no exception. :-) But this year I'm going to share my resolutions with you and invite you along for the ride. I've also got a few new things planned for Shiny Happy World that will help you out if your resolutions involve sewing, embroidery, or quilting. More on that later. For now - my first resolution. . .

I will learn how to draft patterns the right way - not just by the seat of my pants. :-) And not kids clothes - those are easy because kids don't like their clothes to fit too snugly and they don't have many curves. I mean drafting patterns for a real grown-up woman with real curves. I'm making clothes for myself!

I spent the last few months doing some research and I've finally settled on the book Design-It-Yourself Clothes by Cal Patch. The clothing looks (mostly) like stuff I might wear myself and her approach makes sense to me. I'm going to make my way through the book from start to finish - with a rough goal of making one garment every month.

Want to join me? I'll share my progress every month and you all can share too! I'll be making the first pattern in the book - a basic A-line skirt - in January. A-line skirts are really easy. I actually already have a pattern I drafted for myself - one that I like a lot - but I want to see how her technique differs. If you want to play along, here's what you need to do. . .

1. Buy the book.
2. Take a look at the introduction and buy any tools you'll need. She doesn't call for much - another reason I like her approach. :-)
3. Check your stash or buy some fabric to make your skirt.
4. Check back in January for progress reports.

I'm so excited to make some clothes for myself! I hope you are too! Check back tomorrow for resolution #2. I think it's one most of us can get behind. :-)

Best,
Wendi

Happy holidays!

I hope you're all enjoying shiny, happy holidays!

Best,

Wendi

Free Zippered Pouch Pattern

It's another day closer to Christmas - time for another bag you can use as wrapping! Get the free pattern for this zippered pouch here. I stitched a few monsters from the Monster Mash embroidery pattern on the sample you see on the cover - but at this point you'll probably want to just whip one up with some super-cute fabric. :-)

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

A Beastly Gift Bag

If you're giving a little monster some books as a gift this year, why not wrap them in a beastly book bag? You can find the pattern here.

Hope you're enjoying the holiday season!

Best,
Wendi

Free Goody Bag Pattern

You can whip up some easy peasy reusable fabric gift bags with the free pattern you'll find here. If you use a cute fabric and some ribbon you can whip up a batch in no time. If you fancy a little stitching time in front of the fire - try some of these Made by Joel designs on them.

I think they'd be great made up in black fabric and filled with black licorice for a little sack of "coal" to add to a stocking. :-)

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

12 Days of Christmas - Last Minute Gifts

It's Day 12 of our 12 Days of Christmas series and today the focus is on last minute gifts.

This 2012 calendar is a terrific last minute gift to have on hand. It's a DIY prantable calendar (which means I can ship it after this Friday's deadline and you can get it at the speed of light). Buy one file for $5 and then print out as many copies as you need for stitchy friends, teacher gifts, neighbors, etc. These are very easy to assemble. Print it out. Cut each page once down the middle, clip the pages together with a small binder clip and you're done! Repeat as needed. Get the 2012 embroidered calendar here.

Jo and I also made a calendar just with dog and cat images - especially as a fundraiser for our local animal shelter. Jo stitched half the months and I stitched the other half. Can you tell who stitched what? I didn't think so - and Jo was so proud when she realized that! :-)

The calendar works exactly the same as the one above - and 100% of your money goes to help the Mitchell County Animal Shelter (in North Carolina) care for the many furry friends who come through their door every day. Get the 2012 animal shelter calendar here. And thanks!

How about a gift certificate? I love to receive them. Guilt free shopping! Woo hoo! They're in the shop in $10, $20, and $30 increments - but I'm happy to set up a custom one for you in any amount you like. Normally I send out handmade cards - but we're getting down to the wire here (and this is a post about last minute gifts) so I'd be happy to send a digital gift certificate instead. Don't worry - I'll make it cute! :-)

And finally - how about giving someone the gift of an online workshop? 24 hour access to a set of 20 online workshops for 6 full months sounds like a great gift to me! You can find more information about the workshops here and here. I'm one of the 20 instructors and in my workshop you'll learn to make that cute Peekaboo Bear quilt you see in the picture. Sign up here. Clicking this link will take you to the registration page on the STITCHED website - where you'll also find additional info.

One last reminder that the last day to ship physical items (kits, supplies, and ready-made items) is TODAY, December 16. All orders need to be received by noon EST in order for me to pack them up and get to the post office on time. After today that part of the shop will be closed until January 15. Get your supplies now! (Ooooh - one more gift idea! The Big Thread Bundle with a pack of Floss-a-Way bags to get a beginning stitcher all organized. Nice!)

Happy Friday!

Best,
Wendi

Peekaboo Bear Workshop - last day for free patterns

Just a quick reminder - today is the last day to get 3 free patterns when you sign up for the STITCHED workshops.

You can find more information about the workshops here and here. In a nutshell, STITCHED is a collection of 20 online video workshops. The series runs for 6 months and you have 24 hour access to all the classes for the whole time! In my workshop you'll learn an easy machine applique technique and all the basics you need to make the simple quilt you see in the photo.

The workshops open on January 1, but registration is going on now. Everyone who registers by midnight tonight EST through the link here on my blog will get a free bundle of any three patterns from my shop.

Sign up now. Clicking this link will take you to the registration page on the STITCHED website - but don't worry. Through the wonders of modern technology, if you get there from my site I'll get a notification when you register. (I love living in the future!) That will allow me to send you a welcoming email - and ask you what you'd like for your free patterns.

This could be your kid! :-) Hope to see you in the workshop!

Best,
Wendi

12 Days of Christmas - Stocking Stuffers

It's Day 11 of our 12 Days of Christmas series - and today the spotlight is on stocking stuffers. These are all quick and easy to make and the patterns are free.

Make this bookmark to put in a stocking or slip in a book gift. Get the pattern here.

These Snake Charmers are so much fun to play with - plus they're easy to make and use only scraps. Get the pattern here and make a horde of them. :-)

Five Stones is an old, old game that plays similar to Chinese Jacks - an 80s favorite. Get the pattern here.

Also - a quick reminder that the last day to ship physical items (kits, supplies, and ready-made items) is tomorrow, December 16. After Friday that part of the shop will be closed until January 15. Get your supplies now!

Happy Thursday!

Best,
Wendi

12 Days of Christmas - A Cozy Cover for Tech Gifts

It's Day 10 of our 12 Days of Christmas series - and today the spotlight is on tech gifts. I'm talking MP3 players, tablets, iPhones, cameras, etc. You know what those gifts need? A handmade case! The Gizmo Cozy is a free pattern with instructions showing you how to fit it to any device. You can sew it by hand or by machine. You can embellish with embroidery, applique, beads, or nothing at all. It can fit items as small as a phone or as large as a laptop. I even had one Mom write to tell me she used the pattern to make a case for her daughter's insulin monitor! You can use this pattern to make a cozy for anything flattish. :-) Get the free pattern here and make a cozy case for those coveted tech gifts.

Happy Wednesday!

Best,
Wendi

2012 Cats and Dogs Calendar - all funds benefit our local animal shelter

This is a project dear to my heart. My daughter wanted to do something to help raise money for our local animal shelter. I just happened to have recently designed some really cute embroidered dogs and cats and a 2012 calendar - and I decided to combine the two into one product especially to benefit our furry friends.

I enlarged the images from the Dog Embroidery Pattern. . .

. . . and the Cat Embroidery Pattern. I transferred the images to fabric, Jo and I divided them up, and we got busy stitching.

I stitched up half of them and Jo stitched the other half. The great thing is that when she saw the calendar all printed up - she couldn't tell which ones she had done and which ones were mine! Embroidery really is a great project for kids. :-)

This calendar works the same way as my regular 2012 calendar.

Step 1: print

Step 2: cut

Step 3: repeat as many times as you like until you have gifts for all your animal-loving friends.

I like to print them on cardstock. You'll probably get the best results with an inkjet printer. If your printer is cranky, just slide the PDF onto a flash drive and take it to your local copy shop for printing.

Cut them in half. Two months print on a single 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.


I clip mine together at the top with a small binder clip. It makes a handy hanging hook and allows me to reuse the top of the calendar when the month is over.


The calendar is just $5 and all of the proceeds will go to the Mitchell County Animal Shelter here in Mitchell County, North Carolina. You can buy it here.

And if you'd like to make a donation directly to the animal shelter - they have a donate button on their website.  They are good people doing good work with almost no money - they are funded almost entirely by donations and I'm astounded by how many pets they save every year.

Have a great day everyone! Hug your pets!

Best,
Wendi

12 Days of Christmas: Kids Who Love Harry Potter

It's Day 9 of our 12 Days of Christmas series - and today the spotlight is on kids who love Harry Potter.

Every young wizard needs a cloak - and this post has a video showing you how to whip one up without a pattern. These are EASY! I made them with 20 kids in one hour and they loved them.

Your wizard might also like an owl. This is another pattern I designed to be especially easy. You can see lots of finished owls made by kids in this post. My daughter (then age 8) made the one you see on the pattern cover with no help from me. You can make this! Purchase the pattern here - just $4 today only. Tomorrow it will go back to $5 and something new will be marked down.

Also - a quick reminder that the last day to ship physical items (kits, supplies, and ready-made items) is this Friday, December 16. After Friday that part of the shop will be closed until January 15. Get your supplies now!

Happy Tuesday!

Best,
Wendi