Pet Pocket Pillowcase ~ Prepaid Project #15

This project all started with our recent trip to Sea World. My son chose an orca swimming toy and my husband won a giant orca by playing the ring-toss game. When we got home, my son re-discovered my Shamu stuffed animal that my dad brought to me from Sea World when I was a little girl. My son has been toting all three Shamu toys around the house since we got back.

He likes to sleep with his stuffed animals so I thought it would be fun to make a pocket on a pillowcase so that my stuffed Shamu could sleep with him without falling off of the bed. I already had all of the supplies so I was thrilled that this project would be prepaid!

** Disclaimer; Tutorials are like math for me. I am not that great at showing how I got to the right place, I just did. So please bear with me while I try to explain how I did this. Having said that, it's pretty simple to figure out by looking at the pictures.**

I started by using a standard pillowcase as a pattern. I laid out my two pieces of coordinating fabric and cut them to match the size of the already assembled pillowcase.

One of the things that I did different from a regular pillowcase assembly is that I made the coordinating fabric panel about twice as big as normal so that I could sew a pocket on it before I attached it to the main fabric panel. I laid the stuffed animal on the coordinating fabric (which I had already folded over to make it double-sided) so that I could see how big of a pocket I needed to make. Since I was using fabric scraps to make this project I had to sew two scraps together to make a piece of fabric big enough to make the pocket. After measuring how much fabric I needed, I double-folded all of the edges of the pocket fabric and ironed them. Then I sewed a straight stitch across the top and then I pinned the pocket to the edging fabric, making sure to only go through one layer of the fabric. I decided that the pocket needed to be able to expand but it also needed to fit only on the edging fabric. So I folded over the middle of the bottom of the pocket to make about a 1 inch box pleat. I also folded the top and pinned both so that I could line up the pocket with the edge and pin it straight. I sewed that pocket down both sides and across the bottom onto the coordinating fabric. Then I folded that fabric over itself and ironed the edge and sewed a straight stitch down the side, just to help it keep it's shape. Then I sewed that fabric onto the main panel of the pillowcase. I also sewed some ric rac on top of that seam to cover it up. I decided it looks kind of like waves in the water since it matches the main fabric so perfectly. Then I folded the whole thing over, with the right sides inside, and sewed down the side and the bottom of the fabric, creating the pillowcase. After sewing, I turned it right-side out and ironed it. My son was so excited to put our Shamu in his sleeping pocket! Since the orca show was one of his favorite parts of Sea World I think this pillowcase, and his little friend, will be loved for a long time. And the best part was that it was prepaid!!
I'm joining this party going on today;

Prepaid Project #5 ~ Baby Onesie Makeovers

My baby girl had several long-sleeved onesies that she barely wore last Winter because by the time she fit into them it was getting warm outside and she started wearing more short-sleeved clothes. I decided that since they looked new I could make them cuter and give them to my sister for her baby girl to wear this Fall. I cut out the appliques from fabric scraps and used Wonder Under to attach them to the shirts and then I sewed all the way around them. Fun and easy!! Have I mentioned that I looooove Wonder Under?? It's fabulous! It holds fabric in just the right place while I sew around it and it gives the appliques some added stability.

I think I'll make some hair things now to go with her cute new shirts. And I have a couple more girl onesies to do and some new boy onesies for gifts too!

Prepaid Project #4 ~ Bat Shirt

Does it look like that bat is flying??? Yes? Yes. That's because our little guy rarely stands still!!

He wants to be a bat for Halloween again. (Yeeeessss!!!) Last year I sewed some wings and some ears on to a black hoodie (he doesn't really like costumes so I figured I'd go for a clothes-like costume and he loved it). This year he can still wear the same hoodie but I wanted to make him a shirt to wear under it because he's a little heater-box boy and doesn't leave jackets on for very long.

A few weeks ago (before I started my prepaid project plan) I found some plain 5T shirts at Dollar Tree so I grabbed them. (Disney and Hanes brand...so they are made out of good fabric.) I already had some black knit. So I drew out half of a bat on some paper and measured it on the shirt to make sure it would fit and then I cut it out. Then I folded the knit and laid the pattern on the fold and cut out the bat. Then I traced the bat on to Wonder Under (fusible web) and I ironed the web on to the bat cutout. Next I folded the shirt in half down the middle of the front and marked it with a pin. I lined the bat up with the center and ironed the bat on to the shirt. Next I sewed all the way around the bat with black thread using a regular straight stitch. I asked him if he wanted his bat to have eyes and he said yes so he picked some buttons for the eyes and I sewed those on. I think I might add a silly smile to the bat's face with some embroidery floss before he wears the shirt for Halloween. He's pretty "batty" about bats (haha) so this shirt will get worn a lot. And I'm pretty sure he won't wait for Halloween to wear it...hopefully we can keep it stain-free until then.

Prepaid Project #3 ~ Doll Diapers

I recently saw this tutorial and knew that I needed to make some felt doll diapers for one of my prepaid projects. Not for Andi's dolls...for Jacob's. Since Andi was born Jacob has periodically been carrying one or two of his stuffed animals around, pretending they are babies. I gave him a few of the newborn diapers to put on his "babies" but they didn't fit the smallest stuffed animals. So this tutorial was the perfect thing to fix his diapering needs!

Jacob is so happy that his "babies" are all diapered up now!

Prepaid Project #2 ~ Ruffled Flower Shirt

Today I completed my second prepaid project ~ a ruffled flower shirt. I have had this shirt for a few years. I wore it quite a bit when I first got it but sometime during that first Summer I threw it in the wash and it came out with a huge grease stain on the shoulder. Yuck. After digging all of the laundry out of the washer I found the culprit laying in the bottom of the washer barrel - a tube of chap stick. This happens more frequently than I care to admit. Oh how I loathe chap stick in my washer!!! I'm sure there is some way to get that stain out but I didn't know it at the time so my wear-all-the-time shirt sadly got thrown into my old bedtime shirt pile in the closet. However, I like my sleeping shirts to be big and loose and this shirt is neither so it never got worn after that.

I rediscovered this shirt a few days ago and I still love the color of it (especially since it matches my pink tennis shoes so well) so I decided to give it a makeover. Why not? The worst that could happen is that I donate it to DI. Maybe I'll even love it!

I started my shirt makeover by cutting a few 1 1/4 inch wide lengths of white knit fabric.

I sewed a gathering stitch down the middle of each of them and then pulled the bobbin thread to gather them pretty tight into ruffles. Then I pinned them into flower-shaped circles, folding under the edges. What was great about doing it this way was that I could arrange them on the shirt, try it on, and then if I didn't like it I could un-pin it and re-arrange it. I tried it pinning the ruffles a few different ways... I ended up liking the arrangement best with a huge mum-like flower up on my shoulder and two smaller flowers under that one. After I wash it (without a tube of chap stick) the ruffles will stand up and I'll be able to see the pink of the shirt peeking through the flowers so it won't be just a mass of white on the shoulder of the shirt. I love knit fabrics, especially since they don't have to have a seam (as long as you don't mind it rolling). I plan to do a bunch of prepaid projects with my stash of knits.

This shirt is a bit whimsical ~ just the way I like things. I know the style is trendy but at least I will get to wear it for a while, especially since we're having unseasonably warm weather for Fall right now.

I linked this project here:

Prepaid Project #1 ~ Pumpkin Pillow

I made a pumpkin pillow, the first of my prepaid projects, using this tutorial yesterday.

The fabric was left over from a rocking chair that I recovered several years ago. The green pom poms were left over from sewing a curtain panel from my daughter's bedroom. And the brown fabric is left over from sewing a patch on top of an embroidered patch that we wanted to cover up on one of my son's shirts. Yeah for prepaid fabric!!

Prepaid Projects

I have a rather delightful secret...I have a pretty big stash of fabric along with crafts and projects that I started but never finished. (Shocking! I know!!!) Soooo...I have decided to challenge myself to use up those supplies without purchasing additional supplies. Whenever I have done projects in the past that used stuff that I already had I would tell my husband that they were free and he always replied that they were not free, they were prepaid. So, this is the beginning of a long line of "prepaid" crafts. My goal is to do at least 20 crafts or projects from the supplies that I have and hopefully I will do more than that. I don't have a timeline, but the faster I complete my projects and use up my stash, the sooner I can buy more fabric!

I'm looking forward to the challenge.