Because if you're not sewing detailed Halloween costumes for American Girl dolls, are you even a perimenopausal empty nester?
Actually... can I still say that I'm an empty nester when I have my college graduate living at home? Does it even count as living at home when she spends all her time either outside the house making pizzas for below a living wage or in her room applying to every job available for early career scientists?
And while I'm on the subject, what's with every job available for early career scientists actually requiring 1-3 years of professional experience? I get that three years is still "early" in one's career, but there really ought to be something in the world that a brand-new college graduate can do other than Americorps, which, I might add, also does not pay a living wage!
So, maybe I'm light on the empty nest these days, but I am VERY heavy on the perimenopause, as my active and palpable continuous rage informs me, and for some reason there is nothing that calms my perimenopausal rage like sewing doll clothes, so leave me alone and let me have my peace.
This American Girl doll skeleton costume is a basic long-sleeved T-shirt and full-length leggings, but before I finished each garment I appliqued onto it the skeleton bones that Mr. Craft Knife designed for me. The bones are cut with my Cricut from white jersey knit (upcycled from an old T-shirt) fused with Heat n' Bond, and I ironed the bones to the garments and then messily top-stitched them down with a free-motion quilting foot:
I took a couple of tries at this costume, and my second version was nice enough that I felt okay sending it to my niece, but I think what I really need to do is give up on my dream of fabric applique and buy some heat-transfer vinyl for the bones.
I LOVE fabric applique, but the heat-transfer vinyl that I used for this Jack-o-lantern T-shirt made the finished garment look soooo nice and tidy!
Mr. Craft Knife also drew this cutesy Jack-o-lantern face--he made a spooky one, too, but I only had enough orange T-shirt on hand to sew one doll shirt, and the cutesy face won!
This is my first time trying heat-transfer vinyl and I nailed it on the first try, which means that the next five times I use it something will go terribly wrong for reasons that I will not be able to determine.
The Sweet Valentine Dress from Doll Fashion Studio is tied with the skeleton costume as my favorite of these Halloween outfits:
I bought this cartoon Haunted Mansion fabric as a remnant once upon a time (I miss you, Joann!!!) with no plans other than to enjoy how cute it is, and happily, it also turned out to be just enough fabric for this dress for my niece, who LOVES herself some Disneyland!
I love how simple and classic this dress design is, though, so... yeah, I already have two more dresses cut out and waiting on my sewing room table.
And of course, it's not a complete set of Halloween outfits without a witch costume!
The cape is the fleece cape from Bombshell Bling. Sewing the stretchy velvet to woven quilting cotton wasn't the most fun, but I got it figured out and I'm pretty happy with it. The hat is a paid pattern from Pixie Faire, but I hesitate to recommend it because I had to alter it quite a lot to get the cone and brim to match. The geometry just wasn't geometry-ing!
While I was finishing up these outfits, I also whipped up a big doll mask order from my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, and so I decided to multi-task refreshing some of those stale listing photos while I photographed these outfits.
And that's why some of my doll mask photos are now a little bit Halloweeny!
Oops, I missed a couple of threads! Oh, well--that's how my customer knows it's truly handmade, I guess.
Fun fact: etsy recently updated some of its policies to ban AI slop, but it's doing it by WAY overshooting what's actually necessary, to the extent that shops will now be required to include one completely unedited photo in every listing.
Like... what?
If I had to include one completely unedited photo in this blog post, here's what that would look like, lol!
At least in my case, the editing is what makes the photo accurately represent my product!
Ugh, whatever. It's not like life isn't already just an endless succession of nonsensical hoops to jump through, anyway.
Oof, that sounded mean and depressed--must be time to soothe my perimenopausal rage by sewing those doll dresses I cut out earlier. Orrrrrr I could go to the gym and yell at the college boy trying to hog the leg press. Doesn't even matter which one, because there's always someone!
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
Get ready to make your neighbors jealous, because you’re about to carve the craftiest Jack-o-Lantern on the block!
I love a Jack-o-lantern that shows off my personality, and now that I’m an perimenopausal empty-nester, that personality is apparently sewing, sewing, and nothing but sewing (Okay, I’ve also developed an interest in Civil War battlefields, but that one is so objectively cringe that I’m not ready to talk about it yet). Like, y’all. I used to like sewing back well enough when my kids were little, but now I am obsessed. I genuinely CANNOT STOP SEWING. I just keep thinking of new things I want to sew! I do not even have time to sew all the things I currently want to sew, and yet I keep on finding more things to sew!
ANYWAY, thanks to my possible midlife crisis that is resolving itself through sewing, obviously my Jack-o-lantern this year had to be sewing-themed. And the best way to make a Jack-o-lantern that looks like an obvious sewing project is to make it into a quilt block! Fortunately, carving a quilt block into a Jack-o-lantern is surprisingly easy, and absolutely much easier than a lot of more conventional Jack-o-lantern templates.
Materials
Here is everything that you need to carve your own quilt block Jack-o-lantern:
pumpkin. Of course! A real pumpkin is obviously the most eco-friendly, but you can also make a very realistic, carvable pumpkin from papier mache. Carvable store-bought pumpkins are generally not eco-friendly, but if you can find one of those second-hand, then at least you’re saving it from the waste stream!
pumpkin-carving supplies. Pumpkin carving is so much more comfortable with these janky-looking little plastic pumpkin carving sets! I did throw a tiny fit when my husband came home from the store with a cheap kit of plastic pumpkin-carving tools back when the kids were babies (I was DEEP into the “my babies shall not touch plastic” era), but I changed my tune as soon as I saw how genuinely easier it is to carve pumpkins with them, and we’ve used that same dang set every year for the past 20 years, so I should probably apologize to my husband at some point. I absolutely will not, but I should!
measuring and marking supplies. The thing that I like the most about these quilt block carvings is that you don’t need a template. You can measure out your template right onto the pumpkin using a ruler or tape measure, and mark it with a washable marker. If you want your marks to be less vulnerable, use a Sharpie, and then wipe off any extraneous marks with an alcohol wipe or hand sanitizer.
Step 1: Choose your quilt block and draw it onto the pumpkin.
A surprising number of quilt blocks work well as Jack-o-lanterns, including Nine Patch, Shoofly, Eccentric Star, and Bear Paw. The trick I use is to leave approximately .25″ between the pieces I want to cut away in order to preserve the sense of the pattern being pieced together.
Choose an simple quilt block pattern that is easy to calculate and draw onto a pumpkin. This Friendship Star pattern, for instance, is super easy to measure out, with a square in the center, surrounded by right triangles whose two adjacent sides are the same length as one side of the square.
You can use a reference book like 5,500 Quilt Block Designs for inspiration, and don’t be afraid to eyeball a design instead of painstakingly measuring it out. Jack-o-lanterns are supposed to look a little wonky!
Step 2: Carve your design into the pumpkin.
Carve your pumpkin by cutting through the lines that you drew. I don’t understand why those little saws work so well, but they do! They also make it a LOT easier to cut these precise lines, especially compared to my pre-kid giant carving knife method.
Be careful when carving out thin pieces–I usually do this with one hand stuck inside my pumpkin, bracing it from the inside. Putting a quarter-inch between pieces gives you plenty of cutting room in case you accidentally over-extend a cut, but in terms of the worst-case scenario, you can stick a piece back on with a toothpick!
When you’re finished with your design, pop a tea light inside (or do what we do and make a little hole in the back to stick twinkle lights through), put the top back on, and enjoy your new quilt block Jack-o-lantern!
I LOVE my quilt block Jack-o-lanterns, and I think they look so pretty lit up on my porch at night. Now, onto my next project: sewing an American Girl doll-sized black T-shirt and leggings set and appliqueing an even tinier skeleton onto it! Stay tuned!
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
Recognize that fabric? It makes me so happy to use it again--I miss that little mermaid kid!
This swimsuit got on my nerves SO BADLY while I was sewing it!
But in retrospect, and after looking back at the pattern and the photos of the sample suit, I think my whole entire issue was that my zig-zag stitches were too wide/too long. Fold-over elastic is normally dead easy to sew, but the stitch width and length that works perfectly for the 18-inch doll leggings that I made a billion of this summer did NOT work with the slippery four-way stretch that I used for this swimsuit. I kept thinking I'd finished sewing it, and then noticing a tiny spot where the stitching hadn't caught the fabric, so I'd rip it out and redo that part, then I'd think I was finished, and then I'd notice another tiny spot that hadn't caught.
Grr!
The stitching on the sample photo, though, looks a lot shorter and narrower, presumably to keep better hold of that slippery spandex? It's a variable to experiment with, anyway.
And presuming the whole thing doesn't end up falling apart, it DOES look pretty cute on the doll!
The little kid was helping me take photos of all the doll garments I was planning to send off to my niece, and she discovered that this swimsuit also makes a cute bodysuit to go under other clothes:
That idea might actually be enough to get me to make another one someday!
If I really wanted to make another proper doll swimsuit, I think I'd spring for the paid pattern from this same company. I would personally way rather wear a surf shirt and boy shirts for swimming, so why wouldn't a doll?
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
This mini quilt block is cute as a button with no sewing needed!
Y’all know that I am the sewingest sewist who ever sewed (at least in terms of hours logged, lol!), but sometimes even I–or at least my sewing machine!–needs a little break.
But of course, even when I’m not sewing quilt blocks, I still like to make them. These itty bitty guys stand exactly 1.5″ tall, and are made SUPER easily from wool felt. Instead of sewing them, I use a high-quality glue. They turn out adorable every time, and I really like how I can use them to experiment with different color combinations and block patterns without a big commitment.
Here’s how I make them!
Materials
To make these felt mini quilt blocks, you will need:
felt. If you’re comfortable crafting with wool, wool felt is the peak material for this project. It’s got a great structure and feel, and the thickness of wool felt makes it easy to work with (there’s very little chance of glue bleed-through, for one thing) and gives a very nice finished appearance. This isn’t an affiliate link, but I personally buy all my felt from Weir Crafts–my Gmail tells me that my first order from there was way back in 2012! That being said, if you don’t craft with wool there are tons of high-quality recycled polyester felts in all the beautiful colors of the world, as well.
glue. With a project this small, details matter a lot, so I do think it’s worth it to use high-quality glue. Fabric glue isn’t necessary, although it’s fine to use, but in my opinion the very best glue for this project is Aleene’s Tacky Glue. A little goes a long way and one bottle lasts forever–it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if I’d also purchased the bottle in these photos way back in 2012!
measuring and cutting tools. Again, with a project this small, details matter, and the biggest detail is how precisely you measure and cut your pieces. Some of y’all freak out every time I so much as hint at my Cricut being involved in a project, but a Cricut, or a similar die-cutting tool (I also have a VERY old-school Sizzix–honestly, it might also be from 2012…), is a terrific way to get completely accurate, completely uniform cuts. However, a ruler, scissors, and very precise hand-cutting also works perfectly!
(optional) materials for mounting and/or display. I made a mini autumnal banner with these quilt blocks, but they’d also be very cute as pins or magnets.
Step 1: Pick Your Pattern and Basic Dimensions.
My inspiration for this project was the book, 5,500 Quilt Block Designs, by Maggie Malone. Malone organizes every quilt block ever made by basic pattern, so, for instance, every block that can be made from a basic nine-patch pattern is illustrated in that section.
I love this system, because it tells me that I can make an endless number of 1.5″ quilt blocks just by cutting an endless number of .5″ squares. Part of what I wanted to accomplish with this project was playing with lots of color combinations, so simply by cutting out lots and lots and LOTS of .5″ squares, I could mix and match them and decide on exact block patterns spontaneously as I worked.
Step 2: Cut Out The Quilt Block Pieces.
I cut out LOTS of .5″ squares!
You’ll notice in the photos that I did myself some favors by cutting a few 1″x.5″ rectangles and a few 1″x1″ squares, although you can, of course, create those on the quilt block simply by placing .5″ squares next to each other. I also used a lot of half-square triangles, but I found those easiest to cut by hand with thread scissors.
For the backing of each quilt block, you also need to cut one 1.5″x1.5″ square. I also cut these from felt, but honestly any backing would work, since it won’t show. If you’re making magnets, mat board would be an excellent choice for a backing.
And again, you can cut these little pieces by hand--
–or with the help of your favorite die-cutter:
I will treat myself to a Reese’s pumpkin for every person who gripes at me about my Cricut in the Comments. Y’all need to stop griping at me in the Comments!
Step 3: Place And Glue The Quilt Pieces To The Backing.
This is the fun part!
Now that you’ve got your pieces and your pattern, get comfy, turn on a podcast, and spend a delightful evening with this coziest of cozy crafts. First, build your block just by laying out the pieces on your work surface until you’re fully satisfied with the colors and the pattern.
When you’re happy, it’s time to glue!
Because precision is so important, I like to start at one corner. Simply spread the back of a piece with glue, then set it lightly in place.
Setting it down lightly means that you can adjust it if you need to for alignment. After I get a full row down, I press the whole row more firmly to set the glue in place.
It’s VERY fun to watch your design come to life!
Step 4 (Optional): Add Materials To Mount Or Display Your Finished Blocks.
To display your finished blocks, you could glue a magnet or whip stitch a pinback to the back. I glued twine hangers so that I could hang my mini quilt blocks as a banner.
I was going for an autumnal vibe, but to be honest, I got too excited about all the color combinations and didn’t really stick to my theme. I’m already thinking about trying again for Valentine’s Day, though, since I like Valentine’s Day colors but I’m kind of sick of hearts. P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
I genuinely have nothing relevant to say about them. Just, I was feeling sad and anxious after dropping my kid off at college, which is a totally normal way to feel but is also unpleasant and just generally sucks, and for whatever reason, spending a few evenings listening to a scary-ass podcast about the dangers of meditation while gluing together itty bitty quilt blocks literally fixed my life. Like, the colors and patterns are pleasing to look at and satisfying to organize, getting them precisely cut and precisely into place required a lot of enjoyable concentration and left me with a comfy feeling of mastery, and the project as a whole was absorbing enough to distract me from worrying that my kid forgot her Woozoo and thinks her Intermediate Macroeconomics class will be hard and also she lives 12 hours away now.
Y'all, did I just diagnose myself with autism?
Whatever. Please just look at how pretty these wool felt mini quilt blocks are.
Fun anecdote: I sent the kid a pic of some of these quilt blocks, because living 12 hours away doesn't free someone from having me yap at them constantly, and she replied, "They're so cute! Are they coasters?"
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
