How To Carve a Quilt Block Jack-o-Lantern

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

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!

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How To Make A No-Sew Wool Felt Mini Quilt Block

 I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

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.

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How To Sew An Easy Doll Skirt

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

This doll skirt is SO easy to sew!

When I first started sewing doll clothes, I thought that the process was super complicated–all those tiny seams on all those tiny bits of fabric!–but it turns out that I was just picking out super complicated patterns. Like, I don’t even sew clothes with that many complicated construction techniques and fussy embellishments for myself, much less for a toy!

Fortunately, after lots and lots of sewing lots and lots of picky patterns, I got a lot more comfortable with winging it, and I figured out how to apply the elements of flat construction used in doll clothing to my favorite simple methods of sewing quick clothing pieces.

And now I’ve got all kinds of fun pieces that a kid can mix and match for the doll and that I didn’t have to spend an entire evening cussing down the house to sew!

This doll skirt is particularly easy to sew, even more so with the flat construction method that doll clothing uses. Although my photos here show me making skirts for my niece’s 18-inch doll, you can use this method to sew a skirt for any doll.

Here’s how!

Materials

To make a doll skirt for any size doll, you will need the following:

• fabric. Scraps and stash work great for this project–if you can fold the fabric over twice and still stitch through it, you can use it! For the skirts in these photos, I used one of my kid’s old bedsheets for one skirt, and some stash quilting cotton for the other skirt. See Step 1 for dimensions.
• elastic. You can use most types of elastic for this, so definitely prioritize what you’ve got on hand, but I use 1/4″ elastic for pretty much every doll clothing project, so that’s what I’ve got here. If you use a different width, you’ll want to recalculate the width of fabric you cut and the width of the fold for the elastic channel.
• measuring, cutting, and sewing supplies.

Step 1: Measure and cut the fabric and elastic.

First, measure and cut the elastic for the skirt’s waist. Measure around the doll’s natural waist, and cut elastic to that exact measurement. You’ll lose .5″ from the length of the elastic when you sew the skirt, and that will provide plenty of snugness for a good fit.

For the skirt, first measure from the doll’s natural waist to the spot where you want the bottom hem of the skirt to hit. If you need to add a stitched hem, add .5″ to this measurement, but there are lots of circumstances in which you wouldn’t need to! For instance, I really liked the selvedge of the fabric that I used to make the skirt in the photo below, so I used that for the skirt’s bottom edge and didn’t hem the bottom at all.

For the sharks skirt that I’m sewing in these photos, I similarly used the finished edge of the sheet as my bottom hem–again, no extra sewing needed! The polka dot quilting cotton skirt is the only one in these photos that needed the extra .5″ for the bottom hem.

Assuming you’re using 1/4″ elastic for the waistband, add another .5″ to the measurement to accommodate the waistband casing.

The width of the skirt should be at least twice the length of the elastic, but you can go even longer, especially if your fabric is thin or drapey.

And for all of these measurements, since I’m explicitly trying to use up my stash, I fudge my measurements as necessary if it helps me use up a bit more stash. Would a skirt that’s 1″ longer or 2″ puffier let me avoid tossing a bit of scrap into the garbage? If so, that skirt is going to be a bit longer or puffier!

For a standard American Girl doll, my elastic measurement is 10.5″. My skirt measurement is 5.5″ long with a pre-finished bottom hem, and 6″ if I need to hem the bottom myself, and at least 21″ wide, but I’ll go up to 24″ if it helps me not have to toss a scrap.

Step 2: Measure, fold, and stitch the bottom hem and waistband casing.

If you’re hemming the bottom yourself, fold it over 1/4″ to the inside, then fold it again to hide the raw edge. Stitch along the folded edge to hem.

For the waistband casing, assuming you’re using 1/4″ elastic, fold the top edge of the skirt over 1/2″ to the inside. We’re not minding the raw edge, but if you do, just add enough length to the original skirt measurement to accommodate a double fold here, too.

For the tidiest waistband casing, you’ll be stitching twice: stitch one line along the raw edge, then stitch another line along the fold.

I think this makes the top edge of the waistband look just a little crisper. It’s a tiny detail, but surprisingly noticeable!

Step 3: Insert the elastic and stitch.

Pin a safety pin to one end of the elastic, then thread it through the waistband casing.

At each end of the casing, stitch back and forth to secure the elastic. This is different from circle construction, in which you’d sew the two sides of the skirt together, then insert the elastic, etc. Flat construction like this is often reserved specifically for doll clothing, but I don’t know why, because it’s genius!

Your skirt should now have a finished bottom hem and an elasticized top hem.

Step 4: Stitch the two sides of the skirt together.

Using a 1/4″ hem, stitch the two short sides of the skirt together, right sides together.

Iron the raw edges of the hem to one side, then stitch along the raw edge to make it tidy and flat.

In the above photo, you can see that the line of stitching is barely noticeable, but it’s one more little detail that makes this simple skirt look really nice.

These skirts are so quick and easy to make that they’re honestly kind of addictive. I had to force myself to stop at two so that I could write this tutorial, but just between us, I’m probably about to pop back into my studio and make just a few more.

And then maybe some shirts to match. And maybe a little sweater. And if I’m making a sweater, I should probably make a hat to match!

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How To Field Cast Animal Tracks, Because If You Don't Field Cast Animal Tracks Are You Even a Homeschooler?

 

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

Have you ever been hiking and come across a really cool animal track? Maybe you don’t know what animal made it, or maybe you do know, but the track is just so perfect that you wish you could bundle it up and take it home to admire? Maybe you’ve got a kid who loves animals and nature, who could use a little hands-on science enrichment?

You need to know how to field cast.

Field casting is easy, requiring just plaster of Paris, used cardboard food packaging, masking tape, and water. It won’t take a ton of time away from your hike, and it’ll leave you with a great memory and a useful piece of scientific evidence for studying the real animals who’ve walked your path.

Here’s how:

1. Find an animal track. We’ve chosen to hike in the woods behind our house the day after a big rainfall, and my ten-year-old finds just what we’d expect to find: deer tracks!

2. Make a cardboard collar around the track. Cut strips of the cardboard food packaging about 1″ wide and long enough to completely encircle the track; tape pieces together with masking tape to lengthen them if necessary.

Tape the two ends together into a collar that will circle the track.

3. Mix the plaster of Paris. Although there are specific ratios of plaster to water that will guarantee a standard result (and I used to do all our field casting that way), I went on a dino dig earlier this summer and learned there how to simply eyeball my plaster mixture. In a throwaway plastic cup that’s at the end of its life, dump some dry plaster, then add some water and stir with a stick. You’re looking for a pudding consistency, better thin than thick, so continue to gradually add plaster or water to reach this approximate consistency.

4. Pour into the animal track. We always need two people for this, one person to steady the collar and one person to actually pour.

The thinner the consistency of the plaster of Paris is, the better it will fill the animal track without bubbles, but the longer it will take to cure–use your own judgment about how much free time you have to kill making field casts on your hike.

5. Remove the cast. When the plaster is firm to the touch, you can remove the cast and clean up your work.

The field cast will be dirty, but you can rinse it, and then label or paint it.

If you’d like to hang the field cast on your wall later (we do this sometimes), unbend a paperclip into a hook, then embed it in the plaster after you’ve poured it.

If you’ve got an extra-savvy kid who needs a science fair project, have them see what information they can learn about an animal based solely on its track. Height? Weight? Age?

This is also a great technique to employ if you happen to come across an animal track that you can’t identify. You might come up with the first conclusive evidence of the elusive Sasquatch, or the wily chupacabra!

Actually… I have a story about the chupacabra. Buy me a margarita sometime, and I’ll tell you all about it.

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!

How To Overdye All Your Emo Kid's Clothes Black

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

If you don’t like the color of your T-shirt, overdye it a color that you do like!

Be warned: when you overdye a piece of clothing, you do have to have an appetite for experimentation. There are SOOOO many variables in overdying a piece of clothing, included but not limited to:

• What is the material the item is made from? If it’s thrifted and/or doesn’t have a tag, you may not know for sure.
• What kind of stains/dirt has the item been exposed to? Even with a very good pre-wash, an item might have a hidden stain or unknown type of dirt or adherent that won’t wash out and will react unpredictably with the dye.
• What color is the item? The darker the overdyed color, the more accurate the result to the color you want, but if the original color of your item is anything other than white, that will affect your final result.
• What graphics are already on the item? The materials and colors used for graphics take dye unpredictably.

That being said, if you like a little adventure in your refashioning journey, then overdyeing is a fun, eco-friendly, and often thrifty way to take something you don’t love and turn it into something you do.

To illustrate that, here’s how I overdyed some clothing items for my college-aged daughter using materials purchased entirely from the nearest big-box store. It’s a super accessible process, and the clothes turned out great!

Materials

My kid called my shirt arrangement "the Depop scrunch," lol. Apparently the kids all scrunch in the waists of their shirts when they do their flat lays. 

To overdye your own clothing items, you will need:

• clothing items. Ideally, your items will have the tags so you know their fabric makeup. If not, though, it’s okay–just know the results will be a little more unpredictable. For this project, the items are either definitely cotton or are likely cotton-adjacent.
• dye. For this specific project, I am using 1 bottle of black Rit liquid all-purpose dye per pound of clothing. Note that this is double the amount of this specific dye that I’d need if I were dyeing it a lighter color. Black needs a lot of dye!
• color fixative (optional). For this project, I am using 1/2 cup of Rit ColorStay Dye Fixative per pound of clothing for the non-denim items only. My daughter actually wants the denim to be able to fade a little in the wash over time, but if you want the color to stay super-saturated for denim, too, then this color fixative would also work well on it.
• salt. You need approximately 1 cup of salt per dye pot. Iodized salt is fine.
• dish soap. You need approximately 1 tsp of the dish soap you use for handwashing dishes per dye pot. This breaks the surface tension of the water and encourages even absorption of dye.
• giant pot. Your dye pot should be able to fit 1 pound of clothing with enough room for the clothes to be able to agitate freely. If your pot holds less, you can divide the dye and clothes and do this project in batches.

Note that my specific project here is for cotton clothing. If you want to dye items with a polyester content, check out the manufacturer’s instructions here.

Step 1: Weigh, then wash your clothing items REALLY well.

Before you throw your items in the wash, weigh them on a postal scale. My specific project here is for 1 pound of clothing, because that’s what fits in my pot.

The thing about dyeing fabric is that anything on the fabric–dirt, sure, but also body oils, deodorant, soap residue, minerals from hard water, even oils from your fingertips–can affect how the dye adheres. This is exacerbated when you’re overdyeing, as I’m assuming that you’re overdyeing something that you’ve already been washing and wearing, perhaps something that you’ve thrifted. That’s a lot of history that you don’t know about!

So this is not the time for a quick wash. This is the time for a hot water wash with an excellent detergent that contains lipase but not optical brighteners (thank you, r/laundry!), and multiple rinses with a rinse aid like citric acid that will knock off soap residue and hard water minerals.

If you’re overdyeing immediately afterwards, skip the dryer because your clothing items will need to start off wet anyway.

Step 2: Prep the dye bath.

Into a metal pot, add 1 cup salt and 1 tsp dish soap, then fill the pot with water, leaving enough room for your clothing items.

If your clothing items aren’t already wet, soak them in water and ring them out. Don’t put them in the pot yet, though!

First, put the pot on the stove and heat the water until it’s just about to boil–you should see steam, and maybe just a little movement in the water, but it shouldn’t be boiling.

Shake the whole bottle of Rit dye well, then add to the water. I like to refill the bottle with tap water, shake it up again, and also pour that into the pot just to make sure that I’m getting every speck of dye.

Step 3: Add the clothes to the dye pot and stir.

This is where your real time commitment starts.

The Rit dye instructions recommend a dye bath time of 20 minutes to 1 hour, and since I’m dyeing clothes black, I’m using the longest dye time. Combined with stirring every couple of minutes, it’s a chore!

Especially if you’re going for the full hour, you’ll need to readjust the heat down a few times to keep the temperature just below boiling.

Step 4: Rinse, then color fix.

When the dye time is up, pour out the dye water and rinse the clothing items until the water runs clear.

While you’re doing that, refill the pot with water and heat it on the stove until it’s once again just below boiling.

Add 1/2 cup of Rit Dye ColorStay Dye Fixative to the pot, and stir well.

Wring out the rinsed clothing items, then add them to the pot. This time you only have to keep them in the bath for 20 minutes, but you do have to keep stirring every couple of minutes. It’s still a chore!

Step 5: Rinse again, then wash well.

Pour out the water again, and rinse the clothing items again until the water runs clear.

Wash the clothing items again exactly as you did in Step 1. Optionally, add color catcher sheets to the wash load to absorb excess dye, but the thorough wash should be sufficient.

Dry clothes as normal.

Afterwards, the fun part is seeing how your experiment turned out!

The denim shorts turned out super black and super even. They’re honestly a little darker than my daughter would prefer, since she likes a more faded look, but I skipped the color fixative on these and denim is notorious for fading, so I think it’ll look closer to what she wants after a few washes and wears. I’d already warned her that the thread on these garments likely wouldn’t dye, so that wasn’t an issue.

The long-sleeved shirt was more of a gamble, since I could tell by the feel that it’s not 100% cotton. It actually took the dye great, though… except for a couple of uneven spots, grr. The shirt was originally dark enough grey that the spots could represent stains that weren’t previously visible. Crowding items in the dye pot or insufficient agitation can also cause uneven dyeing, but I don’t think that’s the case here. If the color was very important I’d dye it again, but my daughter says she’ll wear it as-is, so I guess we’ll wait and see if that’s true!

Here is the real winner of my dye pot gamble!

My daughter LOVES how her Bowie T-shirt turned out, and I agree! The lightning bolt is present but more subdued, and the Bowie graphic now looks like a spooky negative. The dye is completely even and a lovely black, and the shirt has been promoted from a pajama top that she wears only around the dorm to one of her favorite everyday T-shirts.

Which is good, because I’m pretty sure that unevenly-dyed long-sleeved T-shirt will end up being demoted to pajama top…

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!