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Craft: Ruffle Tree Skirt

It's getting closer to Christmas, so I thought I'd take on a sewing project for the holidays. The Assessor and I purchased a spectacular tree several years ago when we moved into our house, but we went with the cheapest of the cheap tree skirts to just get by. We are now just getting by no more!

Thanks to some research on Pinterest (to maintain my dignity, won't tell you how many hours I spend pinning) I found several examples of tree skirts that I wanted to steal ideas from. You can see several of them on my Holiday and Gift Ideas Board (just scroll down a bit). 

I settled on making a sewed ruffle skirt. However, most of the ruffled version I found were "no-sew," quick versions. Don't get me wrong! I love no-sew and quick, but I also like machine washable. So I decided to follow the Pinterest versions general plans, but hem all the fabric so they wouldn't fray in the wash.

Here're the steps I took to make the tree skirt above:

1) Gathering the Materials

I went to Walmart and purchased four different polyester/cotton blended fabrics.

• 2 yards of light tan with printed leaves (the fabric used for the outermost circle)
• 1 yard of plain tan fabric
• 1 yard of gold satin fabric
• 1 yard of plain brown fabric

I also decided to use an old white twin-sized bed sheet, that I owned already, as a base to sew all of the ruffles on top.

2) Making the Base (or Bottom) Fabric

To make the base with the old white bed sheet, I folded the bed sheet in half and drew two semi-circles, one for the outer edge and a smaller one for the tree trunk (on the fold), using a method similar to the one on this Web site and this Youtube video. Then I cut a slit from the outside to the inner hole and sewed a hem along the outside edge of the cut skirt. Finally, I hemmed the edge of the skirt.

3) Preparing the Ruffled Fabric

I cut strips of fabric, one yard width and about 6-7 inches tall and hemmed the bottom edge. I say "6-7" inches because some of the material I bought was taller than others (the gold satin fabric was from a much taller bolt of fabric than the others).

4) Sew the Outer Ring of Fabric

Then I pinned and sewed the outer ring of fabric. I let the ruffle fabric overhang the outer edge of the tree skirt by about an inch. I had to sew multiple 1-yard strips together to cover the whole outer edge.

5) Mark the Location of the Remaining Ruffled Fabric

Since my ruffling fabric was not all exactly the same width (some were about 6 inches and others were 7), I placed and marked the edge of where I wanted to sew the layers.

6) Add the Marks Around the Entire Skirt

I took a tape measure and temporarily marked (with a pencil) on the tape measure the distance between the edge of the skirt and each of the marks original marks. Then I moved and copied those marks around the edge of the skirt (using a similar method to the one I used to create a perfect circle)

6) Sew the Rest of the Ruffled Fabric

Pin and sew the rest of your fabric starting from the outside working inward to the middle of the skirt.

7) You're Done!

Voila! There you have it! Feel free to add some sparkles or your own touch.

Craft: How to Clean and Oil a Sewing Machine

Cue angelic choir. This is a beautiful piece of equipment.

This weekend, I did a little sitting. But it was active! I cleaned and oiled my newly adopted sewing machine!

The things I know about the sewing machine include what I've learned from
a) my community class on sewing when I was 14-15 years old,
b) my Mom, or
c) the instruction manual on my newly adopted machine (thanks Rick and Dot).

Pick me! Pick me!

What do I know? I know thread is fed through the top and combined with thread at the bottom. It's metal, some plastic (newer models), and it needs to be maintained. Singer (the company who made my machine) is one of the oldest and well known manufacturers of machines. The moving parts are incredibly complicated. And...that's it. :)

So let's look at a little history first via Wikipedia.

Did you know that the first sewing machine was created in order to work with leather and extremely thick cloth like canvas?

Ooooh!

Or that Isaac Merritt Singer stole ideas from at least three sewing machine inventors to create what we now know as today's at-home machine?

Mr. Howe's Invention

Did you know that Singer's first love was acting, he tried to create a rock drilling machine and a wood cutter, or that he was "married" at least five times (sometimes two or three at the same time) with 16 children?!!!!

Isaac Singer. Not sure what's so great about this guy. Nice clothes?

Or the key indicator that you need to clean your machine is a build-up of lint in the bobbin seat?

Yuck! It'll look like this, but in the bobbin seat.

Neither did I!

Now that we're officially wowed by the sewing machine, take a look at the steps I took to clean and oil this very complicated and well-known machine.

First, I bought or just gathered:

• sewing machine oil (with a long spout)
• q-tips
• canned air
• paper towels
• trash can
• newspaper
• screw driver (came with my sewing machine)
• lint-free brush (came with my sewing machine)
• light, lots of light

So then I read my instruction manual. It showed me how to remove panels of the sewing machine to get to the moving parts.

Not sure why this is sideways!

Then I blew out some of the lint with the canned air (trying not to blow lint further into the machine).

Bottom of the machine with newspapers underneath.

I used q-tips to get rid of the stubborn lint and gobs of old oil (will look dark or yellow...like poop...had to say it) with lint. Several people will tell you that it'll only take 4-5 q-tips, I used about 20-25 because my machine hadn't been cleaned in a while. So just grab the container in preparation.

Special disk seat (for embroidery).

Drive shaft area above the needle.

Bobbin seat.

The nether regions.

When I removed the bottom panel of the machine, I noticed a fine layer of blackened oil (that had dripped from the moving parts above over time) on the panel. I squirted it with oil and rubbed it off with a paper towel. I didn't want to use water because it might encourage rust to form.

Then I oiled. Thankfully my manual showed all of the exact points to drop the oil. If your manual doesn't specify, adding one drop to each moving joint or gear face should take care of the job. I also brushed some of the exposed metal pieces with oil to prevent rust.

Now it's time to sew! And a little more reading of my manual. :)

What Melts in your Mouth and Your Hand?

This past week was pretty eventful in terms of adding new foods to my diet. First of all, Kevin and I were looking in the baking section at Wal-mart and came across a bag of this.

So then I tried a single serving without anything else, and didn’t have a reaction. This is definitely another whahoo! moment. I mean, I love carob as a chocolate substitute, but it’s got a pretty powerful aftertaste and it doesn’t quite bake the same. But since the chocolate pieces did okay in my system by themselves, I decided to make a batch of these wonderful Gluten-free, milk free chocolate chip cookies.

I used Bob’s recipe, but I substituted vegetable oil (soy) for the butter, and I left out the xanthan gum and the walnuts.

Boy were they good! I haven’t had a chocolate chip cookie since…maybe middle school. That’s about 12 years ago at least. I had some more today. Yummy in the tummy! Having a little celebration dance right now (very close to the “sprinkler”). Very excited.

But wait! There’s more!

Kevin and I also found these products at the store.

So far, I’ve tried the salad dressing, which was quite yummy, but I need to go easy on it since it’s got some MSG. I also tried the Parkay, which I used to eat all the time growing up because my mom noticed that it’s the only non-dairy butter-like substance available in most grocery stores. Parkay brings back memories when my mom would boil up several pounds of fresh shrimp, cook some white rice, and broccoli, and then I’d add lots of Parkay and Ketchup, and…oh…so tasty. I’ve heard about other non-dairy butter-like substitutes, but I haven’t actually seen them. Have you? Do they have any that don’t have olive oil?

Kevin and I also tried our hand at carpentry again and made this.

I obviously did a lot of “holding.” I’m a designated holder, a job passed down through generations. I’m a third-generation German bowler and a multigenerational “holder.” I’m quite proud.

Also I received an award this past week from Farty Girl. Thanks girl!

Here’s how it works:

1. When you receive this award, please thank the person who gave it to you in a new post.
2. Name 10 things that make you happy.
3. Pass the award onto ten other bloggers and inform the winners.

So here goes:

One: Thanks again Farty Girl!

Two: “Here are a few of my favorite things” that make me happy:

1. Jesus
2. My husband, my mom and dad, and everyone else in my family including little Kaiya and Kent
3. Helping people
4. Playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Dr. Mario, and other similarly addicting video games that Kevin’s introduced me too.
5. Remembering the goofy mundane things that Lindsey, Lisa, and I used to do as kids (ie: music-video-making, hair-dying, movie-watching, and TGI Friday’s-eating good times).
6. Reading
7. Texas
8. Angel Fire, NM
9. Working out
10. Spring and Fall weather

Three: I’m about to break a rule. Since I’m a new allergy food blogger, and a new allergy food blogger reader (whoo! That’s mouthful), I’m still feeling my way around and falling in love with people’s blogs. Like everyone else, I usually find blogs to love through the blogs I already read, like Farty Girl’s, one at a time. Farty Girl has already named the blogs I usually follow (plus some new ones I haven’t followed), so that makes my blog roll pretty small.

So, I say this award goes to every blogger (and non-blogger) out there who reads this blog, especially you, Farty Girl. I doubt there’s more than ten people out there, so I can say, truly, that I’m not cheating. Congrats to you, reader, you make me happy! Just comment on my blog and accept your award. Yeah you!

Hmm… I may regret this if I get like 50 comments (highly unlikely). If so, I apologize to who ever created this award originally, if you want it back, please take it.