Put A Ring On It October 18, 2011

Mer-Mer has made pillows with hearts on them, trees, elephants and puppies, swords and a triforce, a treasure map; pillows that glow in the dark; pillows made from t-shirts, dress shirts and denim; pillows to stir an emotion or one’s imagination; pillows to cuddle with, nap with, and soothe an aching heart. Now she’s made a pillow to carry rings down the aisle.

 

 

When Mer-Mer started finding out about the wedding plans of her soon-to-be-married friend Susannah, she asked what you might expect from a sewer with such a pillow-making history: “Susannah, can I make your ring pillow?!” To which Susannah replied simply, “Okay.”

 

From there the two went to JoAnn’s to pick out an assortment of fabric for the patchwork top of the pillow. Mer-Mer also pulled from fabrics she had collected over the summer.

 

Sewing the patchwork of fabrics together was fairly easy, although Mer-Mer had to add backing to some of the sheer fabrics to prevent the back of the pillow from showing through them. To keep all the different fabrics firmly pressed, Mer-Mer borrowed irons from freshmen in her old dorm.

 

Looking at the picture above, you probably notice two ceramic buttons that stand out against the rich white patchwork. They will hold the place of the bride and groom’s rings. Susannah picked the green button because green is her favorite color. Mer-Mer made another trip to JoAnn’s to find the matching red button, honoring the groom’s — Shengming’s — favorite color.

 

Two ribbons, which will be used to fasten the rings,  fill the space directly above the buttons. Before Mer-Mer sewed the ribbons to the pillow, she painted the cut ends with nail polish to prevent them from fraying.

 

To further garnish the pillow, Susannah gave Mer-Mer some special fabric, which Mer-Mer turned into a heart, and two prettified flowers. Mer-Mer also added some additional flowers from JoAnn’s, the tiny white ones. She attached these with very small stitches.

 

Put it all together, and you get a pillow that’s sure to light up the isle.

 

 

Susannah sent pictures of the completed pillow to Shengming. Here’s a transcript of the conversation that followed:

 

Shengming:  “That’s a very pretty pillow. What’s it for?”

 

Susannah:  “Well, at an American wedding, you need a way to get the rings down the aisle, so they put them on a pillow which is usually carried by a little boy.”

 

Shengming:  “Since Mer-Mer made the pillow, she should carry it down!”

 

Susannah:  “Umm…little boy?”

 

Shengming:  “Oh, we can make an exception.”

The Purse That Holds Everything (And Looks Ultra Pretty) August 22, 2011

“OMG, I love this fabric!”

 

That’s what Mer-Mer thought when she saw this fabric in JoAnn’s remnant bin.

 

 

“Ultra pretty”

 

That’s how Mer-Mer described this ribbon she had left-over from making a bag for her Aunt.

 

 

“Hmm…”

 

That’s what Mer-Mer said when she thought of how she could possibly use this ribbon that had failed to match any of her fabrics. That was until she saw the fabric mentioned above. The two made a perfect pair, Mer-Mer thought, and formed the perfect pieces of a purse.

 

To design this new purse, Mer-Mer referenced a purse she had used for work. Simplistic in design, it had a strap and a flap that covered a pocket.

 

First Mer-Mer made the pocket and flap part of the purse. She wanted the inside of the purse to be just bold as the outside. To do this, she sewed the right sides of her fabric together and then turned the fabric inside out.

 

 

With the flap and pocket part of the purse finished — sewed shut — Mer-Mer realized she had a problem:  she forgot to attach the ribbon. She took out some stitches and affixed it.

 

Proud of her work, Mer-Mer showed the purse to her Grandma, who had an idea to make it even better. She suggested that Mer-Mer add a button and an enclosure to keep the flap secure.

 

With a button and some extra ribbon, Mer-Mer got to work. She made the enclosure with the ribbon, gluing the ends together so it wouldn’t unravel. It attached to the base of the flap. The button to the outside of the purse’s pocket.

 

 

You can fit plenty of stuff in this purse —  a shopping bag, notebooks, a roll of paper towels, a puppy — everything, Mer-Mer says, except for maybe a kitchen sink and a small child.

 

 

The purse definitely fits this coupon wallet Mer-Mer put together with some extra Ariel fabric.

 

 

She made it essentially the same way as she made her purse, except the flap on the wallet comes to a point.

 

 

And the button is silver and sort of looks like a flower.

 

 

Just some advice:  don’t let Mer-Mer kidnap you in her new purse or turn you into a coupon that she can use at JoAnn’s.

A Shirt That Tells A Story August 5, 2011

I’m not sure what peach trees, rainbow roads, cars and elephants have to do with each other, but apparently Mer-Mer and her friend Emily do.

 

 

After hearing Mer-Mer talk about all of the things she’s made and looking at them on this blog, Emily asked Mer-Mer to “Mer-mify” some of her old t-shirts.  The two had a planning session to sketch out ideas for the shirts. They browsed through Mer-Mer’s 20 lb. box of fabrics, and according to Mer-Mer, the conversation went something like this:

 

Emily: “What will we put on the back?”

Mer-Mer: “We could put a road leading to a tree! And we could put a car on it!”

Emily: “Yeah!”

Mer-Mer: “Yeah! And we could put an elephant standing by the road!”

Emily: “Yeah!”

Emily: “Can I have a sun with a face?”

Mer-Mer: “Yeah! And it can have buttons for eyes!”

 

Following all the “Yeah!”s, Mer-Mer got down to business. She started the project by sewing together the sky and the ground of the panel that appears in the center of the shirt. Next she sewed the trunk and leaves of the tree together. She added the peaches, sewed it all together, and finally stitched the completed panel to the shirt.

 

Have you ever seen a sun look so happy? To make it happen, Mer-Mer first sewed buttons onto the circle shaped fabric she cut out, making the sun’s eyes. Then she stitched on the sun’s mouth. After sewing the sun — as it was, to the shirt — she added its rays, using the same technique she mastered on the shirt from the last post.

 

With the landscape finished, Mer-Mer sewed on the wrap-around rainbow road, stitched the car on top of it, and lured the helpless elephant to the side of the road.

 

 

Mer-Mer finished the shirt by sewing ribbons around the sleeves.

 

 

Looking at the shirt, I have to wonder where the people in the car are going. My guess is that they’re heading to the tree to have a picnic and maybe snag some peaches. I hope they don’t get too distracted by the rainbow road, though, and miss the tree. I wouldn’t want to see that shirt.

Hope for a Shirt August 3, 2011

Have you ever had a favorite piece of clothing? A pair of jeans that, despite being torn and faded, fit just right. A shirt that always looked good on you.

 

Well, I used to have a favorite shirt. I wore it probably once a week no matter what the occasion or the season. It stayed in my wardrobe through high school and almost all of college until one fateful trip through the laundry.

 

 

I unloaded my clothes from the dryer and started folding. A towel, a pair of socks, an undershirt — everything looked good: no marks, no discolorations, no wrinkles. Then I got to my favorite shirt. I grabbed it with both hands at the shoulders, ready to start the fold. But before I could tuck the arms back, I saw it: a tear in the elbow.

 

In an emergency like this, I took it to the one person I thought could help: Mer-Mer. After inspecting the damage, she shook her head. There was nothing she could do. She was heartbroken. Not only was it my favorite shirt, it was her favorite shirt of mine.

 

When we finally shed our tears (just kidding!), I gave the shirt to Mer-Mer. She thought that maybe she could cut the sleeves off and turn it into a shirt of her own. But school got busy, other projects took over, and the shirt eventually found itself stuffed into a box of fabric on its way to Mer-Mer’s Grandma’s house for the summer.

 

Just when the shirt thought its time in the sun was over, though, Mer-Mer checked out a book from the library, the book on applique that inspired her garland project. As she paged through the book, Mer-Mer thought, “Wow, I’d really like to try some of this stuff!” Then she said, “Wait, I have Garritt’s shirt!”

 

Her plan was to use the shirt as a testing ground for the new applique techniques she learned about. If the shirt didn’t look right afterwards, she would just wear it as a pajama shirt. When she finished with it, though, it turned into something out of this world.

 

 

Mer-Mer started the project by selecting fabrics that would compliment the shirt. Some, like the butterfly on the pocket, came from her scraps collection.

 

 

The first applique technique she experimented with was a “yo-yo,” which she used to make the petals of the flowers pictured below. First she cut a circle out of fabric. Then she did a gathering stitch which pulled the fabric together into a bunch. She finished by tying a knot so the gather didn’t come undone.

 

 

The stems of the flowers were another experiment. Mer-Mer wanted them to pop out, so she pinched the fabric of the shirt to make a lump, fixing it into place using embroidery floss.

 

Mer-Mer also tried out different types of stitches. For the rays of the sun, she used two running stitches followed by a backstitch. The running stitch is a faster stitch and the backstitch secures the running stitch.

 

 

With all the flowers, butterflies and sunshine, Mer-Mer got distracted. The tear in the elbow still remained. To fix it, Mer-Mer gave the elbow something to lean on: a very colorful tree.

 

 

I didn’t think it was possible, but I like the shirt even more than I did before, except now I can’t wear it.

When Scissor Met Jumper July 31, 2011

 

 

 

 

Every time I ask Mer-Mer what inspired her to make this project or pick that fabric, I expect to hear a profound, complex answer. Instead, she usually gives me the same short and sweet response: Because I liked it.

 

That was her reason for making the denim blanket shown above. Mer-Mer’s friend Krista made one. Mer-Mer saw it. And Mer-Mer liked it.

 

To find the denim fabric for this project, Mer-Mer didn’t go to JoAnn’s. She went to her Grandma’s closet. Mer-Mer cut up pieces of her Grandma’s old jumpers: some light blue, some dark blue, some with pockets, others with buttons or studs or unique crease marks. She also bought a Whiney the Pooh jumper from a thrift store.

 

 

 

 

Once Mer-Mer had all her squares picked out, she arranged them on the floor and sewed them together into rows and then sewed the rows together to form the top of the blanket.

 

Some of the pieces were like mini-blankets. Mer-Mer took fabric from up to nine different jumpers and sewed them together to make one piece. She also decorated some of the squares with remnants from previous projects: a flower from her garland, a cut-out of a heart from a pillow that she made me.

 

 

 

With the top of the blanket set, Mer-Mer handed the project over to her Grandma, who in addition to supplying a wardrobe of denim, used a sewing machine to sew on the backing. Mer-Mer then turned the blanket inside out and sewed it shut.

 

People know to beware of Mer-Mer when she has a scalpel in hand. Fabric should learn to run away from her when she has scissors. After finishing the blanket, Mer-Mer found she had enough denim left over to make a couple of pillows.

 

One features about 25 different pieces of denim, a flower, and a heart.

 

 

The other carries one of Mer-Mer’s signature fabric trees, complete with puppy-paw prints for its bark.

 

 

Krista, if you’re out there, you better be on the move. Now that Mer-Mer has a blanket like yours, you know what’s next…snuggle time with Mer-Mer!

 

Catching Up With Mer-Mer: Angry Vader July 10, 2011

Remember the scene in Toy Story 2, when Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Rex and the gang are trying to escape Zurg on the elevator? (If not, click here). It’s one of Mer-Mer and her brothers’ favorite scenes in the movie, and it helped inspire the t-shirt above.

 

In the scene, Zurg pins Buzz to the ground and tells him to surrender. Buzz refuses. He thinks that Zurg killed his father. Then Zurg says, “No, Buzz. I am your father!”

 

Mer-Mer and her brothers couldn’t help but laugh at the internal crisis Buzz experiences after Zurg delivers Buzz this horrible news. They like to re-quote the line, filling in a few choice words:  “No, Buzz. I am your hotdog in pajamas!”

 

Hotdog in pajamas can also apply to the famous line from Star Wars:  “No, Luke. I am your [hotdogs and pajamas!] father!”

 

Which leads back to the t-shirt. To start, Mer-Mer’s two younger cousins are enthusiastic about Angry Birds. They often hijack their parents’ phones to play the game. One day at the mall, Mer-Mer spotted Angry Birds t-shirts, but they were too big to fit her cousins. She decided that she would buy a blank t-shirt and try to make an Angry Birds shirt of her own. It worked, and she gave it to her youngest cousin who loved it so much, he carried it around with him at breakfast until he was allowed to change into it for the day. In addition to a hand-stitched Angry Birds logo, the shirt said in purple letters:  “Don’t make me angry!”

 

Because she couldn’t give one cousin a shirt and not the other, Mer-Mer had to make a second shirt. This time, she decided to incorporate Star Wars, another favorite franchise of her cousins. Channeling the hot dogs in pajamas from Toy Story, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, and the Angry Birds shirt she just finished, Mer-Mer found the green light for the new shirt when this phrase popped in her head:  “No, Luke. This is my angry face!” It was a eureka moment.

 

Next to the Angry Birds logo, Mer-Mer decided she would highlight the Star Wars influence on the shirt by placing a hand-stitched renditioning of a lightsaber, but not just any lightsaber, Darth Vader’s lightsaber. She pulled a picture of the lightsaber to ensure accuracy, knowing that if she got anything wrong, her brothers would call her out. As she looked up images of the lightsaber, she thought to herself, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. My brothers are so nerdy!”

 

Before she cut any fabric, Mer-Mer designed the shirt on her computer.  She chose a blocky font with few curves for the letters that would make up the shirt’s phrase, ensuring that the letters would be easy to read. Once finished with the design, she printed out two copies. The extra copy would allow her to harvest parts from one Angry Birds logo and the other as she needed them. It also gave her back up letters in case she lost some.

 

The base fabric for the project was a shirt from Old Navy. Fleece her grandma had lying around accounted for the rest. Mer-Mer first sewed together the beak, tummy, eyebrows and other pieces of the Angry Birds logo using embroidery thread. Then she did a blanket stitch to outline the bird. She used embroidery thread to put together the pieces of the lightsaber, adding a button to the design.

 

Next, Mer-Mer stitched the logo and lightsaber onto the shirt. From there she cut out the letters in yellow fleece, her cousin’s favorite color, and glued them to the shirt.

 

What she ended up with is a shirt sure to sell out of any store, sure to make anyone and their grandma laugh (mine did when she saw a picture), and sure to make her cousin happy.

Catching Up With Mer-Mer: A Lot of fun with a lot of fabric July 8, 2011

 

What do polka dots, hearts, monkeys, flowers, bunnies, puppies, elephants and butterflies have in common? They all can be found on the eclectic group of fabrics Mer-Mer used to make one of her most time consuming projects yet:  a birthday garland.

 

She got the idea for the project from an applique book she checked out from the library. Like braces change a mouth forever, this book may have changed Mer-Mer’s sewing career forever.

 

The completed garland, basking on Mer-Mer's Grandma's couch

 

Drama aside, the book really did showcase a lot of neat projects. Mer-Mer started this one by assembling the garland’s patchwork, a 4-inch-wide strip of connecting fabrics to which all the other pieces of the garland attach.

 

Next she cut 4X5 inch triangles from her menu of fabrics using pinking shears. With the triangles, she made an assortment of pennants by sewing any two fabrics back to back so that the front and back would vary.

 

 

Life would be lonely without flowers and so would the pennants. To make her bouquet of flowers that would join the pennants in decorating the garland, Mer-Mer first took 12-inch-long pieces of fabric and tore them into pieces 2 1/2 inches wide. She then took each piece and a sewed a gathering stitch along one side until the fabric was in the shape of a circle. Last she sewed a button in the middle of each blossom of fabric to complete the flower.

 

 

Mer-Mer next gave her pennants a home by sewing them to the patchwork of fabrics she assembled earlier. She left spaces in between the pennants for the flowers, and she left 12 inches of open fabric at either end of the patchwork so the garland could be tied to things.

 

Monkeys!

 

When school rolls around, Mer-Mer plans to decorate her apartment with the garland. For now, she’s still trying to convince her Grandma to let her hang it in her bedroom.

Catching Up With Mer-Mer: Sewing On-The-Go July 4, 2011

 

You can sew anywhere — at work, at luncheons, in the front row of the classroom — which is why Mer-Mer put together an On-The-Go Sewing Kit:  to be prepared to handle unexpected rips and tears and an occasional boring moment.

 

The foundation of Mer-Mer’s on-the-go kit is a tiny tin princess lunchbox. Mer-Mer said she chose this box because it’s pretty, it has princesses on it, and because the princesses pop out. She also mentioned that her friend Molly, who loves Disney princesses, will probably be jealous when she sees it.

 

The box is small enough to fit into a purse and  big enough for all the stuff Mer-Mer needs for a small sewing project. At the moment, the box contains items she might use to repair a tear in her clothing while at work:  scissors, pins, a needle book (more on this later), patch fabric, as well as black, blue, white, red and khaki spools of thread chosen because they’re small and because they either match the color of her clothes or contrast the black and white polka-dot patch-fabric.

 

 

Needles. Mer-Mer hates the ones that steal your blood and give you shots. The ones you use to sew have occasionally been a source of frustration for her. Mer-Mer used to store her needles in the plastic box, which now houses her pins in the picture above. One day, the needles spilled in one of the hallways of her dorm, an obvious safety hazard. Then she put her needles in an empty pill container, which looked kind of sketchy.  Now her needles rest comfortably in a felt needle book.

 

 

Mer-Mer started making the book by cutting a piece of felt in half. Then she used pinking shears to cut out three rectangular pieces of felt, a little smaller than the felt for front and back cover, to use as the pages of the book. Inspired by green fabric her grandma had lying around and a love for trees, Mer-Mer added her special touch to the project by stitching a tree on the front of the book.

 

 

 

 

Mer-Mer has been known to be dangerous with her sewing supplies, basically because of the pins she sticks in beds and sofa cushions. Now that she can easily take her projects anywhere with her On-The-Go Sewing Kit, you better be careful.

Mer-Mer is a Pineapple April 12, 2011

Mer-Mer is a cannibalistic kindergartener-nomivore. She likes to nom people and trap them in her stomach. Her stomach is also useful for warming up Eva’s hands.

 

…This is just a taste of what could  happen if Eva ever hacked Mer-Mer’s sewing blog. In addition, we could assume that “Sewing with Mer-Mer” would become “Sewing with Eva.” And instead of Mer-Mer talking about her projects, Eva would tell the world about all the sewing masterpieces that she has made.

 

At this point I think Mer-Mer really would wish that Eva were in her stomach dancing on a half-eaten sandwich.

 

Fortunately, Eva will never hack Mer-Mer’s sewing blog. Except for today. Eva has given Sewing with Mer-Mer the rights to showcase a sewing project she finished not too long ago: a double-sided pillow.

 

 

Eva said that her pillow, like all pillows, was extremely simple to make. First she cut out two pieces of unlike patterned fabric. Next she pinned the the pieces of fabric together right side in and sewed them together, leaving a hole for stuffing. Last, she turned the fabric right side out and stuffed the pillow.

 

Eva's pillow, from the other side.

 

A really simple project with really awesome and creative results. Thanks for letting us share, Eva. Just to let you know, there’s this super tasty chocolate dipping sauce that tastes good with fruit, especially pineapples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Oatmeal You’ll Never Eat March 26, 2011

Oatmeal cookies, oatmeal bars, oatmeal squares, oatmeal muffins, instant oatmeal and heating pads.

 

The best use for oatmeal might in fact be relieving the body’s aches and pains. The two-pocket bag pictured above, which is packed with spice-infused oatmeal, does just that. Stick it in the microwave for two minutes and you have a warm, relaxing, delicious-smelling heating pad to rest on your stomach or around your neck.

 

These heating pads also make convenient Christmas gifts. Mer-Mer made four last Christmas and went through four tw0-pound tubs of oatmeal in the process.

 

This stuff tasted boring, until Mer-Mer added some spice to it.

 

For each heating pad she made, Mer-Mer used an entire box of oatmeal, half for each of the heating pad’s two pockets. Before adding the oatmeal to the heating pads, she let it marinate in a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice and cloves, using one teaspoon of each except for cinnamon, which was represented twice as much with two teaspoons.

 

To make the heating pad itself, Mer-Mer cut one rectangle, folded it in half putting the wrong sides together, pinned the sides together and sewed. Before sewing it shut, she filled the heating pad halfway with the scented oatmeal and then sewed a partition in the middle of the bag.

 

Stiches in the middle of the heating pad

 

Then she filled the other half with oatmeal and sewed the end shut.

 

A completed heating bag. This one went to Mer-Mer's friend Krista.

 

Sarah's heating pad, featuring kangaroos and strange blue birds.

 

George modeling the heating pad on his stomach. He had a stomach ache from reading too much Microbiology.

 

Mer-Mer tried to nom my neck.

 

In case you were wondering how Mer-Mer makes measurements for her sewing projects, here’s your answer:

 

 

…with Fruit by the Foot.