I accomplished yet another of the projects on my priority list today. The dogs now have some nice mats for their crates. They are even personalized! They were very quick and easy to make.

Materials:

One yard each heavy denim and polar fleece. This is enough to make two mats approx. 35”x28”. I just cut each yard in half down the middle to make two pieces 36” by 30”. My two fabrics were quite the same width so I did a little trimming to match everything up. If you want them to fit perfectly into the bottom of your crate just measure the bottom pan size and add an inch to get a 1/2” seam allowance all the way around.

How To:

If you want to personalize it, hoop your denim and stitch out the name. Because this denim was so stiff I didn’t put an stabilizer in the hoop with it. I did Maizey’s first and some of the stitches weren’t as nice as I’d like them to be so when I did Cas’ I slipped a piece of Heavy Cut-Away under the hoop before I started stitching and that worked great.

Lay the denim piece out flat right side up and place fleece right side down on top of it. Smooth everything out, matching edges, trim any edges that aren’t even.

Round off the corners. I marked them with a chalk wheel and used my magnetic pin cushion as a guide. I chose to round them off to make turning them right side out easier. Pin both fabrics together. Stitch around edge, leaving an opening for turning. I used my walking foot because the fleece likes to stretch under the foot while stitching. I also lengthened my stitch length and made sure I had a jeans needle in the machine.

Turn right side out and clip excess fabric from curved corners and notch seam allowance. (I forgot to take a picture of this step.)

Topstitch approximately 1/2” from edge. Be cure to tuck in the edges of the opening so they get caught in the topstitching.

All done in a couple hour’s work. I like that they are lightweight and easy to wash. No stuffing for the dogs to chew apart and get all over the house. The fleece gives a little cushioning and the denim is durable.

Miss Maizey looks a little less than thrilled with her new digs but that is partly because I moved her crate today from one corner to another and now Cas is in the same room. She doesn’t like change.

In reality the dogs don’t spend a lot of time in their crates. Just while we are out of the house. They are still spoiled and get to sleep on our bed at night. And with my part-time hours and how early the girls get home from school they are rarely crated for more than a few hours at a time. But Cas does like his crate and will just go hang out in their for periods of time. He is also a bit of a hoarder and we will find random things hidden in there. Like the time my friend stayed over to dog sit and after we got home I was cleaning it out and found her bank card still in the envelope from the mail in his crate.

Also, does anyone else think it is weird that two Michigan State Spartans have a dog named MAIZEy? I didn’t ever realize the awkwardness until I embroidered her name in bright yellow on a blue background.

We are having a Swimsuit Sew-Along! Please join us. How you ask? Well for one how about you start by deciding to try your hand at sewing your own swimwear? Then you can follow along as I and my fellow blogger-sew-alongists (it IS a word, okay maybe not, be we can pretend) jump into the deep end and make this thing happen. If you are a blogger that would like to join along you can grab the above badge and add it to you blog and kindly link back here and to any of the other blogs that are also participating. (Please ‘right-click-save as’ the image above and download it to your computer and then upload it to your own photo site or whatever you use to insert images into your blog. No bandwidth stealing please!)

Let me first introduce you to your other lifeguard. Swimmers meet Stephanie. She blogs over at The Petite Sewist and agreed to join me for Adult Swim. We met over on PatternReview.com. If you’d like to join our discussion pop on over to the Discussion Board and introduce yourself.

Now to get us all off the block and into the pool I’ve started to compile some helpful links. I’ll try to add to this list as time goes on.

Tutorials and Tips

Creative Chicks Blog – They have some of the best tips with photos I’ve found yet. After reading through all their pages of sewing tips even the most novice sewer will feel confident to give this a go.

Ten Tips for Sewing Swimwear Fabrics – Straight and to the point. All good things to know and remember.

Kwik Sew Swimwear Tips – Good basic advice from Kwik Sew

Burda Style DIY your swimsuit – inspiration, a few tips, and links to free patterns.

Sew Mama Sew – free pattern and tutorial.

Supplies

Spandex World -  the name pretty much says it all.

Spandex House – I guess if you are not ready for the whole world, just go with the whole house for now.

Fashion Fabrics Club – This e-retailer has gotten some bad reviews on PatternReview but I will say that I just purchased some swimwear fabric from them and it came as ordered in a reasonable amount of time. Your mileage may vary.

Fabric.com – I order from way more often than I should. I’ve never had a problem. One time they sent me the wrong Kwik Sew pattern and when I called about it they immediately sent out the correct one and let me keep the mistake.

Sew Sassy – I’ve never ordered from them but I’ve heard and read very good things about them. Looks like a great place for bra cups, swimwear elastic and other related notions.

Paragon Patterns – If you can get past the poor web design, this site has patterns and notions for sale in addition to tips and tutorials.

Well I think this should be a good start. If you want to participate or have more resource links to share post them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list here. Also post a link to your blog in the comments and I will start to compile a list of participants so we can all stop over for a visit and splash around in your kiddie pool.

I promised yesterday to post about my next sewing obsession, sewing my own swimsuits. I recently had to take Emma shopping for a one piece swimsuit for “swim gym”. It is mid-January in Illinois, I thought we’d be Sh*t Outta Luck as they say. So I started turning the idea of making her a simple tank over in my mind. I did some research on Pattern Review and decided I could do this. I figured that if I did find her a suit that fit it would cost $100 for a size 0 suit that took all of a half yard of fabric to make and she’d never wear it again outside of PE. But she got lucky, we found one that worked on the clearance rack in the back of Dick’s Sporting Goods for $20. But now my mind wouldn’t rest. I ordered some cheap lycra spandex fabric online, ordered a Kwik Sew book from Amazon and continued my research. I spend a lot of money on suits since we put in our pool, usually from Lands End because they have cute suits that fit and flatter a middle age figure. I also used to take Aqua-fit classes at the gym and I liked a different type of suit for those. I’d been thinking I needed to get back to the gym for those again this winter and a new suit or two may just be the motivation I needed to jump back in.

So let me show you what I’ve added to may stash recently:

First of all I ordered this book. It has basic patterns in the back in a large range of sizes. The styling and fabric choices in the photos is dated to say the least, but the information is good and some of the patterns have a lot of potential. The only style really missing that I would like is a racer back tank. I don’t like halter top suits because of my neck issues and spaghetti straps always seem to slip off my shoulders. But I think if I need to I can use these patterns as a starting point and modify them to suit my needs.

This lovely Wonder Woman number is one of my favorites. Not that I’d ever make it but it is good for a laugh or two. In all honesty I do like the bra top style and may use it to modify one of the one-piece tanks to a more flattering style for myself.

The book gives really good instruction for making the bra top and I know that Emma prefers bikinis so I may use it for a suit for her too. She’s more of a Batman kind of girl than Wonder Woman though.

These are some of the fabrics that I purchased. The first set is a black with pink and purple dots and a solid black. I think these will be used for something for Emma. But there is enough black there for at least bottoms or a contrast for another suit. The second photo is a multi-stripe and solid navy. I ordered the stripe online and ordered the royal blue in the last photo to go with it. But the online photos didn’t depict the colors well and in person they don’t match at all. Plus the royal blue is very shiny, maybe I’ll put it aside until I find red stripes and make that Wonder Woman suit after all. The navy in the second picture is from Joann’s. I originally bought it with the idea of making a modified version of the Alison Suit from Burda Style. But when the blues didn’t match in the online purchased fabrics I changed my mind. I’m also on the lookout for a copy of Kwik Sew 2500. If I find it I will make it in purple to replace my favorite Lands End suit.

When will I get to all of this? I have no idea. But I did buy a yard of lycra lining fabric, swimwear elastic and a few types of bra cups at Joann’s last week too so I have everything I need when the mood strikes me. But for today I need to get back into my sewing room and work on yesterday’s list of priorities. I got quite a bit done on the Theater Aprons yesterday afternoon and evening, an hour or two more and they should be done. Then it is on to the Missoni fabric top for Saturday. If that goes together as fast as it should I might be able to start embroidering the dogs’ names on the denim for their beds.