Sewing for the Spectrum

I know many of you have loved ones or know someone "on the spectrum". Someone diagnosed with Autism, Asperger's, ADHD, or any sensory issue really. These projects are for them, or for teachers and therapists who work with them. I hope you like our projects!

These started when Evie and I were trying to think of ideas to help younger ones with sensory issues sit still for carpet time at school. The school itself has vibrating pillows, but not all children like them. One therapist suggested bean bags, but the teacher said they were too large, and the children who needed them would be at the back of the group, and they really need to be closer to the teacher. So being Evie, she asked if there were bean bag pillows that would work. We searched for any that were for sale, that were big enough for a child to sit on, and the answer was no. They are either bag types or small neck rolls. That was the birth of this little seat, or as Evie likes to call it, Miss Muffet's Tuffet...

It's a 16 inch round pillow stuffed with bean bag beans. We found the bean bag beans from Walmart, a HUGE bag is about $10, and we found them in furniture by their bean bags.

We were able to make 8 pillows with the beans and our scrap fabric. The pattern is a free pattern from CluckCluckSew, The Sprocket Pillow. The only thing I changed was instead of a center button, I made a yo-yo and sewed it on the center to cover the seam.

When you stuff, leave enough room for movement. Our first tester loved the pillow, and instead of trying to get up during our test story, they rocked around on the pillow.

Evie was so happy with the results, she has decided that this is her science project this year! We are working to come up with a way to quantify if the pillow helps children on the spectrum sit on the floor for longer periods of time. We are waiting on approval and figuring out how to set up the experiment.

The next project we did was therapy balls. They are stress balls filled with different materials that the children can keep in their desks and feel when then need that sensory stimulation. For this we went to Walmart and bought a few different things to fill them with.

We chose rice, split peas, and navy beans. I can say our tester liked the feel of navy beans best, and that is the one kept as their desk. Again, these are made from scraps and a free pattern for Fabric Balls from Grand Revival Designs. We filled them less than halfway, so the beans and rice had a lot of movement. you can also buy polyethelene pellets online to fill them with.

I hope these projects are usesful! Let me know if you make any of them. These would be perfect little gifts for someone who works with kids with sensory issues!

Happy Sewing!



little steps

We are expecting our third child in January, and are very excited! The girls especially. Yesterday we had midway ultrasound, and were hoping to find out the baby's gender, but alas, the goods were covered. Maybe next time.

However, I have been sewing for the baby since we found out, but because we don't know gender, I have been making 2 sets of everything. The diaper bags I posted a while back are an example of this. I also just did these.

boy set

girl set

If you look closely, in each group the one on the left is a quilt, the one on the right is a flannel backed blanket. I fell in love with the Mr. Men and Little Miss fabric when I first saw it, and had to do something with it!

But with this sewing I am also challenging myself. With each item I make for my baby, I want to make another one just as nice to donate or give. My guild donates to a lot of charities, so most will go to charity.

So far I have diaperbags and the blankie sets, hoping to do some of the projects from the new Anna Maria Horner baby book, and maybe from the Amy Butler baby book. I am just now starting to have more energy, and the girls are both in school in the mornings, so I have some time to sew.

Happy Sewing!

Swap!

Sew.... a group of ladies from the mommy board I am part of get together every few months and do a swap, where we send another person fabric from our stash and they make something out of it and send it back to us. I can't post what I made yet, but here is what I got in the mail today!

A really pretty journal cover! The dot fabric is one of my favorites of all time.

and a very pretty black and white table runner. I love this! Very Modern, and used the last of the Ikea bird fabric I adored.

I LOVE swaps.

Today I finished another hipster for myself.

complete with wallet, makeup bag, tissue cover and key fob. The fabric I found at Joanns, I love pinks and browns. This time around I made the strap adjustable and interfaced it.

Yesterday the girls and I headed into Memphis to visit the Children's Museum. We met my Uncle Joe for a minute, he was passing through on his way to Kentucky.

Rena kind of freaked out at first because she thought it was Papou, and when she realized it wasn't she didn't know what to do! The musuem was great, but packed because of Spring Break. They had a mini town, with a bank, Kroger, auto store, dentists, etc. It was fun. They even have a fed ex plane you can explore, and a River exhibit. The girls favorite was the Disco. Yup, in the town they had a disco...

That was my first time driving in Memphis, I still need to find the zoo now that the weather is warmer. Uncle Joe gave me a box of fabric scraps from all around, and I spent this morning sorting through it. It looks like it is all in great shape, and some of the prints are fantastic. They look like sugar/flour sack fabric!

Now I wonder why we package everything today in disposable packaging. Why not in fabric bags so we can reuse them?

Tunica, MS

So this week is Spring break, and I have two little girls home and bouncing off the walls! my Sister in Law was here with her puppies this weekend, so Monday we stayed home and hung out. The girls had a blast with their aunt and the puppies ( a golden and a boxer, sweeties)

So yesterday we decided to try to find the indoor pool in Tunica, just south of us. A few moms have told me about it. Tunica is a delta town, which means there is not much there. But they started building casinos in the area, so there are some really nice casino funded things down there. There is also a great outlet mall. For some reason Casinos and Outlets go hand in hand.

To get to Tunica you take all highways. It takes about 35 minutes from Hernando. There is not much in that area besides swamp and casinos. Someone said that the casinos float on the water because that is the law, but I don't know for sure. I do know that if you got lost in the marsh, you would become a bog mummy. Scary to think that if you took a wrong turn or walked away from your car you could go missing now only to be found a thousand years from now preserved, a window for the future into our time. I thought a lot about Vegas, the city in the Desert. Tunica is the Vegas of the south, the city in the swamp. The signs for the casinos are bright and obnixious. One has a Paula Deen restaurant advertised. The rest advertise easy slots. Everyone else on the road is over 70 at least, heading to the casinos. Where there isn't a Casino, there is agriculture. Some fields are being prepped for the growing season, some are abandoned. A few houses that dot the road are abandoned, being eaten by the kudzu that is roaming all over the south. Some are still lived in. There are apartment complexed by the casinos, maybe for the workers. The small towns have names like Dundee, which is not only the town name but the last name of 99% of the residents.

After all the casinos is the actual town of Tunica. You can tell money has been infused recently, they build a huge Ag Hall in the last decade, a Tunica Musuem, and the Community Heath and Fitness Center. This is where the indoor pool is.

For a town as small as Tunica and as Remote, the Heath Center was amazing. The indoor pool had an olympic size swimming pool

See the nice digital display? This pool was just nice. It was also fairly empty. I paid $8 for all 3 of us for a day pass, which is unbelievably cheap. The best part, at least for my girls, was the kiddie area

When it was open it was fun, but after about 2 hours there, someone took a dump in the baby pool, so it closed for cleaning.

Today we are going to try the Memphis Childrens Museum, but the girls said they can't wait to go swimming there again!

This weeks Projects

Well, most of what I worked on this week I can't post, because it was for a swap. :(

I did make my purse for our upcoming trip to Disney. It's a hipster bag, has a zippered top and zippered side compartment, and the back has a solid pocket. I have made a few of these, they sew up really quick and are great roomy bags. Here is the free pattern from craftster!

This Wednsday I was at Evie's school to be THE QUEEN OF QUILTS. Last year I did a little book and presentation for her preschool class on Q day, and this year her super wonderful Kindergarden teacher let me come in. This week they are studying Q, so I brought my book, along with the shirt I made to wear as Q ambassador

It was just an iron on applique, I used the heavy duty wonder under. I read the book to them, told them why Q was my favorite letter, then gave the class 2 things I made, the first being the super reader cape

It's hard to see, but I embroidered SUPER READER on the back. They each have to read in front of the class each week, so I thought the cape would be cute. They totally loved it. I also made a small quilt for the reading area of their classroom.

I only had time to do a rag quilt, Rena picked out the fabric. Visiting Evie's classroom made me really miss teaching. The kids were wonderful, after we talked about shapes and what makes a quilt, I gave them some materials and let them design their own quilts. It was a blast! Of course, I forgot my camera at home...

Hosptial Gift

I have a lot of projects in my workroom, but this is what I have been working on for the past few days.

It's a gift for a little boy at Evie's school who is going through cancer treatment. I wanted to give him something to make trips to the hospital easier. The first item I made was the take along tote, which I posted to tutorial to make yesterday.

I love this bag, It is great for kids and traveling.

Then I made a superhero cape from this tutorial. I have an embroidery machine I never use, so I was excited to use it here and for the bag. :)

Evie was my model for the Hospital gown.

This was a really easy project, and thanks to Lazy Girl Designs for posting this free pattern.

Of course, I had to make a quilt :) They had spiderman flannel, and after getting instructions from a fellow guild member at the sew in on Saturday, I had to give making a rag quilt a try. It is so soft and warm! The sewing part didn't take long at all, but the snipping took forever. Oh, and a tip, take to the laundromat to wash and dry. I thought my washer could handle it, but no, stopped during the rinse cycle and gave me an error message. Hade to look online how to fix it, then cup the water out of the machine (3 buckets worth), then find the hidden button trap and empty it. I got water all over the floor, and this came out..

That is all lint from the quilt! It was as big as a baby head, after the water was squeezed out it was the size of a fist.

I hope this little boy likes it, Evie is taking it to school tomorrow to give to him.

Take along tote

I'll love these bags! I have made them for my daughters for when we travel (above), it is big enough for coloring books, crayons, and small toys for inside the car. This one is for a little boy going through cancer treatment, so he can take a few things with him during hospital visits.

I have now published a pattern for this bag! Find it at my etsy shop as the Children's Travel Tote!