Lollipop Dress

I feel like I'm getting some creative energy back. I've been sewing and crafting a bit more lately and I'm remembering how much I like it. The whole process of creating something from start to finish, and then actually being satisfied with the end product, is very gratifying.  I made this dress for Kate's 3rd birthday party. I used a fine welt purple curduroy from Joanne's and for the applique and trim I finally cut into some Heather Bailey fabrics that I was given last Christmas, and love. I've still got more and I'm trying to decide what to do with it. I used McCall's 5692 pattern and it was simple to sew. I'm learning that after making so many little girls dresses, you can use the pattern as a guide, but I tend to do things more my way, even if it isn't the right way, or what the pattern specifies.  I used heat n bond for the applique and should have referred to my favorite tutorial, as I got adhesive all over my ironing board cover. Oops. This was fun to sew and hopefully I can find time to make a matching one for little sister.

mom's apron

Another project I found time for was this little apron I made for my mom. She is a preschool teacher and on her wish list was an apron patterned after her apron she wears to work. I guess she doesn't want to wear an apron around the house with a big teddy bear on it? Anyway, it was super simple. I traced her apron onto fabric, made ties and pockets and made it reversible by sewing everything together, right sides together, leaving a small opening at the bottom. Then I turned it right side out, sewed up the hole, did some topstitching and voila! Done. It came together really quickly. The only thing I would do differently second time around--cut the apron pattern out on the fold. It didn't matter too much, but it would have been helpful to have both sides symmetrical. Merry Christmas, Mom!

girly purses

Santa was a little too ambitious this year and didn't get started early enough. That is my excuse for a few of the planned projects that went unfinished. Fortunately, I don't think anyone noticed but me. These girls purses, however, I did find time for! I made 4 of them, for my nieces and little cousins. I glued sequin trim on the front as a monogram because I always love a little sparkle and filled them with treats my little girl likes to find in her purse. I've used this tutorial before and it is very simple. One day I will get around to making a large one for myself!

sparkly skirt

A super, simple variation of a tutu. Shiny satin, sequin material and sparkly tulle. I used a skirt Kate had to use as a guideline, then lengthened it a few inches so it would be extra full. I cut a front and back of each type of material and sewed each one together at the sides separately. Then I layered them together, turned down the top to make a casing for the elastic, sewed and then added elastic. Instant butterfly, princess, ballerina, whatever you want to call it dress up skirt in 20 minutes!

A Summer Shirt

It's a lot easier to take pictures of my girls than myself! It is kind of hard to see the detail of the shirt in this picture because the fabric is so busy. {The fabric reminded me of a dress I saw in a Boden catalog recently. Maybe one day I will be able to afford their clothes!} To see a better picture of the shirt, click here. I saw this shirt/pattern on a new-to-me blog, presser foot. I love their idea of doing a project a month where everyone sews along. I am a little late with this project, but wanted to try it. The pattern is McCalls 5388. I find it's more challenging sewing for myself than the girls because I am more particular about the fit. For example, initially this shirt fit like a maternity blouse. I'm done with maternity clothes. Not quite the look I was going for! I took it in a few inches and added a belt, so hopefully now it looks like I have a waistline. If you end up using this pattern, know that it runs big. Make the size top that you would buy in the store. Your measurements will tell you to make a much larger size--don't do it. It is satisfying to update my wardrobe with $5 and a few hours of work. For my next project I'm going to try and copy a linen skirt from jcrew that I don't have a pattern for... should be fun!

a summer skirt

Do you like the model pose? I tried. I'm having fun sewing a few things for myself these days. With no time--or money--to shop lately I'm trying to update my wardrobe a little bit in the hour or so I have to sew in the evening. It seems that while I love to be stylish, comfort has really taken over. Something about changing diapers and doing puzzles all day that doesn't really allow for a fussy or fancy wardrobe. I love wearing skirts in the summer and I have one knit skirt that I love, but it has bright flowers all over it. Not exactly something that can be worn different ways. I got this book about sewing knits a while ago and thought I'd finally give it a try. While in theory it should have been easy, I had some major tension issues with my machine. I'm thinking a serger is a must for sewing knits--maybe I'll have to put it on my birthday list. While it's not perfect, it turned out well to enough to get lots of wear this summer. It's comfy, can be worn with flip flops or flats and cost less than $10 to make. Now if only it would stop raining and warm up so I could wear it! Isn't it supposed to be April showers? I think we've had rain for 5 days straight!

sisters dresses

simple. matching. not pink (i love it... but i think ALL of gwen's baby clothes are pink!) inexpensive. easy to sew. polka dots.

I've sewn a dress from this pattern before. There are only 3 or 4 pattern pieces to cut (depending on if you use sleeves or not) and that's about all I can handle these days. Maybe appropriate to wear at a certain special event coming up next month? I can't believe graduation is here already...

Easter tees

given just a little bit early. These were meant for the girls Easter baskets, but I sometimes get a little too excited about gifts and give them early. Especially when a lazy sunny afternoon prompts a matching photo shoot. I used my favorite tutorial for appliqueing and finally tried making a fabric yo-yo. They are easy and addicting. I'm already thinking of different ways to use them. The peach bunny fabric is scraps from the lining of Gwen's Easter dress that my mother-in-law sent and the bunny's tail was made from the dress fabric. We've got a bit of a robin's egg blue and peach theme going on this Easter. Now if Spring would just stay, we could wear our bunny shirts outside to play!

diaper bag for dolly

One of Kate's favorite books to read is "Little Mommy". The little girl in the story takes care of her dolls just like a mommy would. Kate loves reading this and then pretending to be a little mommy to her own baby dolls. I'm very excited (and a little bit nervous) to see how Kate responds to there being a real baby in the house. I'd been given advice to have a few special gifts just for Kate when the baby comes home. I thought this would make the perfect "big sister gift". Her very own diaper bag complete with supplies for dolly: a sling, diapers, wipes and case, bib, burp cloth and bottle. I saw the idea here (along with the sling tutorial) and was able to use scraps of fabric I had to sew everything. I used the basic template for this shoulder bag and adjusted the measurements for a little girl. The diaper tutorial I found here, as well as the little wipes case. The bottle I found at the $1 store and I'm afraid that might be the favorite item out of them all! Either way I hope that Kate will have fun being a "little mommy" to her baby dolls and hopefully won't feel too left out when I've got another baby around to take care of!

church bag

Until now, we've been using an ugly blue and white canvas bag that says "Martha Stewart Living" on the side (I must have got it for free somewhere) to tote all of our scriptures and books to church on Sunday. Every time I look at it I get a little bit embarrassed. It is not cute. At all. I got a burst of energy last night (nesting?) and decided to rummage through my fabric scraps to see if I had enough fabric to come up with a new bag. I found this black and white upholstery fabric I bought from the remnants bin a while back and decided it would be perfect. For the lining I used some leftover red corduroy from my Christmas stocking project and an hour later had a new bag! Tote bags are a really great project. They don't require a pattern, are forgiving on measurements and sew up fast and easy. This is actually the second bag I've sewn. I did the first a few nights ago--it's a shoulder bag version that will be a diaper bag for Kate's dolls (I'll post pictures soon)-- so I went with what I learned from that tutorial and modified it based on the amount of fabric I had and made 2 handles instead of 1. Now I can throw the ugly Martha Stewart bag away and as Kate's books get pushed out of the diaper bag to make room for all the things a baby requires (I'm going to have to take so much stuff) her books can occupy this new bag.

Easter Outfit

I had a goal to get this finished before the baby comes, and I did! I'd been coveting the Oliver + S pattern for this jacket and skirt and was so excited when I got it for Christmas. To make it even sweeter, my mother-in-law, Leslie, (who gave me the pattern) and I scored this suiting fabric in the discount bin at Denver Fabrics, $11 for 3 yards of 60 inch wide! Now, thanks to a generous offer from Leslie, the baby will have a matching dress with the leftover fabric.

These pictures weren't the easiest to take. 1. Kate doesn't like to get dressed, so to have to do it an extra time was a little bit painful. 2. She doesn't want to pose/smile/hold still for anything!

The pattern was a lot of fun to sew and the directions were really straightforward. I used a double-needle for the first time--I didn't even know there was such a thing--for the top stitching with peach thread to match the peach buttons. I'm happy that this is done and it fits! Now I'm thinking about making a yo-yo into a hair bow with some of the fabric scraps. We'll see if I can fit my belly in front of the sewing machine.

easy pillows

My energy for sewing projects is definitely waning, however I do have a few I want to get finished before this baby comes. These pillows have been on my list for a while and they were a quick, one evening, gratifying project that I should have done much earlier! I bought the fabric back in October at my visit to Purl Patchwork and really love it. I made the pillows myself out of muslin and batting which actually made constructing the pillowcases even easier than using pre-made pillows because I was able to cut the fabric all together, just making the case fabric a 1/2 inch or so bigger. I've used this template before from this book and love it. It's easy, looks nice, requires no zippers, yet can be removed to wash. I made one pillow for the rocking chair (that already gets it's fair share of use) and one little one for Kate's crib that is slowly becoming a big girl bed. They are already nice and wrinkled and worn in, and my back feels much better!

Animal Puppets

I found these pictures on my computer and thought I would share these easy puppets with you. There isn't much to write about--I saw some in a Land of Nod catalog and they looked easy enough to copy, and they were. I used felt (try and get the good stuff with some real wool in it) and drew patterns on paper before tracing and cutting out the fabric. I gave these to a few of Kate's little friends for Christmas as well as my nieces and nephew to go along with the puppet theater. The possibilities with these guys are endless!

Puppet Theatre

This was a fun and easy project I did for my nieces and nephew for Christmas. I got the idea and instructions from the Bend the Rules Sewing book and it basically consisted of sewing long, straight lines. I think my favorite part of this puppet theatre is that it rolls up into a nice compact bag. I'm becoming more aware of the amount of "stuff" kids can generate, so it's nice to have something that doesn't take up a ton of space! This is the first project I've done from the book and the instructions were really easy to follow. Maybe next year Kate and baby sister will be getting this for Christmas...

family pajamas

You know when you get the catalog with the family all in matching pajamas? They sell them everywhere at Christmas. Well, I always feel kind of sorry for the dad in the picture. It's usually some cheesy model, but still, does he really want to be wearing those red plaid flannel pajamas that his wife, son, daughter, dog and cat are wearing? I doubt it. And if he does, he still looks kind of ridiculous. Despite my opinions on matching holiday pajamas I thought it might be a fun and easy project to make our family pajamas. I wasn't going to have them all be some red plaid tackiness, but had a hard time finding a print that would be cute for Kate and Paul. So I decided we could sort of match. Sort of. I made Paul plain black pj pants, for myself I used a printed cotton and I made Kate's a red flannel with a ruffle made from the left over material from my pants. I like them...ok. I guess I should have gone with my instinct and skipped the "sort of " matching idea. I think next year I'll just make pj's for the kids. My girls. (Wow, that sounds weird.) Because kids are allowed to match and not look silly. They can wear as much plaid or flannel or crazy bird fabric as they want and I'll still think they look pretty cute.

Advent Stockings

I am so happy, excited and relieved that this project is finished! These stockings will serve as an advent calendar for our family this year, and hopefully many years to come. The original inspiration for this calendar came from a mittens advent calendar I saw in a catalog last Christmas. I loved and if it weren't so expensive, I probably would have just bought it. I waited for it to go on sale but never did, instead sold out. I considered this year (for a brief moment) to knit mittens for all 24 days and quickly realized that the calendar probably wouldn't be finished until 2020. I then searched around and was inspired by this and this stocking advent calendar and decided stockings it would be. I love a little sparkle in holiday decorating so that's where the sequins and trim ideas came about. I used corduroy for the stockings and made 2 different patterns. The stockings are small, they will just hold slips of paper with different advent activities that we will do each day leading up to Christmas. Maybe someday I'll incorporate small gifts or tokens, but for now I think we've got enough stuff. Kate is still a little young to get really excited about this but I'm hoping in the years to come the kids will really look forward to each day's activity. And if they don't, I know I will. I do love the holidays!

Christmas Robe

I think I love this robe more than Kate ever will. One of my favorite blogs to read is SouleMama and I remembered seeing a similar robe she made for her daughter last Christmas. I am planning to make Kate some Christmas pj's and then remembered the robe and it quickly made it's way to the top of my project list. I found the vintage pattern on ebay as well as the flannel Michael Miller fabric. The flannel is so soft I'm going to have a hard time waiting until Christmas to snuggle her up in this! It came together really quickly. I got a little hung up on the button holes--I've only made 1 before. But I think I've got the hang of it now. I should probably put the Christmas projects on hold for a while and think about Thanksgiving. I am cooking the turkey afterall.

quick, easy and inexpensive napkins

We use a lot of napkins in this house. It's either the little hands that are always messy (or the big ones), I need something to put the toast on or to wipe up the floor. We are always using {and buying} a lot of napkins. We usually use cloth napkins at dinner but we don't have very many. So here are the red polka dots again in action! I cut rectangles, ironed the edges (folding in 1/4 inch twice so the raw edge isn't exposed) and sewed! It took about 30 mins from start to finish and couldn't be more simple. {Just a side note, I bought this red fabric sometime in college on a random trip to walmart. It was before I was really even sewing, I just remember it was on clearance for $1 a yard so I bought 3. I've had it forever and it has served many purposes! Suddenly my kitchen is made up of red polka dots. Maybe one day I will use it all up...} So help save the planet and yourself some money and sew some napkins!

meet Lucy

Aka "dolly". This gal has been on my project list for a long time. And I'm so excited she's finished! I've been reading the Wee Wonderfuls blog for some time and love the dolls she makes. So when this pattern came up for sale, I couldn't pass it up. The pattern was really easy to follow, just a lot of steps and quite a bit of hand sewing involved. There are still more clothes to be made but I think I may take a break for a little while! I'm really happy with how it turned out. I worked with a wool blend felt for the first time {as opposed to the cheaper polyester felt more commonly found} and I really noticed a difference. It made me want to find some 100% wool felt. Felt is kind of addicting. I'm already thinking about all of the things I want to make with it! For now it's off to a tea party with Kate and Lucy. You're all invited :)

Brown Jumper

There is a sad story that goes along with this jumper. Sad to me, anyway. This summer I found Kate some adorable new shoes at the Nordstrom anniversary sale--brown and pink mary janes. I thought they would be perfect for fall so I bought them a size to big so she could grow into them. On our way back from California we mailed a few boxes because we couldn't fit everything into our suitcases. I put the shoes in the one of the boxes thinking we wouldn't need them for a while. We got back to Connecticut and my first project was a brown and pink jumper to match her new shoes for fall. A few days after we arrived the boxes came looking like someone had taken baseball bats to them! I guess the journey was really long! Most of our stuff was fine and we were just relieved it arrived. I began unpacking the boxes and only found 1 brown mary jane. I was sure the other one was buried under something or kate had found it and took it in another room but after a long search we determined that it was gone! The little brown shoe lost along the highway somewhere in middle America clearly fell out of the ripped box. What good is one shoe!? Especially when you have a brand new jumper to match! Needless to say, I was a little disappointed. We've filed a claim with UPS so hopefully we get some money and I can look for another pair of brown and pink mary jane's to match... if not, she's wearing the jumper anyway!

Enough with my sad story, the jumper itself was very simple to make. I embellished the top with 2 covered buttons. I bought a covered button kit at Joann's and it's about the coolest kit ever! Next I'd like to try these embroidered covered buttons. Until then, be on the lookout for one brown shoe. It's got to be somewhere in America. Lonely, I'm sure.