Another Comfy Outfit

Now that my serger is back, I just cannot get enough of sewing stuff up for my girls. It seems to sew so much faster and the seams are just SO NEAT!  Did I mention it tears through multiple layers without a hiccup!

I stocked up on even more knits after I discovered this site  (Chez Ami) as a place to order cute knits at really affordable places! I had a little trouble ordering online, but a phone call to them cleared it up quickly. :)

Fabrics Used ...

Top: Jersey Knit - Turquoise Multi Butterfly Dot from Chez Ami

Shorts: Knit Cafe Dot Green City Weekend by Oliver + S (the waistband is Modal Spandex from eBay)

Square Top made with the free Square Top Tutorial by Lil Blue Boo. My daughter is 2 yo, so I used a 26" square for her. It worked great! The Shorts were made with the "Perfect Shorts Pattern" from Lil Blue Boo. I may be obsessed with these shorts - they are SO FAST to make & work up adorably.

She makes quite the model posing up on Daddy's tablesaw (don't worry - she was supervised!).

It was hard to get a picture of the hot pink waistband on her, so here's a close up of them without the model.

Driftwood Cruisers Upcycled Dresses

 

I've posted a couple times before about my husband's hand crafted wooden bikes / cruisers. The Driftwood Cruiser logo is so cool, I got to thinking that I should snag a couple of t-shirts and make them into dresses for the girls.

Since the t-shirts are black, I wanted to cute-sy them up a little bit. I have quite a bit of red and white stripe interlock leftover from making the twirl skirts  so I used that to make the sleeves and create a 'bubble' band around the bottom of the dresses. I used red ribbed knit for the arm bands & the neckband.

The dresses turned out even better than I 'saw' them in my brain! :) So next year, when we head to Barrett Jackson - the girls will absolutely sport these dresses! I think they make a good marketing tool!

How do I get them to pose together? I don't. I ask them to twirl in the hopes of at least getting them both in a frame!

 

Pattern Used: Lil Blue Boo Sienna Dress Pattern. Modification - add bubble band to bottom of dress at 75% of the circumference of the bottom hem. Add band to sleeves too.

Lots of Leggings

What can I say? On vacation, I let my kid walk around with a big bag of chips. It just makes her happy! What makes me so happy is seeing her all cutesied up in those ruffly leggings. Wondering if I made them, yep. Assuming after my recent sewing trend that I used a Lil Blue Boo pattern, yep. These were easy and fast to make - I see more in my future!

The pattern shows you how to spruce them up with ruffles like these aqua ones, or add elastic to ruche them on the sides (black and white ones below). Of course I used the options and have still yet to make plain ones. My other daughter was uncooperative but also has a pair of the aqua leggings & the B/W ones.

With preschool starting in less than a month (!!) I feel like going on a sewing binge and making lots of clothes for my girls. They only like to wear "soft clothes" (knits) so I know which section of my stash I need to delve into.

Here's a couple shots of the pants in action. The have a yoga style waistband so they fit well and are adjustable in the sense that you can roll the waistand over to make the pants a little shorter if needed.

The black and white ones have elastic ruching down the outside sides. Love the added touch!

I went to the Ribbons & Lace store here in town recently and found some fun elastic trims - in fun colors. I'm gonna add those to the next batch of leggings I make.

Fabrics:

• Aqua - City Weekend by Moda for Oliver + S
• Black & White Stripe - Michael Miller

Both of these are amazingly soft, thick and just feel amazing. Now that I've had the opportunity to work with what I think are cheap knits, I am IN LOVE with these makers. I love them so much, I actually went back to the store and bought the City Weekend line in all colors! I also bought a couple other Michael Miller knits too! (They were 30% off because apparently the knits aren't selling... lucky me!)

The Next Challenge

Projects due here on Wednesday!

My Garage Sale Score on Vintage Crochet Booklets

On a recent trip "home" (at least my original home aka Minnesota), I spent a lot of time garage saling with my friend Sue.  At one garage sale, I scored a big bag of vintage crochet booklets that date back to the late-1930's for just a $1!  Sure, to most this was a bag of musty junk, but to me, it was pure gold.

I got not one, but two 1940's books on crocheted handbags.

I love the detail of the crocheted zipper pull.

The bags in this book are made of cordet, soutache, gimp, ribbon braid, bagtwist, straw, plastic and wool; innovative.

 This book is filled with table coverings of all types.

I don't know about you, but I usually dress this elegantly when I sit down to crochet.

 There were two books on edgings.

I always wonder how you could really use one of these, but I guess ladies don't really honk into their hankies, do they?

I love the crazy color schemes on these hankies.

 The final two are for household items and pot holders.

This one is called "Gay Gadgets."  Since when are slippers considered gadgets?

Here's an example from the "Gay Gadgets" book.  That pumpkin pin cushion is pretty cute.

I love the graphic on this 1939 booklet!

The graphics inside are just as good.

This is just a sampling of the booklet I got.  There were about three times this many dating all the way up to the 1970's.  I didn't bring much back from my garage saling adventures with Sue, but this and the time with my old friend made it all worthwhile.

The Winner of the Harry Potter Challenge is...

Sarah!

Sarah made the Harry Potter Pocketbook.  You can read more about the Harry Potter Pocketbook here.
You can read about Sara's project, the Dobby doll, here.

Thanks for voting and check back tomorrow to find out what we'll be up to next!

Harry Potter Challenge Submissions

In the spirit of the *final* Harry Potter movie coming out this week (excited but sniff, sniff that it's over!) we challenged ourselves to come up with some Harry Potter Crafts!

Dobby Doll, read more here.

Harry Potter Pocketbook, read more here.

Check them out and vote for your fave :) Voting closes Tuesday @ midnight.

Dobby Doll - Harry Potter Submission

I give you the Dobby Doll with a Gryffindor spirit knitted scarf! (You got that, right?)

My husband asked if I made a voo-doo doll.

My youngest daughter took one look and pronounced 'hims scary.'

I look at him and wonder where cute little Dobby went? He turned out a little creepier than I intended; however, he is so funny looking that I cannot help but laugh.

To make this creepy Dobby Doll, I traced the shape of Dobby onto two pieces of muslin and sewed him up. I stuffed w/ polyfil and drew on his face with Painter's Fabric Markers (like I used here). I used a scrap t-shirt sleeve to make his dress, which is tied on with a piece of yarn. Then I knitted a mini scarf in the Gryffindor colors, to show Dobby's love for Harry. :)

Dobby is seriously one of my favorite characters in the series ...and I just knew I had to include knitting somehow in this challenge (due to my love for Mrs. Weasley and all) Love her!

Anywho ...hope you enjoy the Harry Potter submissions and be sure to vote for your favorite :)

Challenge Submission - Harry Potter Pocketbook

I have a Harry Potter posse. We’ve seen the last 3 films together so it was a no brainer that we would be getting together on opening day to see the final installment. We’re geeks alrights, but not generally the “dress up as characters from the movie” type geeks. Still, I wouldn’t be opposed to a cool HP accessory so when Sara proposed the Harry Potter challenge, I knew I would be making a HP pocketbook—literally!

My Harry Potter pocketbook--literally!

I’d seen people make purses out of books before and this was my chance. I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at a garage sale for $5 (even used HP books don’t come super cheap!). First I cut out the innards, then I decoupaged the dust jacket to the book cover.

My pocketbook started out as an actual book.

The hardest part of this not very hard at all project was to sew a liner and add handles. You can find several good tutorials out there like this on at Hungry Panda Clothing. I flubbed up and added my handles after I put in the lining (oops). Oh well, it looks fine to me!

Looking into the purse so you can see the lining.

So, I’m all ready for Friday, July 15th when you will find me at the theatre with my HP posse watching “You Know Who” going down!

Don't forget to vote!!!

Doll Clothes - Yippee!

My daughters have finally hit the doll phase, and I'm not sure who is more excited - me or them! I am so tickled they are suddenly into dolls and being little mommies. Because, after all - the crafting possibilities are endless!

(ps - I only have two kids, so the third dress is for the other little girl at 'daycare' ... apparently we have hit the phase where it's better if all three girls have the same thing or same type of thing, otherwise some serious toddler bickering goes down!)

Not sure why the dolls look so cute - UNTIL they are 'posed' for a picture wherein they just look a little creepy!

I downloaded Lil Blue Boo's Lil Sally Dress pattern the other night, and whipped up these three dresses in NO.TIME.FLAT. Super easy, super quick & super cute! Don't you love the little flutter sleeves?

So from time to time when I make my girls dresses, I am definitely going to use the scraps to make coordinating dresses. I've already made them some cloth diapers for the dolls (but cannot find them to take a picture!), and I see all sorts of other baby doll goodies in my crafting future! :)

Ohhh, just remembered we have two Pottery Barn Kids dolls that the girls got as gifts a while back. The Lil Sallly Dress Pattern includes that size, so I'll have to try it next. Maybe those dolls will photograph a little better?!

The Double Wedding Ring Quilt, or What I've Been Doing With All My Time

The Double Wedding Ring Quilt I made for my cousin Christa and her now husband, James.

Seems like I haven't been making a lot of stuff lately and that's because my creative life was completely dominated for the last two months by one single project:  the Double Wedding Ring Quilt.  I started this months ago, but even so, I brought it right down to the wire.  It had a due date of the Saturday before July 3rd (aka, the wedding date).  I took the last stitch late in the day on that Friday. 

A close-up so you can see some of the detail.

This quilt was machine pieced and machine quilted.  My friend Denise offered to let me quilt it using her big quilting frame and, boy, am I glad that I took her up on that!  It made my life so much easier!  The quilting turned out to be beautiful.

There are thousands of pieces in a double wedding ring quilt.  I helped to work in an organized, planned fashion.  I honestly don't know how you could do it any other way.  

The "A" pieces ready to be sewn into arcs

Piles of arcs ready to be pressed.

The "melon" pieces piled on top of the centers.

This old enamel pan is what I used to keep all the little pieces and the templates organized while I worked.

I'm pleased to report that the bride and groom loved their quilt.  I hope it is with them over many, many years of wedded happiness!  Congratulations Christa and James!