Creating has been non-existant...

Halloween came and went, Thanksgiving came and went and now Christmas is almost here. I am not ready yet...just hold on! I think many of us feel that way. So I am just now getting to my Halloween costumes and the pictures that went with them. My dear Tee wanted to be a mermaid. I wasn't real thrilled about it but worked it out and here is the final product.

Each sequin was sewn on individually. It was a good think that I was sick at the time. I had an awful lot of down time to sit and hand-sew sequins.

She made a lovely mermaid.

My Jay wanted to be a pumpkin this year and it was one of the most fun costumes that I have made yet. Easy and adorable!

Awfully cute if you ask me.

My oh my, where has the time gone? My world has been everything except sewing and crafting. Since Halloween I don't think I have made anything significant at all. Just wait...my world has been a sea of this:

Things to share and a sneek peek...

Where has the time gone? With the start of school and the end of summer and canning, my creative side has been put aside for a while. But...to no avail has returned. It started with a birthday gift for Tee's best friend.

Last fall Tee accidentally left her poncho at Jay's house and Jay fell in love with it. So I couldn't resist making a perfect gift for a great little girl. The best part was all but the trim and zipper were from my stash, making it a very inexpensive gift.

It is made from purple and black fleece with a cute pink and purple trim. It is hard to see but it has a hole for the hands to slip out and into the pockets.

The trim ended up pink and purple due to the fabric store not having the right shade of purple. I think it ended up okay. For such a simple (no sleeves, no legs, ect.) poncho it turned out very cute and loved by a special little girl. We hope you love it Jay.

Then there is another special little girl in our lives that had a birthday and chose to be baptized. That included a special dress for the occasion. She picked one out that she liked and the finished product is pretty close to the original. It is made from white gauze fabric and completely lined with broadcloth. I must say that this gauze fabric is very forgiving when mistakes are made. It is very hard to pick out but also very forgiving.

I think the biggest challenge with this particular dress was the sleeves. With them not being a set-in sleeve or with an open underarm it created some constructing techniques that I don't use very often. It was a learning experience and I was very happy to do it. It did end up a little big. I guess that is what happens when she lives 800 miles away.

Every little girl's special dress should have a matching one for their favorite doll. This one is slightly different than May's actual dress, but very close and perfectly modeled by Addy.

And now...a sneek peek of the current projects for the upcoming holiday.

Sequins and more sequins...

The finished projects will be up soon! I just can't wait!

Way Cute Scripture Bag

My Tee has a great primary teacher that really encourages the kids to bring their scriptures to church. In our house the kids have a scripture bag that they share. It began to create a problem when Tee takes it to church and the boys want to too. So the problem is now fixed. Tee had a brithday this week and her gift? A cute, custom scripture bag. And so far she loves it.

It is made from a dark blue denim and accented with a dusty pink. I hand emroidered her name on it. The top flap has a small pocket with a zipper, perfect for pencils or other small items. It is held closed by the clips on the bottom. Around the front and back edges is pink piping.

On the top we have a handle made from backpack type straps, reinforced with a denim hand hold. The pink squares reinforce the handle and add just enough cuteness.

The top flap is lined with the contrasting pink. For now it is a little big but soon she will be getting a quad and it will fit perfectly. Hopefully it will be great for quite a few years (you know how their opinions change as they get older).

New Inspiration

I really enjoy looking at other people's creative blogs and stumbled upon this one a few weeks ago. Currently they are having a give-away for a kid sized sewing machine and project kit. Can we say, perfect for my Tee!?!

http://www.skiptomylou.org/2009/09/15/sewing-with-kids/

New Aprons

I have been very busy the last couple of weeks...but not at my sewing machine. In my kitchen, canning the wonderful harvest of the season. I really love this time of year when there is so much out there that is fresh. I do have a couple of small projects that I want to share. Inspired by a friend of mine, I decided that all the kids needed new aprons. They were so simple, the kids love them, and all created from my stash. That makes me happy! I got a new one too. But who is going to take MY picture?

Look, it is reversible!

They all are reversible with the pocket fabric on the other side, with a pocket of this main fabric on the other side. They actually look for reasons to wear their aprons...mostly wanting to help me in the kitchen. I can only take some much of that sometimes.

I also finished a shirt for Tee. A while back I found a woman that was making little girls dresses from a man's dress shirt. Tee is a little bigger than that, so hers is a long shirt. And she loves it! I found it a Goodwill. Really a great find! It is kind of hard to see (I may need to start hiring a photographer. I really am not that great at this!) but down the front is the buttons (sewn shut actually) and gathered at the neck and sleeve with elastic. She was very excited to find it in her drawer one morning.

My quilt is continued...

Well, time has passed and lots of things have been made. First of all I am so excited to say that my quilt project is no longer on hold and is ready to be put all together. But more of that in a minute.

Some of my time lately has been spent preparing for the upcoming Kindermusik semester. My kids have been taking Kindermusik classes (basic music, learning to love and appriciate music, ect) from a wonderful woman in the area. She mentioned one day that it would be great to have a bag to store the kids instruments in. So I went home a made one for the four kids in Tee's class. The teacher loved them, so I made some more. The semester is about to start and I wanted to have some on hand for the new kids starting their classes. They are a simple corduroy bag with a drawstring and they work wonderfully with the kid's glokenspiels.

The next project has been a new apron for Tee. She has been making many cinnamon rolls lately with only one apron around. That means that in between batches I have to make sure to get her apron washed. I thought forget this, I will just make another one so that she can switch. I am really happy with how this one turned out too.

She loves it, which makes it even better.

I think the ric rac around the edge and the ruffle at the hem really make the apron cute and girly. We all know that Tee is very girly!

It, of course, ties in the back.

And now to my quilt that has been hanging on in the back for quite some time now. Partly because of all these other things I have been working on and mostly because I ran out of the blue and white fabrics. So being stuck at 62 finished blocks and needing 70, I had to decide what to do next.

This is what I decided. With the motto...use what you have before you buy more...I came up with these fun yellow and red squares. I really love them. There is only 8 of them and they will be spread out randomly among my more subtle blue and white blocks.

I think it will be okay. Stay tuned to see the finished product. Okay at least the finished top will be soon. The whole quilt might take me a while. We will see. School starts in a week or so. That will change my life dramatically.

Weddings...

My life has consisted of quite a lot in the last few weeks and I am ready for it to settle down. Will that happen? Probably not. So, most of my creating has been placed on hold due to the fresh fruits and vegetables of the season. They have kept me in my kitchen making sure that we have food on our shelves, for a rainy day. Those rainy days come in many ways and I am sure grateful for the storage that we have, even when stored in odd places around our home. Anyway, on to the fun stuff...

One of the young women in my ward was married this last week and she asked her cousin to make two of the bridesmaid's dresses. She called me and asked if I would help her along with the project. It was quite a project. With one bridesmaid living 800 miles away and the other being herself, it makes it kind of hard to fit them just right. She did a great job despite all the struggles and they both were beautiful!

Also pictured here is my skirt I did to wear to my sister-in-laws wedding. I don't make a whole lot for me now days (my kids are way more fun to sew for) and this turned out really well. I have loved it. It is a chiffon skirt with flounce and fully lined.

This red dress was a very fun project for me! This mother of the bride (same wedding as the bridesmaid's above) came to me with the problem of not being able to find anything red that she liked but found this yellow dress that she liked. So with picture in hand, a pattern with just the basic shape of the dress and beautiful red fabric I made the dress of her dreams. It fits just right and turned out better than I ever imagined.

Busy times

Sorry no pictures to post yet. But I am very excited to show you my recent creation. A dream dress that started with just a picture. Other projects have been put on hold due to this wedding (no it isn't the bride's dress, although that would be fun too).

Quilt along update

If you haven't noticed on my side bar on the right...I am a little excited about this quilt along project. It has already been a lot of fun. So the day I decided to join in on the fun, I went to my stash and found these two fabrics sitting right next to each other. They just screamed, "Make us into a quilt." Okay, I know fabric doesn't really talk, so don't add too much craziness to what you already think of me. I am not sure it will be enough so I will have to search some more to supplement. My fabric went into the wash that night so it would be ready the next day.

For Christmas last year I was given a new rotary cutter by my dear hubby. I told him at the time that I would have to make a quilt. So now 7 months later I pull it out of the packaging and cut my fabric into strips.

I really couldn't wait to do just one block a day like the quilt along. I sewed three strips and ended up with 8 finished blocks the second day.

The second day was so much fun that the third day was spent sewing more strips and cutting them up to make blocks, for a grand total of 36 finished blocks on day four. I think I am having too much fun!

Girly jammies, continued.

In making these jammies for Tee, I chose to use Simplicity's pattern number 4767. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I made a few alterations to make it very simple that ANYONE could make these. The first is that I used the short sleeves and used the hem as a casing for the elastic, instead of hemming and creating another casing. I left off the ruffle at the bottom. One thing to note is that you might want to go a size or two too big due to the chest fitting pretty snug. Not tight but snug enough that it is hard to get in and out of.

Give them a try. They are easy and Tee loves them!

Wedding Fun

This last weekend my sister-in-law was married and the creative side to me said, "What better excuse to make a new dress for Tee (my 6 year old daughter)?" Well the dress evolved from just a dress to matching ties for her brothers (they can't clash with the wedding party - didn't you know?) and a new skirt for me. At the last minute I decided to add my husband in the mix. If everyone matches he should too, right? Well, he got left out because I was 6 inches short on fabric. Can you get more handsome boys? I think I was blessed. I was really impressed with these two guys. They have only worn clip on ties before so I was kind of worried that maybe they would throw one of their fits over this new tie. Well they didn't and they looked so handsome. They even thought they were pretty cool.

Somehow in my mix of pictures I didn't get a very good one of Tee's dress. So here is the best one I have and soon will get others that show better detail. Tee went to the fabric store with me and picked out a pattern, showed me all the alterations she wanted on it (yes, is it sad that a 6 year old knows what alterations can be done on a pattern to make it what she wants) and picked out her fabric. The only thing different from what she wanted is that she asked for it to be floor length. I made the executive decision not to due to that fact that the wedding was in Las Vegas in the middle of July. If you don't quite know what I mean, we will just say that the weather was up in the 115 range.

Tee's dress turned out beautifully. She chose elbow length sleeves with a flounce on the hem. I added silver beads to the princess lines, waistline, and sleeve. She chose my favorite type of satin to work with. It also has a netted slip underneath to help it "poof." What little girl doesn't like her dress to "poof?"

I was also able to alter the flower girl dresses to help them show a little more color. That was pretty fun too.

Before...

...And after. With these dresses the lining was the right green and the overlay didn't let enough of it show so I cut off the hem of the overlay and pulled up the hem at the hip to allow for more color to show. These two little girls were very cute walking down the aisle.

Girly Jammies

My sewing machine has recently been beckoning to me, so my computer has waited - ever so patiently for pictures of me newest creations.

On the top of my list of favorite things to make is dresses for 18" dolls such as the American Girl doll. Tee has a knock off doll and I love to sew for it. Silly I know. So when Tee gets something new, alot of times so does her doll. It makes it more fun! On our recent trip to visit family Tee and one of her cousins had so much fun together playing, dressing alike and all the fun things little girls love. So her mom and I made matching jammies for the girlys. It just so happened that we had enough left over for their dolls too.

Way too much fun, if you ask me!

Quilt Along

I have been inspire and am ready to start my next quilt. I am ready and it won't take so long this time. I have joined a blog quilt-a-long at crazymomquilts.blogspot.com and I am really excited! If you are up to it join us! I'll keep you posted on the progress.

9 Year Old Quilt...Finally Finished

I am SO thrilled to announce that my quilt is FINALLY finished. So this quilt has been in the making now for 9 years. Yes that is a long time, and I have made many things since the start. Lets just say...I am not a very good finisher. I love to start things but am not so good on the finishing part...unless there is a deadline. I do deadlines very well. Usually the night before, but deadlines are good. So when my mother-in-law took the kids for a week to let me rest from being sick for a week prior, I used my time wisely and finished several things that have been waiting for my attention. My quilt being one of them. After much waiting, may I present....

And best of all, it was finished just in time for the Fourth of July.

So how could a quilt take 9 years to complete? Well that is a very good question, indeed. It all started when a good friend of mine and I went to the fabric store. Yes it has been one of my favorite places for a very long time. We came across this very fun fabric that had 2000 written all over it. Perfect we thought, we are graduates of the year 2000. What a perfect graduation quilt. Well, hers was finished within a few months, and mine sat in a box. I moved away and started college with the intentions of working on my quilt (the first large one I have made). And it still sat in a box.

Then I got married and had a baby girl. My quilt was put off once again. The perfect opportunity presented itself three years after the purchase of my fabric, when we spent several weeks in California. When we packed to go I brought along my sewing machine (did you really think I wouldn't?) and three or four projects, my quilt included. My husband was working and I had my baby, now almost a year old, and my few projects that I had brought along. With no other obligations, I set up at the kitchen table and finished all my projects except my quilt. With nothing else to do I went to my grandmother-in-law (she is a quilter) and said, "Where do I start?" And thus my quilt had begun. I enjoyed it so much that I finished the top in three days or so. Thank goodness I had a good baby. She played and played. We left California and my quilt sat in a box.

Five long years later, after another child, a move, a third child, and four more moves, my quilt made it out of the box and onto some quilting frames. A dear friend spent several hours with me tying it and it was almost done, but not quite. It sat around for another several months awaiting the final binding step. Why it took so long? I don't know. I am not a very busy person. : )

So when grandma took the kids and the Fourth of July was upon us, my quilt once again made an appearance, and this time it is finished! I have been so excited about it. It is 90 degrees outside and I am still huddled under my quilt. I think I am ready for the next one...but this time it won't take so long. What good is it sitting in a box?

The kids are away and Mom has played...

My "to sew" list is shrinking...I may need a new project. It has been so fun to have a couple days to rest, relax and sew! That is pretty much all I have done for two days now. But don't forget the naps. The things I have made while the kids have been gone are going to have to wait a few days, due to lack of models. Funny how when I have the chance to sew it is always for the kids. Hardly ever for me, although I have a fabric for a new skirt just waiting to be created.

The other day I caught a sale at JoAnne's that I just couldn't pass up. All their clearance was an extra 50% off. So the boys got new Jammies and a matching pillow case. All for a dollar a yard. Call me crazy (okay I know lots already do) but that is a good deal! And they each got to pick out what they wanted. Too much fun!

Tarryn pick some out too but has chosen to make her pillowcase herself. It is a very slow process but she is doing great. Who knew a 6 year old could sew? Her jammies are waiting till she gets her pillowcase done.
Pillow cases are very fun, in my opinion. You can do whatever you want and to see how happy my kiddos can get over their pillow is even more fun. They are very easy if you want an easy project.

At our ward party last week the activities committee asked me to make a family flag to represent us. Of couse, as usual, I waited to the last minute to finish it up and have decided that a few modifications are going to happen, but overall I am pleased with it.

Stay tuned...when my models return...girly jammies with matching doll jammies, 9 year quilt project...FINALLY finished! and a cute, cute girly dress!

Boojiboo Flirty Apron GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Boojiboo Flirty Apron GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Check out this apron that makes me just want to cook, not sew. How odd is that!

Lisa's Dress

I have been a very busy lady lately, but not creating as much as I would like. For some reason that gets thrown out the window first when you have a family of young children. Maybe that will change in the fall as school will start. Maybe not.

So my niece chose to be baptized this last weekend and gave me the privlaige of making her dress for her. Boy was that fun. I think the funnest part was letting her pick everything out. She chose a pattern, and of course it was white and said this is what I want. She was so beautiful in it too. Congrats Lisa and thanks for sharing your special day with me.