Christmas Gifts

A couple of my nieces this year got pretty lucky. I was having so much fun sewing for their dolls that I may have gone a little over board. And thanks to Molly, Addy and Sydney, we have a nice little fashion show for you.Molly is ready for bed. This flannel nightgown matches the little girl nightgown that went to one of my nieces.

Sydney, Molly and Addy are sharing with us their new swim suits.
Molly is set to go trick or treating. Her pumpkin is made of fleece with a knit turtle neck and pants underneath to keep her warm.

This box-pleated jumper is 100% wool with a black knit turtle neck underneath. She is also modeling a fleece hat and scarf.

Sydney is showing us her flannel pants with a fleece sweater. You can't see it but it also has a kangaroo type pocket on the front.

Molly is ready for a play date a the park, but not till summer.

Molly and Addy are set to go the the holiday party.

Call me crazy, but I still love to play with dolls. I bet you would never have guessed that. I was so excited to package these up and send them to the lucky little ladies. Hope they enjoy them as much as I did.

Cute Cute Noelle Quilt

As with every quilt that I make, this cutie has a story. This one a little more of a story than some others. It all started with my quilt group. Where else would it start? This particular quilt was put together using a non-bonded batting. That means that the batting will come apart after using it and then you get little bits of batting spread out in globs. I'm sure you have had a quilt like that before. So when you have non-bonded batting the quilting needs to be closer together than if it is bonded batting. With this in mind, I brought the quilt home, ready to machine quilt it.
Then my sister-in-law got really sick and we needed to make the 12-14 hour (depending on conditions of children) drive to Salt Lake City, Utah. Quite honestly, I don't do well just sitting around. I like to have something to do. So I grabbed this quilt, my needle and thread and decided to hand quilt it. I had a few hours to kill.

I didn't work on it much on the drive there because we left late enough in the evening that it grew dark rather quickly. So during the next week, while we were there, I had some time to work on it some more. Then we packed up and come home. My quilt still unfinished by the time we returned home.We got home, school started and life began again. My quilt sat in the closet waiting for me to stop and enjoy it again. That time shortly came when my sister-in-law took a turn for the worse and passed away. We again made the venture to Salt Lake City, with a few hours to kill. I kept at it, this trip was a little more hectic and we came home again with the quilt, still unfinished.

This sweet little one was finally finished this last week. I had a back injury that left me completely down for a week and a half. My that was sure boring. I don't do well with that. But I have a great support system, husband and friends! I love them all! Thanks to them, we made it. And my quilt it finally finished, all done by hand. I don't know how many I will do by hand. They require a lot of sitting around.

One of my other sister-in-laws nicknamed this one the "Noelle" quilt. I think I agree. Too bad another sister-in-law (yes keep counting, there is 6 sisters on my husbands side) is having a boy.

I entered a challenge...

...I hope I win! There are some really great things submitted already, so we will see. Check it out here and enter for yourself.

Miss Tee's baptism dress is my entry. If you didn't check out the inspiration, go here. If you didn't get a chance to see here whole dress, go here and here.

A good picture...

I realized that I didn't get a full standing shot of her dress to give you the full effect. Thanks, Stacy.

Quilts...quilts and more quilts

In the mix of all that has been happening I have been getting together with a small group of women to quilt. We sure have a great time and have become good friends. Some laugh at me...mostly the husbands of the other ladies. You see, most of these women are in their sixties and seventies. I don't really know how old they are but you get the idea. And then there is me, in my late twenties, hanging out with these older women and having a great time.

It is interesting what brings a goup of people together. We all like to quilt and we have a common goal. To provide quilts to people in the community that may be in need. I don't think there is a better way to build friendships than by serving together. I don't accomplish nearly as many quilts as these other ladies do but here are a few that I have been able to do. I must say that I have learned a lot from these women!

This quilt was a one panel piece of fabric that I was able to machine quilt and bind. I have now learned how to actually machine quilt a quilt. I never really knew you could do that and now I am doing it myself. It is a small baby/lap size.

This quilt I was able to piece from some left over blocks from a different project. That was pretty fun for me to be able to use something that I had already started. It too is machine quilted. My second or third attempt at free motion quilting. I think I may have the hand of it. Although it definatey takes longer than straight line quilting with my walking foot!

This quilt is actually Ace's quilt. One of me friends gave him this animal/creation fabric and told him that I needed to make him a new quilt. So I found something to go with it and he loves it. I asked him if he wanted free motion or straight line quilting and he asked, "Which one is faster?" So that is what we did...straight lines. Doesn't hurt my feelings.

Ace is also our helper. Since the other kids are at school and I am the only young mom that attends, he gets all the attention. He is definately our little quilter in training. Thanks, Ace.

Baptism Dress

I have been a busy mama lately. Sometime this summer I...

moved,

went to 2 family reunions,

went to Salt Lake City, twice,

and made two dresses for a darling little girl to get baptized in.

I am not really sure how it all fit in. Oh...that is why my head isn't really on straight.

A sweet little girl needed a pretty white bracelet to go with her new princess dress.
Many, many beads were used on her dress. Two and a half packages to be exact...probably several hundred. (The lining peeked out in this picture. The hem ends with the line of beads.)

The neckline had to match the hem.

I couldn't turn this picture so forgive me and turn your head instead. The back laces up and she loved it. It helped with the fit also. All summer I have been thinking about this dress and I sat Miss T at the computer and have her take a look at some dresses online. Mostly to get an idea of what she liked and not. I have a bad habit of making her what I think is pretty and not what she likes. So I don't think that this is fully what she wanted, but she loved it in the end and it is exactly what I pictured in my head. I love that. Not always things come out of my head the way I picture them.

The inspiration came from this dress. And I sure enjoyed every step of the way. Stay tuned for the other dress. I still need to take pictures of it.

Recent Wedding

Before we moved I had the opportunity to work on a wedding. These three darling girls received matching flower girl dresses. Their grandma knitted them matching sweaters. The oldest has an American Girl doll (an 18" doll-my favorite to make clothes for) who received a matching dress as well. They were darling!

New Ties

I took a few minutes from my crazy wedding work to make new ties for my boys. They turned out great, were easy to do and the boys were proud to wear them.

Cute Cute Dress

Among everything else I have to do, I took the time to do something just for fun. I know you are thinking...fun? I have had this fabric and pattern picked out since my dear Tee was a toddler. I just never had the chance to get to it. At that time I had her, a baby and was pregnant with the third baby. And I wonder why I didn't get to it. So I finally have it finished and I am quite sad that I didn't get to it when Tee was little. But now my neice gets to enjoy it and spin in circles like little girls do in fun dresses.

This is a simple dress with a peter pan collar.

The pinafore had pin tucks on the bodice and the hem.

Cute puffy sleeves with an arm band.

The pinafore is the same front and back (the back doesn't have the pin tucks) and it ties in a bow on both sides.

I really enjoyed making this and would have loved to see my dear Tee in it. Maybe next time. Now she gets other fun and fancy things. Coming up in the fall is her baptism dress. She is very excited about that one, as am I.

I have finally got my camera out...

I have finally taken some long overdue pictures of recent projects to share. And I have been busy! I am very excited to share that my quilt along top is finally complete. The quilt, not yet. But the top is finished! I am very pleased with how it turned out. Despite the hiccups along the way.

I have given my sister the privilege of finishing it for me. I hope she enjoys is as much as I did and doesn't worry too much.

I did a doll quilt for miss Tee for Christmas to go along with her new jammies. I love having scraps around from things like that to work with. It was very fun for me. I don't know how much she really appriciated it but I had fun. Isn't that the whole idea?

This happened to be a really fun project for me. I am in the leadership for the children at church and as a presidency we decided to do something special for the children that are choosing to get baptized this year. We put together a personalized scripture bag for them with things helping them understand what being baptized is all about. A friend helped with the embroidery and I put the bags together. All 11 of them. Yes, there are 11 eight year olds in our ward.

Each bag is made from a lightweight denim and accented in their favorite color. I laughed a little when out of 11 kids there were only 3 favorite colors. I was pretty sad to realize that I forgot my camera to take a picture of all of them together. What a fun project!


I was able to find some straping that I attached a colored ribbon to accent the bags. Very cute! The colors chosen were pink, red and blue. They all turned out great and loved by the children! Congrats to these sweet spirits!

The DIY Dish

Some new people to inspire me. Check out their button I just added. I love finding new ideas. As if I don't have enough to do already. They are having a sewing machine/embroidery machine giveaway and I really want to win. Okay, with over 3000 entries I highly doubt I will. But, it doesn't hurt to try. Will update soon...I have several projects that need photo shoots. Hang in there.

Some of the Holidays

The holidays were really hard on me this year. Usually they are very busy but this year we added a funeral and a wedding to the mix. Both involving trips elsewhere. I am greatful they are over and things have settled down. I even have rekindled my relationship with my sewing machine...I am happy to report that it still likes me. So even with the craziness of the month I got a few things accomplished. I finished working on my "sea" of fabric only to create a "sea" of jammies.

It was very fun to do this for my sister. If you look closely you can find...(it is like my very own "I Spy" game) one little boy jammie pants, five little girl nightgowns and two doll nightgowns. Because your doll has to match too. If you didn't know that, you may not have a little girl around.

The nightgowns fit an 18" doll such as the American Girl dolls.

And since I was making jammies, my kids got matching ones too. 9 total...6 girls, three boys and three dolls. I am already planning next year.

Tee and Jay wanted to give pillowcases to their cousins (the cousins draw names on this side of the family) and these are what they picked out. It is pretty fun to take your kids to the fabric store (call me crazy I know) and let them pick out what they want and what matches it. They really have a good eye.

This is really our first year with teachers and I think they are great. Our teachers do so much for our kiddos and have such a hard job! With the news of the funeral we took the kids out of school the week before Christmas in addition to their winter break. I thought I had that whole week to finish up gifts and get the teachers something special. This was a quick gift that I put together for our teachers. Cute, cute reindeer made from a bottle of sparkling cider and brown fleece. I hope it made our teachers feel special and help them know that they are appriciated.

I am back to the creating game...I am not so sure about the computer game. I will keep the camera handy!