A fun package

This week I recieved a fun package in the mail. A week or so ago I actually won an online blog giveaway. I couldn't believe it! I have never won something like that before. So I anxiously awaited the arrival of my package, all the way from Canada. Well, Canadian Thanksgiving and The United States Columbus Day made my package come awfully slow. The fun part of recieving this package was that I knew only of the pattern and DVD coming. All the rest were fun treats. Thank you Madame Samm! What a treat! This pattern will soon be used. I am so excited!

I've been busy...

This lovely stack of fabric has hit the rotary cutter. It doesn't look quite the same anymore. More to come soon.

New Quilt for Jay

This post has been a long time in waiting. Mostly because the quilt has taken me at least a year to complete. Closer to two if you want to be honest. It all started with a piece of fabric that a friend passed on to me with these African animals on it. I really wasn't sure where to start. I mean it had squares with animals printed on it. Then it came to me. Highlight those animals in a quilt block. So I started cutting and sewing and pulled together the blocks. They hung on the wall for quite a while before I decided what to do next.

In the meantime, I had talked to Jay about these animals being his new blanket, in hopes that he would give up his baby blanket that had been washed and chewed to shreds. When I finally decided what to do next, I gave the stack of blocks to Jay and sent him to the living room floor and said to lay them out how he would want them to be for his quilt. The only rule I gave him was that no two animals that were alike could be next to each other.

He had a great time doing this and took his time. He actually put some thought into it. I mean, come on, he is only 7. So I took his layout and added sashing and made the blocks into a top. He was so excited that it was a finished quilt top and he wanted to sleep with it that night. I said no.

Some time passed and I took it to my quilt group to baste it. And then it sat in the sewing room some more. Then I machine quilted some of it. And then it sat in the sewing room again. Poor quilt just wanted to be loved. I finally got up the excitement to finish quilting it about a week ago. Jay was so excited that again he wanted to take it to bed with him. But the binding wasn't on it yet. Sorry buddy. So that night I got right on the binding and he got to have it the next day. The best part...he traded me, my quilt for his baby blanket. Hard to believe he actually gave up the baby blanket. I am just glad to have it finished. It feels so great to finish a project like that!

My brand new Etsy shop

I am so excited to announce...I am starting my very own Etsy shop. If you haven't heard of Etsy before it really is a great place and you should check it out.

You can find my first listing here.

There will be more to come. I decided that I had to start somewhere.

Just for fun I made this sweet dress for a nieces birthday. I hope she likes it. Tee was quite funny. She wanted to package it up but I told her she couldn't till I took some pictures of it. She took the pictures for me. I think there were 20 of just this dress. I had to laugh.

WIP...no longer

Today was a pretty good day in the sense that I got a lot done. Despite my headcold I spent time in the sewing room. My Work in Progress pile shrunk! I love that feeling.

Today I:

Ironed the ironing pile (and it was a pile)

Hemmed a pair of shorts

Fixed a shirt that needed repairing

Finished machine quilting a quilt

Now it doesn't look like I did that much but it sure feels good to have my table almost all cleaned off.

What did you do today?

The stack is no longer a stack

My small stack of fabric has turned into many little dresses. It was awfully fun too! I have such a great time sewing little dresses and only one girl to sew for. So when I knew that I could get things to some nieces without having to pay shipping, I jumped on it.

This peasant style dress is very cute and comes together very easy. I made one for my sweet Tee and had to make some more.

Tee got a matching one with a cousin. Except that I had to add a strip at the hem of Tee's because she is so darn tall. I am having to do that a lot lately. She doesn't get the match with anyone very often and she really loved it. I am so greatful to get the share other little girls in my life.This one was for a friend's birthday gift. Her little sister loves to play "dress up" and I just happened to be there when she tried on this dress. A few sizes too big for Emmy but just right for her sister.

Emmy also had to try on Tee's new skirt that I made her for school. Again a little too big but so cute and I can't get Tee to model this cute for me anyway.

These peasant dresses have an elastic neckline and sleeves with a ribbon bow at the the neck as well. The sizes are very forgiving if you get it a little too big. It ties in the back and the neck stretches. Can't get much better than that. They are great for using up the remnant pieces of fabric that I buy. You don't need very much of each color. I have now made 5 of these little dresses and I think that this color combination is my favorite. Although they are all VERY cute on each little one.

Let's do some catching up.

First off, I really haven't been in the sewing room a whole lot in the last couple of weeks. This is the time of year for canning and I have done my share to make sure we have our food storage for the year. It has been time well spent. So...here we are catching up on a few projects that I just haven't gotten around to sharing.

I had two new nieces born this summer and both needed blessing dresses. Sweet Abby's was requested to be a daisy dress just like the one I shared before. The other one was a little harder. Little Audra was intended to have a different dress but my plans changed...

Her dress began to form in my head. Then as I was trying to recreate it into fabric, it just wasn't coming together. Sometimes that happens to me. I hope I am not the only one. So two days before I needed to get it in the mail or it wouldn't be there, I scrapped the dress and started over. Call me crazy! I know I was thinking it. But this one came together and went in the mail.

A while ago I came across this white linen skirt at Goodwill. I fell in love with the sheer, embroidered hemline. Even though it was a size 4 (sorry...no longer fit into that size) I bought it anyway. This was the time to refashion it.

So here we have our before picture. (I don't do many "refashion" projects)

Since it was linen I decided to keep it simple. This fabric really didn't need much to make it pretty. I had a simple, short sleeve and added a daisy trim to the neckline.

The gathered skirt was already hemmed for me with the adorable embroidered hem. Gotta love that!

And here we have our after shot. A simple, white, linen dress.