Christmas Presents Part 1

This is the first part of  the Christmas presents I did this year.  The other blanket and an apron will be posted later . The crayon holder/coloring book is for my 3 year old niece. The first couple of pages are coloring pages I made of her and her siblings using photoshop. It was so easy to do. I glued the pages together and used my YourStory cutter to make a perforated cut so that she could easily tear out the pages as they were colored. The holder was made completely out of scraps and fusible interfacing I already had on-hand. 

 I added a butterfly and letters using SEI's iron-ons that I already had on-hand as well.

 I can't wait to give it to her. Hopefully it will be a great quiet project for her in church :).

This is a quilt for my newest niece Katelyn (different side of the family). She is only 10 days old. It's part of the eternal project for my mother-in-law and the tradition of giving the grandkids a blanket.

 Previous years gifts can be found here and here

This is it totally finished. I love the red and white. This was also made from scraps I had on-hand. I even had enough red for the backing. The only new thing I had to purchase was the batting. I'm deeming this the Peppermint Quilt since it reminds me of the little peppermint candies. And I am starting some quilting classes at Joann's in January so I can finally figure out how to quilt blankets on my machine. I am so excited for it!!

Linking up with Amanda Jean @ Finish it up Fridays

Did someone say elephants?

If you are reading this Meagan stop right now. You have to wait until Saturday!!

Have I mentioned before there would be a lot of baby showers coming up in the next few months? I know about 18 women that are all pregnant right now. When I say about that's because I lost track after 16. I had two this week. Three I guess if you count the double baby shower on Tuesday night as two. I whipped out these onesies in an hour after work. One of them had a boy, and the other one is having a girl and is due in about 3 weeks. I love the little pink skirt. I call it the "30 minute skirt". The butterfly I had on hand from my days working at the scrapbooking store, and the bow tie I free handed. Not too shabby, huh? Thanks to my sister for the suggestion.

I guess you can call this week a huge dose of quick finishes. This blanket is for the other baby shower on Saturday. I am going to finish it tonight. The elephants I cut out on the LPF using the Animal Kingdom cartridge and dark brown iron-on sheets from SEI. I just love them. My goal for the coming year is to use all my scraps before I buy more fabric. This is one such project. The fabric isn't quite a full-on crib size. It's about 44x54" but I figure a newborn is going to be super small and it will take him a couple of years at least to grow out of it, so I'm solid. I wish I had more of the green fabric to break it up a bit, but I tied it with multi colored yarn so it will still look cute. I learned tonight that I still have a lot of learning on my machine before I try to quilt on it, so tying it will have to do. The back is solid dark brown to tie it all in together. I can't wait to give it to her.

I just love the elephants. I think they are just so cute.

Linking up to Finish it Up Fridays with Amanda Jean. I'm so glad she started doing these again. It really motivates me to finish things up.

Polka Dots and Dragonflies, and Butterflies, Oh My!

I love this blanket!. It's rare that I do a piece of work with such a strong attachment to it, but I really am having a hard time deciding who to give this quilt to, or to just finish it and hold on to it, hoping for one day to have a baby girl I can give it to since it's a crib size. I love the butterflies and the polka dots, and the pink and black and white color scheme. The best part was, it was all made out of fabric I already had. I had originally bought much of the pink and black fabric for a different quilt, but the way I had it pictured in my mind just wasn't going  to when the fabric was all laid out. Thus the idea for this one was born. The dragonflies butterflies are actually iron-ons. Some of the butterflies and all of the dragonflies came from a sheet of pre-made iron-ons from SEI and others were done using the LPF. When it is all said and done I'm hoping to make this my first stitch-in-the-ditch quilt. I generally tie my quilts, but felt that the yarn would overshadow the cuteness of this. Now that I have finally figured out how to drop the feed dogs on my machine after FIVE YEARS, quilting so go much faster. 

Close up of the butterflies and dragonflies.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Prison Suits?

 This quilt was another quick finish. I received the squares a couple of weeks before but between the two baby showers and the Halloween costume there was no time for the quilt top to get done. The quilts were assembled and are being tied to donate to those who are in need during the cold Utah winter. 

I started it Friday night when my husband went to work at 10:00pm and finished right around 7:00 am the next morning. 9 hours start to finish on this baby. The squares were not perfectly square so each one of the squares had to be cut down and corrected, but despite my sewing all through the night, it worked out well and was ready to go for the 8:30 service project the next morning. I took a cat nap between 7:00 and 8:20, grabbed an orange juice and headed out to meet at the church house. The squares are 6 1/2 x 6 1/2. It's amazing how fast you can whip something out when you've got Netflix going in the background, and no interruptions. The striped areas are strips of 3"x 6 1/2 sewn together. It was surprisingly heavy and I didn't find out until later the material was donated by an organization that makes police uniforms and state prison jumpsuits. That explained a lot. But it was good and sturdy, and will keep someone nice and warm. I didn't even mind staying up late to do it since it was going for such a worthy cause.  It's the first time I've made a blanket out of polyester, and it was the talk of the meeting since such an intricate design had gone into it. If I hadn't been so gosh awful tired, I would have taken pictures of all the other ones. Maybe next time. :)

Linking up with Finish it up Fridays and Family Ever After

A 3 Musketeers Halloween

This little princess wanted to be a musketeer from Barbie and the Three Musketeers. Her logic was "She has blonde hair and I have blonde hair." She is my same niece who got the birthday dress that I love. It's so fun spoiling her.

She was so excited. Who's the Best? Aunt Tiff. 

This is the original photo  that we had to go by from http://www.momstakeonthings.com/review-barbie-and-the-three-musketeers-dvd/

Her mom wanted to contribute so she did the design for the gems and attached them. 

 I used  McCall's pattern 6020.

 

 I had to extend the sleeves, skirt, and also the bodice to give it the "v" shaped point at the end.

 Instead of making the circular sleeves to give the look of the sleeves, I doubled the sleeve measurement and gathered it. It was the same process I used for the dress here. I also did a lace-up back with the center section velcroed in. To fill out the dress I made a simple circle skirt out of felt about 4 years ago because some days you just don't feel like messing with tulle.

This was the thank you gift she picked out. This is exactly how it popped out of the box. Her mom did the folding for the bill to make it heart shaped. She picked it out because she said "she makes sock monkeys and she likes them. And she doesn't need money." Such a funny girl.
Love her and loved making the dress for her.

Linking up to Finish it up Fridays  and Family Ever After and is my audition for Season 6 of
Project Run and Play

2 Showers, 1 week, no time

I had two baby showers this week. One I was decorating for, and another one that was 3 hours away, so I couldn't go, but wanted to do a gift.

The decorations are for my sister-in-law. They live down the street from us and are expecting their first baby girl in 8 weeks. Even though there were a lot of emotions, (you know, with us not being able yet to get pregnant after 7 years) I made my best efforts to make the decorations look great. All of the decor is made from ribbons and paper. Here's to throwing out happy baby vibes into the universe!

First ribbon wrapped wreath I've ever done. And by wrapped, I cut them in about 4-5" strips and pinned them to the back. It saved ribbon it took about 2 1/2 rolls of the ribbon to cover it. I just love it. The flowers are attached with pink, black, and white sewing pins to the styro-foam.
All the shoes are even made out of paper.

Blocks are made from empty ribbon boxes I got from Michael's when they were 

re-stocking their ribbon inventory. Then I painted them black and threw in some rocks to keep them weighted so they wouldn't just tip over. All the pink and black paper I had bought about 3 years ago when I worked at a scrapbooking store without a purpose, so this was a great way to keep our costs down for the shower and use up some of my paper stock pile. Then I cut out the words on the LPF.

I know this picture is blurry, but I wasn't even paying attention while I was snapping pictures,

 and I was trying to do it before everyone showed up. The little banner is onesies attached with clothespins that I had also cut out on the LPF. The balloon flowers was an idea I pinned on Pinterest. 

I love the banner and think it turned out fabulous!! Next time I think I would make one long strip of a tutu, glue it down, and then cut it. 4 inch tutus are a pain. It took much longer than it should have because the tulle kept falling off the small sections of elastic. I used a thumb tack to attach it to the wall then taped a flower over it.

These were the party favors we filled with M & M's. I couldn't cut them out on my Cricut, 

(except for the flowers) so all 30 of them were cut out by hand. And were a big hit. I got the pattern for the shoes here. The shoes on the wreath are made from the same pattern. Just enlarged to about 50% more.

The baby book for my cousin. Her shower was originally supposed to be in August, but her little boy had to go through some medical procedures after he was born, so it was postponed and then was re-scheduled for the same weekend. I was already committed to doing the decorations for Nicole's shower, but sent a gift and hope she enjoys it. They are my go-to gifts these days for babies. One day I may get back to blankets, but for right now the Christmas season is coming and is going to be busy, busy.

linking up to Family Ever After for the weekend linky party and the DIY Showoff

Better Pictures

Her sweet mother sent me better pictures and permission to show this cute girls face. These do it so much more justice. Sometimes I look at it and am in awe that I actually made this dress and that it was created in part from her blessing dress. As I was cutting into the other dress I was having major anxiety, but a deep breath and a quick, not-able-to-take-it-back snip with the scissors and I knew it was move forward, or else. Whew! I love it.

Baby Decor

One of the ladies that I work with in the Young Women organization at church is having a baby in a few weeks. For our weekly activity with the girls we threw her a surprise baby shower. My job was the decorations. They aren't finding out what they are having so the decorations were supposed to be gender neutral. When this is the case, I tend to err on the side of boyish rather than adding pink into the mix I stuck with blue, green, orange, and yellow. I whipped together these 3x3 3D baby blocks. They are completely made out of paper using 9"x9" square paper from SEI.
All the letters for the blocks and the banner were made by using the LPF. The Banner was also cut out using the LPF and strung with jute. When the onesies are cut out by the LPF it automatically cuts the slits by the neckline. This made it easy to attach the string to hang it.

Linking up with Family Ever After and DIY Showoff Project Parade

T-H-E Dress is finally done

Back in April, one of my previous customers made a special request that I was happy to oblige. She wanted to take the material from her daughter's blessing dress and use it on her baptism dress. (In our LDS faith your blessing dress is one you wear as a baby when your name is added to the records of the church, and the baptism dress is one you wear at age 8). The trick is that no 8 year old I know of is still the same size they were when they were an infant. After several months of designing and planning and sample dress making. This is what we came up with. She absolutely loved it. Since this is not my daughter, and out of respect for her mother, I have not included her face in these pictures. It was just finished this week.

The bodice and sleeves were cut out using Simplicity pattern 5704. With a slight variation on the sleeves. She loved the elastic band and gathered look of the cap sleeve and it made it easier on me not having to guess how wide around this little gals arms were. The only measurement I had was her waist size, and she was 200 miles away so there was no way we could have regular fittings. But it fits like a glove and I am so proud of it. The top layer of sheer fabric is from the blessing dress, and the mother's hope is to one day use that same section of fabric as part of her wedding veil, so I had to be extra careful with it so it can be used again sometime in the next 15 or so years. The bodice was cut out based on the 51" of tricot fabric that was usable from the blessing dress and then I had to remember my mad geometry skills to figure out where to put the split so you could see the layers underneath.

The little spots you see on the dress are little glass beads I hand-stitched to the bodice. The flower I melted by cutting out circles in satin in 4", 3", 2", and 1" increments and melting with a lighter. I wish the pictures were a better quality, but it was late at night in a kitchen, and the flash on my camera did not want to play nice.

Linking up to this week's link party over at Family Ever After

The Latest

It seems like there has been a lot going on here, but then I look back and wonder where the heck this month went? In the process of this month I was able to whip out these two dresses. I have sweet gal from my home town that asked me to do the baptism dress for her daughter. The trick is that I had to use material from the blessing dress to do it. A little nervous about cutting into the blessing dress, I had to find matching material to do mock ups for her. This is what I came up with.

I love the beading on this dress. It turned out fabulously if I say so myself.

My first time working with tricot fabric. (Pronounced tree-co) It is tricky. I didn't even know it existed until I did this project.

What a fantastic learning experience for me!

what do you think?

Check out the other great projects at Family Ever After this week

Murphy's Laws of Sewing

Murphy's Law of Sewing from 501 Sewing tips by Clotilde (I think, it was in an email I got 4 years ago)

Fusible interfacings always fuse to the iron. If you need six matching buttons, you will find five in your button box. The seam you meant to rip out is invariably the other one. When you are in a hurry, the needle eye is always too small. The fabric you forgot to pre-shrink will always shrink the most. The pattern you wanted to make again will have one key piece missing. If you drop something out of your sewing basket, it will be your box of pins with the cover off. Whenever the construction process is going well, the bobbin thread runs out. The scissors cut easiest past the buttonhole. The magnitude of the goof is in direct proportion to the cost of the fabric. Your lost needle will be found by the person walking around barefoot. Collar points don't match and you've trimmed all the seams. The iron never scorches the garment until its final pressing. The steam iron only burps rusty water on light silk fabric. The sewing machine light usually burns out on Sunday. Pinking shears get dull just by looking at them. Gathering threads always break in the middle.