A sundress made from her own artwork!

A few weeks ago, Lainey came home from school with a picture that she drew (and painted), that she was really proud of.  She showed me the picture, and then spent several minutes explaining the details to me.  It was adorable!  And melted my heart, because she drew a picture of the two of us. 

So, I finally took the plunge and uploaded her artwork to Spoonflower, and had a yard of custom fabric printed.  I tried the kona cotton, just to dip my toes in! 

I LOVE it!  Can't wait to try it again!

Here's the artist in her new dress!

Custom sundresses are now available (with YOUR child's artwork printed on the fabric) in my Etsy shop!  Come take a look! 

What's a fringed hobo bag between friends?!

Started planning well in advance of my friend Liz's birthday this year.  What to get for the girl who loves funky modern yet feminine things, with a vintage twist? 

Who am I kidding, I knew I'd make her something.  Crochet another scarf?  It's a sure hit, and she loves a handmade scarf.  (or 2, or 10).  But another one?  Hmmmm... 

and then it hit me.  I should make her the fringed hobo bag from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book I've been meaning to try for-EVER!  Perfect! 

I would never have guessed how many cut pieces would go into making a bag!  Never!  If I remember right, this thing has about 30 pieces - including the outer fabric, lining, and all of the interfacing.  Whew!!!  Good thing I didn't figure that out until I had already cut the "hobo" shape out of my Melody Miller fabric, or I might have just given up in cutting despair.  But no, I caried on. 

So glad I did!!! 

Want to see it?!!!

And here's the little zippered pouch that coordinates with it...

I love it!   I hope she does too.  Happy Birthday Liz!!!

Finally some new pillows

BAD blogger!!! I just noticed that my last post was a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnng time ago!!!  Life is busy!   Really busy. 

I've been sewing for a few years now, and just recently (FINALLY) decided to make some new pillows for our house.  Strange, since this is a simple thing to sew, but pillows seem to fall to the bottom of the "to sew" list for me. 

I was completely smitten with Ruby Star Shining line from the amazing Melody Miller, and finally decided that if I was going to cut into my little stash, I would love to see it every day in my living room.  (And then I won't have to go visit it in the cupboard in teh laundry room, where my stash resides). 

So, one fantastic tutorial on how to install a piping and a hidden zipper on UTube later, my new pillows were born.  (Bonus:  the gentleman on the UTube video has a great English accent, and calls his pillow a "cushion" - which makes it so nice for someone who has to watch the 3 part video many, many, many times before finally comprehending it well enough to go forth and sew.  Thank you, Phillip!!!  Well done!  Cheerio!

I LOVE 'em!  (The pillows, I mean)!  And my husband doesn't hate them.  I'm calling that a winwin. 

So, without further ado, please meet my new pillows. 

Oh, I am really more excited than is appropriate!  But a HIDDEN ZIPPER!!!  Wow!  I really really did it!!!  (jumping up and down)!!! 

Rapunzel dress

So I finally did make a princess dress from my stash of Heather Ross's Far Far Away 2 line.  This is the Oliver and S Ice Cream Social dress, with a little yellow and white polkadot print on the shoulder, and some coordinating pink velvet ric-rac at the seam just to punch it up a little.

I really like this style dress for a little girl, and especially loved the ones I've seen on Flickr where they used all one fabric/print instead of color-blocking it.  My only problem was that the shoulder is cut as one continuous piece front and back, so Rapunzel and her tower would have been upside down on the shoulder in the back had I used that print for the whole dress without altering the pattern.  But I still love how it turned out, polkadots and all!

  Lainey loves to wear her new dress - so I imagine I'll be making a few more of these.  First, I really want to try out a couple of O+S patterns I haven't used yet....  everyone raves about these patterns, and now I can see why. 

Love that twin needle!

They seem to be kind of a cross between the standard sewing pattern and a boutique pattern...  not nearly as annoying and unhelpful as the standard pattern, and not quite as long-winded as some of the other boutique patterns I've tried.  Really a good balance for the "intermediate" sewist.  And while it's not a "quick sew" it really does come out nicely, with the inside looking almost as good as the outside, and some nice details, like the notched pockets. 

Reinterpreting the pink princess

Does anyone else get a little tired of the pink princess theme?  I love pink and purple and princesses and sparkles and glitter and fairies and rainbows and unicorns and happily ever after as much as the next girl, but I just can't quite bring myself to actually buy or sew with cheesy pink princess fabric. 

But my little girl LOVES pink princesses and wants a pink princess dress.  And a pink princess school bag.  And a purple princess dress.  Etc...  so I'm always trying to dream up ways to reinterpret the theme and make things "pinkalicious" enough to capture her imagination while still appealing to my sense of style.  So, a big "Thank you" to Miss Heather Ross, for designing Far Far Away 2, the ultimate princess collection of fabrics, done in a sophisticated color pallate that still incorporates the all-important pink and purple. 

After hoarding this fabric for quite a while, too anxious to actually cut into it and make anything, I finally made a few skirts, which I'll show you if I ever get it together enough to take a picture while she's actually wearing it!  More recently though I made a tote bag - inspired by Lainey's recent slew of princess drawings.  I love how she's so proud of her artwork, and likes to explain what she's drawn, and tell us little stories about the people in her pictures. 

She was "just a little bit blue in her face."

"She is purple and blue.  Her crown is TURQUOISE."  Not blue.  Not Green.  Turquoise.  Thank you very much!  And "it sits on TOP of her hair!" 

My favorite simple tote bag tutorial is this one  from Skip to my Lou.  It's not only lined, but fully reversible, and I love to sew things that are finished so well they are as nice on the inside as the outside.  I didn't make my tote the same dimensions - but otherwise followed her instructions.  

The larger areas are appliqued wool felt, and the detail work is embroidered.  I added in Lainey's signature too, and "08/11" so we'd have the date. 

In just this past month, Lainey's preschool teacher taught her to make her "E's" stand upright, instead of laying down and napping.  (We both LOVE Miss Kim and Debbie)! 

I photocopied and reduced the two drawings that inspired the design element on this bag, and made a little laminated tag that is sewn into the bag in lieu of a name tag!  Lainey loves to point out how she made it, and mommy made it.  What a fun way to collaborate w/ my daughter!  And to preserve a tiny bit of her voluminous artwork! 

So, where's the Heather Ross Princess fabric in all of this?!!  The lining!  It is this gorgeous purple sleeping beauty print.  Now to get really brave, I'm going to try making a Far Far Away 2 "princess dress" using the  Oliver and S Ice Cream pattern for the first time.  Wish me luck!

A quilt for Jack

Yay!  I finally finished Jack's quilt!  It is just like Lainey's, made with patchwork squares cut from his baby clothes, with a minky backing to keep it soft and light.

 

It was so much fun to go through the giant piles of tiny little baby clothes and decide what to cut up for his quilt.  And I used lots of little extras, like buttons, pockets, and patches too. 

A little onesie from Aunt Ann, who is known for finding gifts with people's names on them!

A patch from his first pair of "COOL" jeans, and the little crab from the outfit he wore in his birth announcements!

Little pockets for any treasures he collects...

A little bit of hand embroidery (not my specialty)!  I hope Jack knows how loved he is, every time he cuddles up with his new quilt and drifts off to sleep. 

The mail must go through!!!

We all got new shoes recently, and as the shoeboxes began stacking up, I got inspired to make something out of them.  What does one make with a bunch of empty shoeboxes, you ask? 

I'm so glad you asked!

I spraypainted them out on the driveway (got some funny looks from the neighbors), and turned them into mailboxes for Dog, Cat, Fish, Bird, Frog, and Pony. 

Why, you ask? 

I thought it might be fun to make a matching game for my little ones - with pictures, words, and numbers!  So once the mailboxes were labeled, I made letters and postcards for them to deliver.

And what do our little mail carriers use to haul the mail around to all of the mailboxes?  Why, mail bags, of course! 

I used Skip to my Lou's reversible tote bag tutorial, with a rainbow home-dec weight material and a bandana as the lining fabric.  

So much fun!!!  I hope they'll like playing with it!  And, the song is stuck in my head!  The mail must go through.... no matter if it rains or snows, the mail must go through!  No complaints though, it replaces "In the garden of vegetables" as the current "stuck in my head" selection, and none to soon either! 

Happy mailing!