Modeled photos!

I get SO excited to see my nieces and nephews in things I make them!! I love seeing pictures of them period, so with them in something I made is just the crème de la crème. I made matching outfits last Summer for my niece Sarah and her best friend. Here is a picture of them together in them!

How sweet are these two? My sister's friend is an amazing photographer and she took these pictures of the bffs for posterity!

And here are photos of Sarah in the butterfly dress I made a while ago! Sarah had a butterfly show-and-tell day at school and was excited to wear it.

It was a windy day. She's the cutest thing!

A Blankie!

Speaking of focusing on other sewing skills, I took a serger class! I had previously only mastered the straight stitch on it and was impressed with myself if I could thread the thing in under 20 minutes. Well now I have learned some new skills! I hope I don't forget them before I can use them all.

One of our class exercises was to make a blanket. It was pretty simple, but they taught us to cut a little rectangle in it where we start serging so that when we come back around to finish, it looks nice and professional instead of just serging off in a diagonal. I also used Woolly Nylon in the loopers so that the thread would fill in a little more and be softer than regular thread.

I chose to make a little blankie for my newest niece Gracie Jayne.

Here is the sweet little doll wrapped up cozy in it.

I think she likes it!

Pokemon and Barbie

It has been a while since I've shared any sewing so here are some pajamas I made for nephew and niece.

Pokemon jammies for Sam! I actually made these a couple months ago, or at least finished them then. This applique was a bear with all the little pieces, but I love the results!


Modeled picture!

Sam... I love you. Is it weird that I cannot see a picture of my nieces and nephews and not want to be right there in the same room playing with them?

And here are some Barbie jammies I made for Sarah:

She asked for some at Christmas and I did start back then - good thing I made them big enough to fit in the fall still! I sent them to her last month. The Barbie head and name on the shirt are from a pillowcase I got on ebay for a dollar. Sweet!!

It is funny. I have sewn some clothes for Sarah, and when I started to do that, I worried that the boys would feel left out, but I think it is hilarious that no, they were fine... Sarah actually felt left out and wanted more pajamas! haha! I think it is partly the personalization that goes into them with their favorite characters, etc. Their parents don't love characters on their regular clothes (neither do I) so it makes jammies extra special. I am getting a wee bit tired of pajamas, but it makes me SOOOOOO happy when they love them, that I will probably make them for as long as they want them. At least a couple a year. I think/hope. I do have fun figuring out what to do for the appliques, and getting creative there, even though sewing them can be super tedious. I just want to work on other sewing skills. I am working on some construction jammies for Andrew and will share soon!

3rd Entry

OK this is my last entry for this challenge. What do you guys think? I am calling it the funky gilded butterfly dress.


This one shows the color the best. I edited to add this one because the other ones were looking a little too fluorescent to me! It can be hard to get good pictures! I would have loved to share some modeled ones but these are for my niece in Minnesota and didn't get them there in time. (Well one outfit did, but she hates to get pictures taken lol.)


I used some super soft t-shirt weight knit and the Sienna Dress pattern from Lil Blue Boo and added ribbing at the bottom to make it sort of a bubble/long sweatshirt dress. (Remember those that we used to wear in the 80's??) I also added some ribbing to the sleeve, and pieced the applique. I don't know if I'll ever be so happy to sew a straight seam again after sewing all the little pieces of that applique!! I used Tulip brand fabric spray paint glitter and sprayed each color of fabric really well and let it dry. Then, I cut out the applique using an image I printed out on freezer paper and used Steam a Seam Lite 2 to attach it to the dress. Then ironed that on, and sewed around all the edges!

For the center, I decided to get funky and try something totally different. I rolled up some brown nylon chiffon, and wound and sewed some silver embroidery thread around it. So the little butterfly body is 3-D! Then I used the silver embroidery thread to hand embroider the antennae. This was a fun challenge that Lil Blue Boo offered and I love her patterns!

2nd Entry

This is my 2nd entry in the Lil Blue Boo contest!
Take this cute pattern
and two old t-shirts


...and you can make this! I used the old t-shirts to make this skort. I loved how I didn't have to hem the under shorts - the pattern guides you to just use the existing hem - sweet!! I appliqued the skort and top (I bought the t-shirt below) with a rose motif from some cute brown and pink floral fabric I found at Joann's.


See the cute little undershorts? I know my sister will love that for my niece!

Seams In My Dreams and Chapped Lips

I have been hard at work on some sewing for a contest! This has been very different from my usual rate of just doing a few steps here and there when I am up to it. I have been pushing it hard and will crash afterwards, but it feels good to get things done that I want to do! Just before I fell asleep last night, I realized my mind was just full of seams and fabrics, and appliques........ Also, I have chapped lips. Why do I get this from sewing so much you ask? Well, apparently I stick my tongue out between my lips when I am sewing on my machine, especially if it is something I have to really watch and be careful with. Skiing sounds like a better excuse for chapped lips, or hmmm... maybe kissing... but hey, I get mine from sewing.

The contest I am entering is this one.

It has been really fun to push myself to create something

a little different and see what I could come up with!

OK first up is a dress I made from this pattern. I added some gathers to the middle piece and the bottom piece and then made these fun rosettes for the neckline.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I told Jake I needed him to make me a valentine this year, and he sat right down and made me this. What a cutie. He printed the real heart out from the internet and cut it out. The Feliz Cumpleanos is because he is silly and learned it the other day in Spanish class. :)

I have been working on these two skirts for a while and am excited to share them! I love the colors of this fabric line all together like this. This is Sarah's outfit:

And here is Elise's outfit:

And here is the sweetest little punkin' ever in her outfit:It ended up a bit too big, but I guess that means it will still fit her in the fall!

Some sewing!

It felt so good to get some sewing done before Christmas!!

Ooga Booga jammies for these three



Pictures courtesy of Tiff. She is such a good photographer!

Matching skirt and birdy top sets for Sarah and Elise


close-up of embroidered applique

Presents

Miss Sarah had a birthday a couple weeks ago. This is what I sent her:

A shirt I hotfixed with a rhinestone "5"

A set of jammies with a funny thing she said stenciled on them

and little treat bags for her and Sam

Here she is in her "5" shirt with flowers from her daddy for her flower party.

I just love this picture of her getting her toenails painted! I miss her and wish I could have been there to celebrate her birthday with her in person!

A Bundle of Yummy

Here is my little niece Elise in a onesie I appliqued for her. This onesie was given to my sister-in-law Anne with a really weird applique on it, so we pulled it off and I did the birdies on it instead. Could this baby get any cuter? Dang! I want to eat her up!

And you'd think all she does is smile...

...and goo and try to talk to you. She LOVES when you talk to her. She is definitely a people person already. Hmmm... could she be her mom's daughter?

And her brother Andrew, the entrepreneur has been busy this summer. Busy doing what? Making money. He had a farmer's market with my dad's veggies from his garden and some magnets he made, and he made $25.00. I think I just found a new summer job for Jake next year. Maybe Anne and Curt won't have to worry about putting Andrew through college - if he keeps going at this rate he will take care of it himself. He is so cute and funny. He is always selling candy and wanting to do lemonade stands. He brought me some snickerdoodles for my birthday (made my day!) and he "snicked my doodle!" He told me it was cauliflower under the foil and I believed him. Little trickster. I love the phrase "snick my doodle." Anne said he kept saying he was going to snick my doodle the whole time he was making cookies.

4th of July Part 2

I guess I was being too ambitious saying I would post these the next day. Here are the rest of our 4th of July pictures. We had a lot of fun! Here's yummy little Elise in the flag onesie I appliqued for her. Andrew and Elise togetherJake did a great job manning the fireworks

Sam and Andrew got to pick out which ones we did next. They danced, screamed and jumped all around when each one went off. It made the night 10 times more fun to see how excited they were.

And here's Elise with her hand over her heart. I guess she is as grateful for this country as I am.