Mary Engelbreit Peasant Dress

Most of the time I buy fabric because I like it.  I mean don't we all.  But in the case of this particular corduroy fabric, after receiving it in the mail, I wasn't so sure I liked it up close.  ( Isn't getting fabric in the mail the absolute best??!! )

It seemed kinda awkward or something, I do LOVE bright colors but...then I realized that the flower are very reminiscent of Mary Engelbreit's.  Who I adored as a teenager. I know who was into Mary Engelbreit as a teen?  Anyway, I am going to chalk up this choice to some deep inward love of bright and happy flowers. 

I do feel my daughter is very bright and happy so maybe that weighed into the fabric too.  Thus I've coined this dress "the Mary Engelbreit dress".  I made this dress the same way I did this one.  My only change was to do three quarter sleeves.  To do this I looked at my flashback skinny tee to decide how long they should roughly be and then lengthened the short sleeve peasant dress pattern piece.  

She wore this to church last Sunday with some light pink tights.  The dress must be a hit because as soon as it was clean again she was wearing it.  This dress definitely had to grow on me!  I am sure to some this dress is a bit crazy, but for this Mama and her 4 year old we think it is pretty FUN!

Last Sunday was a fun clothing day as I realized that 3 out of 4 family members were wearing things I'd sewn.  Carter is wearing an outfit from this fall's KCWC and I'm wearing my first washi tunic which I still need to blog about.  Why is it SO hard to get decent pictures of yourself??!!  

It is days like this that keep me sewing.  How fun to sew for your kids!  Thanks for visiting!

Projects to start the new year!

I don't know about others, but for me when I have a deadline to sew for, like say Christmas I get a little burned out creatively.  What is it about HAVING to sew that makes it less fun?  I am anxious to get back to "real" sewing and have quite a few dresses and bigger projects brewing.

This week I've gotten a couple of small projects done to keep me happy while trying to get life back to normal after Christmas.  The first one was an Open Wide Pouch from Anna at Noodlehead.  I've wanted to make this since she shared the tutorial but it hadn't happened.  Then early this week I wandered into my local quilt shop and all the stars aligned.  There was some fun fabric right by the door that was new in the shop and then I glanced to the right and all the beautiful colored zippers were glowing in the sunshine and I bought some fabric and a matching zipper!!

I made the biggest size, cause bigger is always better right?  It went together so easily and I loved how the zipper is finished.  I can see myself making lots of these. The striped fabric on the outside is by French Bull manufactured by Windham Fabrics the line is Multi Dot.  It just looked so bright I couldn't resist!  The inside is a Moda fabric from the Hoopla line, it was in my stash.  It is currently holding Peyton's little princess dolls but I might be re-claiming it soon!

Then I decided to make a fleece pillow case for one of my daughter's friends who is having surgery today.  She likes cats and I found the perfect print at Hancock's.  I used this tutorial that I've used before, it is so easy and just takes a 1/2 yard of fleece. Peyton tried it out and approved before we gave it to her.  Her friend loved it, and that was really all I wanted.

I love quick projects, instant gratification is sometimes quite nice. Now onto the next project!

The rest of the Christmas sewing....

I thought about doing a couple of posts with the other things I made for Christmas but I decided to just put it all into one. Then I can get caught up so I can get back to my sewing machine instead of sitting at my computer!

Earlier this week I shared the rollie pollie I made for Peyton, so of course I made something for Carter too.  I went with a playmat for all the animals and cars we have.  I looked at lots of good examples and then just decided to wing it!  I did take the very lazy way out and hot glued everything down rather than sewing it.  This was my last sewing project before Christmas and I was getting pretty burned out.  I didn't think about how long it takes to design and cut out all the pieces.

I will say it is a bit too old of a toy for Carter, but he'll grow into it and for now Peyton really likes it.  I wish I had a picture of her playing with it but, oh well!

I also tackled an apron for my Grandma.  She had mentioned when we saw her last summer that she could use a new apron.  I looked around for a pattern similar to what she has, that she said she liked, and ended up using this Simplicity pattern #4987.  I made her look #3 in a small but had to shorten it up a lot as it was really long and my Grandma is under 5'.  I picked out a brown duct cloth fabric for the top and a fun teapot print for the lining.  The teapot fabric is Michael Miller and I got it here, I really love this!  She liked it but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of her in it.  Our big family Christmases always get kinda crazy and it was overlooked.

One last project.  I bought my brother and sister in law Starbucks gift cards and to dress up the gift a bit I made coffee cozies for their cups.  I used this tutorial.  For my SIL I did a scrappy one and added a bit of embroidery to it. I am by no means very good at embroidery, but I love the look it adds to some projects.  For my brother's I used some fabric left over from a pillow I made for him this year.  He picked the fabric so I assumed he'd like it on his cozy! :)  These were fun to make a went really fast.

I love to sew for other's but I've decided if I'm going to sew Christmas gifts next year I have to start before the month of December!  :)  Did you sew any gifts?  What did you make?

Love the Rollie Pollie!

Well I'm a little behind in sharing some Christmas sewing but better late than never right?  This Christmas I decided to make one handmade item for each kid and thought of Dana's Rollie Pollie knowing my daughter would love it!  The main reason I hadn't sewed one before was cost, I knew it would take a bunch of fabric and filler.  Which it does!

However, one of the many bonuses to continued sewing is you keep growing a fabric stash and currently I had enough fabric in my stash due to our JoAnn's moving store fronts this fall and clearancing all their fabric before hand to make the bag.  I also had seen an ad for bean bag filler at Bed Bath and Beyond and got the filler for even cheaper than the ad said, so I filled it for only $11! (I made the larger bag)

There are lots of bloggers who've already sewn this, so I had lots of reading info before hand.  Everyone seemed to really like the pattern and their kids have loved them.  Mine are no exception while I made this for Peyton, Carter will get in it every chance he gets! :)  He will probably be getting his own soon.

 My only tip is to follow Dana's advice and use foam for the filler. Since I got the bean bag pellets for so cheap I went that route but they have compressed quite a bit in just a couple weeks so I'll definitely use foam in Carter's.  It really was a pretty easy sew, I had some trouble getting the insert in the cover but I persevered   If you have kids this makes a great project!

Thanks for visiting!

Happy 2013

Oh my how busy things have been since mid-November!  Funny how new flooring in most of your house and then going straight into Thanksgiving and then Christmas just leaves VERY little free time!  The older I get the more I love January!  I mean the holidays are fun, but I look forward to the peace that January brings.  

I get to organize, plan, relax, read, and most of all sew.  I swore I'd sew less this past Christmas but in reality I really didn't cut back so I'll be sharing some of where my December went in the coming week.  

My big new toy is a lovely camera.  I'm still learning lots but it is certainly fun!  I'm sure it will make my pictures much nicer for the blog, and I'm exciting to see where blogging leads me this year.  

Thanks for reading! Happy January.

Purple Peasant Dress

For some reason I've been wanting to sew Petyon a peasant dress.  Not sure why, just really needed too! :) I found some fabric (corduroy from JoAnn's) that I thought she might like which had be laying around for awhile.   I always like to use fabric that was originally bought for those projects that never happen! She has been on a purple and pink kick hard core again, so I thought this would be right up her alley. 

 I didn't have a peasant dress pattern in her size, but I did have this Simplicity pattern which I've used before and have liked.  However I wanted a really basic dress that was all one piece in the body.  So I decided to semi-draft a pattern.  This is always really scary for me,  I am about 50/50 on successes with this!

This time it work though!  I decided to take my  beloved Signature Dress Pattern and use that to help me extend the bodice from the simplicity pattern.  I tried to mainly line up the arms and make sure the neckline was similar and went from there.  The fabric in the pictures is for my first Washi dress which I am currently working on!  YEAH!!

Success!  I love when everything goes exactly as planned! The only small issue was I'd wanted it to be long sleeved since it is pretty cold here now, but only had a yard of this fabric.  Also I wasn't sure about that butterfly print, but I really love it.  From a distance you loose the butterflies a bit.  Peyton does like it, but wishes it was all purple.  I just can't win with her these days!

I love when you stretch yourself a bit and it pays off!  I'm quite happy with this one! :)

Pom Pom Perfection

So...it's been awhile! :)  After KCWC was over I went into crazy sewing mode to finish up getting ready for my craft fair.  That was back on the 1-3 of November and it went well, all things considered.  After that I was in need of a sewing break, I was creatively drained!  I spent about a week watching TV, reading a book and blog surfing during my free time.  It was nice, but I am happy to say that I've recovered  :)  Last night I whipped out a dress for Peyton and I feel much better!  I'll have more on the dress (picture below) later this week.

While doing some of my beloved blog surfing I found some great ideas for items from the dollar store.  I purchased a bag of brightly colored pom poms last Friday and had some ideas for the kids but Peyton quickly had her own ideas.  On a side note, does anyone else's daughter live in her dance clothes, or is that just mine?!

We currently have this book from the library (I just love libraries!)  We love Strawberry Shortcake in our house.  Here's the brief story line in this book, Strawberry is trying to make a rainbow colored smoothie but the colors are all messed up in Berry Bitty City and she has to make it right.  So what does Peyton come up with?  Using the pom poms to make rainbow smoothies.  Let me tell you these pom poms have completely earned their dollar with me!  She's played with them regularly for going on 4 days now. 

 Carter even got in on the action, he is very into being just like big sister right now.  Yum, nothing like a pretend smoothie!

 I'll be back later this week, with some sewing, promise.  Now go buy some pom poms and see what your kids create! :)