Dresses from Grammy

Time to update my success from the Kids Clothes Week  Challenge!

I admittedly didn’t finish *anything* during the actual challenge.  I just didn’t have the time every night, and I seem to be slower than I would like at this whole sewing thing.  BUT, the challenge did get me working, and both my girls got to sport new dresses for church yesterday!

They were adorable in their matching dresses!  Would you believe I think this is the first time ever my girls have worn true matching dresses??  They’ve certainly worn coordinating outfits before, but not dresses made with the same fabrics!  (Well, except for costumes I suppose.  I’ve done 2 matching costumes for the girls….  And their matching flower girl dresses….  Um, perhaps I need to rethink my statement.)  No matter, I think you might see some more matching dresses for the girls — we’ve created a monster!

We saw a family friend in the grocery store who, upon spying the girls, asked me if I sewed.  I never know if it’s good or bad that somebody thinks an outfit is handmade, but she at least indicated she thought so since they were the same fabric.

Looking at a bug.

I call these dresses from Grammy because she so kindly sent me the main fabric just so I could make dresses for the girls.  She actually thought I’d only have enough fabric for Elena’s dress, but surprise, I had enough for both with a little left over!  (Do you want the leftovers back for your stash Mom?  I know you like the fabric.)  And just a year later (hee), TADA!

I’ve made both these patterns before but did have to go up in size for both this time around.

Elena’s dress is New Look 6613 — a previous version can be seen here.  The only problem Elena seems to be having with the dress right now is that the straps are a tad too long — she keeps having to pick them back up.  I suppose I ought to fix that problem…

Elena already wore the dress to school once last week.  On a day she insisted on having her hair straight.  This took LOTS of brushing and a curling iron.  I told her not to expect to do this often.  She LOVED having straight hair.  Her father and I were not nearly as big of fans.

Julia’s dress is New Look 6796, which I made previously into her Day of the Dead dress here and later into her Pocahontas costume here and also into her cupcake birthday dress here.

As I’ve said before, obviously that pattern is easy and I’m a big fan.  I did a couple things different this time around though.  First, I did a different view — this one with pockets and a plain band on the bottom instead of a ruffle.  It seemed to go with Elena’s dress better that way.

Ruby-red sparkly shoes for everyone!

Second, I changed the ties into elastic straps.  These straps make me *so* much happier with the dress!  I was never happy with having to retie the straps on her other dresses and the straps always looked messy.  By working elastic into the straps, I was able to sew them in, making the dress look neater, and not have to worry about it fitting over her head.  WIN.

Thanks Grammy!  If you send any more fabric for dresses, I promise to get them done faster!  😉

And just a final picture to show that Elena can have an honest real smile. I’m really not a fan of her expression when you ask her to smile for pictures, but this one looks happy!

GO IRISH! (again….)

Okay, my previous blog post deleted for some unknown reason, so I’m trying this again…

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m just sitting on the couch, I am snuggled up in a quilt.

Football season calls for a lot of just sitting on the couch — I do love my football!  I also have the good luck of being a Notre Dame alum & fan, and what with their NBC contract showing all their home games, I get to watch lots of college football!  (My other alma mater is University of Houston, and although they are less than 200 miles away, I can’t watch any of their games on TV ~ BOO!)  I’m sadly missing football season right now, so it is as good a time as any to share my new cuddle-during-games quilt:

I did actually finish this quilt before the end of the last football season, and watched my Irish win their bowl game while snuggled warm and cozy underneath it.  YAY!

I previously blogged about this quilt here.  The shirts are The Shirt from when I attended Notre Dame and for some years beyond.  (Ten shirts total – used fronts and backs since both have designs.)  Proceeds from The Shirt go to charity, and it is awesome to see all the students wearing it at home games.  It is also unbelievable that these shirts are in any condition to be made into a quilt because I wore them ALL. THE. TIME.  Yep, I definitely lived in ND t-shirts those years.  (We’ll forgo any photographic evidence of that right now…)

I know t-shirt quilts are fairly ordinary, but I did want to recommend my stabilizer.  I stabilized all the t-shirts with Pellon’s Easy-Knit Fusible Tricot.

I bought a whole bolt of this stabilizer and HIGHLY recommend it for working with t-shirts.  I was completely worried about the stretching I’d have with the t-shirts, especially since I didn’t use sashing between the blocks.  But this stabilizer is pretty lightweight and was a dream to work with, and the quilt is perfectly square.

The quilting was done by That Quilter (my Mom) yet again – I love the shamrock pattern she found and the green thread is great!

Another favorite of this quilt is the backing — it’s flannel with some pretty-darn-cool appliques if I do say so myself (and I do!):

My little Irish cheerleader likes the backing too, and just before this was taken tried to sit on it and thus it fell off the fence.  Oops!

Suffice it to say, this quilt is H.E.A.V.Y. what with the t-shirts and flannel backing!  My husband’s not a fan of using it for that reason, but that’s okay, I like the weight.  Oh, and this quilt is BIG, especially for a couch quilt.  60″ x 75″ big.  (Each t-shirt is a 15″ square.)

Getting into shaking her pompom a little bit more.

So happy to have finished this quilt just for me, and even happier to share it!

Oh, I’m also putting this as my entry into the current Bloggers’ Quilt Festival:

I’m a little late on it this year — be sure to check out all the beautiful quilts out there!

GO IRISH!

My Mooshy Belly Bunnies

I’m apparently a slower worker than many of you I’m reading — not much seems to happen in just 1-hour-a-day of sewing!  I’m working on a dress for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge, but I need a different color thread for some top-stitching so I am stalled out for a moment.

Hopefully, a better update soon!

But, in other news, I made my girls more bunnies for Easter this year!  (My 1st real blog post was also about Easter bunnies I made the girls!)  Please meet my Mooshy Belly Bunnies:

Hee, both girls have the same fly-away hair!

Now, these bunnies are a little sad — they still don’t have tails.  Oops.  Maybe when I go out and buy some thread for the dress I’ll also buy some pompoms for their tails.

They were a little scary for me because I don’t do embroidery.  Luckily it wasn’t as bad as I feared, and just maybe I’ll now do some of the dolls I’ve been pining after but fearing because of their embroidered faces.

You can make your own too — it’s a free tutorial/pattern found here.  The only complaint I’ve heard about the pattern is that the bunnies are really small.  I personally, though, love their size — so easy to carry along!

And the girls enjoyed the bunnies thoroughly on Easter Sunday.  They’ve gotten a little lost since then, but I was thrilled with all the hugs and cuddles they got that one day while they carried the bunnies with them everywhere.

Oh, and the pink & white striped fabric is from some pajamas the girls wore as babies.  So fun to see it in use again!  I have a great picture of Elena in these pajamas, but it’s on the other computer.  Maybe I’ll dig it up for ya soon.

And a couple more Easter snapshots:

The girls with their baskets, having their picture taken while having their picture taken by Daddy!

Some fun with confetti eggs:

I in particular like how Daddy stood still to be egged:

A happier picture of swinging out in the country:

A good reason to have 2 kids: the older one can push the little one around, in a good way:

Kids Clothes Week Challenge

I am participating in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge – YAY!

This is simply a week where you challenge yourself to sew kid clothes for 1 hour a day for 7 days.  It’s the power of peer pressure at work!  And I totally have a backlog of fabric I’ve bought for making dresses for my girls, and it’s time to make those dresses before they decide they don’t want to wear them anymore.

However, I have nothing to show you of what I accomplished the first night since that was simply some ironing and some cutting.  Boo.  And the second night I fell into bed EARLY after spending the day steam-cleaning all of our carpet.  That calls for an even bigger BOO.  Tonight, though!  Tonight I will sew!

Despite my failure at the challenge so far, I still have some show & tell:  a dress for Elena made just a month ago from a vintage sheet!  She already enjoyed wearing it on a strawberry picking adventure:

Elena proudly showing her first strawberry, and wearing pearls.  I have to point out the pearls because…it isn’t really a necklace.  It’s a headband.  Both girls wear those pearl headbands as necklaces and it cracks me up!

The fabric for this dress is a sheet picked up from Goodwill!  I *finally* got a good find from there, and the border worked great for the bottom of a dress!

The pattern is Simplicity 2469.  Funny thing is, I *knew* when I bought the pattern that I thought the top was a little too short and a bit too revealing for my liking.  (Look at the pattern cover pictures to see what I mean.)  Yet, I never bothered to alter it!  So, it still looks a little short and revealing on top to me, but not too bad.  Next time I make the pattern I will add a 1/2″ to the top of the bodice.

The other problem were the sleeves.  The instructions called for you to use basting stitches, pull up to gather and then tie the ends.  Unfortunately, both sleeves’ gathering fell apart the first time Elena wore the dress.  You can kind of see the one un-gathered sleeve here:

I fixed that just by sewing down the gather all the way across and not worrying about any silly knots.  Maybe not the most professional finish, but it did the job.

As for the rosettes across the top on the pattern, I didn’t do them initially.  I pinned some on in the corner when she wore the dress for Easter, but can’t decide if its a keeper like that or not.  Any preferences?

I know, what a sour-puss, but this is the best picture I have where you can see the roses I added.

And now, on to some more strawberry-picking picture fun, especially shown here for my Mom who couldn’t make it with us:

I also love Julia’s dress — it’s an Old Navy one I bought 2nd-hand several years ago.  It has great embroidery on the bottom edge, but I don’t think you get a good shot of it in any of these pictures.

What does it mean that some of my fave pictures from this adventure were ones where you can’t see my daughters’ faces??!?  I love the 2 pictures below!

Awww, kisses!

The girls’ cousin joined in on the strawberry fun!

Yay for Aunt J who told us all about this great farm!  It was great fun, even if REALLY HOT!

The great Strawberry family:

And what do you do after a long hour in the heat picking strawberries? Why, hit the splash park of course!