Oliver + S Ruffled Halter

Here is my version of the Oliver + S Ruffled Halter.  I found this free pattern here for anyone who wants to get their own.  Very cute, but it didn't come with instructions, not that I ever read them anyway.  I may eventually make an adult version... maybe. 
Stitch Magazine, which is where I got the halter pattern, has some great patterns if you're in the mood to sew something right here right now.  Of course you need a printer and some tape to get all those pieces together.  If you've never printed a pattern online before, it's not that bad, unless you are a dedicated tree hugger, because you will be wasting some paper.

  SB had some silly eyes going on in this picture so I photoshopped some super cute black glasses onto her lovely little face, just to cover up what is normally her most fetching feature.  In this photo, not so.  Don't judge me.

Birthday gift #2

Since Melissa had a double birthday party for her girls, I had to make something for Allie too.  Here's the dress I made for her.  Again, mostly thrift store material was used.  Lots of raw edges cut on the bias, a gaudy headband, what more could you ask for?

Cheap but Awesome Birthday Gift

I made this little dress for a my friend Melissa's little girl.  This dress starts my attempt at taking pictures of the things I make before they're gone for good.  SB volunteered to model this one for me before we gave it to the birthday girl. 

All of the material used came from the thrift store.  (I know what you're thinking.  The material is washed, don't worry.)  My mother-in-law loves to bring me any material she finds from there.  Sometimes it's a gold mine. 

I was a little worried that this would look too "Little House on the Prairie" but I actually think it looks pretty cute.  I even thought about keeping it for SB and making another one for the birthday girl.  With only a day left, I decided to give it. 



Happy #2, Kierstyn!  You look super cute!!



Recycled Shirt/ Apron

The only items added were the green ruffle trim at the bottom, the strap on top, and the pockets.  The yellow on the pockets were made from the sleeve cuffs.  The green dots came from my stash.

Jason's Wedding

These are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding (in no particular order.)

This is the second flower girl dress I made. 

This is the first flower girl dress I made.

Flower Girl Dress

Remember these people?  This is my brother Jason and his fiance' Allison.  They'll be married in March. 

Allison asked me if I would make flower girl dresses for SB and Ada, her other niece.  I agreed to do it but needed some ideas of what she wanted.  I got what I asked for, down to the last detail.  In the image below are the contents of a box I got Christmas day from Allison.  This is a girl who know's what she wants. 

I know you can't see all of what's here, but there are 8 or so labeled fabrics, labeled photos of sample dresses she likes, and a page (front and back) of instructions for one dress.   

This is my first dress - a little too long.  Ok... a lot too long.  The bottom photos show how I shortened it.  SB wasn't really willing to model a second time.  This dress isn't for her anyway.  It's for Ada, Allison's niece.  SB's will be posted later, when I get to it.

I'm SEW Awesome

Made with Glossy ModPodge and fusible web.

Yep, I hand stitched these letters.

She likes the shirt!

A cheap, 30 minute, AWESOME Christmas present for a good friend.   (I say cheap, because I had all these things on hand except the shirt.)

Ingredients:
$6.00 Hanes t-shirt from Wal Mart
Barbasol shaving cream
Temporary Spray adhesive
Black screen printing ink or acrylic paint
ModPodge (Glossy)
Image (Sewing Machine) printed from a color (or black and white) inkjet printer
Small piece of white scrap fabric
Wonder Under or fusible web
Iron
Sponge Brush
Scissors
Embroidery Floss if you're in the mood to sew by hand.

If you'd like to see a tutorial, comment.

Christmas Dress

The Photo:
In the past, I've prided myself on my Christmas dresses for Sarah Beth.  Not this year.  I have way too many projects going on right now to fuss over cute Christmas pictures.  I had invisioned dressing her up as an angel with real feathered wings and doing a very overexposed angelic portrait of her.  These days I'm lucky to get her to look my way when I have a camera in hand much less expect her to cooperate.

It's already December and I have yet to get my Christmas cards printed and in the mail.  One of these two will have to do.

The Dress:
I did make this dress one night out of some fabric I found at the Fabric Krazy Quilt Shop which I love because of its subtle festive qualities.  The applique file comes from Planet Applique which is my one of my favorite online shops.  It happens to be the first thing I've ever made for her with zipper.  An invisable zipper.

Update on the Chair

For anyone interested, I DID finish the chair this week, and painted the walls blue.  I like them both.

Elf on the Shelf Shirt

This is what I've always perceived the Elf on the Shelf to look like because it has been in my family since I was a kid.  I have no idea how old he is, but Green Guy's the real deal.  My grandpa gave me this guy (along with two others just like him) last Christmas.  He and my grandma used to hang them on their tree. 

The elf on the shelf below (Red Guy) came along a few years ago and I'm still not sure what the "tradition" is but he's not quite as cute as my green striped guy.  Ok, Red Guy's a little less creepy than Green Guy.  I might rather find him staring at me from different places in the house, than Green Guy.

 

The reason they are even mentioned in this post is because of the shirt I made below.  I got this knit striped fabric and really wanted to use it to make a shirt.   I made a a pattern for myself and sewed away.  It fits well and is really cute . . .except for the fact that it reminds me of Green Guy.   When I wear it, I keep waiting for someone to tell me I belong in Santa's workshop.

I'm back...The Chair

I've been trying to save this entry until I was done with this chair so I could show a start to finish set of pictures but I've been really busy.  There.  That's my excuse.  My last post was from October and frankly I'm ready for my costume to make its way to the bottom of this blog. 

What's happened since then?  Two sisters had babies, one boy and one girl.  I went to my first quilt festival ever and enjoyed myself immensely.  I took 2 photos but remember everything except what those photos were about.  At school I've been the go-to girl for all things creative including theatre sets, photography backdrop painting, custom portraits of dead dogs, 110 decorated ornaments for the town Christmas tree, face painting on the fly, and raffled crafts.  At home, Husband has been working LOTS lately and we've been to lots of birthday parties.  SB is now telling me she wants to "go backwards" meaning that she wants to redo the day so she can spend more time with Peaches the horse.


The story of  this chair:
I went to an antique store looking for a sofa to borrow for my brother's engagement photos.  I was sidetracked by this hideous chair and fell in love with the $15 price.  (The tag said $30 dollars but when Mrs. Saleslady saw me looking interested she immediately cut the price in half without me even asking.  I would have paid the $30.)  I've had high hopes for this little rocker.  I bought some supplies to reshape the cushions and some swanky new fabric.  Mind you, this is my reupholstery debut.
Well, I'm still not finished with it.  I haven't even worked on it since September when I bought it.
My problem is that I'm at a point where I need an extra set of hands.  This week, the love of my life is home on vacation and I think I can get some help out of him.  He's already earned brownie points by helping me paint our living room and hall way.  11 feet of vertical misery.  New inspiration for sewing projects though.  Mark my words, you WILL see a finished chair.  Soon.

Nurse/Candy Striper Costume

Dorthy? No.

 My school hosted a family fun Halloween night this past week.  Costumes were definitely a must.  I was looking for some inspiration from the internet for a candy striper costume, but most options were not even PG-13 rated.  Here's my more conservative/ mod/ retro take on a candy striper costume.

My job at the event was to paint faces so I've spent some time practicing.  This horse was by far my most elaborate undertaking and it was painted a few hours before we even opened for business.  Marian, one of my students, wanted a horse to go with her cowgirl costume.  I tried to talk her into something more simple, but no - a horse.  She wanted a horse.
Even though he got washed off later that evening, he will live on in this post forever.  My favorite part is that he is attached to the wood post on the other side of her face.

Belle

Since my sister Katee is so pregnant and overdue, I feel sorry for her.  She could ask me for anything and I'd probably do it for her.  Lilly Mae asked me to make her a Belle dress.  How could I turn her down. 

Crazy enough, this dress cost me less than $6 to make.  It's got four layers of various types of material from knit to netting to satin to tulle and has some hot fix crystals too.  I enjoyed making this so much because all I had to go by was some basic measurements over the phone.  There was no pattern, only one of SB's princess books to reference.  I hope it looks enough like Belle, LM.

It cost so little I had some stuff in my stash I figured I might one day use, and because of my sweet neighbor who thought of me and found this yellow satin at Hobby Lobby for a mere $2 a yard.  She bought almost three yards and gave it to me.  What a blessing!  Katee and LM you can thank my neighbor Neila. 

Recycling

Lots of the gifts I make for friends and family come from previously owned articles of clothing.  Case in point- this little girl's shirt that was given at a birthday party today came from my hubby's closet.   It doesn't look the same as when he had it, and it's been washed, but somehow I feel a little cheap about giving it as a gift.  I also gave her the pink thingie in the other image.  I made it from all new materials, but it's not my favorite of the two. 
I'm gonna keep recycling old clothing and give it away as gifts.  If you get one from me, don't be offended.  Its' because I love you!

Baby Gifts

Some cute shoes made of weird stuff I found laying around

including an old dance costume and some blue leopard fur.

Some burp cloths made with appliques from one of my favorite sites.

Some incomplete sentences.

Elephants, Ladybugs, and Yellow Birds

LM's

SB's variation

I made Lilly Mae a big sister shirt since she's about to be one.  She's in for a shock when she has to share her Mommy and Daddy.  You're gonna be a super big sister, LM!!

SB was in love with the pink polka dot elephant and wanted one of her own.  Luckily I had planned to make one for her anyway.  I can't wait for it to get colder so she can wear it. 

On another note, I have volunteered to paint faces for the upcoming school carnival.  Hopefully the school will make a little money from my mad skills.  Last week I pulled my students aside and painted some of their faces for practice since I've never done this before.  For those who rathered I didn't paint their faces, they didn't escape without at least an arm or two painted.  This girl, a 7th grader surrendered both arms to me and went home like this. 

Maybe I'll post some fancy faces later.  For now, enjoy the garden creatures.

Black Ruffle Pants

I went to Hobby Lobby for the sole purpose of looking for this particular ruffled knit fabric.  I went to the spot where I saw it last, but it was gone.  Disappointed, I glanced around to see if I could find something similar when my eye caught the very thing I was looking for.  It was in the discount bin!  I picked it up to find that the entire remains of the bolt was $5.  Yippee!  I got two yards (regular $13.99 a yard) for $5!  What a steal!  They also had white so I snagged that too since it was the same price. 
Here are my awesome $5 pair of pants.
It literally took me 30 minutes to make these.  I deconstructed a pair of warm up pants and used them as a template.  The hardest part was cutting, but it really wasn't that bad.  There was no need to hem anything although I did make a waist band so I could feed elastic through to keep them up.  The material is super stretchy so mistakes are hard to find.  These might be my new favorite black pants/capris.  They are SOOO comfortable.

Cardigan

Here's Mom in this gray cardigan I made for her.  She wanted one similar, gave me a pattern to go by, and I whipped it up the same day.  Sadly I lost track of what she was wanting to change about it and didn't implement those changes.  Sometimes I have a one-track mind.  Off to tend to the family.  See you when I get a chance to post again.