I've Been Busy

I know I've been absent from this blog for the past little while, but it's because I've been busy getting ready for a cool family photo shoot that we did and also I've been trying to get all the crafts ready for our Super Saturday which is in a couple weeks. So I will be posting a lot of pictures soon. Right now I am going to post some of the items I made for the photo shoot.

We have been wanting to get family photos done for a long time and have just never taken the time to do it. When we finally made the appointment with Chris Talbot to get them done, we started thinking about what we wanted to do for them. We knew the location, but we weren't sure what to wear. We had recently purchased a 1947 Plymouth and thought that would be a lot of fun to use in the photos. So we decided to make it a 40's themed photo shoot. I started looking around trying to find something that I could wear that would fit that theme. There's not a whole lot out there that isn't really expensive. So I started looking at patterns instead. I found this pattern and thought it would be perfect. Especially since it was from 1947.

So I bought it and some fabric and gave it a try. I couldn't find the fabric I was looking for, but this print caught my eye and I thought it would look nice. It was a fairly easy pattern, but a little tricky in some areas. I am actually impressed with myself. It doesn't look very good on the hanger but looks pretty good on and is really comfortable.

Next I had to decide what to do for the kids. What kind of clothes did children wear in the 40's? I looked online and got a few ideas. I knew Donevan needed a hat and I happened to have a pattern for the perfect hat. I lucked out and got a huge piece of suiting type fabric at Saver's for like $2. It was about 4 yards! Score! I used that and was perfect. It makes me happy to see how cute he is in it and even more happy that he actually likes to wear it.

I made his pants out of the same fabric from a pattern I scored from Grandma Jessie a while ago. They ended up being a little big, but I'd much rather them be too big than too small. I was very pleased with myself, because this was the first time I actually made a pair of pants with a fly and belt loops and everything.

For Iris' dress I used a pattern I already had on hand that looked somewhat like the ones I saw online. Generally the dressed in the 40's were a lot shorter (think Shirley Temple) but I liked this pattern and knew that the brown fabric would be adorable. Not too fancy, but really cute.

And now you all get to see what all my hard work was for. A week's worth of sewing for this:

I'd say it was totally worth it. These pictures will be some of the most memorable because of the story behind it. I love how they turned out and am getting excited to make them into cards to send out for the holidays.

See, doesn't it look way better off the hanger? My sister gave me the idea to add the sweater. (Thank you Haley!) And I was trying to figure out what to do around the waist. It just needed something. So I swiped my skinny black belt from one of my blouses and used that. It was perfect. Evan looks so handsome. I think he needs to wear suspenders more often.

Anyways, those are a few of the projects that have been keeping me from the computer. I will work on getting all the other crafts on here too. I am getting really excited for Super Saturday. If you want to go HERE you can see the crafts we chose to do this year. I think we picked some good ones. I will take photos of all the ones I make and post them later.

Too Cute

I have been slacking a little on getting my Sewing Day projects on here. I actually missed a week or two, but last week I made these little cuties.

I made them from THIS pattern. I got this fabric at the huge going-out-of-business sale at Ben Franklin Crafts. Everything in the entire store was 80% off. The next day was 90% off but I'm glad I went the day before because I heard there wasn't anything left. I got $1100 worth of stuff for $228. Not too shabby. I stocked up on anything and everything. I especially went crazy with the fabric. So now I have a ton of fabric to sew with! Yeah for me!

Anyways, I thought this fabric would be really cute for these shoes. I was right. They are adorable. I love for Clara to wear them. I am seriously thinking of trying to make some in my size. I loved them so much I made a second pair to send to a friend that just had a baby girl. I hope she likes them as much as I do.

Skirt and Shorts

I was selfish this week for Sewing Day. I only made stuff for me. I had purchased a queen size fitted sheet at Savers at the Memorial Day sale when everything is 50% off. 50% off sales at thrift stores are CRAZY!! People go nuts! We did manage to snag some good things. Mostly clothes for the kids, but I found this pretty print in the form of a bed sheet. And it was $2 so I had to get it.

So I finally pulled it out and looked through my patterns trying to decide what to make out of it. I almost made a shirt dress but settled on a cute flowy skirt. Super easy pattern. Only 3 pieces in the whole pattern. The front and back are just huge half circles sewn together at the sides and then the front waistband connects in the back with hook and eyes and the back waistband ties in the front. I love it!

Then I took a pair of pants that I bought at Old Navy when they were on clearance, and made them into capris/shorts. I never wore them as pants because they were ridiculously wide at the bottom. Comfy but wide. So I cut off the bottoms and narrowed the legs a little then hemmed them up to make me a new pair of shorts for the summer.

Car Cozy and Diaper Clutch

This week's Sewing Day projects are a couple of things that have been on my list of things to make for a long time. The first is this Car Cozy/Carrier/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. I made it so Donevan can keep his cars in this instead of stuffing his pockets full of cars anytime we go somewhere. Not that it's going to stop him from stuffing his pockets, but at least now he won't HAVE to. He thinks it's pretty awesome so that's a success in my book.

I like how it rolls up into a nice little bundle that I can throw in the diaper bag to have some entertainment for the boy.

I made the pockets a little bigger to fit the "Cars" character cars since they are a little bigger than your average Hot Wheel or Matchbox car. Those are the ones he plays with the most.

The next project was a diaper clutch to carry all the diapers and wipes for the diaper bag. So instead of searching for a diaper and the wipes I can just grab this and save myself the trouble. Plus it keeps all the diapers crumb and juice-spill free. I hate to admit that I just use a plastic baggie for my wipes. I used to have one of those nice cases but it got left somewhere in some random restroom. I sure hope that whoever found it enjoys it. I've been meaning to buy another one, but the baggie works for now. That's three size 4 diapers, three size 3 diapers and a baggie of wipes in there.

I love to make anything out of denim. Anyone have any denim they need to get rid of send it my way. I have lots of ideas for using up denim.

I am so proud of myself for sticking with this Sewing Day thing. It is letting me get so many things done that I kept telling myself I didn't have time for. Things keep getting checked off my list. The only problem is that my list keeps getting longer. I am also pleased that with all the projects I have made so far, I haven't bought a single thing to make any of them. They have all been made with materials I've just had on hand. Not bad.

Catching Up

I haven't posted the last couple weeks worth of Sewing Day projects. So I'm going to play a little catch-up and post about them now. I was pretty excited to help Esmeralda cut out the pattern and fabric for her cute skirt. We used Simplicity pattern 9415 view E. The one in top right corner. The fabric was from the stash from Grandma Jessie. We didn't have enough time to get it sewn together that week so we just got it cut out.

I made a camera strap cover for Father's Day for the hubby. I used fleece so it's soft and padded. I'm gonna have to make some for me too.

At one of our monthly activities for our women's group at church we held a Service Auction. We donated items or services and then answered questions in order to earn points that could then be used to bid on the items. One of the items I donated was a pair of custom leather soled baby shoes. The lady that "bought" them said she had a granddaughter recently born and gave me the freedom to create whatever I wanted for her. This is what I came up with. I think purple and yellow together is the most cheerful of color combinations.

The next week Esmeralda finished her skirt. I was very impressed with how quickly she put it together. She told me she has never sewn before she started coming over. She even put a zipper in on the first try. No ripping out for her! And the skirt turned out really cute.

Another pair of shoes. A new pattern. Go HERE to see the pattern I used. It was a little difficult to follow as the directions weren't completely clear in a couple spots, but they still came out adorable. The second one is better than the first since I knew a little more what to do the second time. I love them!

So cute on Clara's little feet.

This last Tuesday it was just me for Sewing Day. I decided to make some Summertime jammies for the kids, since it has finally decided to get hot here. I just used some jammies they already had for patterns. Donevan's was made out of an old T-shirt of Evan's. The shirt seems short in the picture but it's because he was sagging the shorts down. Now they have some nice cool jammies to wear.

This project didn't come from a Sewing Day but I wanted to post it just the same. This idea has been floating around in my head for quite some time now. I finally just sat down and did it. It went so quick that I had it done start to finish all before the kids woke up from their naps. I found two of these boards with paintings printed on them at Savers a long time ago and knew that I could do something with them. Not that the paintings aren't great, they're just not my style. But I could see potential.

So I painted one a neutral color of tan.

While that was drying I used my Cricut to cut out the saying. Then I mod podged some paper on some clothes pins. I'm not a scrapper so I don't have a huge selection of paper but I managed to dig up some cute stuff. When the board was dry I stuck the vinyl on and hot glued the clothes pins on. Just like I pictured in my head. I still need to get a picture hanger for the back but for now thumb tacks are working just fine.

Now I have a place to keep all those random unmated socks. Seriously, WHERE do they go?

From now on I'm gonna try and keep the posts about Sewing Day up to date. So keep checking back for more great stuff!

Sewing Day

Tuesdays have officially become Sewing Day at my house. The past two weeks three of us have gotten together and set up our sewing machines and gone to town with them. I have needed something like this. I have so many projects that I want to do and if I don't designate a time to get them done, then they will never even get started.

It kind of started by chance. These two friends had both recently acquired new sewing machines and wanted to get them out and use them. So I invited them over to set them up and work on whatever they wanted. I set mine up and got some alterations done for a friend who has recently lost a LOT of weight. So we had all three machines going at the same time. All the while, the kids were having the time of their lives getting out all the toys.

Esmeralda hemmed some curtains and made some capris out of too-short pants for her daughter.

Cami hemmed some pants for her husband and started making some super hero capes for her kids. She also made some bean bags. It was fun helping them get their machines going.

My machine with some of the alterations.

We all had such a good time and got so much done that we decided to do it again the next Tuesday. So I went through all the fabric that I've been stashing away and found a big piece that I swiped from Evan's step grandma's. She also gave me a ton of patterns so I found a really cute skirt pattern and made that my project for the week. I love it! It's not too often that I make something for myself. Especially something that isn't just a refashion or alteration. The pattern of the fabric makes it hard to tell that there is a yoke-type waistband, but it's there and then the skirt part is gathered at the top.

I love the pattern on the edge of this fabric. It made such a perfect border for the skirt.

I didn't get pictures of the other projects from this week. Esmeralda hemmed some more pants into capris and some pants for herself. Cami finished the capes and started cutting out a pattern for a really cute apron.

I am pretty excited for Sewing Day next week. I have such a long list of things that I want to make! I'm going to try and be better about posting all the things that I make. Having a designated day will help me stay motivated.

Happy Sewing Day!

I know you've been waiting...

So sorry for the huge lapse in posts. For some reason, my camera and computer were having a fight and they didn't want to work together. But they have made up and I was finally able to load my pictures. Although, there are still photos on a different card in my husband's camera that I still need to get my hands on, so those will have to come later.

To start the line-up of projects:

A refashion!

Can you believe that this shirt, just a plain old T-shirt...

now looks like this!?!

It all happened because I received a beautiful shirt for my birthday. I wore it once and felt so pretty in it. It then got washed and accidentally dried. Needless to say, I could no longer wear the lovely shirt without somehow making myself 6 inches shorter. I was heartbroken. So I sat and stared at the shirt wondering if I should just donate it or make something for Iris out of it. I went to my stack of shirts that I have held onto to make into something else and saw sitting right there on top 4 plain white T-shirts that Evan was getting rid of. They were given to him but were too small. They were too big for me so I threw them in my stack. Anyways...my brain went to work and I came up with a pretty cute shirt. I took the collar from the birthday shirt and worked my magic on the T-shirt. What do you think? Improved?

Next is another refashion of sorts. I needed a birthday present for a young girl. So my mind went to work again. I looked through the bag of fabric I had just gleaned from Grandma Jessie's and found the cute pink flannel. I snatched a pair of jeans from the box of hand-me-downs sent to me from my dear friend Kayla (thanks again Kayla)...

and made them into this! A perfect little purse for a cute little girl.

I used the flannel for the lining. I even put some pockets on the inside. And stitched in a magnetic closure that I happened to have in my sewing box to keep it closed. Hope she liked it.

It had been a while since I made some soft-soled shoes. I thought Clara could use a cute black pair. So I used the black leather skirt I found at Savers for the soles and pink scraps for the lining. I wanted to put something on the top and happened to have this super cute pink lace in my box. I love them!

And the last is another refashion. Actually it's just an alteration. I really liked this shirt but it was always just a little to big and baggy for my taste. So I just took it in a little and wear it all the time now. Much better in my opinion.

Well that's it for now. I guess it's not too much, but it does make me feel better about finally getting something on here. Let me know what you think.