Project Number Three - Dresses

Remember the semi-fail dress I made awhile back? Beth helped me do the second one, and it turns out I probably didn't do as bad as I thought I did! I just didn't realize that I should have taken out the stitches I had done to gather the fabric (duh!!). Here is the second one:

Beth taught me a neat new trick too. You know how the traditional way of gathering is to sew two lines of stitches side by side and then pull the threads? Well, Beth had me sew three lines of stitching instead of two; it was much easier to work with. You should try it next time you have to do gathering stitches.

Then we moved on to making pillowcase dresses. I have seen these all over blogland and had been wanting to make one for the longest time. This was a great project, because I learned how to make my own bias tape.  Yes, I actually made my own bias tape, can you believe it?? It is really not that hard and I think it was much easier to work with than the store-bought kind. If you'd like to learn how to make it, let me know, maybe I could do a tutorial.

Here is the first dress we made:

I think it turned out so cute... I love the little bow we added at the bottom. I purchased this fabric at Hobby Lobby.. I was very impressed with the quality of their fabric, as well as the low prices. I so wish they would put a store in my town!!

There are all kinds of pillowcase dress patterns out there. I used the one found here. I made my own bias tape and I made the ties out of leftover fabric rather than using ribbon. Here is the second one we made:

I used some of the special stitches on my machine again and some more variegated thread to add a little extra to the cuff:

So here are all 4 dresses that I ended up making for Teagan:

I will box them up and mail them off this week; I can't wait to see if she likes them.

After making the pillowcase dresses, I saw the Dress a Girl Around the World Sew Along here. I will be making a few more and sending them along. If you have some time and a little extra fabric, please consider helping out this cause or the Little Dresses for Africa organization!

Project Number Two - Mesh Tote Bag

Here is the second project I made with Beth - plastic mesh tote bags. I had never worked with the plastic mesh before, but it was surprisingly easy to sew on. I just put a heavy duty needle in the machine and was good to go.

This was another project that I had purchased in a kit and could not understand the directions. Will I never learn not to buy these pre-packaged kits??? LOL

Fortunately for me, Beth had used this exact same pattern before, so she knew how to make them. The yellow bag turned out just a bit smaller than it should have been due to a cutting mistake on my part.  If you click on the photos for a closer look, you can see that we played around with the stitching on these too.

If you would be interested in the pattern, let me know. I'd be more than happy to share it with you. If you are in the Tucson area, I have seen this plastic mesh for sale at The Quilt Basket on Tanque Verde Road. Otherwise, I'm sure it is available for purchase on line.

Can't wait till tomorrow to show you our third project - little girl dresses!

Project Number One - Table Runner

Good morning! I am finally back with some of my projects I did with my sister-in-law Beth. She is absolutely amazing, and I learned soooooooooo much from her.  I am now sewing with much more confidence and, if I do say so myself, turning out much nicer looking projects!

I will do several posts this week to show you all the neat projects we did. First up is the table runner. I purchased it as a kit at a quilt show a few months ago, and it was one of those patterns that I really couldn't understand very well. Beth helped me through it and here is the result:

I used some of the neat decorative stitches on my sewing machine, along with some multi-colored thread, and added some cute detail to it:

After completing it, I liked it so much I decided to make a second one for my Mom.

Again we added some cute detailing stitches:

And to pretty it up even more, Beth added a ribbon tassel at either end:

You can tell from the photos that I didn't put that on mine, as my kittens would have it destroyed in no time... LOL!

Tomorrow's installment will be some tote bags we made with some plastic mesh and fabric.  Hope to see you then!

I'm So Excited

That's me, jumping up and down with excitement! Okay, maybe not doing that, but I AM very excited.  I have a very talented sister-in-law named Beth who is coming to stay with me for a whole week (or more). She is a very talented sewist, quilter, crocheter ..... you name it, she excels at it.

She is going to help me with some sewing projects that need finished (and some I haven't even started yet).  I am hoping we have have time for her to get me started quilting something too.

Yay.... I can't wait! I promise I'll post pics later of the finished projects.

Have a good week everyone!   :)

Weekend Projects

I've been busy yesterday and today with projects.

Yesterday I made my first no-sew fleece blanket. It was very easy, and I think it turned out really cute.

I had some fleece that I had bought in the remnant bin at Jo-Anns almost a year ago and decided it was time I did something with it. I purchased the solid pink fleece at Wal-mart a few months back;  it matched great with the floral fabric. Here is the back:

I made a taggie blanket too, again with leftover fabric I had in my stash:

Here is the back:

While shopping at a thrift store recently I came across what looked like a small rug in the children's area for $1 so I bought it thinking I could re-purpose it into something else. I used it as the back fabric on this taggie blanket, and also made a small pillow out of it:

Not bad for $1!!

Today I made a zippered pouch for our nephew's girlfriend Christine. She picked out the fabrics (which just happen to be some of my favorite colors too!):

To use up this leftover fabric, I mod-podged it onto a wooden letter "C" that I purchased at Jo-anns:

Next up I think I will work on another rag quilt.

Have a great weekend.

It's All About Presentation

Saw this over on See Kate Sew and knew it would be a great way to package those ric rac burp cloths I made a few days ago.

I made one more burp cloth

and then bought a clear paint bucket at Michael's (using my Michael's card it was about $4)

I printed out the burpee bucket printable from Kate's post and played around with it on Picasa to change the color from blue to pink.

Then I rolled up the burp cloths and stuck them inside

And used double-stick tape to adhere the label to the bucket.

Voila! A cute gift that can later be used to store baby items in. Thanks for the great idea, Kate, I love it!

Semi-Fail Toddler Dress

Remember awhile back I said I wanted to try to make a toddler dress for a little 4-year old I know? I finished it the other day, and have decided to call it a semi-fail.

I managed to salvage it by adding ribbon  around the waistline where I horribly mangled the gathering of the fabric. Well, actually I managed to do the gathering part okay; it was the sewing of the gathering part that gave me problems. The shirt kept bunching up while I was sewing and I didn't realize it until it was too late.

Here is what I started this project with:

A shirt from Wal-mart and a half yard of fabric, along with instructions found here and here. 

Here is what I learned from this project:

1.  Sew very SLOWLY and CAREFULLY when you are sewing the gathered fabric to your shirt.

2.  If you use the sew-two-lines-of-stitching gathering technique - after you sew it to the shirt, you can remove those two lines of stitching so that you don't see it on the front. (My SIL told me this after I had already butchered it!)

3.  If you've never sewn gathers before, you might want to practice first on an old shirt and scrap fabric.

As you can see in the photo above, I have another one of these to make. Here's hoping the next one comes out better!