Plaid & Stars for a Baby Girl

My sister, Willow, is expecting her first baby in February, and her baby shower is coming up so I wanted to make her something, because that's what I do.  I had a piece of purple, blue, and gray plaid that she had picked out a long time ago when she wanted me to line a jacket for her.  She never gave me the jacket to be lined so I still had the fabric sitting in my stash.  Since she's using purple and turquoise for her colors, it was the perfect opportunity to use the fabric, especially since I already knew she liked it as she picked it out.  Here's what I ended up with:

I used Simplicity Pattern 2572 for the jacket.  It's completely reversible with solid black on one side and the plaid fabric on the other.

The onesie is hand dyed and then I appliqued a plaid star on it because my sister really likes stars.

I used Lily Girl's Ruffle Skirt Pattern by Viola Lee for the plaid skirt.  The skirt is definitely my favorite part!

For the headband I used GG Design's Stitch & Stack Stars Felt Stitchies.  I used the plaid fabric for the top and felt on the bottom.  I added the purple button to give it a little something extra.

I think the whole thing turned out absolutely adorable!  I just love ruffle skirts and it turned out extra adorable in the plaid!  I really hope it fits well (because that's always my biggest concern with sewing for a baby that hasn't been born yet) and that she loves it as much as I do!

Black & Plum Sewing Apron

A Great Big Happy Birthday to my Best Friend, Stephanie!  Since we used to be sewing buddies (before she moved away) I thought I would make her a fun sewing apron for a birthday present!


 

I used Moda's Half Moon Modern Sewing Room: Sewing & Craft Apron Tutorial.  Everything I used I had in my stash, which was nice.  I think the colors looks really nice together.  I wish the solid in the waist band was a little bit closer of a match to the polka dot fabric but I don't think they look bad together.  As you can tell I have a thing for polka dots!  I think I have more polka dots in my stash than anything else!  I hope she loves it as much as I love it!  I really need a sewing apron myself, so it was hard to package this one up and send it off, but package it up I did...



...and add a little handmade gift tag!  I hope you love it, Stephanie, and I hope you have the best birthday ever!

Baby Blanket for Liam

My sister also asked me to make a blanket for her sister-in-law's new baby, Liam.  It's fleece on one side and cotton on the other with a satin binding. The fleece should be nice and snuggly for baby Liam!

Baby Blanket for Olivia

My sister's friend is having a baby girl and my sister asked if I could make a blanket for her to give to her friend.  I said yes, of course.  We went to the store and picked out this adorable polka dot micro-corduroy.  I just love the way it turned out!  My first instinct would have been to do the ruffle pink but I'm just loving the way the lime green looks!

Little Fox Skirt

My best friend, Stephanie's, baby girl, Alyssa, turns 1 year old today.  Since I can't be there to celebrate with her, I made her this cute little outfit.  Well I made the skirt anyway and I embellished the shirt.

The skirt is just a simple elastic waist skirt, but how cute is that fabric!  It's flannel, which is a little unorthodox to make a skirt out of, but those little fox faces just begged to be made into a skirt.  I also added a little ruffled glitter ribbon to the neckline of the store bought shirt just to make it a little more special!  Then I wrapped it up in some tissue and made this cute little fox gift tag...

I love this fabric!  Maybe I'll go get some more to make pajama pants for my girls.  I hope Alyssa (or at least her mom) enjoys the outfit.  Happy 1st birthday, Alyssa!  I hope it's amazing!

Modernista Kitchen Swap

I recently finished up round two of the Modernista Swap!  This time the room was kitchen.  My partner said she loves bright colors and that she wanted a kitchen towel set.  She also has a lot of white in her kitchen so I decided to use quite a bit of black so that the towels would stand out in all that white.  I used one white flour stack towel, two black kitchen towels, and I made her a potholder.

I think I definitely succeed in her desire for bright colors.  I'm a little nervous because this isn't really anything like the stuff I normally do.  I very rarely work with all solids and use so many colors at one time.  I was really pleased with the result but I'm so nervous to hear what she thinks of them!

I also received my package as well...

...the most adorable mini quilt that is just perfect for my kitchen and some of the cutest magnets!  Those tiny squares must have been so much work!  The colors are perfect and I couldn't be happier with what I received!

Poodle Skirt

For my daughter's 50th day of kindergarten, they did a 50s theme day, so I decided to make up a quick poodle skirt.  I used some bubble gum pink fabric that I had in my stash and whipped up a quick circle skirt with an elastic waistband.  I also added a quick machine embroidered poodle.

 

It was fun to make and she looked cute for 50s day!

Batgirl Halloween Costume

My daughter, Kaitlin, started out wanting to be Hello Kitty for Halloween.  I had just formulated a really good idea of how to do that when she informed me that she wanted to be Batgirl instead.  So then it was back to square one, thank goodness for the internet!  I did a quick search and found this cute costume that used a black leotard and black leggings as the base for a Batgirl costume.  I decided to do something similar and start with a black shirt and black leggings.  The rest of the costume is made out of felt. 

I used yellow felt to make a simple belt to cover up the waist band of the leggings.  With the shirt tucked into the leggings this gives the appearance of a bodysuit instead of two pieces. I also appliqued a batman (or batgirl in this case) symbol of yellow felt on the front of the black shirt.

We decided to use quite a bit of purple to make it a bit more girlish.  I used purple felt to make a cape and appliqued the bat symbol on it as well.

Then I  used the purple felt to make a head band with a removable mask (because they don't allow masks at school)...

...and some shoe covers to make it look like she's wearing purple boots.

I pretty much free handed the whole costume except for the bat symbol which I used google to find.  The nice thing about using felt is that I didn't have to hem anything, but I did do a bit more sewing than I thought I would because I ended up using a double layer of felt for both the belt and the headband to give them added stability.  This costume didn't take too long to make so that was nice after having spent a whole day working on my other daughter's butterfly costume.  I also love that the shirt can be worn after Halloween and the leggings are still useable too!

Butterfly Halloween Costume

This year my daughter, Isabella, asked to be a butterfly for Halloween, specifically a blue and purple butterfly.  So off I went to find the stuff to make her just that.  I found this pair of wings on sale at JoAnn, and it just all came together from there!

Flipping through the pattern books I found McCall's Pattern M4887, that was perfectly butterfly-ish.  Then I spent way too much money buying fabric that matched the wings.  Then I spent pretty much an entire Saturday sewing it all together.

There is a purple cotton slip dress and a satin vest with purple trim.

 

Then a 7 layer tulle skirt.  It has 3 colors of tulle:  pink, purple, and blue (well aqua.)  The purple is hard to see but it's there.  I'm not sure why the pink photographs so bright.  The skirt is much more blended in person.

Last but not least, I used a head band and some chenille stems to make her some antenna so people would know she's a butterfly and not a fairy.

She'll probably wear the whole thing over a black long sleeved shirt and black tights because it's been a little chilly here lately.  I think it turned out just adorable, if I do say so myself!

Name Day Outfit

Recently my daughter started kindergarten, it's really hard to believe that she's that big already!  Well, in some ways it isn't, she's always acted a little older than her age and has a very independent spirit.  Still, I still remember her as my adorable little baby and now she's all grown up and going to school.

At the schools here they theme each day for the first few weeks.  The first day, was name day and after that each day will be dedicated to a color.  I thought it would be fun for her to have a shirt with a K (the first letter of her name) on it for name day.  So being the sewist that I am I whipped one up with my handy dandy embroidery machine.  I also used some cute polka dot fabric I had in my stash to make a matching skirt.

I just really love the milkmaid skirt tutorial by crafterhours that I used for this skirt.  It's really easy and super cute!  My favorite combination!

Butterfly Blanket

I was recently asked to make a "pink girly blanket with a butterfly"  she also said she wanted polka dots or gingham but she left it up to me.  Here's what I did:

 

It's fleece on one side and cotton on the other and the ruffle really takes it to the next level.  I hope baby Rayelynn enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it for her!

Carousel Shirt

Every year we take our kids to the carnival at the local county fair.  I usually like to dress my girls in something cute and matching.  This year I wanted to embroider a shirt with a carousel horse because I think that it's an iconic carnival ride.  So I decided to embroider on my younger daughter, Isabella's, shirt and then I found a shirt for my older daughter, Kaitlin, at Target that had some fun sparkly embellishment on it.

I found a fun bright striped fabric fat quarter at a local fabric store and used that for my color palette.  I embroidered the carousel horse on one shirt and added some raggy fabric bows to the shoulders to give it an extra something.

I also whipped up some matching hair accessories.  Korker curlies for Isabella and a frayed fabric flower with buttons for Kaitlin.

I love doing these kind of projects!  They don't take much time and my girls always end up looking so cute in their outfits!

Modernista Sewing Room Swap

I signed up to be part of the Modernista Sewing Room Swap.  I got Amy as my partner and she wanted a door stop and a fabric basket.  Based off her color likes I went shopping and the minute I walked through the door of the fabric store I saw this fabric by Riley Blake, the line is Dress Up Days by Doohikey Designs, and I was instantly inspired!

I started by fussy cutting some of the bicycles and scooters. How cute is this fabric!

After a lot more cutting and a lot more sewing ... I ended up with this cute little set!

I used this Nine Patch Doorstop Tutorial by Oh, Fransson! for the door stop, except I put the zipper on the top of the bag.  I also did my own piecing on the back because I wanted to highlight some of that wonderful bicycle print.  I also lined the whole thing as well so it should be easy for her to fill and empty as needed.

I used this Fabric Basket Tutorial by Pink Penguin for the fabric basket.

After completion I added some chocolate, and shipped it off far far away to the UK.  I really hope she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed stitching it!

Sewing Accessories for my Sister

I'm really hoping that better late than never applies for this next post!  I really kind of slacked off the last two months....but one thing I did do was make my sister a birthday present!  Never mind the fact that I made this back in June and I'm just now posting about it.  My sister, Laurel, likes to sew as well and I've been wanting to make one of these handy sewing organizers for a while and this seemed like the perfect reason!  I knew she was using the fabric line Aviary by Joel Dewberry for her sewing room, and I also knew I had a few scraps from the line in my stash.  So dug through my stash and came up with this:

Which turned into this:

Along with the sewing organizer I decided to make her a set of 6 fabric weights.  I think it turned out pretty cute and best of all, I used my stash!

Front Door Wreath

I usually have a holiday/season appropriate wreath on my front door but whenever May rolls around, my door ends up sad and empty, usually until September.  This year I was determined to do something about it.  My Easter wreath was falling apart and so I decided to go ahead and strip all the decor away and I was left with this...

... a nice bare grapevine wreath.  A perfect base for my new front door wreath, even if it is a little lopsided.  I wanted something simple and cute that matches my other living room decor.  I've pinned all kinds of wreaths that use fabric flowers and so that is the direction I decided to go.

For my living room decor I'm using my family scrabble tile board as my color inspiration and I just happened to have a scrap of polka dot fabric that was the same colors so I built a fabric color palette off of that scrap.

Now, obviously, I'm not using all these fabrics, but this gave me a good color base to go off of.   I decided to make frayed flowers, as they are my favorite type of fabric flower.  I started with one very large red flower, then I added a smaller orange flower, and an even smaller green flower.  At this point I decided it looked good just the way it was but I still hadn't used the blue color.  So I cut a strip of it and used it to hang the wreath from.  And there you have it...

... a cute simple door wreath.  This project cost me nothing (because I used supplies I already had around the house) and was done in under an hour.  But the best part?  My front door is no longer boring!