Grown Up Dresses

Ok, so after begging and pleading my two- and four-year-olds to pleeeeease take pictures with my phone... their eager little hands snapped a couple of decent ones of me modeling the dresses. I made the blue and white one weeks ago, but never got around to wearing it until today. I threw the black one on for pics while I was in a modeling mood :)




Fun huh? I promise a tutorial for this soon!

Weekend Crafty Fun-ness

When we have slow weekends -- meaning no birthday parties, outings, or other reasons to leave the house for lots of hours -- I love to get "me" time in my sewing room. If I don't have a pressing business deadline, the freedom I feel with a few hours with my sewing machine and stash of goodies is amazing! Special thanks to my amazing hubby who lets me use that time to create.

This weekend was one of those.. and I ended it with four items I am pretty proud of!

I'll start with the least impressive.. at least from the pictures.

Since I don't have an adult-sized mannequin, my bathroom door has to suffice for this one.. anyway. It's a maxi dress made from a fitted t-shirt from Old Navy, and stretchy jersey knit fabric. Cute, stylish, AND comfortable! Forgive me for not modeling... but I promise it is even cuter on!


It's actually very simple to make. I cut off the shirt just under my bust, gathered up 60 inches of skirt fabric, and sewed it on. For the belty thing, I cute the remaining part of the tshirt into one LONG strip and wrpped it around a bunch of times, tied it in a bow, and voila! Done. You can do this in smaller sizes for little girls too. Anyone want a tutorial for this?



Next, I tried a new pattern for a peasant dress. I used a pattern for this one, and there are lots of things I will change to make it my own. I added the pockets for my little collector, and she LOVES this dress.


Little sash in the back make it more fitted and less sack-dress-y.


Showing off her new pretty dress.. notice the pocket on the left.. It's already full of "little thlings."






I also threw together this peasant dress using a different pattern. Love how simple it is, and cute too! I added the pocket on this one, again, for my little collector. It's a snowflake fabric with accents of penguins and snowmen. Normaly, I'm not a character kind of person, but these were pretty nondescript and whimsical, so I went with it. She likes her "blue dress with penguins."

btw, you can really tell in the above picture that my mannequin has seen its better days. It was actually brown at one time, but then my kids happened, and it lost a leg. My cousin welded it back on and painted it almond for me. It still sits a little wonky, but it is whole again! The hem on the dress is not uneven, just the picture!

And now... my weekend masterpiece! I made myself a jacket out of flocked matte jersey.. which was a mistake I made when ordering fabric online. I was expecting STRETCHY material.. I got stretchy material.. perfect for making tailored pieces with a little stretch.. like this:



I used an exact pattern for this, with only a few deviations (aka messups) but thankfully they are all on the inside and no one is the wiser!



And no, it's not for sale, nor will I make any more, but you are welcome to borrow my pattern! ha!



Fun times!

Fun with Blingydings

I have one of those little hotfix guns for the occasional bling application. Last week I was feeling sassy so I made myself a shirt-- one of those blingy cross tees you see all over Canton. Then I went Crrrrrazy and blinged a free hat that had a random logo on the front. What do you think?

The Shirt

If anyone knows me personally, they would know, or easily guess, that I do not make a habit of following directions. If you need proof in my personal life, this blog post describes it well.

So I took on a personal challenge last night and decided I would make myself a top using one of the *many* patterns I've collected over the past couple of years, with grand plans to do them all.

Here is the result:





Conclusion: "She CAN BE TAUGHT!"

I also made this hiphugger skirt for a friend. She makes these sweet handbags and we did a trade. I am really loving my new Amy Butler Love fabric! It is SO nice to work with!



p.s. the background is my bathroom wall that I retextured last weekend.. it will eventually be painted a light gray-green called "Willow Tree." I've been busy getting my craft on lately!

Scrapskirt

Inspiration hits, and I have to run with it. Tonight I was staring at a pile of scraps, getting ready to price together some tiny preemie outfits, and had the top part of this skirt that needed finishing, so I started grabbing and cutting, and 45 minutes later, I have a really awesome scrappy skirt that I am TOTALLY wearing to lunch tomorrow with my girlfriends!

The story behind this skirt is it was part of a dress that turned out looking quite frumpy, so I chopped off the skirt and made the dress into a top. I haven't photo'd that one yet. Same orange theme (obviously, since they were originally the same garment). Guess that's not much of a story! I don't make many things for myself, but when I got all my fabrics in, I couldn't stand just looking at them on the shelf.

Anyway, he she is!

The sweet thing about this skirt is that is has no front or back, only side seams, and can be any length. All I need is a waist measurement and a length preference. Oh, and artistic freedom to come up with something awesome!