Naomi's Quilt

Not my best quilt ever, but it is FINISHED!!! AND I got it done BEFORE her first birthday (with 4 hours to spare). I originally wanted to machine quilt this one, but since I can't lower my feed dogs, it was a failure. :( So, rip, rip, rip it was.
Then I hand quilted the cow blocks, but I couldn't figure out how to quilt the red blocks, so I gave up and tied them instead. The back is a cute farm print that I had and the reds are all leftover from a red tractor quilt I made a few years ago (I pieced this top in my "pre-baby rearranging use it or move it sewing stage"). I love the little "moo" fabrics on the border and the red binding, too.

Another project finished! YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!! Only about a million more to go... :)
(Notice the cow in the background looking at me like I am completely crazy!)

Grace's Quilt

TA DA!!!! I started Grace's baby quilt a few weeks before she was born (hence the bright, but neutral colors). I was inspired by Anita's beautiful quilt HERE, but since I don't like to do sashing, I decided to use this Moda Bakeshop pattern, except I cut my own squares instead of using a charm pack.
They are both sooooo cute!!!
See that red pinwheel? Those are what I was cutting when I cut my fingertip with the rotary cutter. :( I hand quilted this, of course. Just oulined the white triangles in the pinwheels and around the border.

When I saw that the 3D triangles were called prairie points I had to try them. Anything with the word "prairie" just sounds adorable and makes me think of Laura Ingalls!

But frankly, they were a pain. I couldn't get the spacing right and the more I tried to fix them, the worse it got. AND I couldn't hand quilt along this edge (which I thought it needed to keep them in place) so I had to stab stitch one stitch at a time the whole way around.
But it is still an awesome pattern and I love it!!!

Link Parties are found at the top of my blog and, if I get a minute here and there, I might be found linking up at some of those.

Strawberry Shortcake Dress

My 3yo is still on the Strawberry Shortcake kick! So for her birthday I made her a Strawberry Shortcake dress. I just blatantly copied Strawberry's dress by sewing a semi-circle skirt to the bottom of a white T-shirt. It turned out pretty good, but my brain does NOT function well lately, so I had a few snags. I accidentally made the skirt twice as big as I needed to (should have divided the waist by 4 instead of 2!) so I cut it in half and now I could make another one if I need to (and I might because this is a white shirt after all!) I originally wanted a full circle skirt, so it isn't as twirly as I wanted, but it is actually closer to the "real" one.

I appliqued the strawberry and diamonds on the shirt for the argylish pattern on the new Strawberry's dress. I did them by hand while at soccer practice so she wouldn't see it. (Everything else was done over a few naptimes).If I hadn't been doing this as a surprise I would have been able to catch that the T-shirt is a little long and it would be better if I had cut some of the bottom off before sewing the skirt on. But now it is big and if she doesn't destroy it she can grow into it and wear it longer.

Oh- and, completely unrelated to sewing, I kept things simple for her cake since I am on a major cake-flopping roll here. Just pink icing cupcakes with strawberry gummies on them slapped together at the last minute.

Happy Birthday!!!

Flannel Button Quilt

So, my little girl went through a phase where she LOVED pink camouflage. I was on a flannel quit kick, so I decided to make her a pink camo one for her second birthday.
She turned five in December.
You see, I thought it would be absolutely charming and adorable to do a checkerboard pattern and use high-loft batting and sew a button on each square. I was picturing this comfy, cutesy, "Little House on the Prairie" effect. But sewing buttons is a pain in the neck.
So now, 3 1/2 years later, in my "finish up projects so I can make room for Baby #5 kick" I have forced myself to finish it! I only had 21 buttons left to sew on, and it probably took me less than an hour (hanging my head in shame here). The binding only took one dentist appointment and two soccer practices. It is an odd size and the pink in the squares doesn't really match the camo too well, but it was so long ago that I don't know what I was thinking anymore. BUT... YAY for another finish!!! And since she is older now, buttons are probably less of a choking hazard. :)

In the Garden Twirly Easter Dress

My 7yo daughter was also very opinionated about her dress style. She wanted a "poofy" skirt and straps instead of sleeves (she said spaghetti straps and I said "NO"). So, I checked out my bookmarked list and found this tutorial. She totally approved! The straps are the minimum 1" wide allowed in the school dress code, so it should be OK to wear to school if she wants, and the skirt is two full widths of the fabric- so it is very "poofy."

I was really nervous to do the shirring because I had never tried it before and it is the very last step! I saw it done on Martha Stewart a few years ago and figured I could handle it. Luckily, it worked just fine.

Thanks for bearing with me as I showed off my girlies' Easter dresses the past few days! Happy Easter!!!

Puffy Sleeve, A-Line Easter Dress

My 5yo wanted "puffy sleeves" (I wasn't thrilled with that- I don't like sleeves!) and a "straight" skirt.

I traced one of her T-shirts to get the bodice pattern, but made the waist fairy high. Then I cut the skirt to be an A-line style.

The sleeves were a little trickier, but they turned out really, really well! I used the same technique as found here.

I prefer invisible zippers and I used a sash from the Easter dresses I made two years ago. Maybe later I will make another one, but for now this is good.

It is very simple, but it is what she asked for! For now there is a little room for her to grow (or the dress to shrink) so she should be able to wear it all summer long!

Ruffle Tank Easter Dress

For the Easter dresses this year, I wanted to:

1. use things I already had, if possible
2. skip the commercial pattern thing
3. let the girls have a say in what style they wanted

I had one yard pieces of cotton quilting fabric in pretty calicos that I made work for the younger girls, but I had to buy some for the oldest one. All these addicting blogs gave me the confidence to "wing it" with the patternless approach, too. But for my youngest, who is not yet 3, she would have asked for something ridiculous given the option.

So.. I patterned the style after her favorite shirt -the one that she INSISTS on wearing all the time (she says it is her beach shirt, even though she has never been to the beach.) I made it longer, of course.

I love the cute little flutter sleeves on this. When I sewed the top ruffle on, most of the front gathering came out, so I just let it go cause I was lazy.

I also got my gathering foot to work for my serger, and I was so excited that I made ruffles until I ran out of fabric. So there are 2 rows of ruffles on the bottom.

She loved the pockets on her Leah tunic so much that I put pockets on the dress, too. And I added ruffles at the top.

It was very easy to sew up, so I may make another one and post a tutorial and pattern for it, too!