Sewing Spree

 I went on a little sewing kick during Christmas.  I sure was nice to have Daddy home!!

 

I made these Christmas pajamas for the kids.  I accidentally purchased this aqua dot fabric online (for a real bargain) only to discover it was flannel instead of cotton.  So I saved it for PJ pants and had just enough to make 3 pairs.  (Well, not quite enough ... Luke got cuffs on his pants!)

 

I hand stitched the tree appliques on tees and ... voila: Pajamas.  (I am hoping to post a tutorial on the hand-stitched tees soon.  I have made several and they are really cute!)

 

I used this free pattern download for the pants.  It was a quick sew!

 

 

I also made 3 pairs of ruffle pants for Claire.  Two pairs were to match tops (formerly dresses) that she already had (see below). 

 

 

I love this cute Riley Blake snowman fabric!  She's had this pillowcase dress for 3 years now.

 

I also made 2 outfits for next fall/winter (and made my first knot/apron dress).

 

This outfit is for Christmas next year.  I need to shorten the straps a little.  They seemed too short when I was cutting them out so I made them a little longer.  Clearly, I should have just followed the pattern measurements!  I love these fun, non-traditional Christmas colors.

 

 

This is a knot top without the apron and the 3rd pair of ruffle pants I made.  Cute, cute!  I love this fabric so much!

 

 

The knot dress/top and ruffle pants came from Little Girls, Big Style book.  I highly recommend this book if you have little girls to sew for!  It has a ton of variations 4 basic patterns (2 tops, 2 bottoms).

 

I also made a pair of grey dot ruffles and matching tee for my niece for her birthday, but forgot to snap a picture before I gave it to her!

 

I have several other little projects in the works so I hope to be posting more finished projects soon!

Sewing Retreat: April 2012

Back in April, I got to go on a weekend long sewing retreat with my mom.  Like I got to sew Thursday night, all day/night Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning.  It was AWESOME and good to get many unfinished projects FINISHED UP!  For now, I think these types of retreats will be the only times I get to sew!

I've had these two tops finished for a while, but I finally got the matching shorts finished on this trip.  The top is the Stella Tie Top and the shorts are just a basic shortened pants pattern with added ruffle.

Another pair of short to match this cute smocked top I purchased for Claire on Zulily for around $20.  I didn't love the matching shorts they had (or they didn't have her size) so I made my own.

I have this pink/orange fabric in my stash and it matches perfectly! 

I finished the leggings to this knit outfit I made in a sewing class in January 2011.  Yikes!  I told you I had a lot of unfinished projects laying around.  Claire should be able to still wear this in the fall.

This was a new project.  I am totally in love with this fabric.  The dress pattern is the Addison dress/top.  I made a size 6 so hopefully, she can wear it next year.  I had enough fabric left over (and time) to make my niece a cute skirt (but I did not take a picture).

I love how this dress ties in the back.

The boys got something out of the sewing retreat weekend too!

Matching sailboat outfits.

This sailboat patch is one of my favorite appliques designs.

I purchased this sailboat fabric and smocked the insert below when Claire was about 9 months old.  I had planned to make her a dress with it.  5 years later, I finally got the panel put into an outfit for Luke.  (My time for him to wear smocked clothing is running out and he is my last!)   Both outfits are still a little big on the boys, but big enough that I think they can wear them next summer.

Claire also got these cute ruffle pants to match this pillowcase (formerly) dress/now top that she wore when she was 3!  We have gotten a lot of wear out of this one!

I love the feeling of getting caught up (even just a little) but I already have a stack of fabric ready for my next round of projects!  I love cutting into new fabric!

Matilda Jane Love

I love Matilda Jane brand clothing for Claire.  I'm glad I just have one girl or I might go broke buying it (just kidding of course).  This season, there were several random pieces that I really liked, but I didn't like any matching piece in the line.  So, I bought the pieces I liked and headed to the fabric store to make matching companion pieces.

I made this cute top (Sarah pattern) to match the MJ aqua shorties (super-cute knit ruffle shorts).  The top ties in the back. 

I made this cute apron skirt to go with the pink ribbon top.  I love all the yellow, pink, red and green together.  (This skirt pattern is from the Little Girls, Big Style book.)

I made another cute skirt (the Easy Peasy skirt pattern from Mod Kid) to go with this cute celery tank top.  This skirt seriously takes about 30 minutes to make from start to finish.

I like doing this because (1) it saves me a little money [a MJ 2-piece outfit can run anywhere from $60+ ... my way, I spend $26-$30 on one piece and about $10 on fabric to make the matching top/bottom] AND (2) Claire has unique outfits [there is a lot of MJ in the area where we live and you see a lot of the same outfits all the time ... this way, at least we are a little different].

Sew What: Recent sewing projects

I guess these are recent if you consider 4 months ago recent ... some are more recent than others I guess.  These are some cute Valentine's Day shirts I made for the kids.  David loved his car shirt!  The embroidery designs came from Applique Cafe.

Here are three cute knit long rompers I made for Luke.  I only wore them a few times before they were too short!  All of these designs came from Applique Cafe too.

I've had these pants cut out for Luke since the fall.  I finally got around to sewing them up just in time for (1) a very warm spring, and (2) Luke to outgrown them.  He looked really cute the few times he wore them.  (See pics below.)  David got matching pants in both prints and I think he will actually be able to wear his still in the early-fall.  At least these outfits were not a total fail!  I just used Heat 'n Bond lite on these fabric squares and straight stitched around them.  Not time for a trip to my mom's house to use her super-nice embroidery machine.

 

Seriously ... why is it so hard for me to get a picture of my boys together?

Claire is modeling a cute top I made for her.  My favorite thing is that she can wear it with a long-sleeve tee and jeans in the winter and without a tee and leggings in the summer.  I couldn't get a good pose out of her where you can actually see the dress.  The straps tie in the back in a cute bow.  This pattern is called the Addison top/dress and you can purchase the pattern here.

These two skirts came from this book.  I purchased the fabric to make the first skirt (fuller one), but had enough left over to make a slimmer skirt too (the second one).  I love this fabric so much, I don't mind having two skirts from it.  Super cute paired with white tee.

This dress is called Happy and I purchased it on Etsy.  I've had it cut out for a while and finally sewed it up.  Despite all the ruffles, it did not take long to make. 

This was my first attempt at "shirring" (using elastic thread in your bobbin and then ironing to make it cinch up).  You can see it close up below.  I wasn't hard at all, but I'm not sure I did it right.  Seems a little loose to me!

I am going on a sewing retreat next weekend (Thursday night-Sunday) and hope to have lots of finished projects to show you! 

Sewing for a Cause

One Saturday back in January, I spent 4 hours one Saturday sewing up about 80 eyeglasses cases for our Sunday School class (or LifeGroup as our church now calls it) to take on their mission trip to Cape Town, South Africa.  This is same trip Will took in February 2011.

You can read about the February 2012 trip here.

I was so glad to be able to contribute to this trip in some small way since I was originally supposed to go, but had to cancel due to Will's work travel schedule. 

These stellar photographs were taken by my sweet hubby. 

He helped cut out the eyeglasses cases while I sewed them up.  He finished cutting them all out in about five minutes and I had sewed maybe 2-3 cases up.  After that, he said, "See ya!" 

Here is this finished product ... all 80 of them.  

If you want to read more about our friends who are missionaries in South Africa (and help coordinate this trip), read their blog here.  They are such a great little family doing BIG things in Cape Town!!

Sew What? Edition: it's been a while ...

Will granted me a reprieve from the house one Saturday and I was able to get some "sewing" done on my mom's embroidery machine.  I'll be sharing some good clothing bargain ideas too in this post.

This outfit came from Lolly Wolly Doodle.  They are a flash sale site on Facebook.  I think this outfit was $34.  That is a steal for this high quality tee and cute ruffle pants.  Even though I could easily make these pants, nice fabric would probably cost $12-$15, plus my time to make them (which doesn't come cheap).  This was a Christmas gift for my niece.  

A close up of the stitching on the "e".  This applique came from here.  Lolly Wolly Doodle will add monogramming to their shirts for $5, but I wanted to let my sister choose this one so I did it myself.  (Plus, I didn't want to spend $5 for a single letter ... but for a name or applique, it is totally worth it.)

Here is my cute niece wearing her outfit to school for "red" day.

I did a similar "c" on a shirt for Claire.  This is a nice thick tee that I purchased wholesale from a friend ($4) and a pair of Castles & Crowns pants that I purchased at Zulily (another flash deal site) for $15.  (These would normally run $30.)  You can sign-up for daily emails from Zulily by clicking on this link (and I will receive a $15 credit).  

{On a side note, Zulily has tons of great products from kids and moms ... everything from books, games, clothing, educational products, maternity clothing, shoes, etc..} 

I purchased these two rompers from a friend for $8 each.  They are lined corduroy from Castles & Crowns.  She had her son's initials monogrammed on them.  I covered the monograms with a patch and put Luke's initials on them.  (Also, the brown and green paired with a red turtleneck was a super-cute Christmas outfit for him.) 

I love cute playclothes!  I bought these pants for Claire on clearance at Target for $2.50 each.  The tees were on sale at Target for $5 each.  I added the monograms/initials.

Fall Cuteness

I spent a Thursday night and Friday afternoon at my mom's house on her embroidery machine.

Here are the fruits of my labor.

Two cute Halloween shirts for Claire. These shirts are plenty big and long so she should be able to wear them again next year.


3 pumpkin shirts for the kids to wear on our annual pumpkin patch trip. I love how the trucks turned out.


It wouldn't be fall without football season. We took the big kids to their first Alabama football game and they had to have cute outfits to wear. (I made Luke a shirt too even though he stayed home with Meme.)


I still need to make the boys some pants out of the gray polka dot fabric. They are wearing jeans with them for now, but I had to whip up this cute skirt for Claire. It literally took me 30 minutes to make this skirt from start to finish. (I made it while Will was putting the kids to bed.) It is this pattern.

Next up ... Christmas and snowmen. (I debate making turkey shirts for the kids every year, but I typically just let them wear their pumpkins for Thanksgiving.)