Roller Skate dress Provence Style

So lets not talk about how old this post is... or how this is one of the last photos  I have of Bella before she cut off her hair... I miss this hair so much! Maybe again someday....

This is pattern is Oliver and S's skater dress. We found this fabric at the Jacksonville Quilt Show back when Bella was itty bitty- about 5 months old. And bought it to make her something out of and then it promptly was lost in Moms sewing room. I only bought maybe a 1/2 yard of it so it was small. And when I reminded mom about it, it still took a bit to locate so it was about a solid year later that we were able to just eke out this dress. IT IS GORGEOUS. A bit short but WHO CARES I mean look at those adorable baby thighs!

We made it large so it should fit this summer still as a top. And then I will have to go find more of this fabric and make something bigger!

Do you see this kids calf muscles? She is ridiculous...

I am going to have to go squeeze her now. She has gotten so big the last couple months. 

For Matt

More water color - this time it was for Matt... he doesn't get many things done specifically for him. But everyone loves a little Dave Matthews Band- and we just went to see him this last summer in Jacksonville. So I made this for him when we found out about the new job. Now it is hanging in the living room. 

I don't post much about family life any more... but Matt is a pretty awesome guy. 

Baby Dolls

I had no idea what to get Bella for Christmas. Two and a half year olds are hard to shop for especially when they are, shall we say, less then gentle. At the very last minute (very, very last) it hit me that a doll bed would be perfect.... Then I remembered, we now live in the land of no good retail stores (Jacksonville what is this?! I actually miss you!?) Last minute shopping brought no help until I happened to come across Danamadeit's baby doll basket pattern on pinterest. It was a life saver! Do you love instant download patterns as much as I do?  I bought it, and was able to find most everything  else in my stash. One quick trip to Joann's and I was good to go.

I made some slight modifications- one being heavier interfacing, because I wanted it to be very rigid. 

If you are want to make one I think the pattern is worth getting but I personally would not define this as a beginner pattern- even though I felt it should be. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't as exact as I felt it should be for being a pattern you pay for. She over/under explains some parts of the process to the point of confusion. This is just my opinion. And as I stated, I would purchase it again because it took some of the guess work out of making a cute doll bed and I LOVE how it turned out!  (I just want to be clear if you go to grab it to make) 

These poor babies have been mostly naked for two years. It is impossible to find clothing for the tiny cabbage patches. I finally decided to bust out some additional clothing for them (what is it that makes you not want to do these projects and then when you finally break down and tackle them, they are so easy you wonder why you didn't do them sooner?) The left is a from scratch little peasant style dress. I just winged it and it worked out. The right one is one of Bellas baby dresses cut up and reused to created the same dress at 40% the size. 

She loved the gift when she finally stopped asking where the babies mommy was. It was funny and sweet how concerned she was opening up the box, she was more worried the babies mom left had them, then realizing they were her dolls.... she was very happy when she found out she was their mommy.... now if she would just take care of them and put their clothes back on! 

Isabella - an embroidered portrait

I wasn't sure how this project would turn out so it hasn't even been instagramed-- 

WHAT?! I know! 

We headed up to the Sacramento area for a week after the new year to hang with family while Matt was on a business trip. I wanted to take something with me to do... and I had pinned a couple of embroidered portraits for ever ago... though mine ended up looking nothing like the originals.....

I LOVE IT! It took hours. HOURS. I think I worked on it for a couple weeks in my free time.

 So much fun to play with thread like this. 

 I snapped some in progress shots- first I found a photo I liked and then I traced it onto the fabric and used that as my guidelines. As you can see there was trial and error. I started the embroidery with straight stitching as in my original pin and then hated it so ripped it out and did more searching for portrait embroidering and decided to go more organic with it. 

I jumped all over trying to make sure I was going to be happy with the overall look

Once I felt comfortable that it was going to work out I went down to the super labor intensive/time consuming clothing part. I really wanted it to look like her clothing 

 Here's a comparison. I was almost done but something wasn't right. So photoshopping them together helped point out the problem. Somehow her chin had gotten pointy in the transfer so I pulled out the bottom of her chin and redid it rounded 

just pulling up that chin made the whole face look right. 

P.S. If you check out my Pinterest Embroidery board you can find a lot of really neat examples of this type of embroidery. 

Eden Rose

Randi (the mom to be) does just about everything crafty you can think of. So thinking up something to make for her that she hadn't already done for herself or didn't have plans to do was hard. And then I ran across one of these organizers at Joann's. I hadn't seen one in years (and haven't seen any since... where can you get these things?!) It was actually one of the first baby gifts I did followed by this one, and this one (I never even found these to do for my own kids!)

Seriously love me some embroidering! 

Tiny felt flower hair clips (why won't Bella wear these... or stop cutting her hair... lol)

And a screen-printed onesie with one of my first graphics on it. Apparently I revisited quite a few of my first projects on this one. 

Pretty wrapping never hurts... 

I just love making stuff for new babies! 

Randi's Shower Invite

Still playing catch up. I am not sure how many invites I will be doing now that we have moved... I guess I will have to figure out other reasons to water color? This was my second watercolor- I think.... I've lost track a bit.

Everything on this invite was created in pieces and then scanned in and moved around to create the invite. Which is really fun and forgiving. The elephant now hangs in our living room... cause he is so cute! 

The invite was printed onto watercolor paper.

The gift is up next!

Going away gifts ... Part 3

Mom asked for me to do something with water colors and the phrase 'and they all lived happily ever after' so I made this for her and gave it to her before we left. Actually I had Bella give it to her so she would have an easier time with it. Kids are good for that! 

At some point I will get a good scan of it and print one for myself!

 P.S. Corinnea here.... Making it easier on me by having Bella give it to me actually means, Mom wouldn't dissolve into hysterical crying in front of Bella there by making it easier on her... It worked, for the most part. 

Skirt

Oh look! I made something for me, had my guy take my picture and I'm actually blogging about it within the same week. Will wonders never cease.

Confession time: I'm not the same person I was a few years ago. I've grown, and I'm not talking about my state of mind..... This fact has been a bit hard to come to terms with and made it hard for me to make things for myself. This skirt started out as a dress and it was tragic. I cried and threw it in a corner for a year. I mean that literally, my room is a mess. Sad part is, the fabric was beautiful.

 I read an article over on Melly Sews and it struck a cord with me. Yes, I have been sewing upwards of forty years, but I learned old school sewing (where each garment was made to last through the generations, whether the new generation wanted them or not), and I still beat myself up when I make mistakes. Funny thing is, when I was teaching, I would always tell my students, there are no mistakes, only opportunities. Why I cannot seem to apply that to myself I don't know. 

Coming across that wad of fabric the other day I knew it was time to do something with it or throw it out. 

Wanting to be done in one afternoon, this was not the time for me to get caught up in making the inside look as good as the outside. There is no lining or hong-kong finish on this skirt. I just needed something to wear and the pile-o-guilt to be gone from my room. 

I choose to try an exposed zipper because I happened to find a cool metal zip in my stash and it's quicker than doing a back seam and applying a invisible zip. Have I done one before? No..... because I have always been afraid of ruining my fabric. Am I happy with the results. Yes! I'll do better next time. Or maybe I'll mess it up.

I really went out on a limb here showing you both shirt tucked in and out. One is way out of my comfort zone...... 

Pattern used for general shape : Simplicity 8664
Fabric: Beautiful wool, bought so long ago from I forgot where

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Superhero bags

 I've seen some really fun Superhero projects on pinterest but so far we aren't really into super heros and Matt has no special interest in any of them. So, when I wanted to make something for some of my young cousins and I found out they do like super heroes it seemed like a good time to pull one of those pins out. (specific one here)

 I apologize for the absolutely awful pictures. But I forgot to photograph them at all so last minute pictures are all I have. 

They are both paper pieced ... Paper piecing is a really cool way to do complicated images  but not something I would really want to do a lot of... ever...

Hulk actually looks quite different then the original. I thought he needed an actual nose and eyes. 

I put them onto drawstring bags... I wanted the gifts to be useful... possibly not the most appropriate place to put something that took so much time to create but hopefully it means they will get a lot of use out of them!