Handmade Christmas: Pillow

This year my whole family was together, so we decided to do a gift exchange by pulling names out of a hat. This pretty much means that my family gets my sisters family with a few variations because of Sam, Jennika and CoCo.  Pickle got Uncle Nate, so she needed some help.

I often turn to Etsy for inspiration, searching things I know about the recipient.  In this instance, I searched his company name: General Mills and when I saw this vintage flour sac for sale, I knew I had to make a pillow.  When it arrived I suddenly became inspired to embroider the doughboy himself onto the sack and then I saw I had some extra neon jewels in the bag with the neon floss and the finishing details were born!

I found clip art of the doughboy and just hand-drew him onto the sac based on what I saw on the screen. After I embroidered over it, I washed it so that the ink would disappear, then I sewed it together, adding a top stitch to sew that hole closed!

Voila!

Isn’t it so good?  I feel like it is very professional looking and I sort of want to keep it.  Oops, Pickle already gave it to him for Christmas.

Handmade Christmas: PJ’s

Last summer I found 4 yards of this candy cane stripe fabric at a yarn store in IL for like 5 bucks. I was immediately inspired to make Christmas Jammies for my girls.  I wanted to make gowns, but it was only enough to make pants.  I used a pattern for the bigs and made up my own (with Carrie’s help, duh) for the mini.

I then embellished long-sleeved tee’s I got on old navy for around $2-, but still couldn’t find a tee for pickle.  When Lolly ripped her pair of red cozy pants, I decided to make one!  WHAT?

I used this tutorial from MADE and the t shirt from Courtney’s homecoming (torn apart…sorry everyone who might be mad at that) to make a pattern.  This tee looks so intimidating because of the overlapping flaps-but it’s seriously so easy!  When I started lining up my pattern I realized that the pants had stripes, so I centered them on the front, back and sleeves and used the waistband for my cuffs so that I didn’t have to hem any part of it!

I haven’t finished adding the trim and buttons to the pintucked(!) bib, but here it is!

The Bigs’ are all finished.  See below:

When I was growing up, the tradition was to open Christmas PJ’s on Christmas Eve.  Now that I am the Mom, I have decided getting Christmas PJ’s right after Thanksgiving is the thing to do, so that we can enjoy them the entire month!  I finished them in the NICK of time.

I Sew: Pom-Pom Cowl

I finally made myself a pom-pom cowl.  I picked out the pom-poms at Tinsel Trading Company and after visiting several fabric stores, finally settled on the aqua linen to go with it.  It was inspired by the monster on my living room wall, and then I saw that J Crew was digging the color combo too.  I have gotten lots of compliments on it, so I think it’s a home run! Thanks Purlbee for the tutorial!

I Sew: Skirts

Last spring I clipped a catalog photo of a striped pocket skirt I wanted to make for the girls. When I saw this striped fabric at purlsoho, I knew I was ready.  Thankfully, Carrie visited me this summer and helped me with a pattern for this pocket skirt.  She showed me how to make an extra special pattern for a little girl’s skirt, and bonus extra special for you is that her tutorial is online!

Whirrly Twirly Skirt Tutorial

I learned how to make a pattern, I learned a new waistband finish and used bias tape to hem it!  Yippee!  I think I sewed pretty straight on this one too.  I am getting a little better!

I’ve even convinced my family to use this fabric as inspiration for our big family photoshoot in October.  I think this skirt is good enough to appear in said photo!  Now I need to find just the right fall pieces to go with it!

Lolly rejected the striped fabric I picked out for her, but requested I make the same skirt in a floral print.

I sew: Liberty of London Skirt

After attending the Liberty of London launch party, I knew I wanted to do something with some fabric.  While Carrie was here I asked her to help me pick out some items.  This fabric with the neon elastic was the winner!  She wanted me to make a more flattering cut, but I was happy with my rectangle approach….it’s just to keep me cool in the summer!

The paperbag waist was difficult to do, because I had to pull the elastic as I sewed, but it was worth it, because when I didn’t do that, I couldn’t get it on!  I also discovered bias tape hemming with this skirt! What a wonder! Loved doing it!

Do you like my laundry in the photos?

I Sew!

I saw this fabric at Purlsoho and then City Quilter, and kept thinking about it, so I bought a half yard and whipped up a little something for the Phoebster.  I thought it would be a nice memory of our London trip last summer. Ah! Londontown! I want to go back!

I quite like it. I sewed really straight on this one….I hope she likes layering it up with some leggings for the fall.

*Headband.

I Sew: Elastic Waistband Skirt

My Mom and I attempted a chevron skirt from a 70′s pattern while she was visiting in June. I succeeded sewing a zipper and cutting and sewing on the bias, but never quite finished. I still had some extra fabric, so I challenged myself to make pockets for this skirt.

I LOVE the wide elastic I picked up at Mood for this skirt. I DON’T love that even though I measure and sewed the elastic very well, I did not measure it on my waist before completing the skirt.  It’s loose.  Luckily the elastic is stiff enough that I don’t think you can really tell.

Hey, how about those pockets?

Follow this tutorial for the pockets, then switch to this one for the elastic waistband.

I Sew!

I found this rose bias tape at M and J trimming last week while I was looking for suitable ribbon to make into costume belts for the girls’ Willy Wonka show.  I fell in love with it. Thankfully I was hosting sewing circle that night (which right now just consists of one friend and me) and so I made this skirt!I was too lazy to iron it for the photos, sorry.  Also, too lazy to iron it before wearing it out.  I love this skirt because it is my new favorite length and it’s light and breezy.  It’s a miracle I finished it because my sewing machine was on the fritz the entire night until I realized I’d put my needle in backwards. Oh my my my. Sewing can be so frustrating.

 

I Sew!

I did a good job on this skirt. I followed this tutorial!  I think it will be so cute in the winter!

I Sew!

I bought some affordable fabric from my favorite cheap but quality fabric place in NYC, in hopes to make some summer skirts. I was INSPIRED by Miggy’s summer skirts!

I wanted to start sewing right away, but I am also committed to making them the best I can make them, so I washed my fabric the first night, like a good seamstress is supposed to do!

The next day I carefully measured, ironed, pinned and cut the knit fabric for Lolly’s skirt and got to the very last step of sewing the elastic when my sewing machine jammed again.  I had recently spent a chunk of change to get it fixed, so I was so frustrated when I was back to the broken place again.  And all I had to do was sew like 3 more inches of fabric!

I tried it on Lolly anyway and she fell in love with the skirt, because it was “soft, and swishy, and it doesn’t show my panties when I jump!”

I intended it as a summer play skirt but she was set on wearing it to church the next day. She woke me up the next morning already completely dressed, and begged me to paint her nails to match her outfit.  Church was in 5 more hours, and 1 hour before we left, she had an accident in the bathroom, destroying her ability to wear the skirt to church that day.

I was frustrated because my daughter has been potty trained for several years now, and she has the periodic, pee-on-the-floor-right-in-front-of-the-toilet moments that she blames on wardrobe malfunctions.  AND because I was going to have to wash the garment again before I actually finished it!

Despite all the drama with the sewing machine and the pee, I am not discouraged, and I intend on finishing my summer skirt sewing projects, hopefully before the summer is over.  And Lolly intends on wearing her skirt as soon as it leaves the dryer.  It made me feel pretty good that she was thrilled with a silly knit skirt.