Friday, June 25, 2010

Long time coming



Yeah, been awhile, right? Well between vacationing and work and Shannon's baby shower I helped with today, its no wonder I haven't been blogging.

I'll remedy that today. No promises for tomorrow.

So here are some pictures from the shower :)

Sock flower Corsage :) I'm not a good person to pin though...Shannon can tell you that.


Adorable diaper cake. You do need 2 people to put one together! Thanks Kim :)



The gifts, before the table started overflowing...


Before Kimberly brought her little socks :) If you read my blog, you might recognize the clothes.



Hooray for bias tape, CriCut and isosceles triangles.




Yummy! Thanks Whitney :)


The Bouqet that caused me trouble. I thought flowers, easy peasy. Yeah, until you try to attach them to the stem.




The cake was gorgeous and delicious :)


Our expert cake cutter, Melody


The woman of the hour, Shannon. I hope I look this cute when I'm pregnant




There's mine. Yep. Shannon is now the new owner of my Pink Nine Patch!






And now for more pics of the quilt, sewn by yours truly and quilted by Mary Flynn:






TTFN - Ta Ta for Now :)

Sydney

Friday, June 11, 2010

And it continues...

I know, I left ya hangin' didn't I? Oh well. So where was I?

Oh yeah PS2 and the seam ripper.

So I ripped all of the stitches out of my glorious orange bias tape. And went to bed. Then the next morning, I sewed bright white fresh out of the package bias tape to the bottom of my skirt. Victory! *lovely young girl finds out that her beloved is not seeing another*

On to the elastic. I've never used elastic before. Hum. I read directions. Pull elastic so fabric is taught. Ok. So I pull the elastic (you have to hold both ends to make your stitches even. Ok. Wait. This might pose a problem. My presser foot. Its in Arkansas, as you devoted blog readers shall recall. I have to push a button to start sewing, and again to make it stop. So lets count how many hands I need. 1, 2, 4 , 3. At this point I'm thinking it was unfortunate not to have been born with a genetic defect that would make sewing this way possible. So I try. I can't push the button and get my hand back fast enough. I can't use my nose, and there is no way my feet are making it up there. On to plan B (or is it like plan F or G by now??) *Young girl slightly miffed at her former beau*

I take another package of bright white bias tape, sew it around the top. Insert small elastic and sew! Ta-Da! The only problem now is I better not put anything heavy in those pockets! *and they lived happily ever after*



Here are pictures of it and the other one I made using this pattern with a little bit of tweaking.






Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A series of unfortunate events...

I love a good drama, don't you? That's kinda how I felt my sewing went the last couple of days. You know the the lovely couple is falling in love and then poof, something comes between them. This continues for several scenes until eventually, after many twists and turns, the couple finds them self together again. Yeah. That's the story of my skirt.

It all started with this fabric I wanted to turn into a summer skirt for myself. The first sewing EVER that I've done/kept for myself, that's what I get for being selfish, right??

So, the body and pockets of my skirt come together splendidly. *insert happy smiling couple here* The I decided that the white bias tape and elastic are not "pretty" enough and proceed to dye them tangerine. Yes, tangerine. *insert slightly less happy couple here* So I go and mix up my dye, fill the stainless steel sink with warm water, combine it and the dye according to package directions and put the elastic and bias tape into soak.

Fast forward 45 minutes, when my dying should be complete. As a peer into the sink, I see a perfect shade of bias tape! So excited. Then I pull out the elastic. Surely there must be a mistake! This isn't tangerine, I wouldn't even call it orange. Its white. A slightly dingier shade, albeit, but white nonetheless. *insert formerly happy couple, now separated by the trials of life, or the screen play authors, take your pick*

I'm like, ok. at least the binding will work, and I guess I'll use the slight less white elastic. So, I wash as directed, but decide I don't have time to wait on air drying, so I throw them into the dryer. No harm done. So I think.

So I pull my bias tape, its not quite as tangerine as when it was wet, but it will work. I merrily begin sewing it to the bottom of my skirt, instead of hemming the skirt as the pattern called for. I have about 6 inches left when I look down. This can't be good. Nope, hum. My bias tape, which I carefully measured in order to make sure it was the right length, is about 1.5" too short. *insert pretty girl, thinking that her beau has been stolen by another* (that was the saddest thing I could think of at the moment.) I cried. Well almost cried.

I decided I will make this work. The only question was how. Hum.....I know this is long and terribly boring, but please stick with me, I have to vent...

So I decided to turn a portion of my double fold bias tape into single fold bias tape. Perfect, right?? I thought so too. Until I finished it. I look at the husband, how does that look. At first he says fine, but with some additional prodding, states that it looks "chintzy." So, after such hard work and what I thought was ingenuity, my husband pronounces it cheap, tacky, inferior, shoddy...the list of synonyms goes on, but I shall spare you my ranting. *insert pretty girl depressed*

So. I did what any girl would do, I sat on the couch and ripped out my seams while my husband played PS2

I'll shall save the rest of the drama for tomorrow.

Happy Crafting
:)


Friday, June 4, 2010

Whoo Hoo!

So, today I accomplished something. I didn't think I could do it. The thought of making a baby jacket to go with this dress terrified me. I had never followed a pattern, the real kind you buy and if you mess it up, whoops. Yeah that kind.


I had a hard time picking the colors for this one. On the dress I lined the top in pink, and did the trim and piping in brown. I love pink, so yep, pink won out on the jacket...




Bias tape is awesome. Instead of attaching the hood like the pattern called for, I just sewed some store bought bias tape that didn't really match bias tape made from the ruffle fabric to where the hood should have gone. The jacket closes with some cute pink sheer ribbon...which, you can't really see in this post, can you? Have I mentioned that I love RUFFLES?? I don't think so, but just so you know I LOVE RUFFLES!

I was pretty impressed that I got the sleeves right on the first try. Well, practically the first try.


I have a feeling the baby will out grow the dress before the jacket, but maybe it will look cute with a onesie and some cute baby jeans??

Happy Sewing :)

Sydney