A few weeks ago I bought this dress pattern from Patterns Pretty Please on etsy.

I think it was the scalloped neckline that made me buy it, but I also really like the bow on view 1.  The pattern only calls for 3 yards of fabric!!  Most shirtwaister style dresses from this era take 5 yards, which is a lot when you figure good quality fabric is about $10 a yard!

I’ve decided to make view 1 first….I’m a little worried the neckline on view 2 will be too wide, so I want to get a feel for the pattern before I tackle changing it.  I need help though…I’m really stumped on what fabric to use.  I think I want a small print (I’ll do a larger print for the second dress), and I’m thinking spring colors.  I want to be able to throw a cardigan over it and pair it with flats for a casual spring day, but I also want to be able to dress it up with heels and fun hair for Sunday’s.

Are their any fabrics you’ve seen lately that you think would look great in this dress?  I like blue, grey, pinks, some greens.  Please send fabric links!!  As soon as the machines get their tune up I want to start sewing this (figure if I start now I might have a chance of finishing it by Easter!).

A $5 long sleeved t-shirt from Target + fabric scraps + heart shaped cookie cutter + steam a seam (and some top stitching)=

inspired by this Boden shirt.

Tuesday brought the arrival of my spring mini boden catalog.  I flipped through it while waiting in the car for the kids to get out of school and I SWOONED!  oh heavens, this spring collection is just so fun, a clean and classic feel to it.  The best part was, as I flipped through the pages I kept saying to myself, “I could totally make that!”  So, I set about proving it!

I adored the sweet simple and fun lines of this knife pleated skirt.  I used my pleater/gathering foot to attempt the pleats and I just couldn’t get them the right size so I ended up gathering instead.  I also only included one flap pocket, as my daughter is two and won’t be using them anyway!

I used some of the DS line from JoAnn’s, this print just screams spring to me.  I love the bright flowers.  You can see that I did a cheater hem with (home made) polka dot bias tape.

Next, I really liked the simple sleeveless ruffle tank .  It looked really simple, but I don’t have a lot of experience with knit, so I was a bit unsure about making it…

I used one of her knit t-shirts as a guide to making this shirt.  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!  I recommend using a double needle for the top stitching, it looks so much better!  I am TOTALLY tickled with how the top turned out- even my rarely excited husband was impressed!!

Thanks to Boden, for the inspiration, my daughter is now ready for spring!  My seven-yo wants this shirt, and I also have plans to make this blouse and this T-shirt.  That is after I take the machine into the machine shop, its been running funny lately.  What are you spring sewing plans?

Need a last minute- quick gift for the book lover in your life?  Hand Embroidered Felt Bookmarks!!  This project was super easy and took about an hour to do.

Grab some felt (wool felt is best, craft felt is too stretchy and will pill after a few uses), floss, elastic (mine is 3/8″ I think) and some decorative scissors.  You can find a ton of free patterns in the Hoop Love Vintage Embroidery group on flickr; print one out at about 2.5″ – 3″ square.  (Another option, instead of pictures is to stitch the initials of the recipients.) Personally, I like to use Sulky Hot Iron Transfer Pens for transferring; you will need to use something other than tracing- as the felt is too opaque.

Stitch your design and then cut out your stitching in a circle (although any shape will do) and then cut one more circle.  Cut a length of elastic measured to fit your favorite book and stitch the ends together on the sewing machine.  Lay the stitched ends of your elastic in the center of your felt circle, lay you stitched design circle on top (wrong side together).  Stitch circles together- sandwiching the elastic between the two.    Cut around the edges of the circles with your decorative scissors and Ta Da!  You’re done- and now you have a great little hand made gift to share!

This is what happens when you let an almost seven year old pick out the pattern, fabric and trim for her Christmas dress.

It begins to look more  like something meant for a stage production of “King Lear” than for a Christmas church service.  BUT, she loves it; so I guess its all good.

(she wouldn’t smile, she’s was upset that I made her step away from an episode of Curious George!)

So Sunday evening I decided that with family coming for Christmas my daughter needed a special dress to wear.  The budget being as tight as it is, I thought I would make her a dress…thinking if I went with a simple dress I could get fabric for about $10 (with coupons) and all would be well.  Monday morning we headed out to look for fabric….but moaned and moaned over the fact that I would spend the rest of the day sewing the dress and how I didn’t want to.  So, we took a detour to Goodwill in search of a used x-mas dress.  No go.  On the way to the fabric store I got a call from Jaylee, I lamented to her about how I couldn’t find a dress and was going to have to make one.  She started laughing and told me that I was the only person that she knew that would determine if it couldn’t be found at Goodwill, that it must be handmade…as if I had no other options.  I saw her point and laughed at myself.  BUT, I was sure I could get the fabric for less than I could buy a dress at Old Navy (or this $40 one from the Gap).  Well, turns out this lovely Shakespearean dress cost about $28 to make a about 5 hours of my time.  NEXT YEAR I AM BUYING A DRESS, NEW!

To add insult to injury this pattern (Simplicity 2269) was a PAIN to sew.  It looked so simple.  I’ve been sewing for 20+years, but this pattern took the cake!  The yoke for the neck…the pattern pieces were a total nightmare to pin into place and get the fabric to lay flat (from the upper gathers).  The pieces also didn’t quite fit, I ended up cutting off about 2″ from the back neck yoke on either side, just to make it fit.  On a positive note, I do like the bubble sleeves and they were easy peasy to make.  Has anyone else tried this pattern, I would love to hear your review?

It was like wearing pajamas to church today!  I made this knit skirt using Elle Apparel’s Tutorial.  I bought the knit ages ago (back in college, I can’t believe I still had it!) and whipped the skirt up last night.  It was VERY simple to make, even if you have little sewing experience you could totally make this.  Knit is very very forgiving!

It is really comfortable and I want to have at least 5 more!  I’m going to hit SAS and look for some fun striped knit.  I have a small amount of brown knit that I am going to use to make my daughter a skirt too.  This skirt would be really easy to convert shorter for a summer, I can’t say enough good things….every woman needs one of these (or 5!).

We made it home thursday night and hit the ground running!  I had the suitcases unpacked before I went to bed and started the laundry early Friday morning.  Whew- what a weekend!  Throw in a baby shower, a Sunday full of church meetings, bizarre nightmares (people dying, people accusing me of being a petty criminal, etc) and some not-so-nice kid behavior and you get a sense of how things have been around here the last few days!

Here is the little shower gift I whipped up the night before…I just love corduroy on babies, and you can’t go wrong with ric rac!  I was really stumped at first what to make/bring.  Then I remembered my friend Kate, in college she and I would always bring (well received) receiving blankets to baby showers.  Kate’s were always way cuter than mine, as she had access to KC fabric stores (and is a more skilled seamstress than I).  I highly recommend blankets as shower gifts (one-ply around here!)- they are so simple to make (less than an hour!).

I have no good transition here…but I wanted to share this.

The kids played scrabble this afternoon…and I cracked up at some of the words they used.  Especially the word on the far right.

Momma got crafty over the weekend!  I scored nearly 2 yards of this Sherbet Pips fabric over the summer at SAS for something ridiculous like $2.99 a pound; and finally got around to using it.

Baby got some new pajamas!  The top fits well, but the pants are a bit too big.  I made them in a size 2, I’m hoping she can wear them through winter and even into next spring.  I used some vintage red/white bias tape I found in Globe last year (Go Arizona for great sewing finds!!).  I have been saving it for just the right project, I am really pleased with how well it looks on the pj’s.  I trimmed the pocket (not pictured) and the bottom of the pants in it as well.

I even got all fancy and finished all (but the underarm) the seams by flat felling them.  I’ve only done that once before, as it is a bit time consuming.  This time though, when I stitched the seams down, I didn’t stitch all the way through the garment, as I don’t like the extra stitching to show on the outside of the garment.  See this tutorial to see what I mean.

Baby seems to like them just fine!

Ya’ll know how much I love pinterest, which explains why I’ve been absent from this space recently.  I just wanted to pop back in and share this awesome project that I pinned from say YES! to hoboken.

I love this idea so much so that I went out yesterday and bought some white poster board and started snapping away today!  I’ve done baby, strawberries, mom, dad, (insert brother and sister names), kitty & ball.  Hoping to do banana, book, and ???.  Anyone have any more suggestions of things I should add?

Crossing my fingers to be back here on Tuesday to show you some progress on the (toddler size) dresden plate quilt I am hand quilting!  Hope you have a great weekend doing things that make you happy, with people that you adore!

If you follow me on pinterest you may have noticed that I pinned (and many people re-pinned) this lovely skirt.