Years and years ago after my first baby was born I found myself in need of a new swimsuit.  I found a dream of a suit at Lands End.  A beautiful light purple tankini that I found in the overstocks for a whopping $20.  I loved that suit, I loved that the bottoms were high waisted enough to hide all of that post baby tummy jiggle.  It eventually wore out and I needed a new one.

But this whole single income stuff…it makes swimsuit shopping hard (as does the 3 babies body I now posses).  What I am delicately trying to say is I’m cheap and my body requires expensive swim suits.  Have you seen how much swimsuits cost these days?!  Since my lovely purple swimsuit bit the dust I have been gimping along on past season Target suits.  Ill fitting and cost more than they are worth.

This year I decided I was going to get a good quality swimsuit.  I had been drooling over the retro polka dotted suits at Boden, and when a check came through for some client work I decided to splurge and buy a real swimsuit.  I ordered the suit and a pair of shorts and then began daily games of “who can spot the mailman first!” in eager anticipation of the arrival of said swimsuit.

Finally, it did arrive!!  But to my utter dismay it didn’t fit.  FYI, for Boden sizes, order one size up from your US size.  I shipped it back to exchange it for the larger size.  Then I began my stalk the mailman game again….but still nothing. After having seen and touched the swimsuit my love for it grew.  I just knew that this summer was going to be the best ever pool season, that is the power I have granted to this swimsuit.  So eager for it’s arrival I even drew a picture to help me visualize how amazing it’s going to look on me!

See, it looks great on!  It even gives me a little cleavage (I am so dreaming that any swimsuit can do that for me!)  But it has been nearly 2 weeks and I had heard nothing from Boden and was starting to panic.  This afternoon I called them up, the conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, I ordered a swimsuit and it arrived, but I ate too many Hershey kisses and it didn’t fit.  I sent it back in hopes that you would send me a larger size.  Did you get it?”

Helpful CSR: ” Oh, I’m so sorry about the Hershey Kisses.  Can you give me your order number please?”

Me: “Um, I don’t have it.  I threw it away and deleted the emails”.

HCSR: “No problem dear, can I have your name and addresses?  Can you verify a few things for me?”

Me: giving info

HCSR: ” No, we didn’t receive your order back.  I am so sorry, let us ship you a new swimsuit.”

She reordered the swimsuit for me and is sending it express shipping, she promised it would be here by THURSDAY!  In all seriousness I could not be more impressed with the customer service at Boden, they were extremely helpful and did everything they could to get my order back out to me.  I thanked the CSR over and over again!

Have you bought your swimsuit for the season yet?

Two dresses in two days  and one trip to Big Lots and we are nearly ready for Easter.  I wasn’t purposely waiting until the last minute, but both of my machines were in the shop.  Just got the last one back on Friday (my fav machine- the elna), it runs so smooth now…like “butter” I exclaim every time I use it!

For the Easter dresses I decided to only use what I currently had in my stash (fabric, patterns & notions), which was a real challenge as I don’t typically buy large cuts of fabric.  After some strategic cutting I was able to make it all happen!  You may notice that neither of the dresses are self lined, I just didn’t have enough fabric and had to find coordinating pieces in the stash!  This also explains the glaring maroon zipper on the dress above, I did an overlapping flap so it isn’t visible while the dress is being worn.  Thankfully I had an invisible zipper in the right size for the blue dress!

After she finished her homework we decided to do a photo shoot in the backyard to show off the dress.  It is a simple sheath, but I think the cardigan (from down east basics) adds just the right “umph”!  The son asked for a tie….I think the only thing I have in my stash that might work is a blue cowboy print, which doesn’t seem very eastery….we’ll see.

We typically celebrate easter with a simple basket of one chocolate bunny some peeps and something fun like side walk chalk, bubbles, etc.  Each year our church hosts a easter egg hunt where my kids end up with more candy than Halloween!  How do you celebrate easter with the kids?

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?

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!).

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

Elsie Marley hosted a sewing for kids week and after seeing so many cute creations, I decided that I wanted to participate too…

I found this sweet brown floral knit at JoAnn’s a few months ago, I bought it knowing I would use it for the baby.  All I did was trace a pair of “short-alls” that she already had to create the pattern.  This was my first time sewing with knit, and I am really pleased with how it turned out.  It will be perfect for the warm weather here (each day we inch closer to our first triple digit day).

Best part?  It fits perfectly!

I took a little trip to Ross today for, um, some “supportive” undergarments…I’m a bit embarrassed about it (but clearly not embarrassed enough not to post it all over the web).  Its a fine line I crossed today.  Will I become dependent on my shape with support, will I ever be able to go back to regular me?  We shall simply say that this third pregnancy (and its accompanying pans of chocolate frosted brownies) did a number on my body.

But, anyhoo, while I was there I found this adorable skirt.

It fits a lot like this when on (except my waist isn’t ever going to be that small again).  I am stumped though on what type of blouse/top to wear with it (don’t say sleeveless cause it isn’t going to happen).  I’m thinking a short sleeved yellow twin set would look cute and retro, but where would I find that?

Should I try and match the yellow, or maybe I should look for something in a cream or light brown?  Any fashionistas out there with tips?

On a completely unrelated note, my son spent his easter money (who knew the easter bunny laid cash eggs?!) on a Zhu Zhu pet- factory named “Nugget”.  He immediately went to work building Nugget a home…complete with a green puff ball.  just what every good home needs!