A couple aprons {ok, maybe 7}

I ALWAYS get carried away.....ALWAYS!!!!

I needed to make ONE apron for a friend....and I ended up making SEVEN!!! Yes, I have a problem! I should open a factory!! I LOVE how they all turned out!!

FULL APRON:

Take an apron you like {I used two different ones to get exactly what I wanted} lay apron on top of fabric you wish to use. Pin to keep in place. Cut exact pattern ADDING 1" to each side. {I didn't add to the bottom because I didn't want my apron any longer and I knew I would be adding the ruffle.}

From coordinating fabric cut the following pieces:

5 - 5" x 45" {2 for ties, 1 for ruffle}
1 - 4" x 22" {neck strap}
1 - 3" x width of apron {strip at top}

1 - 2" x width of apron {strip at bottom to cover ruffles}

1 - 8" x 16" {pocket}

Cut out apron and serge all around the edges. 

Cut all extra pieces. Sew the straps, turn and iron. 

I just serge all the ruffles and then ruffle hem with my ruffler. 

I surged the bottom ruffle on the apron, and then sewed the ruffles 1"-2" away from each other. {depending on your style, I did one of each and like the 2" better}.

Sew the neck strap together and finish the ends. 

Sew the pocket together, turn and iron. 

Assemble the apron as desired. 

SHORT RUFFLE APRON:

1 - 24x13" canvas/duck cloth/denim {this will be the back piece that you won't see

7 - 5" x WOF - 5 ruffles and 2 for the ties.

Serge the bottom of all the ruffles and ruffle the top edge. Sew the two ties together and then sew them in a long tube, turn and iron. 

Serge the bottom ruffle onto the piece of canvas. Sew with a zig zag stitch the other 4 ruffles 3" apart all the way up the canvas.

Sew the strap on the top of the apron making sure you cover up the top of the first ruffle and keep in lined up with the top of the canvas. 

What I have been up to lately

I will admit that this blog has not been my priority, but that doesn't mean I have not been crafting.  I have been doing things but not posting.  So I want to warn you that this post is going to be a bit of a photo dump.  I will try to link to the source of where I found the instructions or inspiration.

Liberty and I ran in a 5K called the Run or Dye.  I wanted to make a shirt from an inspiration that I had found on Pinterest.    I figured we could make one up.  I wanted one that said Walk instead of Run.  So I found a website that could make the words how ever you want.  It is Tagxedo , try it, I know you will like it.

These two shirts were a gift for Kirsten's teacher that was getting married during the summer.  I figured it was a pretty good gift for a teacher that wasn't something that would just be put in the next goodwill box.  I am not sure that I am good at putting the things on the shirts but this was a pretty fun experiment.

 Here is a tote bag that I started probably over a year ago.  It has been sitting in my "unfinished projects" bin while I am making many other things.  The other day there was a lull in my sewing and crafting projects and I pulled the bin out and finished this.  It turned out pretty good.   I used the tutorial at Crap I Made to get the pattern and the instructions how to make.  I added pockets on the inside and made the front two fabrics, to make it interesting.  Sorry about the bright sunshine in the picture.

 So when I got done with the above tote bag I had left over fabric and since I am making things to sell at Helping Hallie Halloween 5K and Bazaar Fundraiser in October.  I made these cute pumpkins.  They turned out pretty cute.  I used the tutorial at Handmade Homebody.  I made the leaf from a piece of fabric and Googled pumpkin leaves to get a general idea of the shape.  I think they are pretty cute.  I especially love the corduroy one.

For our trip in June I wanted a place to store my flat iron and curling iron.  My plan was to make two different containers but when I got this one finished it fit both.  It is made with the insulbrite to keep it from burning through the fabric.  It turned out pretty cute.  I got the tutorial from Home a la mode.

 This picture is not good, and I am having a hard time getting a good picture with the light and the sunshine, etc.  So sorry in advanced for the poor picture quality.  But I love this statement and wanted it to be on my wall.  So I figured out the spacing and used my favorite tool - the Silhouette Cameo - and made this for my wall.  I don't think that the paint vs. vinyl thing almost made me stop doing it.  But I got it done and every time I look at it, I LOVE IT!

I have made some 12x12 tiles with my Silhouette Cameo.  I saw this tutorial on you-tube and have figured out how to make these.   The two fonts are Regal font for the more open font and the darker filled in font is Fleur Corner Caps.  I really like the darker one better.  My daughter thinks the Regal font is better.  Oh well, we can disagree - right?

I found a pallet on the side of the road and Dave has been trying to get the boards off so I can make some signs.  I just wanted to show a project I am thinking of making for Helping Hallie Halloween 5K and Bazaar Fundraiser that I have coming up in October.

This is a sample of what I want to put on the above boards.  This is board is pretty small 4 inches by 13 inches.  But my laundry room is small and so it will fit just perfectly above my washer.  I totally love the part about not being responsible for lost socks.  I swear my kids socks never make it to the laundry in the first place.  There is always many missing socks.



Maybe I will get on the ball and start posting more again.  I like doing it, but I have been kind of busy with other things and just don't get things posted.  I have a new scripture tote that I made for Kirsten that I can't find a picture for.  I might just have to make a 2nd one to post pictures of it.  We will see what happens.  I am sure there will be some more signs being made for the Helping Hallie Halloween 5K and Bazaar that I am helping out with.  Maybe I will post them soon.

Three quilts for Charity

 

These quilts are ready to go and when my kids are not sick we are going over to our local women's shelter to deliver them with a card talking about how quilts are like love.  Here is the card I made.  It turned out pretty cute.

 

 

 

I think I started some of these quilts 2 or 3 years ago.  They have been a challenge in the fact that I was trying new techniques that I was not used to.  So let me tell you a little bit about these quilts.

 

The light green one was an experiment.  I think I bought the fabric over 5 years ago.  Then a couple years ago when we were making quilts for a Relief Society project I think I started it.  I wanted to try making blocks on a quilt.  The fabric is from my grandmother's stash.  After she died I was able to gather some of the fabric in hopes that one day I would make quilts like grandma.  Maybe one day I will but for now I am an amateur.  After piecing the top together I experimented with a quilting technique.  I was trying to use many of the fancy stitches on my machine and just played around with it.  I decided to do some free motion quilting but I didn't like doing it with my machine.  And so there it set for a couple years waiting for me to finish.  Finally I decided it needed to be done and so I figured out that Kirsten's sewing machine has a free motion foot and it fits on my machine.  So I was able to free motion the squares that were green.  It turned out okay.  I have a long way to go on my free motion quilting but it is kind of cute and has a unique look to it.  I added a premade binding and it turned out okay.

 

 

For these two quilts I used a couple different techniques.  I sometimes watch the show Fon's and Porter on PBS.  I love the idea of making a quilt but lack the confidence to do more then very simple quilts.  Years ago I used a technique from the Bend the Rules sewing Book and made a couple lap quilts by piecing together strips.  But as I was watching the show Fon's and Porter I saw them demonstrate a quilt made on the serger.  The Serger Ruffle Quilt seemed a fairly easy way to make a quilt and so I thought I would make these quilts into that.  It is fairly straight forward but I found there were a couple problems with quilting with the serger.  Mainly that you are going over 6 layers of fabric and batting.  My machine did it fine but I found that sometimes I would not catch one layer.

 

 

So I ended up having to modify how I did it.  After I would serge one layer I would have to cut the layers to match up all three layers before adding the next layer. 

 

 

I then would move the new piece on top over about a 1/4 of an inch to insure that it would get sewn into the seam.  After that I picked up all of the fabric into the seam and didn't have problems. 

 

 It took a little longer then I expected but they turned out pretty and cute.  Of course I love the pink and purple one but the purple and green one has grown on me. 

For binding the quilt I found a tutorial that showed you how to bind it all on the sewing machine. The tutorial is here Quilt Binding tutorial.  That saved me hours of time that I would have to sew it by hand.  I think it turned out pretty nice too.
I found somewhere where someone had wound their binding onto an old thread spool.

  I liked the idea and I was even able to put it on my second thread holder while I was adding it to the quilt.  It moved smoothly and made it easy to put on.  Just one of those things that made the binding part easier.  I cut all my binding from scraps.  I like using scraps for binding, it adds color and fun to the binding.

Hope you enjoy and I hope those at the shelter can feel the love I put in to these blankets.

MIA Blogger

Sometimes life is just crazy.  I have a couple of things I have been working on lately but I need to finish them up before I can post them, but I realized the other day that I did not show you my creation for my daughter's baptism.  In our church the children are give the opportunity at the age of 8 to choose whether or not they want to be baptized.  Our daughter Kirsten made the decision and on December 29th she baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).  I was watching Martha's Sewing Room one day and a guest showed how to make beautiful designs on a sheer material with the serger.  (I can't find the link, sorry.)  I knew right then that I was going to make Kirsten's dress that way.  So here is a picture of my beautiful daughter in her dress.

I created the cross work on my serger on to a sheer organza material and then lined with the white satin fabric.  It was a lot of stress.  I did the serging first before I cut the pattern out.  I am grateful to my mother that did all the handiwork on it and helped me figure out the zipper.  Kirsten just radiated and the dress was the finishing touch.

After the baptism we had a lunch at our house.  It was crazy with over 30 people in my little house but it was a lot of fun.  I had found this beautiful dress on Pinterest and knew that I needed to make it for Kirsten's baptism luncheon.  It was fairly easy once you figured out the rhythm out of how to make the flowers.  I used my largest star in my pastry set and went to work.  To make the Buttercream recipe more white I just used half the butter it called for and substituted the shortening for the butter and used clear vanilla from Wilton.  It turned out adorable.  I sprinkled a little bit of white sugar crystals on top to make it "shine" and bought some pearls from the Wilton store for the waistband.

So much fun!  I love getting things together for a party.  We had a great time and enjoyed having friends who could share this special day with us.

Getting Ready for Christmas

I've been trying really hard this year to get in control of my never-ending list so that I can enjoy the holidays. I started early working on a few projects {and I lowered my expectations and didn't add so many new things to my list this year}. It might be because I work full time this year and I KNOW that I don't have time to add new things to my list.

I redesigned one of my designs and added a little more to one of my aprons.....I added an extra strip of the green striped fabric to the top and the pocket. I added three smaller ruffles to the bottom and then covered it up with a strip of the green. It turned out super cute. {too bad I made it for someone else to give as a gift...oh, and I can't find the Christmas fabric this year}

Just in case you are wondering: The original tutorial is HERE, I added a 2" strip to the top and pocket. The strip across the ruffles is 1" and the ruffles are 4" each.

Jewelry Holder

Ta-da!  I am finally posting this.  I made this back in March and haven't posted it yet.  I kept meaning too but I have a conflict with the computer.  When I spend too much time on it, the kids spend too much time making HUGE messes all over the house.  It is hard.  I have been working hard on making all kinds of other things that may or may not get up here on the blog.  Anyway - you don't really need my excuses.  You are thinking - okay get on with it.  How did you make it?  Well, as the name of the blog says, I redesigned a pattern I found in Marie Osmond's Heartfelt Giving Sewing Book.  In there she has one that is for taking with you.  I knew I would never travel with all my jewelry but Liberty has said she saw something like it and it triggered something in my head that said "I NEED THIS" and "I CAN MAKE I."

I am not sure that I changed it all that much from the original idea.  I did make my pockets to fit my watches bands and other jewelry I had.  I also used a different kind of hanger and I would suggest that you find the wood ones because it gets very heavy with all the jewelry in it. 
If I didn't have 3 very "helpful" children, my OCD tendency would have led to making sure that all the jewelrly was color coordinated and that earings were near matching jewelry and the like.  But as you see it - they "helped" me put everything in and my 1 1/2 year old seems to think it is a play place for her.  I have moved it to the back of the closet so she won't take it all apart.

Here are some close ups of the pockets and the jewelry.

I think the best thing about it was that it only cost me the price of the hanger.  I had the clear vinyl, velvet material and everything else in my closet.  I love it and love that I can SEE all my jewelry in one place.  Maybe one day they will let me organize it in the way I want it too look.

The Christmas Dresses

YES, I AM CRAZY.  If you haven't figured that out yet, then you will when you see these two photos.  This year I decided to make Christmas dresses for the girls and then it snowballed into something for everyone except Dave.  But he really started the whole thing by buying that Burgundy colored shirt.  I was in love (with the shirt) it was beautiful.  {Funny side note: you can barely see it in the pictures.  Trust me it is the most beautiful color.}
So the quest began to make dresses to match the shirt.  Then the snowball began moving and TA-DA - The DRESSES.

Oh, yeah, two matching ones for the girls, one for me, and to make it fun - a vest for Peter.

I saw the idea for the girls dresses on one of my favorite blogs - Make It and Love It.  She is amazing and she made a ruffle dress for her daughter with a t-shirt and ruffle material.  I wanted to step it up a notch and so I made the shirts out of stretch velvet.  I actually found my ruffle material at Hobby Lobby, where I was able to use my 40% of coupon to bring the cost down a little.  You can buy the material at the Ruffle fabric shop but I wasn't sure how much I needed and didn't want to pay the price for it.  I can't say anything about the quality of either compared to each other.  But I liked the ruffle material, but with any of them you are going to have to match ruffles on the sides and that was a pain and I did clip some of the ruffles unintentionally when I was cutting my top out.  It worked out okay.  Anyway, when I bought the material I was a bit generous in my purchase because I had come up with an idea for me.  NO, I was not going to wear ruffles on my butt (it is NOT little and I don't need to accentuate that point.)  I think I bought 2 yards. 

For the girls I used various patterns I have at home and patterned the tops after dresses they already had.  The skirts are just pieces of the material gathered on just like Ashley did in her tutorial.  I also followed her instructions for the sash.

I had found a dress at a swap our church has yearly for clothing.  It was too large for me but I had hopes that I would be able to take it apart and adapt it for me.  When I started thinking about this project, that dress came to my mind.  It was perfect.  I cut off the top and "designed" myself a top.  To be honest, I had some knit fabric that I made a muslin out of to test the sleeves and the neckline.  It turned out okay and so I proceeded.  It took me a couple of days to get the sleeves right.  First try I looked like I was going to be playing in a Mariachi band.  I have to admit I was a bit down and didn't want to try any more.  I thought to myself.  This "designing" thing is for the birds.  But as you can see, it turned out beautiful and I was excited to walk into church as that "MATCHY MATCHY" family for Christmas.

You would not believe how close of a match the material for our sashes and Peter's vest were to Dave's shirt.  Dave even said it looked like they were cut out of the same material.  Peter's vest came together in a little more then and hour.  He was pretty grumpy this morning when we pulled him away from his toys and MADE him where THAT vest.  I promised him chocolate kisses (and mommy kisses) if he wore it and the tie.  I used a pattern I bought a year or so ago.  But you could really use an old vest and make a pattern off it.

Lastly, I am quite proud to say that I had them finished the day before Christmas Eve.  I finished up the final touches around 1 pm and was able to spend the rest of the day playing with my family.  So I made the flowers from instructions form Vanilla Joy for Satin Peony Flowers.  I made two for the girls hair and 3 for our dresses.  For the girls I used a tutorial from Make it or Love it for non-slip hairbows - and Esther's stayed in the whole time at church.

Okay so here is a better picture of the dresses.  I like all our faces (except Peter) in the one above, but this one is actually a better picture (and took less time to photoshop out the table in the background.

This is one of those times I am proud of my sewing skills.  It was crazy for me to make these but it worked.  {Of course the kids didn't get new sewn PJ's for Christmas because it took me longer to make my dress then expected - but they got a TON of things for Christmas anyway and didn't notice.  I guess I'll try and get them done for New Year's instead.:) }

**My jewelry was made by Liberty.  She is so awesome.  Now I have a really beautiful set of jewelry from her.  And for a special treat, I had her make bracelets for the girls.  They loved them.  Esther kept hers on the whole time.  She is really one of those girly girls.  She loves to put on jewelry and carry around purses.