Booo. Hiss. Booo.

I didn't buy enough of the chickens to make that skirt! So I'm gonna
make it with this. It's been so hot lately, an I have 1 skirt, and NO
shorts. I'm living in jeans or yoga pants since I had #2. So I NEED a
skirt!!!!

Love at first sight!

Chickens!!! And eggs!!!
I don't generally have a thing for poultry (I mean, I enjoy eating
them), but I fell in LOVE with this print today at my sewing machine
store.
It's destined to be a cute wraparound skirt (this one from weekend
sewing). And it will meet it's destiny TONIGHT. Jumping to the head of
the line.
I MUST wear a chicken skirt tomorrow. Must must must!!!

Bright orange sherbet!

I'm trying to come up with a pattern that i like for baby playsuits.

i need a lapped collar (check)

petite chest area (check)

large diaper area for cloth diapers (check)

elasticized ankles so pants stay on instead of dragging along behind (is this only a problem with my children? regular playsuits allow her to crawl her legs into the torso area, so the whole thing stretches out, and the legs slither along behind. so weird!) (check)

snap crotch (no check)

I HATE SNAPS!!! no, i LOVE them in store bought stuff, and HATE them in homemade stuff.

snap tape looks silly, but hammering or using pliers to do snaps is incredibly difficult, and has been hard on my fabric (when i make knit outfits, the snaps i put in always cause runs after a few washes)

so i'm asking for a snap press from my dad for my birthday (in 3 weeks). they look so big and garage-y that i think he'll get it for me (my requests for fabric and sewing stuff in the past have usually been dealt with by him handing me money and telling me to get what i want, rahter than having to be a man in a sewing shop)

here's my attempt at patternmaking though. ugliest fabric ever (i hate orange, and neon orange is the worst of the worst, IMO). somehow it's cute on the baby though.

i think i want to make the armholes a teensy bit smaller.

back to the butcher paper!

so after wasting lots of time

Father's Day

this was the other present, made at 10pm the night before, just because. I had the extra shirts on hand, although, not matching ones, unfortunately. I couldn't find a plain one for the bean, so it was a father son gift.
It took more time for me to figure out the knot shape than to do the sewing, oddly enough...
I totally freehanded them out of scrap fabric from a pair of D pants. I just cut the shapes I wanted freehand, sprayed them with quilt basting spray, and stuck them on the shirt, then used a zigzag stitch to sew 'em down.

Does anyone else have trouble taking pictures of projects? I feel like there's always a cat or a kid who wants to be in the photo. But try to take a kid's picture, and they FLEE!

Father's Day

I made C 2 father's day gifts this year (one for each kid, I guess)
#1 was this coffee cup sleeve and instead of using courderoy, I found this uphosltry remnant that looks a LOT like cardboard.
I also bought C this porcelain coffee cup, so it was a coffee themed father's day.

the only picture I had on hand that was the right size was one of D that I cut from our still unsent xmas cards...
he LOVES showing Papa that it's a picture of HIM.

Justin's Wedding Quilt, again

The invitation (SO beautiful! I love the sparkly paper and the 6 little stones)


And here's the quilt! (I found sparkly buttons to recreate the gems)

(click here for other pics, I posted them about a month ago)

My new bag!

Made it tonight. Perfectly summery and fun. I assume I'll be holding
toys in it with my wallet and phone.

my little baby model

ok, so i made up this pattern last night. AFTER my daughter was asleep, so I couldn't measure her.
the neck is too big, and the suit isn't long enough over her cloth diapers, but it's so cute anyway!

just like her! I also want to add elastic around her ankles, so they'll be like harem pants that stay on her as she crawls (rather than her knee getting up by her tummy inside!) And I need to get more modern snap tape. I used what i had on hand, which was probably 25+ years old, and on VERY narrow, very stiff bias tape, so it was really hard to sew on. I also think i might make the kneepads shaped differently. Probably bigger, and maybe heart shaped or something... the fabric i used had stars, but i don't know if STAR shaped kneepads would provide enough coverage... was thinking of maybe doing the WHOLE below knee part with padding....

i put ruffles on the butt, neck, and ankles, and knee pads on her legs, since she's crawling everywhere these days!

Here's the kneepad, inspired by the kneepads HERE
And the Ruffle Butt inspiration came from here

D's birthday outfit

The front has 3 balloons (one with a mohawk, just like D), painted freehand by my talented husband

the back is like a sports jersey, done with freezer paper stencils

and the pants have balloons all over them. I really wanted D to have a special outfit for his party, but couldn't find cake/birthday fabric anywhere... these balloons were the closest I could find. D was happy with them, therefore I was too.

D's b-day cakes

So here's the train cake I made for D's 3rd bday. He wanted a train party, so obviously he needed a train cake. Now, yes, I could have bought a Thomas cake for less work/money, but a) I'm a pretty decent baker, and I wanted yumminess, not store bought fluff, b) I don't like buying into the hype. (although, i admit my son owns 85% of all the Thomas trains, I really try to avoid the other thomas junk, so my goal was to make a REAL train cake...)
I used blueberries instead of candies for the coal...
and, again inspired by martha stewart's cupcake book, I came up withthese train track cupcakes. I piped royal icing onto yellow lollipops to make the railroad crossing signs, and on the cakes to make the train tracks.
i'm pretty proud of them, cause i came up with the concept, not just the execution....

Justin's Wedding Quilt

I've been making quilts for our college friends to celebrate their weddings... this is the most recent one, and I'm super proud of it.
it's a copy of the invitation (which I've misplaced, so you can't see how awesome of an enlarging job I did. Take my word for it, it's SPOT ON!) I used reverse applique, and free motion embroidery to duplicate their invite...

C's birthday

I'm learning how to decorate... meaning, I played with the decorator tips I own...
So, conveniently, my husband's birthday was a week before my son's birthday party, when I wanted to do a train cake (pics to come), and I needed to practice using my tips.
Here's my C's b-day cake.
inspired by Martha Stewart's new Cupcake book...
and some "stout cupcakes with stout icing" also from said book... C wanted beer cupcakes, so I made them with craft beer instead of just Guinness (Anderson Valley Oatmeal Stout!), and then played around with decorations on top. I was pleased...