Married Couple Western Shirt

can be worn by either husband or wife!

He wears it tucked in, I wear it tied up...

the topstitching makes us both happy!

and its such an awesome color!

(edited to add this picture of the detail of the back... I actually TRIED to make the top-stitching a little wonky, I wanted it to look hand done)

lace ruffle tunic

so here's the good pic of the shirt... i LOVE it! super comfy and super cute!

you can see the lace better in this pic...
I made a binding for the collar, and I left the ruffle unfinished, and put it on top instead of enclosing the edges... I also left the sleeves and hem unfinished so they'd float more (tissue jersey is really light weight!)

Spring Top, more animals, more roses

I whipped this sucker out in 2 hours tonight. LOVE IT. I used the pattern from the new issue of STITCH magazine (though I tweaked it a bit)... the turquoise is a rayon/spandex tissue jersey remnant from Joanns, and the eyelet is an AMAZING silk cotton from Mood. (I treated myself to a stop there today, since I drove past it TWICE to have lunch with the kiddos and C's dad)...

I have a whole day left to photograph it for real and enter it in the contest!

of course, it needed a rose to really make it awesome... luckily for me, I have plenty of fabric roses!

fabric and felt! (and a kitty, hiding in there, see him?)

now do you see him? this is the felt version of Kieran, the darkest kitty ever. I'd photograph him more, but he's very very dark, and always very sleepy, so all you'd see is a dark blob... (the brown bits lower left are going to be Guinness (our dog, not the beer), hopefully tomorrow night...)

and here's Babe, the Gallant Pig. We just finished reading it (D and I both LOVED it, he wants to start it again RIGHT NOW), so he needed his own Babe...

I've been doing 1 toy per night, and then having me time for the rest of the night... tonight was the pig and top, last night was the roses and kieran... and tomorrow afternoon, my husbie comes home!

he's been gone for most of the month, so we're pretty excited to see him... i just have to figure out how to keep sane in the am... we can't leave for the airport till at least 1:45, and D is DYING to see his papa....

"cute" skirts...

Last weekend, I went dancing, which I'm trying to get back into after 7ish years off...

I had 2 kids since I was a hardcore dancer, so I definitely don't fit into all my old vintage or repro skirts and dresses... I currently have TWO skirts that are "cute." (not stained from kids, fit well, etc). I can't just switch back and forth between these two, I need more!

right now, though, I'm between sizes, and losing more, so I don't want to go buy... plus there's that whole wardrobe refashion pledge... plus I want to MODIFY everything I see that I like, so why not just make it the way I want it from the beginning...

so I've been looking at Anthropologie and ModCloth, and I really like this skirt, especially the shirred back...I love the shape of this one, and I like the pleats here... this one looks like it would be fun to dance in, and this one is super cool, but I think too hard for now... and I like this one too...

so far, I've found these tutes...

I like this one, it seems pretty easy...

and I like the godets here, and this is an obvious jumping off point...

(I'm being entirely selfish and just posting so I can easily find all of these bits and pieces later, but maybe other people want skirts too?)

vintage sheets...

My gram handed down these GORGEOUS vintage sheets a while back... they're 50/50 cotton poly, so they're no good for quilts, but they're gonna be good for throws... and maybe dresses for the bean?

I dunno if my gram washed them before giving them, so I did so, and got to dry them on the line (I LOVE hanging sheets and quilts on the line... and love my dryer for all the cloth diapers...)

I really really really want to make this, but I think I should use what I've got... I might just sew these two together, with canvas or something in the middle to make it slightly stronger... it seams silly to purchase new fabric that's printed to look like old fabric when I HAVE old fabric already...

aren't these daisies sweet?!?!?! the roses are even better, but D and the dogs were playing under them, so I couldn't fit to take a pic...

toys for D

as I put D to bed last night, he informed me that I needed to "stay up and make me a felt Harper and some mice for my felt kitty"
uh... ok.

so here are the mice I made, (on a 1"x1" grid, so you can see how tiny they are)

and the puppy I made...

and I used this tute from the Purl Bee, but I haven't made the barrette part yet...

cute felt toy patterns!!!!!

OMG, if you like felt toys, you HAVE to go to this site and look around!

I was looking for a mouse pattern, because of course the kitty I made for D now needs it's own mouse toy...

so I did a google search and found this...

she (I assume the blogger is female, most of us are...) even posted a pattern... LOVE IT. I printed it our at 1/2 size, we'll see if mine are anywhere NEAR as pretty as hers...

SO, after finding this, I decided to snoop around...she made a zebra, a penguin, even a COCKROACH! and she offers the patterns and tutes for all of them!

Obviously I must keep this site a secret from my little boy, or he'll want every single one of these!

a good night's work...

I'm soooo excited about getting to use fancy fabrics... I usually just buy remnants for myself, or regular old quilting cotton, but for this wedding quilt, I bought some Folksy Flannel, and some Little Folks Voile, and some Far Far Away double gauze... and then, because I liked the corderoy I used on my quilt, I got some for this one... the center of each block is a dark blue (not quite navy) thin waled corderoy... (Yale colors, since it's going to fellow Eli's for their wedding (thank goodness they don't read this!)). I'm also using various scraps that coordinate, just because.

The groom informed me that he likes green best, and she likes blue best, so I'm doing MOSTLY those colors, with pops of other colors...

I really really like it so far... I'm trying to find a balance between wonky and not wonky, so a few wonky scraps are in the mix, but the new ones are cut stright... I think the occasional wonky piece makes it more interesting...

just playing with the layout... I've never seen a string quilt with this sort of layout.....
maybe I should just make a big "Y" (KIDDING).
I think I might need a string quilt of my own...
(oh, I'm following the tute from here, and I'm using phone book pages cut to 8" square)

I also decided that for mother's day, I want roses... so I started making them tonight... I'm making a mixed baker's dozen for myself, 7 crimson, 7 butter yellow... we'll see if I go back for more lining fabric after I finish this... (I self-limited my color choices to the cheapest of the lining fabrics, but there are some really pretty pinks that I might go back for!). I used this tute, and I LOVE the result! I haven't actually sewn this one together yet, just gathered and wrapped, but so far I'm really happy with the result. This is totally next on my list!

Zip wallet

I used the tute from noodlehead. Too small, but good practice...

My favorite kitty cat, in felt