ballet dress for a little girl

we have a birthday party today, for a 3yo girl... like most, she likes pink and ballet, so when I saw this ballet shoe fabric at my Bernina dealer, I snapped up a yard, and made this last night...

I don't have a pattern, but I used the peasant top tutorial from indietutes as a jumping off point...
I added the three little bias-tape roses because the top was too plain...
this might be too long, but it can be a nightgown now, and a dress later; the neckline is elastic, so it should fit for a while...
hopefully she likes it!

My first western shirt!

I finished the shirt for my dad! I need to work on snap placement/
installation, but it's totally wearable, and it IS just a muslin,
after all! I'm pretty pleased with it. I think I might need my own,
with pretty embroidery... I'm psyched, especially about the pretty
snaps. I used the Dritz #16P Pliers with white, size 16 Pearl Snap
Fasteners(all bought when the notions wall at Joanns was 50%off). I
also got a rolled-seam foot (#64 for my bernina), a per the directions
in my shirtmaking kit. I ordered the flat-felled-seam foot too (my
dealer was out of stock when I went in last week), so when I make the
real one, I'll have that to make my seams pretty.

Tada!

Finished!

I quilted it with wonky diagonal lines, both directions
(making an x)... I did a loose baste on the blue border, my goal is to
do some fancy hand quilting there... someday....

I finished hand stitching the binding last night, thanks to my trusty
thimble. Now it's time to finish the Bean's quilt, and then plan one
for C. He wants a couch quilt, and I think I'll use a cowboy panel I
got over Xmas vacation to go with some of the squares.

Easter prep

here's a sneak peak at what I've done so far... Hopefully I won't run out of steam, as I still have lots planned....

check my flickr for details and more pics....

Another bunny

I saw this super easy bunny pattern on Martha's website, so, since I had JUST enough gold ball fabric, I had to make this one too...

The bean helped me stuff it! (so it's a little lumpy)...

now she thinks it's hers...

uh-oh!

A birthday bunny for Tutu!

C's grandma's birthday is right around Easter, and she LOVES bunnies, and she's an avid golfer...

I saw a teeny scrap of this golf ball print at M&L last week (about 1/8 of a yard), and bought it to make it into SOMETHING for Tutu, and then realized it would make the cutest toy bunny for her...

I used this pattern, and some repro-feedsack fabric in light blue floral (her favorite color)...

the pattern was super easy, I definitely recommend it if you want to whip something up for Easter... all told, it took about an hour and a half, and I LOVE the result!

Nap time!

The monster (whom I love dearly) finally slept, so I was able to make a just-because gift for my gram...

She said she had a hard time finding black beaded necklaces, so $12 at Michael's to buy beads later, I came up with this:

The big beads look like lava, and the little ones are glass, and the gold spacers are just crimp beads that I didn't crimp (except at the beginning and end)

I knew I had findings here, so didn't buy any, but of course, I only have silver (left from a jewelry making supplies giant box that I got as a gift years ago, probably from my dad, probably from costco)

so "gold" spacers, "silver" findings...

oh well, I like it, hopefully she will too...

The border is done!

ok, hopefully now it'll measure 112"x112"

88" x 88" was just too small for our Cal King bed....

so I have an inch of white (or, rather, white on white dots)

then 7" of Kona navy

then 3" more white dots on white

then I'm planning on binding with the Kona. Purple just looked too feminine, and I want C to love this too....

It's done!

I'll take good photos with a nice camera in the am, but I'm so happy!
I think I need/want to add a border, I have some dark blue scraps... A
nice "modern" chunky pieced border of dark blue all around... Because
my bed is bigger than I thought.... (it's a California king, so
90"x90" isn't quite big enough, but I really want to be done piecing
kaleidescope blocks)
I'm so happy with it though!!!!!

How to make snap crotch for a toddler romper/playsuit

OK, so hopefully you've read the part about how to cut/sew the basic shape of the romper, and all that remains is to make the snap crotch (that sounds so weird!)

so, take one strip of stretchy coordinating fabric, serge the narrow ends, and line the ends up with the ends of one "U", wrong sides together. Clip the ends and the mid-points together like this:

It should seem impossible to sew, but the stretch, assuming you cut it the right way, will STRETCH (and the crotch area is not a good area for oodles of extra fabric... taut is good!).

start serging, and as soon as the fabric is caught by the needle, start stretching the fabrics so they are the same size... (you might want to practice with some scraps, you need to stretch evenly, not pull, which could mess up the timing on your machine...)

just for comparison, here's the fabric, romper on top, edging on the bottom, before I stretch it

and here it is stretched.... see how I make them match up?

Do this to both sides, and you'll have something that looks wonky like this:

Iron your seams down so that the romper is flat, and the edging is creased...

then turn down about 1/3 of the raw edge of the ribbing (just at the ends).

fold over again, so that the edging is folded in thirds, and the seam is covered on the right side of the garment. pin at the ends, and then pin in the middle....

now start stretching and pinning wherever you can (about every inch)

it should feel smooth when you stretch it taut... that way, you can iron it (with oodles of steam), and get something that looks this awesome:

isn't that pretty and flat!!??!!

now, on the right side, SEW down as close to the edge as possible (I love my blind-hem foot for this purpose, and highly recommend them!), and then again, about 1/4 from the edge (lack of a good camera meant all the pics of this were blown out and blurry, so you have to imagine how to sew a straight line along the edge ON the edging, covering the serged seam)

TADA!

now you just have to put in snaps!

Measure the front crotch, roughly in the middle of the edging piece

do math (or just guess based on how many snaps you have...) to figure out where to place the snaps (I did mine every 2.5" and really like that spacing!)

use a sharpie (or whatever) to mark your snap placement ON THE RS OF THE FRONT.

(I'm going to simplify snap parts... there's a flat side, and a functional side (the functional side is either male or female, one of each, obvi, to make a working snap), but as long as you do ALL male on one romper side, and all female on the other romper side, it doesn't seem to matter which is which)

so the RS of the front will have flat parts, and the WS of the front will have functional parts.

I find it easiest to make a hole with a yarn/tapestry needle and then push my flat piece in, but the prong snaps are sharper, and will go through more easily, I think)

when all the front snaps are in, pin the ends of the front and back together, overlapping with the front on the bottom, and (using your knee, or someone else's hands) stretch so the pieces are flat.

now mark the matching points on the RS of the back.

Put the flat snap pieces on the INSIDE (WS) of the back, and the functional pieces on the RS (outside) of the back. this way the crotch strips will overlap in the crotch, which is ideal (if this is confusing, look at some RTW snap crotch pants before you put ANY snaps in!)

TADA! put it on a kid and enjoy!

Quilt Blocks....

Last night was piecing night, obvi....
I made my "Dandy" block for the quilt along...

I made whirl-a-gig blocks for Heather's month


and I made triangles for Liz.... (the left is called "cards," the right one is called "roses"

more pictures on Flickr
tonight I'll work on my pie pan quilt, hopefully....

Tada!

Ok, so the other day, (gosh, was that just yesterday? yikes!) I showed you this sneak peak...

Here's the finished product!

It's a zip-up hoodie for D. He doesn't fit anything store bought right now, so why buy and alter when I can just make myself (out of superior materials, tailored to my boy!)

He wanted a tow truck, so I decided to make it a working truck, and put the appliques on the pockets,

I free-motion stitched "D's Towing" on it... lettering is hard!

I hand-embroidered the cream/grey chain (using a chain stitch, of course) after everything else was done... I really wanted the chain to connect(match) across the zipper....

I've never made outerwear before (I'm counting a sweatshirt as outerwear, not sportswear, but that's probably because I live in LA), and I didn't have a pattern, I drafted this one myself. (I'm not going to bore y'all with the incredibly long list of errors I made, but the next one should be doable in 1/2 the time, and with considerably less ripping of stitches!!)

It's after midnight, so I'm refraining from waking D up to make him try it on right now. Hopefully it fits and I will be able to get action shots in the am....

I also need to find my camera (I'm pretty sure it's in my husbie's car) so I can show off some other pics I took over the weekend...