The Christmas Dress

It occurred to me on Friday night that if I wanted to get my Daughter's Christmas dress done, it should be done by today - the Sunday before Christmas - so she could wear it to church.

I hadn't even cut it out yet.

And so the challenge was on...

Happily, after some whirlwind sewing, I finished the dress last night at 10:30 pm. Woo!! Dress in a day!!

Bearing that in mind, I think it turned out really beautifully! Here it is!



I used Butterick Pattern #3714, with a few Linzsews modifications thrown in! The flowers on the waistline I reused from my Halloween costume headband. Hey - waste not, want not! :) The green fabric is the same as the fabric I used on my Halloween dress too. I ended up with WAY too much, so it worked out perfectly! The gold I found at Joann's and just loved!

Yea for good projects that come together!! Oh, and here's how I did her hair today...



She feels like a princess.

Stockings and stuff!

Hello! Remember me? lol!!

It has been a while! Sadly, I have been sick for 2 1/2 weeks, so my sewing and especially blogging time has dwindled! But I am getting better and I want to share a few things that I managed to get done!

Stockings!!



I have been wanting to make our family new stockings for years, but never got around to it! FINALLY, this year, I just bucked up and did it! And I am so tickled with how they came out!!



YEA! I love it when things turn out!!

I also finally recovered my Christmas card board. I covered it myself a few years ago, and hated how it came out. So, finally, I redid it! And this time - I love it!



So, a few Christmas projects under my belt! Hopefully more to come soon!!

Cheers!

Christmas was fun!

Christmas was a blast this year! The weekender bags were a HIT!

So was the Lego bag! In fact - that may have been the biggest hit of the little man's entire haul! Yea!!

As for me - as we opened presents, I was wildly spoiled with clothes, and shoes... check out these beauties...

I feel a new blog header coming on... :)

I also got (myself) this book:

I am so excited to get into it and learn some new techniques and things! Yea!

But, as the present opening wound down, the one thing that I had asked for - a Dress Form - remained absent. I was so bummed. But, I didn't want to whine on Christmas - especially when I had received such beautiful heels, so I didn't say anything and just started plotting when I could buy myself one. Afterward, as we were getting ready to pile in the car to go look at Christmas lights, (we open family gifts on Christmas Eve - to keep them separate from the Santa mayhem) I opened my car door to find:

My Dress Form!!

It was sitting in my seat!!!! hahaha! My hubby laughed and said, "Well, I had to surprise you somehow!"

Isn't she lovely? Her name is Trisha. I can't wait to put her to good use!!! :)

On Christmas morning, after the Santa mayhem, we went to church!

(He's a little monkey, isn't he?) Doesn't the Princess look pretty? I was right, though - we left a huge pile of glitter in the pew at church. I felt bad... but at least she looked good!

It was a wonderful holiday! We took a getaway to Zion National Park on Christmas day for a few nights, and the Weekender Bags were used and were a huge success!! I am so happy I made those!

Hope everyone had a great holiday too!!

WIP Wednesday - sigh of relief edition

That's it. I'm done. I made all the bags I am going to make, all of the ornaments that I am going to make. My Christmas sewing list has all been checked off. Some crossed off for sanity's sake, but all the projects that needed to be done are done!

What a glorious feeling! And now just for fun... a recap of all the crazy holiday stitching...

Weekender Bags - all three of them!

Dopp Kits + a tutorial - to go with the weekenders

Lego bag

Skirt

Stocking

The Dress

The Dress that didn't work

Bags and ornaments - I didn't end up with pictures of all of them... but you get the point!

So what's on tap for 2012?

I have E's King size Zig Zag as my only currently in progress project. Wow. Only one. Weird.

I am still working on Skill Builders Sampler! I still need to make block 20, but that's going to have to wait until next week.

I have joined in a Quilting Bee for 2012! We are called the Beejeebers, and it is hosted by Melissa at Happy Quilting! I am totally excited!! Funny story - Melissa asked for name suggestions, and I recommended Beejeebers as a joke. I was telling her that this is my first Bee, and it scared the beejeebers out of me. So the next question was about a name, so I put down that. haha! Everyone liked it. I think that is just plain awesome! :)


Other than that - I plan on being a little more reasonable next year. My unlimited sewing budget was, once again - summarily rejected. So, no more than one quilt per month, and I want to do a lot more "other" stuff - like cloths, bags, and things. Should be a great year!!

Hope everyone out there has a wonderful holiday season, and a wonderful New Year!!

The Dress

So, sorry about my freak out yesterday. I was feeling stressed! :) BUT! I am happy to say that yesterday proved to be a very productive day! For sewing. But don't look at the state of the rest of my house... yikes.

Anyway - I finished the princess's Christmas dress today!! YEA!!! And it really turned out beautiful. Probably my favorite dress that I have made to date! :) So here it is in all it's glory:

The Princess stayed home from school sick today, but I drug her outside for pictures anyway. Please overlook the lack of hair doing! :)

She picked gold and red so that she could have Griffindor colors. We are currently reading book 7 of the Harry Potter series, and at present, that world has overtaken our lives! :) At least they are Christmas colors too!

She picked out the trim on the over skirt. I wasn't sure about it, but I really like the way it looks! So pretty! The flower was purchased at Joann's. Lovely finishing touch!

Now that this is done, everything else just seems easy! I may even have time to read a book or two! :)

Crunch Time

I got Z-E-R-O sewing done over the weekend. We were babysitting our niece and nephews, and therefore N-O-T-H-I-N-G got done. Except a lot of stress eating. But that's another story... hahaha!

So now, I am feeling the crunch. I don't have a ton left, but I do have some major holiday deadlines. I have one more bag to make, one more ornament to make, Princess's dress to finish, Rudolf cupcakes to make, and a whole lot of delicious fudge to make and take to neighbors. And only 5 days to do it.

Today, I have tried to get some progress made - and I have, a little - but it seems like when you need to get things done - everything that can go wrong does! As I was working on the dress today - my thread kept breaking. This normally isn't a huge issue, but it was for gathering the skirt, and that really does need to be one long thread. Then, I ran out of bobbin thread. Grrr... And to top everything else off - every inch of my sewing room is covered in red glitter. Why? Because I allowed the princess to pick out this fabric for her over skirt:

Why do they even make glitter fabric? Oh, yeah - because it LOOKS good. But it is a MESS!!! :)

Wish me luck over the next few days! I am feeling pretty good about things, but we shall see!

WIP Wednesday - hang in there edition

Last week, my brain decided to take a vacation. Seriously. I forgot to take my son to preschool one day!!! Well, almost - I would have forgotten, but the other car-pool mom called me and asked where the heck I was (in a much nicer way), so they were only about 20 minutes late. Seriously, who does that?

I also forgot to do a WIP post. It threw me off. I didn't realize how much this weekly post helps me keep things together! So - here goes my list of WIPS!

Finishes:

One teacher gift, a fabric ornament

Tutorial found HERE at V and Co. I love how it came out, but I really hate hot glue!!

A Few drawstring bags for friends

Tutorial found HERE. This is a great tutorial! It is quick, and really cute!! Love them (want to keep them!!)

Stocking!

Read about this one HERE.

Progress:

SBS Block #19

SO cute!!! SO CUTE!! I love this block!

Princess's dress - all cut out and in the "next up" position! Yea!

E's King size - all cut out and starting to prep for piecing!

On hold - my dress. We'll see if I can squeeze that one in before Christmas. Probably not.

So there we go! Lots of fun and I feel like I'm really making progress on the list! Only a week and a half til Christmas!!! Wowza! December has really flown...

Can you make...?

One of my very favorite questions to be asked is "Can you make {whatever is on their mind}?" Usually it is something I haven't done before, but I almost always want to give it a try.

Yesterday one of my best friends asked me if I could duplicate a stocking for her baby. The rest of the family had stockings that looked like this:

Unfortunately, this style wasn't being sold anymore, and - naturally - they didn't want their baby boy to have one that didn't match. So, I set off, found the supplies and recreated it as best as I could. Here's what I came up with:

What do you all think? Close enough? The cream's are a little different, but I think it's probably close enough. I hope she is happy with it! :)

Lego Bag!

As one of my many Christmas projects this year, I decided to make a Lego Bag for my 4 year old boy. When I saw Lee's tutorial a few weeks ago, I knew our house HAD to have one! I am happy to say - it's done!! Yay!!!

Here's the outside of the bag. I used some left over Halloween fabrics (that weren't too Halloweenish, and some fabrics from my stash.

There's the inside! I happened to have this blue fabric in large quantities for a number of years. I don't remember what I originally bought it for, so now it has made a lovely inside for our bag/play mat!

My hubby had some cording and grommets, and I had a few cord locks on hand.

So, did you catch that? ALL of the fabric and supplies were taken from my stash, or already in my house, which (somehow) makes this bag free. ;)

Thanks again to Lee for this great tutorial!! I know it (and all the Lego's that are going to be inside of it) will be a big hit this Christmas!

Christmas Table Topper

One last project!!! This was a bonus project, made with scraps from the massive pile I have, and only took one day! I am so happy I did this one! It's cute, and I got to practice applique a little more! So, here's my Christmas Table Topper!



Now, all of my Christmas sewing project are done! To recap, over this past month I have made: 4 quilts, 2 dresses, a few mug rugs, an advent calender, a table topper, and 17 cute little mini-quilt wall hangings for the young women in our ward. Here's a picture of those!


After all that... I'm not even going to turn on my sewing machine until after Christmas! lol! Now it's onto making some yummy treats to take to neighbors! ;)

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

An Advent Calendar!

We get Advent Calendars every year. They're fun! But this year - okay, last year - I thought it would be fun to make one. I didn't do it last year, so this year I made on with all the left overs from the Christmas quilts. It turned out CUTE!!! I did a lot of applique on it and just LOVE it!!!!


My appliqued presents! I used leftover squares from the argyle quilt and added the bows! I love them!!

The mitten and pinwheel pockets were made from leftovers from Christmas Quilt #2. I think they are fun!

I needed a simple, happy word for the top and "Joy" just seemed to fit the bill (and the space) just perfectly. The holly berries were and after thought, but I am so glad I got them on there! So cute!

Cute, cute, cute! I filled the pockets with candy and the kids are thrilled to get a little treat every day! This is one of my favorite traditions, and I am so glad that we now have a permenant one to hang every year!!

So, that's 4 Christmas projects down and 3 to go. I am thrilled with the ones coming up, so stay tuned!!

Christmas Quilt #2

I have finished my second Christmas quilt, and it looks really fun!

However, this quilt shall be named "Murphy". Because everything that can go wrong did.

It all started way back in July when I first bought the fabric. Hubby was away at Scout Camp, so I was up late cutting the darling Christmas fabric for this quilt. While I was doing this - I cut my thumb nail off. OFF. It was gross. I should have seen it as an omen, but I laughed at myself, and moved on.

I put the cut fabric away, until a few weeks ago when I pulled it out to work on it again. Here's everything that went down...

I sewed several squares wrong, and had to unpick and redo them.

As I sewed the blocks together, I sewed them in the wrong order (on EVERY ROW), had to unpick and redo.

When I sewed the rows together, I managed to sew them in the wrong order. Had to unpick and redo.

While I was quilting, I ran out of thread (that has NEVER happened to me before!) It happened to be on a Sunday, so I couldn't run off to the store to buy more and had to wait. Grrr.

As I quilted I found a spot where I had missed the fabric on a seam. GRRRR. No good way to fix it at that point.

Twice, my tension went all crazy and I had to unpick, fix the machine, and redo. I was ready to rip the quilt up for a while there...

BUT, even with all of that, the quilt turned out cute! I quilted with orange thread and I have to admit... I love it! It's fun!! I also LOVE the backing fabric of this quilt!! So fun! Because of all of the mistakes, I have decided that I am going to keep it, as there is no way I could sell and feel good about it. So, it will adorn my couch for the holidays! Yea!

So.... Yea for Christmas quilts, even if they give you a hard time!

Argyle Christmas Quilt

I have been having a great time making this little Christmas quilt! I got the idea from a tutorial at Piece 'N Quilt, and thought that it would be a darling Christmas Quilt! I was right!

So, here it is! My first Christmas Quilt!! I call it Argyle Christmas Quilt (I know... original, right? lol!)

So fun! It's in the shop!! (But until it sells, it's going to be on my wall! ;)) Stay tuned for my second Christmas quilt soon!!