Sewing in the Rough (and some Baby Shower Gifts!)

I finally blew the dust off of my machine and got to work. With a baby shower only 1 day away I needed to get cracking! My goal was to have a matching Nursing cover, 2 spit up cloths (one for each baby, she's having twins!!), and a diaper clutch ready by tonight. Well, I got 2 out of 3 done. The nursing cover and the spit up cloths. I had enough material to do the diaper clutch just not enough time.

I still didn't get my sewing area cleaned up I just worked around, on, and through it. I finally braved up and will show you a pic of what I worked through.



Everything I need an arm's length away! You just have to dig for it. lol My stash of mini-Snickers I think are the most important thing on this table. I learned this from Cassie at You Go Girl! just read her Pencil Roll Tutorial and No Snit Binding Tutorial and you'll see why. ☺

No really, I don't like working with my table like this. Usually I would have cleaned it all off before starting but there was no time.

So now to the sewing! I finished up the nursing cover in good time. I still have one more to make for a friend of mine.



She loved the colors! YAY! I always try to ask about favorite colors and since her wedding colors were red and green (in July not a Christmas wedding) I thought she would like this fabric. Carnival Bloom by Michael Miller.

This time I added pockets on the inside bottom corners of the cover. I wanted to use a knit fabric but there were no white knit remnants at the fabric store so I re-purposed a onesie that Glory had outgrown.



I then moved on to the spit up cloths. I got my inspiration from this one:



It was a gift given to my sister-in-law's sister from her Sunday School class. The snag was that the lady who made them has a machine that does embroidery, hence the lovely lettering.

I do not.

When an amateur seamstress tries to copy above artwork on her own machine, freehand you get this:



Not Pretty.

I had already sewn on the fabric onto the bottom so after wasting time doing the above work I had to pull out Mr. Seam Ripper to take off the fabric and add it to another cloth.



See all the thread still hanging onto the ruined cloth.

Then I decided to use my lettering that my machine can do but thinking I had to enter in the letters a certain way I came up with this:



Luckily, I used a scrap piece of fabric to see how it would come out instead of wasting another cloth.

After correcting my mistakes my finished product finally came to this:



I really like how they turned out and I loved how everything matched!!

I usually don't give cards at baby showers. Since I'm right there when they open it I can let them know it's from me! =) But I thought I'd use a piece of scrap fabric to make a matching card as well.



Too pretty to wrap up! This fabric is awesome!

The diaper clutch never made it even to the cutting board but since I have enough fabric for it I'll still be finishing it up and getting it to the Mommy to be.

It has been awhile since I was sewing last and I really enjoyed getting back to it. The Lord has really blessed me with a wonderful way to create lovely things for my friends and family (and for myself ☺).

As the Dust Piles Higher...

...on my machine and craft table I sigh, *sigh*.

I would share a picture of the natural disaster that is my craft/family room (the other half of my bedroom) but I am way too embarrassed to do so. It is in such a state that I can't DO anything!! I've got a lot of projects that need to be worked on but alas there is no room to do it. So this week on my to do list is to put back in order my craft/family room (the other half of my bedroom).

So to keep you entertained since I have no amazing WIP or just finished project to share with you I'll leave you with this. A video I made using Animoto. A very cool way to make your photos into a fabulous slide show/video. It's the first one I've every done and I think I'll be making more of them.

Collins' Family Adventure

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to get the video directly on my post so I had to use a link.

In Between Getting Things Done....or Learning to Applique

I decided to do a little embellishment work today in between loading the dishwasher and laundry.

It started with folding a pink long-sleeved t-shirt that has a permanent stain on the front.

"I can cover that with a charm square!"

"Let's make it a heart so it's really cute."

(Putting my chores aside to get on the computer again to look up how to applique a t-shirt)

"Yes I have everything!"

The Finished Product!!

It turned out so cute (I thought so at least and so did Madison).

She's not used to posing though. =) I don't know what's up with those hands!! lol


I finally posed her myself.


But did I stop there? NO!!

"I've been wanting to do something cute with one of Caleb's onesies."

"Here's a onesie that could use something!"

"I have some cute fabric from another onesie he's outgrown already!"

"Let's use some of my new embroidery talents."

TA DA!!

And even better is this picture!!


Ok, so he looks a little like a Sneech but the star didn't look that low when the onesie wasn't on him. lol Next time I'll know to put it a little higher. =)

I'm very pleased with how it all turned out so I'll definitely be looking for more things to be adding special touches to.

Have you tried applique yet? If not you really must it's a lot of fun!!

I Spy with My Little Eye.....................

PUPPETS!

lol (yes that is my hand in the puppet named "Mama")

I finally had a lightbulb moment the other day. I've been wanting to make some "I Spy" bags for my girls but I always bemoaned the fact that I didn't have any of that clear plastic for the window and didn't know where to get any. (Actually I did but didn't know it, hence the lightbulb moment)

While reading the blog Make it and Love it I had my...


...moment. It's just plastic vinyl like the kind bedding comes in when you buy it en masse from Walmart. I've always got one of those bags somewhere in this house (plus it helps that the night before we bought loads of bedding for our 3 girls). So I set about making my own "I Spy" bags.


(If I had more time I would have added "TA DA!" over the top of those bags in Gimp2)

Actually these bags cost me nothing but some time (if you don't include the original price of all the stuff I used to make them) since I just used stuff I had laying around the house.

The fabric is fleece from my youngests outgrown pj's.

A whole new look on "Holey Pajamas" These would get lots of ventilation in summer time. ;)

The purple pj's had some cute appliqued flowers on front so I cut that out first for the back of one of the bags.


My middle child wanted hers cut out of the brown pj's but there wasn't enough left to make the size of bag needed so I made her a special M applique for her bag. It was my first time doing applique too. I need to do it more.

There are 30 items in each bag then I filled each with 8-10 oz. of rice. The kids love them (I love them, once you start playing they are hard to put down!) These are gonna be great on our road trip to the Bay Area next week. =)

Now I know you've been wondering, "But what about the puppets?" And I won't leave you hanging. Today we made sock puppets. (I shouldn't even be mentioning them because there was no sewing involved) I attached everything by Hot Glue Gun and raided my scrap fabric stash for their hair and any clothing.

The girls played with them for all of 1/2 a second right when they were done. =) Ahhh, the joys of Motherhood.

Rolled Rose

When I first came into the world of sewing I started reading everything I could find on the web and I came across Sandi Henderson's Blog Portabellopixie.
She has a Rolled Roses tutorial on her blog for download and I've had it saved on my computer for months. I finally got it out and made one. I used some pink batik from my stash and a bead that was rolling around on the floor (my eldest wanted marbles and cut apart one of her play necklaces).
It did take me 2 tries to get it together but once I figured it out and got it going it was easy. I used a safety pin and wore it with my outfit for the Sunday PM service. This little flower is so cute I'm definitely gonna make myself some more for pins, hair clips for my girls, and bag and clothing embellishments. Have some free time or got nothing in your hands while watching tv? Then I suggest making a few of these!