another dress

I liked the tiered dress so much that I made another one (with plans on making even more!).  This one was shorter than the first, and with five layers instead of four.  That meant the hem of the dress was over six feet long!  A bit wider than I'd normally make it, but it used up all of that fabric I had, so it's all good.  I "cheated" and used a cream colored t-shirt for the top - I adore the little flower embellishments!

And I'm definitely looking forward to a year of holiday fun!  Planning on some cuddly pajama pants for Valentine's Day, and needing to go fabric shopping for St. Patrick's Day.

rough start

We're now about halfway into January - my family has spent the whole of it so far being sick. So I'm slow on getting going with my goal list. I've been wanting to sew - just haven't been able to because of taking care of sick kids or a sick husband, or wanting to die myself. And since getting better, I've been cleaning up from The Plague (that nailed everyone but SM). I've knocked out about 15 loads of laundry - mostly bedding and towels - just yesterday and today.

Not that having a goal list has ever done me much good. I just looked over the sewing target lists I wrote for 2013 and 2012 and HA HA HA. Not a single thing lasted more than a month.

But now, I have a sewing buddy! My sister Mindy (who also posts on this blog, so watch the name at the bottom of posts) learned to sew this past summer, got a sewing machine, and is tearing it up sewing lots of things. She's already done t-shirt dresses and skirts for her 1-year-old, a skirt for herself, and a bunch of tote bags. So my goals this year will hopefully have MUCH better follow-through because I have someone I'm sewing with, even if we're in Hartford CT and Calgary AB. It's an international sewing group! For the year, Mindy and I are talking about giving ourselves a challenge to keep us moving forward - I'll talk about that in another post.

I also have 5 sewing buddies here at home. SM got a sewing kit for Christmas from us, and an embroidery kit from our neighbors. She works just a little bit at a time, but she's putting together a hand-stitched headband with felt and ribbon. She's doing a great job. And she did the smackdown on me. I commented to her that she should finish one project before she abandons it and starts another, and she looked me straight in the face and said, "You have stuff that's not finished." Touche'. Indeed I do. I'm working to remedy that.

Little sister's nightgown that didn't make it for Christmas is done. Pictures coming. I also spent some time over the weekend on some finishing touches - my mom made identical shirts for all the girls for Christmas, and ironed in little tags with their initials so we can tell them apart. One of the tags came out before the shirt was even all the way out of the package on Christmas morning, so I confiscated the shirts until I could add some anchor stitches to the tags. Done, and shirts are in their drawers. Next up is to finish digging out the sewing room from the piles o' stuff to see what I even have to work with. Everything is in just a big tangled mess right now because, well, I'm not sure how it got that way or why. But there it is for me to deal with.

ANYWAY, I just caught these posts on teaching kids to sew (which are not on blogs that I normally read) - A Jennuine Life and Welcome to the Mouse House. I linked over to them through No Big Dill to read stuff that wasn't even related. It was fate. I now have them bookmarked to check back on their series(es) semi-regularly to get advice on teaching small kids to sew, as young as 3. SM is 7, RG is 6, and JE is almost 4 so there's 3 sewing buddies right there. TA at age 2 loves to be with the big girls so we'll see how that goes with her in there as well. And JK is 10 months and a chatty little underfooter. These sewing "classes" could be interesting.

new ornaments

My Christmas present from Adam was a full set of ornaments from The Forgotten Carols:

Let Him In

Homeless

You Were Not There In Bethlehem

Handel's Dream

Mary Let Me Hold Her Baby

The Dance

I Was Not His Father, He Was Mine

I Cannot Find My Way - Three Kings

 I Cry the Day that I Take the Tree Down

Aren't they AWESOME?!?!?! He ordered the wood flute, the quill pen (it came with ink), the corsage, and the treble clef precut but the rest he made himself. The last two ornaments are for me and Tawnia. The mirror says "The Star of Bethlehem" and he actually got the idea from an Amelia Bedelia book. The treble clef was for Tawnia because she spent Christmas with us this year. Next year, we need to figure out Adam's ornament - something with Scouts like a fleur de lis.

bags and bags and more bags

Christmas presents for a lot of ladies in my life.  I added a pocket to only one (with the button), for Cupcake, otherwise they are just simple tote bags.  I may add pockets on future bags, just not with flaps and buttons - I think the pocket took more time than the whole rest of the bag.  It was fun to do, even though I had to switch machines in the middle (my machine died, I'm borrowing my mother-in-law's), but I'll take a break from sewing for a little bit.  Looking forward for spring though, to make more ruffle dresses for my baby girl!

 

As a side note, I think Cupcake has messed up my camera.  Right side of the picture, sharp and clear.  Left end is blurry and yuck.  I'll see if a good lens cleaning will help, otherwise I'm going back to my old camera.  Sad.

LDS ABC

I made Cupcake a little book to keep her distracted during church.  She loves to flip through picture books and albums, so I figured one with a church theme would be just perfect.  It'll be in her stocking to open on Christmas morning.  I came up with my own set of words and scriptures, and used a mix of my own pictures and ones from lds.org.  (I did not alter the photos in any way - no cropping, no adding words on top, etc., to obey their copyright laws.)  About half the letters were double  pages - one page for the scripture, one for the picture. 

 

 

Atonement, Baptism, Creation, Divine Nature, Eternal Family, First Presidency, Golden Plates, Heavenly Father, Iron Rod, Jesus Christ, Kneel, Last Supper, Missionary Work, Nativity, Oil, Priesthood Blessings, Quiet, Resurrection, Sacrament, Temple, Utah, Vision (first), Word of Wisdom, Xample, Youth, Zion

I can sew!

Who knows how long ago my mom had put together the top of a crib quilt, a checkerboard of floral blue and yellow stripes.  She had a plan for it, but it didn't turn out, and so it was never finished.  I came across it this summer and decided to finish it, even with my limited sewing experience.  I liked the simplicity of the top, but felt like it needed a little something, and figured a heart in the lower corner would be perfect.  I sewed it on with the sewing machine before putting the rest of the quilt together.  It looked HORRIBLE, but I kept going anyway.  I tied the quilt with two different colors of embroidery floss and used some purchased white binding for the edge.  It took a few days of hand-stitching the binding to the back, and it is far from perfect, but I'm pretty proud of it.  Except for the heart.  So I ripped it off (all hail the seam ripper!) and started over.  I was smart this time and borrowed an embroidery hoop to get everything tight and even before attaching the heart.  I could have done a different stitch or used invisible thread or whatever, but it is done and I like the fact that you can see the stitching on the back of the quilt.  Again, NOT perfect, but it has charm. 

 

Not sure what I wanted to do next, I settled on making myself a Christmas skirt.  I just did a simple rectangle skirt, so it isn't super fabulous, but it is relatively even and is basically the length I wanted, so I'd say Go me!  I realized that of all the fabric I was given there was very little that was actually in a piece large enough for me (at least of the Christmasy patterns), so I worked with what I had.  I was going to do a ruffle on it for some added flair, but ended up cutting it too narrow.  Instead I attached the ruffle to a denim skirt of Cupcake's so we could be coordinating.  I'm certain that all the ruffles took longer than my skirt, but I think it was worth it.

 

At least a week had passed, and I was looking around online and found an adorable tiered dress.  I had seen a lot of tiered ruffled skirts, but Cupcake does not need any skirts right now.  (Not that she needs any dresses either, but whatever.)  I loved the idea of using a t-shirt for the top because sleeves intimidate me, and since I had already dealt with ruffles I figured this would be easy enough.  And it was!  Everything was in straight lines, and I can tear those, so I didn't even have to deal with cutting much.  I was generous with length so the dress is basically floor length (without her tripping over it), meaning she can probably wear it next year too!  (I can always move it to a bigger shirt if necessary.)  Not bad for a few hours before church!

first Christmas skirt of the year

SM gets only one church outfit per season because we've learned the hard way that one is all she'll wear. No sense in filling the closet with pretty dresses that she won't wear to church and she's not allowed to wear at any other time. When she wants variety, we'll add variety. But for now, she's 7 and wants the same thing every week, and this has been her pattern since she was about 4.

She was still wearing her Easter dress after Halloween so we went straight for Christmas. She wanted it made rather than bought, and she wanted a skirt rather than a dress. We did buy a top to go with it - I'm not quite that brave. We went to Kohl's with the skirt and she chose the top. Here's the result:

(Now to work on posture.)

The fabric was actually ordered online last year but I never did anything with it. It's 2 pieces because she wanted a double layer skirt - the ruffle is attached to white lining fabric rather than being the green all the way down. The green ruffle could have been attached to the red and would probably look better, but she's happy with it so whatever.

And now for A LOT more sewing in the next 23 days, so see ya later! I've got 12 days to make 5 nightgowns for the Polar Express themed church Christmas party, where the kids are supposed to wear pajamas.

Christmas Wreaths

I had hundreds of ornaments leftover from my wedding four years ago.  We could have two, even three trees full of ornaments and still have extras.  So finally I decided to do something with them.  Found the idea on Pinterest (of course).  Bend a wire hanger into a circle, untwist the top and slide the ornaments on.  It is smart to hot glue the caps onto the ornaments first so they don't fall off.  I filled in any gaps and added more sparkle with the silver garland.  It is a surprisingly fragile wreath because the caps tend to snap, so I'm not sure that I would have wanted to buy ornaments specifically for this, but if you have a lot on hand it is a nice way to use them up.  I'm going to keep this hanging (in the storage room) instead of packing it away when the season is done, to help keep it intact.

This summer while I was in Oregon my Mom gave me a bunch of tulle.  I made a tutu for Cupcake, and this beautiful wreath.  I didn't want to spend the money on a wreath form (although if you do you'll need to cover it in white fabric before you start), so Aaron brought me home some sheets of Styrofoam from work and I cut out my own.  Cut the tulle and tie it on.  Hot glue stuff in the middle for pretties.  It is such a forgiving project, you can muddle your way through it and it will still look fantastic.  I already had the white snowflakes, so the only thing I spent money on was the red snowflake that I got at the dollar store.  If you like the style you can always use different colors and different middles for each season.  I've started one with cream tulle and will add autumn leaves in the center.  I'd love to see it in pink or green with flowers and Easter eggs for spring.  Or for another Christmas variety, just so the lower half in white, and add a Santa hat on top.  I guess this is my way of pleasing my inner-ballerina.

Tutorial for ornament wreath: here
Tutorial for tulle wreath: here, or here
How to cut tulle: here 

Halloween dinner - chili con carne

I've decided that our traditional dinner for Halloween is now chili. Whenever I think about Halloween, the first thing that comes to mind is 2008 - we went trick-or-treating on Embassy Row in Washington DC and then had chili at at some friends' apartment near there. It was the perfect end to that day. In Mississippi (2009-2012), there was a chili cook-off every year at our church's Halloween activity. So. Halloween means chili for dinner. This was the recipe I made last night from a book, but not followed exactly. This is what I did:

1 onion chopped into tiny pieces
3 garlic cloves chopped
2 lb hamburger
          Put into your big pot and cook until the hamburger is fully browned. Drain off any excess liquid (I use a baster to suck it all up and put it in an empty can.)

2 cans of chopped tomatoes
1 can black beans
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can of water (one of the cans after it's been emptied and rinsed)
2 cubes of beef bullion
3 tbl chili powder
cumin
oregano
cayenne pepper
salt
          I only measured the chili powder. I just sprinkled in the other spices to taste.

Once the hamburger is browned, add everything else to the pot. You can simmer it for half an hour or more. Or you can cook it on medium for 10-15 minutes until it's hot, and then it's done. It was a darker flavored chili and really good.

We had cornbread with it, which recipe I apparently need to add to this blog because it doesn't look like I have yet.

3 months 'til Christmas

I got a sewing machine for my birthday from my Mom, and this is the first thing I've done with it.  I'm not one who sews, but I'm starting to learn.  Christmas present number one, done!  I'd seen these online, and knew I had to make a dragon hat for Aaron.  I didn't follow a pattern at all, and used scraps of red and navy fleece to piece it all together.  It was a learning experience, for sure, but considering it was the first thing I made, it turned out pretty awesome!