2013 sewing targets

Here's the first run of my sewing and project list for this year:

CLOTHES FOR THE GIRLS
My general rule of thumb for matchy-matchy outfits for my girls is that they coordinate but I don't make the exact same thing for all of them. Like, for Easter last year, they all had different fabric and different outfits, but the fabric all came from the same designer and color line. Their Minnie Mouse outfits for Disney World did have all the same fabric, but they were all different. I like that better than everyone being identical because, well, they're not identical people. And we did hit on a glitch with similarity last year when I made 2 Independence Day skirts - JE won't wear her's because I made SM's first, and when I showed JE the second one, she was confused and said it belonged to her sister. It's just been sitting in her drawer since then.

- Dr. Seuss skirts for Read Across America Day on March 1. I ordered some Dr. Seuss fabric thinking it was flannel for a baby blanket. It was regular cotton, so it's good for clothes since I'm not up to making a full-on baby quilt yet. I think these will be really fun - it's a cute and silly print. I don't have enough fabric for dresses but I think there's enough to make 4 (or even 5) little skirts.

- Easter outfits for all the girls. When I was getting some Christmas fabric, I noticed that fabric.com had pastel colored eyelet marked down to $2.50 a yard - done! I got pink, lavender, cream, and white. The new baby will have her blessing (the Mormon version of christening) on Easter Sunday, so she gets the white. There's 2 yards of it which is WAY too much for a tiny baby, even with making one of those super-long christening dresses like my mom has done for all the others. The other four girls can have some combination of all four colors. I'm happy that the baby will be in her special blessing dress, but still coordinate with the other girls for the holiday. I was not even thinking about this when I ordered the white fabric - the idea occurred to me just a couple of weeks ago so I sent the white to my mom (she makes the blessing dresses by her own request).

- I have red/white and blue/white gingham to make something for all the girls for Independence Day.

- I'd like to make both Christmas dresses and Christmas pajamas for all the girls this year, but I haven't thought that far in advance. Oh, and I think I'm supposed to be making Halloween costumes for everyone as well. SM has decided that our entire family will be dressed from Alice in Wonderland. We'll see what happens with those when they get closer.

In general with sewing clothes for them, I want to start making dresses as well as skirts. And I want to use more of the tutorials that I have bookmarked and not keep making the same thing over and over. Dana's simple skirt has definitely gotten me started, but time to broaden my horizons.

STUFF FOR THE HOUSE
Most of my ideas so far are for the girls' room ...

- I already started before New Year's with painting the frame of their bulletin board. The pins to hang pictures and other random items are the collector pins from Disneyland and DisneyWorld. Before I got married, that type of pin was my collector item when I traveled. I have quite a stash from Disney that the girls think are fun so they have them now. (They do NOT get my pins from Australia. I'm keeping those.)

- Make more coat racks, like I did here, for behind their bedroom door to hang all their little tote bags that just get thrown everywhere. I'm doing 3 in green with flowers on them.

- Put ribbon on the lamp that's on their dresser.

- I've wanted for forever to redo their dressers - paint, new hardware, line the drawers, the whole thing. I don't know how much of that will happen right away. Maybe this summer? I could at least mod podge some fun craft paper to the bottoms of their drawers to start.

- THIS:

- The Sewing Loft - cover wire hangers with felt and edged by a blanket stitch. I have felt. I can do a blanket stitch. I can make little flowers. And we have ugly wire hangers in our girls' closet because SM can't remove a plastic hanger from the rod without snapping it in half. These are very girly.

For the kitchen ...

- Stitched in Color - I love love love this kitchen rug! It's quilted. What a fabulous idea! Those colors wouldn't really go well in my kitchen. I lean toward blues and greens. But the idea is definitely in my head. It would be nice for the floor to be a little less cold and hard when I'm doing dishes at 11 pm.

- my paper crane - hot pads! The ones we currently have are from when we got married almost 9 years ago and are looking pretty shabby. I could actually have a somewhat coordinating kitchen ... how would that be? Of course it's ADAM'S kitchen since he does most of the cooking, so I can't use super-girly fabrics. I'm fine with using more masculine fabrics (something geometric?), as long as the combination of this and that is not an eyesore.

On a related note, I have probably half a dozen different links bookmarked for various designs on cloth napkins. We could use more of those too, so we don't go through so many paper towels at dinner. I have a vision of a small rectangular basket filled from one end to the other with cloth napkins. And now that I'm pondering a nice-looking kitchen ... some kind of window covering? I saw something a long time ago that you get a curtain rod with clips on it, and just hang up placemats as your valance. That would be cool, except I've never ever seen a placemat that I wanted hung over my window that I'd have to look at all the time. Might as well just make a valance/curtain/whatever, or even some placemats and hang them up. Ha!

HOLIDAYS

- icandy handmade - How cute is this for Valentine's Day? The link includes a full tutorial. I especially love the giant rick-rack. I need to find some. Walmart certainly doesn't carry anything that fun.

- I'll post a picture of my Halloween mini-quilt when I get it done. I already mentioned that I made one for my brother's family for Christmas and I have 3 more in the works because that's how much fabric there was. I'm keeping one of them and giving the other 2 away, but I'm not sure to whom yet.

- I'm going to attempt my 12 Months of Christmas project again - I'll put my string of inspiration photos and links for that in another post because this one is long enough as it is.