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!