Refashioned shirts

A few days ago I posted this picture....


Four shirts I picked up on clearance at Walmart for three bucks each.  Total of $12 dollars.  Here is the after shot-

 

Kiddo shirts at wallys and target are usually $4-$6.  By purchasing the adolescent shirts on clearance and then refashioning them I was able to get four shirts and a skirt for the same price as two or three tops.   The neckline on the butterfly shirt stretched out when I was sewing it so it looks kinda wonky in the picture, but I am going to see if adding snaps in the back will fix that.  Even if it doesn't though, I still got a super cute skirt out of that shirt! 

365 update, 1 month down!

We're now into month two of the 365 project (well, actually that was a couple days ago but I'm just now getting around to posting).  The first month was a ton of fun and I think I did pretty well with only missing one day, I hope February goes as well too!

Crafty Sewin Mamas Sewalong

An online sewing board I'm a part of has decided to do a sewalong/blogathon.  Several ladies were lacking the motivation to sew much, and also post on their blog frequently so they decided to do a sew-along and invited anybody in the group that wanted to join to participate.  Sounds like fun to me!  They decided they would give two project choices and each person could pick which one they wanted to do (or both.)  This week the options were a crochet hook holder, or a sewing machine cover.  I haven't crocheted in a really long time and don't even know where any of my hooks have disappeared off to.  And a sewing machine cover doesn't appeal to me in the least bit.  (I'm on and off my machine too frequently to want to bother with putting on and removing a cover each time.)  

However, my daughter does love to color.  And we have a big ole 64 pack of crayolas, plus a ziploc baggie of crayons that lost their box.  I'm a little OCD.  I don't like crayons not having a place to live and the ziploc isn't really cutting it for me.  Plus, the 64 pack box has gotten kinda beaten up with the flaps starting to fall apart, and I don't like that either.  So I decided to do a variation on the crochet hook roll and do a crayon roll instead.  

I've been putting off this project for awhile, I've seen it on numerous blogs before but for some reason it never really appealed to me.  (Probably because Mercedes had not yet discovered her love of coloring and mangling the crayon boxes.)  I sure was missing out though.  This is definitely a fun project.  Picking out the fabrics is fun, and its finally giving me a use for all these fat quarters I picked up on sale forever ago. 

Like I said, instructions for these can be found all across the blogworld.  I mainly followed the one over at Prudent Baby.  The instructions said 18" by 6" but I cut my rectangles 17" by 6", made more sense to me. (1 inch for each crayon, then a .5 inch seam allowance on each side.)  Then I just sewed it up following the directions.  The first one I made I didn't include interfacing or anything at all, its just the regular quilters cotton.  The second one I made I used a layer of antipill fleece (because I'm a lamer and don't have either interfacing or quilt batting on hand) in the middle.  Both work great, but I think I prefer the one with the layer of antipill fleece.  It just gives it a little bit more substance.  The one without is nice and trim though and would fit in a smaller or already stuffed diaper bag better.

They sew up quickly and are so pretty when they are all finished!  I <3 them so much, I think pretty much everybody I know can expect these as their present from me for any holiday for the rest of their lives.

Looking back

I was looking through my old pictures the other day and came across the pictures of my early sewing products and thought I'd share them on here.  When I first started out I thought I'd never be able to sew the cute stuff I saw other women sew, but here I am sewing up clothes for my girl.  Its pretty awesome to look back and see how far I've come.


Heehee, my first project ever, baby leg warmers.



 bwahahah!  my first attempt at pants....


First diaper attempt


One of my first skirts



My rough-draft dress


More dresses, once I got my pattern figured out

A much improved diaper


Early shirt...


Shirt and skirt set

;

Shirt and pants
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overlapping collar shirts...


And now dresses like these.  I made this one tonight. I never thought I'd get to here.  If you had shown me this dress a year ago and asked me if I'd ever be able to sew it, I'd have laughed and told you No Way. So if you are just starting out to sew and getting frustrated or feel like you're never going to advance, don't lose hope!  I still have a lot to learn and long ways to go, and this dress isn't really anything special, but when I look back at some of my earlier projects it sure does make me proud to see the progress I've made.

I missed a day!

I missed a day for my 365 project!  January 23rd. :(  I didn't even realize I missed a day until I went to upload the new pics and didn't have one for that day.  Oh well.  I'm sure I'm bound to miss a few more before the year is up.

I sewed this dress yesterday, this was my first attempt at this style of dress.  I'm not especially pleased with the way it came out, mainly because I don't think I really like the A-Line look, and the top-stitching isn't very good either.  Luckily for me though, my sister loves it, which is good because its actually for her daughter.  Oh, and another note- making bias tape by hand SUCKS.  I hand ironed the bias tape for this dress and it has made me realize just how fantastic an actual bias tape maker would be.  Adding that to my wishlist.



I've also been working with these....

They will be featured in their own blog post in the near future.  Nothing fancy, but I'm excited about it.

and then just because shes cute, and I'm thrilled that after almost two years she finally has enough hair for me to do this....



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Edited to add- OOPS!  I completely forgot to include where I got the pattern for the dress from.  It is the Snappy  Toddler Top over at Prudent Baby.  http://prudentbaby.com/

365 update

So far the 365 is actually turning out to be easier than I expected.  I haven't missed a day yet, and with a character like Mercedes there isn't really a shortage of inspiration.  All the pictures so far have been uploaded to my Flickr if you want to check em out.

Other than taking pictures I've pretty much just been going to school and sewing.  I'm having a blast with serger sewing up shirts. 


I don't have much else to say other than my girl is awesome, I am a lucky mommy. <3

Happy New Year!

Whew, this 365 project is going to be harder than I thought.  We're only on Day 1 and I'm already having difficulty in two different aspects.  1st, I realized it was 6 PM and I still hadn't taken a picture yet and had no ideas for the picture. 2nd, once I had an idea and had taken the pictures I couldn't pick just one of the pictures.

One idea I had for pictures, and my mom actually suggested it too, was to take a picture of a pile of our used tissues.  It would definitely be adequate in that it would represent how today (and the past week) has been.  My mom, Mercedes, and I are all sick.  So while it would have been fitting, I just couldn't imagine years from now opening our photobook and the first page being a picture of snotty tissue.

So instead I did this-

I definitely lucked out that we had all the letters and numbers required.  We only have about half of the set left and I was relived to see we had the ones we needed.

Then a few minutes later Mercy started to play with a New Years hat we had laying around still, it was cute to pass up.



So those are my pictures for Day 1 of 365. Its not really breaking the rules to have two pictures is it?

Hi blog.

Its been awhile.  Sorry.  I hope everybody had a fantastic Christmas and is super excited about the New Year. I know I am.  I'm excited because I finally ordered a serger and it should be here on the 5th!  I can't wait to get it and start making tons of clothes.  I'm also excited because I'm going to be starting a 365 project.  I am going to (try) to take at least 1 picture every single day.  Nothing fancy, and I'm not doing a theme, just a picture of something that happened in our lives that day.  At the end of the year I hope to compile all the pictures into a photobook so down the road I can look back and see the year 2011 in 365 still frames.

I've been wanting to start the 365 project for awhile but I never remember it in time to start it on an important date.  I didn't want to just start on a random day.  I planned on waiting until Mercedes' 2nd birthday and starting then, but a friend of mine over at Inside the Insanity mentioned she was going to do it and was staring January first.  Such a great idea, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.  My plan is to start a flickr account and load them all up there hopefully every week, and maybe post my favorites here occasionally. 

I haven't been very productive lately, been dealing with a sick baby and now I'm sick myself.  Yippee.  I'll leave you with some pics of projects I completed semi-recently though.

A mish mash.

I've been terribly neglectful of my blog.  Only 1 post in October, and none for November until today- the 23rd.  I have actually been busy though.

A recent picture of Mercy and I, showing off the back-carry in our mei tai

I am in the process of enrolling in the local community college, right now I'm just waiting to hear back about financial aid.  The first year for the most part is going to be pre-reqs like math, science, lit, and writing. I want to become a lactation consultant.  To do that I need to take a bunch of medical classes, and to take those I need to take a bunch of math/science classes.  I only just recently (relatively) decided I wanted to pursue a career as a LC.  In the time span of about 2 days I had several different people come to me for breastfeeding advice, and I was able to provide them the information they wanted.  It was pretty awesome and made me realize that its something I would love to be able to do for more people.

The same goes for car seat safety. I've also been looking up information on becoming a Child Passenger Safety Technician.  I'm very passionate about car seat safety, I've been made fun of over how important it is to me, but its not something I will apologize for.  Its a very important aspect of parenting, and sadly one that many parents are uneducated about.  7 out of 10 child seats are being improperly used. I'd love it if I could do something to help bring that number down.  Unfortunately the next class in my area won't be until March so I'll have to wait til then.

Enjoying her buckle block.

 Other than that (and child rearing) I've been doing quite a bit of sewing.  I made a toy for my daughter, it is a soft block, but because she absolutely LOVES buckles (like on high chairs, or in grocery carts, or the chest clip on her car seat) I decided to add some buckles to the block so she wasn't constantly asking me to take her to the car so she could buckle her baby doll into her seat.  She loves the block and it certainly occupies her for a good amount of time.

Matching shirt and skirt

I also learned how to sew shirts and have been having fun sewing them for my girl, and also matching pants.  I even ended up sewing up some things for people other than my child this past couple weeks.  A family friend asked that I sew her daughter some pants, and I also received an order for 3 diapers that have been sewn up and sent off to their new home.  Unfortunately I lost the memory card for my camera so the pictures of my crafts are all from my cell phone, and I didn't get a picture of the diapers before they left.

So there is just a general update on what I've been up to, I hope everybody else out there is doing well and hopefully I'll be able to get back on the ball of posting regularly.

Sleigh bells ring...

• 

• I'm unusually excited about winter/Christmas time this year.  

I'm excited for my family's holiday traditions.  My family has painted ornaments for several years, now our tree is entirely homemade ornaments, its pretty awesome.   

Me, Christmas of 2008.  Chris wanted a picture of Mercedes and the snowman he painted.

Since getting married,  my husband and I started a few new traditions.  He likes building gingerbread houses so we did one last year and will do another this year.  We spent our evenings painting ornaments or building the gingerbread house and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallow snowmen and whipped cream.  (and almost every night I'd either leave the whip cream out, or my ninja cat would get the marshmallows out of the cupboard/off the counter and strew them about the house, resulting in one or both having to be purchased again.)  I think this is one thing I am most looking forward to about this years holiday season, these evenings with my husband.  I got very excited when I saw the bag of marshmallow snowmen in the store last week, in just about two more weeks he will be on his way home from Florida and we can share some hot cocoa again.

Last year for Mercy's first Christmas she was 10 months old and we did a homemade handprint ornament for her and I'm looking forward to making another one this year, they are a lot of fun to make.

My family also opens one present on Christmas Eve.  I remember Christmases as a little girl, me and my sisters would ask if we could open just one present and our parents would act like they were going to tell us no, but they still always let us. 

I'm always interested in more traditions though, do you have any that your family does that you'd be willing to share?

I am definitely more excited about Christmas this year than I have been other years.  I might even listen to Christmas music, which I usually don't really like.