A Girl's Dress...

can never be too poofy.

Or too bright.

In my opinion.

Sewing with Scraps!

I was shopping for fabric at fabric.com (love that website). I wanted to make some summer clothes for Sarah but I decided to quickly look through my scraps of fabric that I already have first.
I am curious to know how much leftover fabric people have. Is it normal to have a huge box full? I think I buy too much fabric. Anyway I found lots of scraps and decided to start using them instead of buying more. This is the little dress I made from some scraps:

Haha. I used this pattern that looks really gross with the fabric they used. It was only $1. Just needs some cute modern fabric to spice it up a little.

It was really wide on her so I put a tie in the back.

Monster Applique Shirt plus Matching Pants

I have had a lot of people ask how to do these shirts so here is my little tutorial:

You will need:

A plain shirt to fuse your fabric onto
Fusible web (wonder under seems to be the favorite, but I only had heat n bond and that works too)
Fabric for your design (make sure you get extra fabric for the eyes and mouth, along with the body)
A pattern of your design
Thread

Start off by fusing your wonder under to your fabric. Follow the instructions that come with the wonder under on how to do that. You will want it to be a little bigger than the size of your monster design.


Print or draw your monster design, cut it out and pin it on the fabric that you just fused to the wonder under. Cut out the monster shape.

Follow the instructions on how to fuse the fabric of the body to the shirt. I just ironed it on.

Next, add the eyes, mouth and teeth.

Last, it is a very good idea to sew around the edges in case the wonder under doesn't stay fused onto the fabric. It should be fine but I do it just in case.

I added stitches for the eyes and a little bow for the monster hair. And that is it!

I decided to make some pants to match it. Really you can just buy any pants pattern for kids and add a 3 inch ruffle on the bottom! I bought some knit fabric from fabric.com. I love that website. They have lots of cute knit fabric that is hard to find. These pants are made for the fall so they are a little big.

I originally made these shirt for the boys because I saw some cute monster applique shirts from mini boden and wanted to try to make them. For the cropped pants, I just used a regular pants pattern for kids and cut them short and hemmed them. Pretty easy and cheap!

A new tradition for bridal showers

My aunt Sally, gave us this great idea to make matching aprons for bridal showers that we are hosting. My mom is always up for celebrating and making things as cute as possible so she went and bought the fabric. I made 2 of the aprons and my mom made 4 along with hosting this beautiful shower for my brother Patrick's fiance, Kimberly. We are going to make this a tradition!

My mom also bought matching fabric to make skirts for the girls so I made 5 skirts. Well towards the end, my sister helped finish one. I got really sick of it by the end but I thought it was so worth it. They turned out cute. I used different ric rac and tule for each skirt.

2 BIG projects

I love sewing but it sure does take a heck of a lot of time...
Especially when you decide to take on big projects.

Quilt for Brian

I am totally showing off but this is my first quilt and I am so happy that I got this done. This has been a project that I have been working on for maybe 7 years. Not continuously, but I took all of Brian and my shirt's from our days at the sorority/fraternity and cut them out, knowing that someday I would make a quilt. Those squares sat in my basement for years. Finally I decided to make the quilt to give to Brian for Christmas. I can't believe I got it done. It took FOREVER. I loved making it though. One of those shirts was our first date. This quilt has so many memories. I love it.

the back

Skirt for my sister Elizabeth

So Elizabeth is on a mission and she sent me a picture of a skirt that had lots of ruffles on it that she wanted. So of course I had to make her one. I used the nie nie pattern. This wasn't that easy because it is for a little girl so I had to make it a much bigger size. Plus I had to make it long enough for a missionary. I KNOW I KNOW I can't picture a missionary wearing this AT ALL but Lil is no ordinary missionary. Plus her mission president said that she could wear prints and any colors so I am just going to pretend that she will wear this everyday. This probably took me 3-4 days to make. I am guessing it took about 5 yards of fabric too. So I really hope she likes it. I am tempted to make one for me...

Ruffle pants

I have been loving the cute ruffle pants that I have been seeing on little girls. I decided instead of paying $40 or more, I would make some.
They have lots of cute patterns for $10 but I figured I would make up my own for much cheaper.
So I found a pattern for simple girl pants at Hobby Lobby for only $1.
I cut out the pants from the pattern but left off a few inches from the bottom.
Then, I cut out the ruffle fabric, gathered it, and sewed it onto the bottom of the pants.
I also added some ricrac on top of the seam.
Here is the finished product (I also bought a shirt from target and appliqued some fabric on it for a pumpkin):

I think she likes them.

Whatever tickles your fancy

I finally decided after years of my sewing machine not working to go get it looked at. Well it turns out I wasn't threading it quite right. Yes I am special.
Anyway I have been so excited to sew and I can't stop now.
I found a tutorial on a friends blog for a bubble skirt but didn't quite understand it so I called my friend, Kristin who is amazing at sewing and asked her to translate. She explained it to me and I made the skirt! You should have seen me as I was making it. I was so proud of myself. I showed it to Brian about 10 times trying to get him to scream with excitement but he wasn't quite that excited. I am learning that guys don't get that excited about sewing projects.

I thought this skirt would fit her in the fall but I tried it on her and it is already getting tight! It was so tight on her thighs that I had to bunch up the muslin (the fabric on the inside of the skirt) to go around her belly because it was too tight on her thighs.


My first project was this onesie. I cut out this fabric (on the left) and used wonder under to make it stick to the fabric. Then I looked at this tutorial to help me make the ruffles on the right. I changed it a little and finished the edges to make it look a little more polished. I also made a onesie with ruffles going all the way around but I forgot to take a picture.

I love to sew and it gives me such satisfaction to make things myself. I must say, though, that the time it took for me to do all of these things was a lot. I could never make a ton of these and sell them because I would NEVER see my kids. This is fun to do once in a while but I could easily get too consumed.