I’ve created a monster!

For Christmas, Bea got a Janome DC1050 and the book Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts from Santa. 

She and I marked the quilting lines with a washable pen. I was a little worried that since it sat around 2 weeks before she actually quilted it that the blue marks wouldn’t wash out. But they did!

Santa also brought two doll clothes books that came with instructional DVDs.  We sewed this dress on Christmas day.

I love the little appliqued daisies with button centers.

According to Bea’s first grade teacher, she writes about sewing in her morning journal nearly every single day.  And these came home in her folder in January.  Of course I saved them!

I’m not sure what one person would do with 100 sewing machines, but it sounds good to me!  I love the little drawing of a sewing machine she put at the bottom.

My husband jokes that one day “the student shall become the master.”

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.  Have a great weekend and hope you get lots of sewing done!

See & Sew

One day last week my daughter was really excited to sew a dress.  She picked out fabric from my stash and drew several designs, not understanding what a pattern actually was.   So, in the excitement of it all, we drove to Joanns to look through the pattern books and she picked out this pattern for her dress:

The front says “Yes!  It’s Easy” but sometimes I feel like the tissue paper kind of patterns are anything but.  Step 16 literally says, “Turn facing to inside, turning shoulder straps out; press.  Turn under ends of facing to clear zipper teeth SLIPSTITCH to zipper tape.”

Incomprehensible to me since I don’t really have any garment sewing experience.  But, I had about two hours to get the dress sewn.  So, what did I do???

I made it up!  Thank goodness I’ve been sewing long enough to know the rule to sew right sides together.  I just winged it and figured out a way to get the bodice lining sewn to the dress in a relatively unhaphazard way.  The dress looks great from a distance, and pretty good up close.  I omitted the zipper and put about 4 inches of elastic in the back instead.  The dress was done by 10pm and my daughter stayed up late for her “fittings” so I could adjust the elastic and situate the straps, and she happily modeled it for her dad who was mildly impressed.

We used coordinating Barbie fabric from Over the Rainbow.

Here is the back sans zipper.  I kind of like the elastic better, to tell you the truth, because she can get herself dressed without my help.

My first love is definitely quilting, but sewing the occasional dress is fun, especially if it means spending time with my daughter.

Makeovers

Warning: This is a long post.  Just skip to the end for the sewing part

If you’ve had any kids, you probably know what I mean when I say it’s sheer joy to drop 20-25 pounds in a week.  That’s what I did when I had baby #1 and baby #2.  I was close to pre-pregnancy weight within a few weeks of having them.  I never did get back down to the slimmest size of my life, but close enough!  Not so with baby #3…

I lost about 15 pounds in the hospital (she weighed in at 7) and that was it.  It has been a year now, and I still hover at the same weight.  Enter December Christmas parties. 

Nothing to wear, not feeling particularly attractive, countdown one week to first party, I went on a diet.  I basically ate turkey lunchmeat and water for Every Single Meal and –HALLELUJAH-- I lost about 5 pounds. 

Then I had to decide what to wear.  I still could not fit into any dress in my closet.  So, I went to Target, because I don’t plan to ever HAVE to wear this dress again.  Of course I always have kids with me, and it was taking me a terrible long time to pick anything out knowing that I would be committing to the dress without getting to try it on (since I had kids along).  Veronica (the baby) was getting fussy in the stroller, so since it wasn’t that busy, I let her out and she and Esther played peek-a-boo among the dresses. 

I was frantic trying to find something to wear.  I finally found something I thought I could live with when I smelled the most horrendous smell.  Yes, Veronica was up to her armpits in poop sitting in a display of dresses.  I wrapped her up in my coat, made a beeline for the shoes, picked out a pair and headed to the checkout.  I broke out in a sweat hoping to make it out of there before anyone realized where the stench was coming from!  She rode home in nothing but a diaper after I was through cleaning her up.

That night when I was trying everything on, the shoes didn’t fit!!!  I had grabbed a size 7 instead of 8.  (That’s another thing…my feet are a full size bigger since having kids…and my hair is no longer stick-straight, but wavy).  I called the store in a panic, and a nice woman put a pair on hold for me at the front desk.  While I was talking to her, I asked if she knew if there were any tights that matched.  She said she thought so but wasn’t sure, and when I got to Target a few minutes later, the shoes and tights (which I didn’t ask her to get) were waiting for me.  I love you, Target!!!

Okay, here’s where the sewing part comes in.  The dress was dowdy.  It had a high neckline (I have humungous boobs from breastfeeding) and I didn’t want to be flashy.  The hem went below the knees.  I wasn’t really happy with the dress at all.  Then, I had an idea!  Maybe I could hem it to make it a little younger and stylish.

I have never sewn knit fabric before, so I got out my machine manual and the book “Sewing for Dummies” (yes, I own that book) and got to work.  I cut off exactly how much I wanted, thinking maybe I should go a little conservative in case things didn’t turn out quite as I hoped.  But I kind of go by the mantra, “Go hard or go home,” so I went for broke and didn’t leave any extra!

Then I started sewing with the double needle as was suggested by my Janome manual.  It didn’t turn out how I’d hoped.  I had a really hard time keeping the fabric under the foot.  I think maybe I should have used a walking foot.  I have no idea, but I was getting nervous because we had about 15 minutes before we needed to leave.  So, I just ironed up the bad hem, and used a longer straight stitch with a single needle and it turned out okay!!!  There was some waviness to the (a little bit shorter than I planned!) hem, but I think it was much improved.

And the diet…I have stuck to it pretty well since that night.  We just made Christmas cookies yesterday, so I am going to take a break from it until those are all gone (which shouldn’t take long thanks to Bea and Esther who pretty much are eating cookies instead of real food). 

And speaking of makeovers…today our house is getting a new roof, shutters, and front door, all thanks to the hurricane that blew through here this fall and dropped a few trees on our house.