Costumes and Quilts

My oldest wanted to be a “Goth Fairy” for Halloween.  Luckily her two casts go perfectly with her black outfit.  She picked out the wings and fabric.  I sewed the skirt.

Here’s a little witch on a bike.  She won 2nd place at a fall festival’s costume party!  She was thrilled to pieces.

And the littlest munchkin was just thrilled to be outside in her pajamas!

I practiced a lot of fmq this weekend.  Some is okay, some not so okay, but overall I am happy with the results.  It was fun to try something new besides squiggles.  I don’t know if I could ever get “good” at fmq though.  I find it very difficult and tedious.  I did a lot of seam ripping, too.

This quilt will be living at our house, though, so I’m not too worried about it.  I am making all three girls identical quilts to gift to them during Advent.  I backed this one with flannel so I think I will use different flannel for each so the girls can tell them apart.

I love the cheater panel in the middle of the quilt.  It was designed by Sheri Berri a few years ago.  I just had to have it!

I also got a quilt top finished today during the big hurricane/storm that is coming through Maryland today.  I kept praying the electricity wouldn’t go out so I could keep sewing!

This quilt is for a little boy who is three.  I haven’t decided how to quilt it yet.  I am thinking just squiggles this time, or vertical straight lines.  What do you think?

I hope everyone is staying out of harm’s way and is safe tonight.

Witchy Woman

I finished up Esther’s witch costume over the weekend.

I did say I was going to use the Urban Prairie pattern, but when I opened up the envelope I nearly fainted because there was tissue paper in there!  So, I pulled out my trusty Pink Poodle Bows Reese Peasant Dress Pattern and just used that instead.  They are basically the same type of dress and I’ve made quite a few from this pattern, so I am happy with the results and I didn’t have to worry about  the “bodices” and so forth that make me sweat.

The fabric is mostly Costume Club I think.  The hat, tights, and broom are from Joanns and I made three roses for the hat from scraps so it’s totally matchy-matchy. 

I have a brilliant idea to use a pair of Bea’s old ballet flats to make glow-in-the-dark shoes for Esther.  I also sewed Bea’s costume and will share a pic of everyone dressed up when we go trick-or-treating.  I’m posting this dress in Elsie Marley’s Kid’s Clothes Week Challenge.  I don’t sew many clothes, but I’m hoping Esther wears this dress around a lot for the next two weeks.

Here are all the squares cut out for my newest quilt.  I’m going with  red, white, and blue, which is a color combo hopefully you can never go wrong with!   Here are all my blocks cut out. 

A few weeks ago for my birthday I got a new cutting mat.  I really love this Fiskars mat because the light color makes the fabric stand out when cutting.  Colors seemed to blend with the dark green color of my old cutting mat, making it hard to accurately cut at night which is when I have time to sew.

Don’t’ forget to enter my giveaway here.  I’ll announce the winner Sunday night.

Read Across America Dress

One of the reasons I wanted to learn to sew was to make my kids’ clothes.  After I bought my first couple of Simplicity and McCalls patterns, though, I put that dream to rest because I had  NO IDEA how to read and follow the patterns.  They were simply too complicated for me!

Then last week when I was volunteering at my daughter’s school, there was an announcement about the Dr. Seuss-inspired Read Across America week and I knew I needed to make Bea an appropriate dress for the celebration.  She’s only in kindergarten and not too old for dresses-made-by-mom yet. 

I bought the Reese Peasant Dress pattern on Etsy because it promised lots of photos and many reviewers said it was easy to make.  And it was!   I whipped this dress out in about 2 hours from cutting to finish, and it fits perfectly. 

Last year I traded some DS Quilts fabric on Etsy (probably not officially allowed) for a dress from Wild Olive Kids.  I asked the owner for any advice to learn to sew dresses, and she said to pick a good pattern and practice.  So I picked the Reese pattern specifically for its versatility with sleeves, ruffles, different fabrics, etc.  I am so happy I did!  I also bought two other dress patterns and plan to put them to use when it gets a little warmer out since they are summer styles.

Here is Bea posing next to the dress I traded for.  She hasn’t had a chance to wear the Christmas dress yet because although it’s a size 6, it probably fits more like a size 7 or 8. 

I happened to pick up some of that Michael Miller deer fabric on sale after Christmas and hope to make my other girls similar dresses because I didn’t have three daughters for no reason!  I am linking up this dress to Melissa at Happy Quilting’s Trying New Things Thursday.  This project was so much fun and I see lots of dresses in the future, as soon as I learn how to use my serger.