Endings and Beginnings

Last week I finished up two projects:

This mini quilt for a challenge.

Backed with a pretty plaid from the Aunt Edna DS Quilts line.

And this little skirt for my daughter who only wears skirts and dresses.

We saw this cute Little Lisette ice cream cone and popsicle fabric at Joanns and I had grosgrain ribbon and pink pindot fabric to coordinate.

I even put in a little label (first time so go easy on me!).

Then over the weekend I dumped out my scrap basket and got started on a new challenge.

Those scraps became a pile of squares.

And the squares became a star!  This is a pattern I bought on Etsy.

I am not sure about this project.  Using different fabrics is always a challenge to me.  I kind of like the way it looks in the photograph better than in real life.  What kind of background fabric should I use?  Dark blue?  Black?  White?  Help!

I am linking up to Fabric Tuesday on Quilt Story.

Handmade Holiday Swap

I am participating in the Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Holiday Gift Exchange.  I really love this blog!  I have found lots of inspiration for projects that I have made with my kids including this fall (or any season) burlap wreath and a bright Harvest banner that Bea will sew during the Thanksgiving break when she’s off from school.

We made four of the burlap wreaths—one for our door and three to share with family and friends. 

I am really excited to be participating the in the holiday handmade exchange!  My partner has a daughter, so I made her little girl a Christmas twirly skirt like the one I made in my last post.  It was good practice trying to tailor it specifically to her measurements.

 

I’ll be getting it in the mail soon so her daughter can get lots of wear out of it before Christmas!

Twirly skirt

Because I learned to sew as an [older] adult, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sew from a commercial pattern.  Maybe that’s a poor excuse, but pretty much everything I’ve sewn is self-taught and those Simplicity patterns I’ve bought are anything but simple to me.  I barely have time to go to the grocery store (we often are on “last roll of toilet paper alert) let alone take a sewing class.  The one class I took, I attended the first two sessions and learned how to insert my bobbin and adjust stitch length.  The project we were making was a skirt with a waistband and zipper.  When my instructor helped me sew the zipper, she sewed in a pucker.  I never finished that skirt, but I have learned oodles from all the great blogs I read and even have inserted a few zippers with a little help from some great online tutorials!

I saw this skirt on Kat’s blog recently and knew I had to try it.  I’m so pleased with the results that I know tons of skirts are in the future for my daughters and their friends!  I added rick rack, which I’ve never sewn before, with a zig zag.  After washing and drying, the rick rack looks flat and good as new!  Awesome!!!