A Super sweet knot dress!

Brooke pretty much has an obscene amount of dresses...yet I can't stop making more!! I am just in LOVE with this one and the variation I came up with and other variation I saw! The possibilities as well as the fabric options are endless!! Sew.. here it is!

First let's talk about the French seam. What a lovely and wondrous thing this is! This was the first time I had used one and I will definitely be using them again! I never knew how easy they were!
Here is the beauty:

(It's the one up the middle ^. It encases the raw edges completely. Purty!)

Here is the finished product:

And, here it is on my beautiful model!

When I make things, I usually make more than one at a time, to save time. So, I cut out the pieces for this same dress, but with the brown Damask as the dress and the floral as the straps. Then.. I fiddled with it. I didn't add the small elastic in the bottom portion (that makes it bubble out a little), and I had both straps come out and have their own knot, instead of having the one in the middle).

She wore it out on a play date with two of her besties. It cracks me up that her besties are all boys! We rode The Mini Train and then went to get cupcakes!! YUM!

I have SO many other ideas of variations on this dress! It can be shorter and turned into a shirt. I saw one with a bow in the front instead of a knot- super cute! Could add a ruffle.. etc!

 Stay tuned, you will see more!

Boo for busy!

So, along came the weekend and then the week began with two days of  teacher training. That, combined with my sweet baby boy that enjoys eating 2-3 times a night = a tired mama with not much time to blog! I DID, however manage to eek out some projects since I last wrote!

Saturday morning I got a wild hair and wanted to make a plush ribbon teether for Benjamin.... I had a 2 year old helper for this one and I even got breakfast served to me in my sewing room! It turned out to be a VERY productive day!

I started with lots of ribbons in lots of colors, two fleece circles, and pins!

Then I pinned them on and pinned the fleece.

Sew around, leave a space to turn it, then turn.

I stuffed it with batting and a few jingle bells!

Then I added the ribbon to the space where I turned it and top stitched around the whole thing. You can skip this step and just  hand sew the opening shut, being sure to catch the ribbon.

Personally, I like the top stitching. It isn't pretty, but it's cool and Benjamin likes it! :)

And then in walked hubby with this:

MMmmm!! Soo cute! Egg sandwich with a turkey sausage face! Kinda makes you wanna do this:

Arrrgh!

Back to crafting!

I FINALLY was able to machine sew the binding on to Benjamin's quilt! It STILL is not done though.. that would be because in order to finish it, I have to hand stitch the binding to the back. Let me just say that hand stitching is NOT my idea of fun!

I pinned it on.

Then sewed it on.

And then I got to that gap where the binding meets. I looked at the quilt-a-long I have been using to help me (thanks Bree!!), but try as I did.. I could NOT for the life of me do the funky  thing she did with the ends. I think I cut them a smidge too short to be able to fold them over on top of each other like she did. So.... I had to think. And, think hard. Because, at this point if I would have messed this up, I would have slit my wrists. For real. I figured out that I would just sew straight down, snip the excess, then sew it to the quilt like the rest of the binding. The picture above shows how I just sewed straight down there.

See? Then I snip snipped that excess off on the right.

I layed it flat and then sewed the gap there.

And looksie, I did it.. and IT WORKED!!

And, drum roll please... bah duh bah duh bah duh bah duh....

QUILT BINDING IS DONE!!!

*takes a bow*

Since I still had some time on my hands, I got cracking on a pacifier clip for Benjamin, since I lost his (which *amazingly* showed up right after I finished this one!).

It's easy peasy. I just sewed a fabric sheath, turned it, top stitched, sewed a clip on one side and an elastic loop on the other. This owl fabric is sort of nostalgic for me. It is what I used on my vey first (pretty crappy, I might add) tag blanket. Ben has a coordinating crinkle tag toy hanging on his infant carrier as well (not crappy, I might add!) ;)

Okay and if you EVER need to turn a sheath of fabric for whatever reason, you MUST get one of these nifty tools!! I picked it up at Joann's for half off, plus my teacher discount, of course. So, it was pretty cheap actually, but SO rad!! It sort of makes you want to turn tubes of fabric for sport!

This is the one I have, it came with three different sized tubes! Love!

And.. my final Saturday project was re-usable snack bags! These are SO AWESOME!! I have plans to make a ton of these and sell them! These two are fabric bags with a fabric lining and velcro closure.

The ones I make to sell will have a nylon lining and I will have more sizes! :o)

Brooke loves these as well. She thinks the velcro is fun!

Fun at the zoo, but no nappy poo!

This morning we went to the zoo with friends and even though we got home in time for our naps, this mama had NO nappy crafty time to speak of! Brooke went down easy as pie, as always and slept for almost 3 1/2 hours! Benjamin, however, was another story! I think he slept about 30 minutes, twice. The first 30 I was able to shower and finish up ironing the binding, but that's it. The second 30 minutes was right when Brooke woke up, so that was a no-go. I'll finish this quilt someday. Some. Day. Once both littles were up mommy had earned herself a trip to Joann's! So... off we went! I may or may not have gone overboard at the fabric store... we will never know! ;) Or maybe we will?..

So, no crafty post today, just zoo pictures!

Cupcake madness!

Yesterday we had lunch with grandma. After lunch I think my mom was ready for a nap!

Brooke is a fan of the cupcake. I can not fault her for this, for I, too, am a fan of the cupcake! We had planned to go to a cupcake bakery when we were in town visiting my mom, but the cupcakes weren't ready when we got there, so I promised her we would make some after her nap. Ever a woman of my word, as soon as she woke up, we traipsed into the kitchy to get started! She walked right over to the wall where the aprons are hung and pointed to hers and said, "Brooke wear now", then to mine with "Mommy wear". On the aprons went and we got down to business.

A girl after my own heart... licking the batter off of the wisk!

After all of her hard work.. she deserved a treat!

It was late, just before dinner, so I split a cupcake with her...

However, apparently this wasn't enough...

because this is what she did when I told her no more until after dinner! (she was saying, "more cupcake, more cupcake" while her mouth was full of cupcake).

This cupcake (and her little brother) were tuckered out after a long, busy day!

The quilting = The done!

Woot! Woot!! I FINISHED QUILTING my quilt!!! The clouds have parted and the angels have sung! All is right in the world! However... I wasn't sure I'd make it! One of my Facebook status messages while I was quilting yesterday was something along the lines of: "If my sewing machine was a person I would stab it". All was hunky dory until it ran out of bobbin thread. That seems to send Sadie (my sewing machine) into conniptions and it takes some finagling to get her back on track! Here's proof:

And.. here is more proof:

(and yes, that was two separate times.. this happened no less than 4 times)

After much seam ripping and cursing, I finally got the train back on the tracks! All I had left was free motion quilting over the borders. Holy crappola... that's a lot of landscape to cover. Have I mentioned that free motion quilting is a bit of a workout?! I kept telling myself, "I think I can, I think, I can" and kept swirling away! I finally finished (praise God!!) and then it was down to the floor to trim it up!

Can you say done? D O N E! Yippeeee!

I personally think the back looks almost as cool as the front!

Now that I'm done with the quilting, it's on to the binding!! I cut my strips, sewed them together, then had to iron them.

That is as far as I got (that ^ picture) before babies woke up!

 A pretty darn tootin' successful sewing day!!