Saturday, December 24, 2011

Recent Projects

The last while I've been keeping busy sewing like usual. One project that I had in mind for quite some time now, is this:
Tunic pattern cover
Img from http://www.jalie.com/empire-waist-tunic-pattern.html


The Empire Waist Tunic Pattern from Jalie Patterns. Quite some time ago now, I had bought a lovely knit fabric from Fabricland with the hope of making myself a top. But, it had to be a nice top with little chance of messing up, as I loved the feel of the fabric and didn't want to waste it. I am happy with the results:
 


It even works as a maternity shirt!


So, that was project # 1.

After getting some inspiration from a friend, I looked up some kid apron patterns online and found this: Basic Child Apron by Sew Liberated. It's one of her free patterns and it's pretty neat! I just made the basic pattern, but there's ideas for making a gardener apron, and also a laundry apron. Here's my version, made with some of the fabric I had left over from a diaper bag:


Note the way it closes--Velcro!! So, you don't have to tie it--the kids can do it themselves. Pretty neat, I'd say.


That's the 3-5 year old pattern, modeled by my 4 year old and it fits pretty good except for the fact that my dear children are all as skinny as their mother was as a kid... There is also a 6-8 year old pattern for older kids.
On a different note, I had to break out my old Shark to finish off this project, as my beautiful Janome is having some thread tension issues and is in need of a fix-up! See how inclined to sew I will be on my noisy, smelly Shark--the kids ask if it's broken because it makes such a racket.
Well that's it for now--have a Merry Christmas, and the Lord's blessing in 2012!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Winnings!!!

On December 12th, it was Giveaway Day at Sew Mama Sew. Of course, I am a sucker for giveaways--I'm quite Dutch after all! Anything free is a bonus--especially if it's sewing related. So I entered quite a few of the giveaways--heh I won't tell you how many because I myself am not sure how many!! But, it paid off. Yes, I won not one, but TWO giveaways! And, I'm super excited to receive them in the mail soon.....
First one I won was from Craft Buds. Having a choice of :

Fabric by Fabric One Yard Wonders book cover
Picture from http://www.craftbuds.com/giveaway-day/
1) A copy of the new book, Fabric by Fabric: One Yard Wonders

And,
Modern Fabric Studio
Picture from http://www.craftbuds.com/giveaway-day/
2) A $25 gift certificate to buy designer fabric at Modern Fabric Studio

 The choice was difficult. But, not wanting to spend any money on my winnings, I decided to go for the book--after all, I'd still have to pay shipping and handling to send my $25 worth of fabric out here to Canada all the way from the States. So, I'm eagerly awaiting Fabric by Fabric: One Yard Wonders!

My next score was from Modern Cozy. I entered a bunch of her giveaways with my eye particularly on the 3rd day's giveaway:


Picture from http://www.moderncozy.com/2011/12/sew-mama-sew-giveaway-day-three-2011.html


I didn't think I'd win a second giveaway, but sure enough, a lovely email arrived in my inbox telling me that I had won. Not just any but THE book I had my eye on! So, I will be awaiting another lovely gift in the mail--Sewing Clothes Kids Love. What fun! Thanks to all the bloggers who had so many awesome giveaways--it's a ton of fun entering and even more fun winning! 






Thursday, December 15, 2011

Finally Done!

P1230306.JPG
Img taken from: http://verypurpleperson.com/2011/09/sewing-for-boys-blog-tour.html
Alright! Here are the pictures as promised of the Road Mat that I was working on for my boys. A couple of months ago, I won a free book from Very Purple Person. It's a book on Sewing for boys! And, seeing as I have 2 boys, I was thrilled to win it! While looking through it, I came across a Road Mat type thing, and I thought, ' Wow, the boys'd love to get one of those.' So, I started to plan and scheme.... and plan and scheme some more.... I bought the fabric nice 'n cheap, and decided to go all out. My biggest hurdle was deciding on the layout of the road:

Once that was decided, I had to actually do a LOT of pinning and ironing, since I hadn't used felt as suggested, but used plain old fabric that would fray--so all the edges needed turning under. It was finally ready to sew onto the background fabric:

I felt like I was almost done!!! But, then...houses, buildings...I didn't want it to look completely amateurish, so I hesitated, and hesitated...and finally, decided to just use squares/rectangles and triangles:


Have to say..it still looks amateurish, but it's done!!! Now, the kids can unwrap it tonight, and have fun racing their cars around town!

Friday, December 9, 2011

An Update on the Christmas Craft and Bake Sale....

As you know, I was pretty excited about the Christmas Craft and Bake Sale. This was to be my first ahem 'public appearance' with FABulous Home Sewn Products. Well....to put it pretty bluntly it was a flop. Heh. Even after all my worrying about it, my table looked pretty good:

(Thanks to Melissa for the picture as I was blonde and forgot my camera!!)

But, there were not a lot of people that showed up. A lot of the time, it was just the vendors going around to the other vendors. I made one sale for FABulous Home Sewn Products. I made a few other sales for a Church in Cuba that made jewellery to raise money for a new Church building. Plus, 2 families had asked us to try sell handmade belts for them in Canada so they could earn some money and have enough to eat. With the items for Cuba at my table, it at least made the table fee worthwhile--but I will try again if possible! There's a couple of options next year and I know the table fees are much less for those, so we shall see... In the meantime, I will continue sewing, and in the next couple of days, I hope to post about the project for my boys that I'm working on!

Monday, November 21, 2011

No Matching Buttons...

Sigh….I have two bags of buttons—one rather large bag which is a combination of bags from Zellers and Walmart plus some random buttons:



The other, a bag of shall we call them ‘antique’ buttons, though they’re more just thrifted buttons:


There are buttons of all colors in here, yet there are no matching buttons! I find a button that would be just perfect to go with the project I’m working on:

And, then find out I can find no matching button. I find another that would work, and still….no matching button! Maybe I should organize them by color or something to make them easier to wade through, though that seems like quite the task. Or, I could go out and buy a bunch of packs of matching buttons, and keep them separate. Or, I could resort to fabric covered buttons…I have a couple lying around, but have not yet had the inspiration to use them. Maybe this is the push I need to do so….

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Welcome!!!

Hello and Welcome!
I've been wanting to do this for some time now--set up a blog and share some of my 'creations' with you all. I have to admit I've been on a sewing binge the last month or so--trying to get enough items for a table at the upcoming Craft and Bake sale here in Calmar on the 3rd of December. The deadline for a table is the 15th, and I wanted to make sure I had a decent number of things ready by then--just in case things get busy the next couple of weeks--and sure enough I have gotten a lot done!


Rag Blankets


Peasant Tops



Bibs



And a couple of surprises....:)

I'm quite excited about this as it'll be my first time to attend a craft sale with my 'stuff.' We'll see how things go and if it'll be worthwhile to attend more of these sales!