Category Archives: Sewing

Blythe Dress Kits

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I really want to spend my days, and what I should be focusing my time on. I feel like I’ve taken on too many projects and I’m not 100% happy doing all of them anymore.

So this week I have finally decided that I will not be making Blythe clothes and accessories to sell anymore. I’ll still make a few here and there as gifts or for myself, but I just can’t do it full time, I don’t have enough time in the day. It took me a long time to finally say that out loud, and then write it here.

So to help fund equipment repairs, and possibly replacements, I’m going to sell off all my pre printed, unfinished Blythe dresses as kits. They will come with One or Three fabric pieces pre printed with a random design, and instructions on how to assemble them.

You’ll be able to find these kits (plus future skirt, top and bag kits) in my Etsy Shop. I’m also thinking of adding some grab bag listings for already finished pieces. Is that something anyone would be interested in?

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Mini Fabric Bolts: The Best Idea EVER!

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This past weekend we finally started working on my new sewing room. We spent Saturday at Ikea buying new shelves, and Sunday at home prepping the room for all my supplies and equipment. It was exhausting, and we are nowhere near done, but I’m beyond excited that it’s finally started. I want to share it so bad, but I feel like I should wait until it’s finished (which may be a few weeks since I forgot to buy another desk section while at Ikea)

One of the new features of the room will be awesome fabric storage. I’m a visual person, I need to see all my supplies, otherwise I forget what I have. I’m leaning more towards sewing lately, so knowing what I have is really really important. I’m covered when it comes to fat quarters, those are all in wire baskets. But yardage was starting to get hard to see, it’s so big and bulky, and I had nowhere to put it.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I found Sew Fantastic’s post about making mini fabric bolts. The supplies are easy to find and the results are great. Now I can just place the full yard, and half yard, bolts on a Billy bookcase and see exactly what I have. Also, because of the different sizes I can tell if I have enough for a project just by looking at the shelf! Super perfect for everything I have planned this year.

Do any of you have some ideas on supply storage? I’d love to hear them, because I’m still trying to figure out a way to make my beads, and jewelry supplies visible.

 

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Handmade Gifts: December 2012

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Sorry for the Instagram photos, I was rushing all month to get things finished and wrapped and didn’t get the time to “properly” photograph everything!

From top left…

  • a doctor who pouch for my friend Molly
  • a Pyrex inspired pouch for my friend Tasha
  • the Modern Maples quilt I mentioned earlier this week for my sister Ashley
  • a hedgehog pillow for my sister Cori (using the paper piecing pattern I found here. Oh and this was my first time trying paper piecing! I’m in love!)
  • a pillow for my grandmother using the Modern Maples blocks.
  • a hedgehog pouch for my sister Cori (as you can see, she loves hedgehogs, she even has one)
  • two Tangled inspired dresses for nieces.

I actually made a few other things too, but they haven’t been gifted yet.

It was all a lot of fun to make, but I am beyond exhausted. New rule: Start sewing gifts in the summer!!!!!

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I Am A Crazy Lady…

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My original gift giving plan was quilts. Loads of Quilts. I had these grand dreams of giving all my immediate family members quilts. Well, as the title of this post says, I am a crazy lady! I realized halfway through the month of December that I would be lucky to even finish one quilt, let alone four. If it was just me here, alone everyday, they would have been finished no problem. But it’s not just me, I’m here with two other human beings who deserve my attention way more than my sewing machine, especially when they both kept getting sick! Damn December and all your sicknesses.

I went through the list of what I wanted to finish and picked out one quilt to do, the Modern Maples quilt by Amanda of Hey Porkchop! that can be found in Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays. (the book has a lot of great patterns, not just this one. I highly recommend it). It’s something different than what I normally sew, and it’s just soo pretty! My sister Ashley really likes fall colors and such, so I thought it would be perfect for her.

It’s now three days after Christmas, and I wish I could say I finished this project!! Ha. I was able to piece the front completely, all 18 leaf blocks and 12 solid blocks. I was also able to piece together the back.

Just so my sister  and brother-in-law didn’t think they were getting nothing this year, I wrapped the half finished quilt with a note saying I would quilt it and return it to them very soon. I’m hoping to have it finished by this weekend, as long as we don’t all get sick…

As for everyone else, I decided to make smaller sewn gifts, which I’m going to share on Monday!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

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A Little More About CT’s Party…

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As I said yesterday, I wanted to share a bit more about the decorating and goody bags from CT’s 3rd Birthday Party. I was very frazzled the day of, so all these photos were taken the day after! Just imagine cupcakes sitting on the white tray in the middle, some macarons on the two tiered tray and more “goody bags” in that white basket. Plus other odds and ends that were moved about.

It was a lot of fun to pick everything out, be it handmade, from a store or just from around the house. I didn’t go overboard, and I think it looked very cute and sweet. I really wish I had taken photos the day of!!!

I accidentally stumbled onto a color theme. It all started with those paper chains, I just picked out a multi pack of paper in what I thought were cute colors. After making them all (at night and in the car btw) I started to buy other things in the same colorways. All of the plastic silverware was in those colors, the last minute “Happy Birthday” banner matched (I meant to make one), even the flowers I found the night before matched! I sorta, kinda, accidentally made it all match! Ha. I love when things work out that way.

Oh and the wrapped picture frames! A lot of the guest liked those. I mainly did it because I felt the photos artwork underneath wasn’t really appropriate for a kid’s birthday party. It’s my Jordan Crane Triptych of a party with loads of booze on the ground, you can see it here. It’s fine for everyday viewing, just not a birthday.

I love the way it all looks, and I really don’t want to take it all down. Do I have to?

Ok, now onto the little chef hats…

These were a last minute idea! I mean, four days before the party last minute. I was flipping through the Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders book to see if there were any xmas gifts I could make, when I came across the pattern for a kid’s adjustable chefs hat and apron. I read through the instructions and figured they wouldn’t be too hard to make, so I made a test one. The one above actually. It took me about 25 minutes from start to finish (I’ve been told I sew FAST, so it make take others longer). I figured 11 kids were coming, and that they would only take me an afternoon to make one for each. It kinda did. I ran out of some supplies halfway through and had to wait until I could go out and get them. Then I waited until the night before to attach the velcro, which wasn’t the best idea. But I’m glad I made them! All the kids looked soooo cute decorating their cupcakes while wearing chef hats!!

Now onto the goody bags, or in our case, balls! My original plan was to make the bags for the goody bags, but after seeing the over sized gumball machine capsules above, I changed my mind! How cool are they? We bought them in blue, green and purple. CT picked out a kazoo, mini view-master camera thingy, some chocolate and tattoos/stickers. I didn’t want to only have plastic trinkets in the balls though, so like an insane woman, I also made the crayon rolls! Another last minute idea. I felt crazy making them, so I didn’t even tell my husband what I was doing until I was halfway through. I didn’t want someone else thinking I was crazy too! They actually took less time then I thought they would and I was able to just use scrap fabric from my stash.

In the end it was all more work than I anticipated, but you know what? I felt great about the way the house looked and the things I sent home with each kid! Now they each have a chef hat for pretend play, and a crayon roll to take with them anywhere. Plus I made one of each for CT too. I wouldn’t change a thing, well, with the exception of having more sewing machine needles on hand.

I know there’s loads of tutorials online to make crayon rolls, I didn’t use any of them because of their sizes. Would anyone be interested in a tutorial to make these simple ones?

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Vacation Dresses

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I thought it would be super cute to make CT some Disney inspired dresses for our vacation last week. Originally I was going to just design some fabric through Spoonflower, but I had some issues finding a pattern I liked, and then I didn’t have enough time to wait for the fabric.

I tried out several patterns before I was happy with the outcome. The first few were commercial patterns I bought at Joanns. They never quite fit CT right, and the sizes were all wonky. Very disappointing, and such a waste of my time. In the end I found one on Etsy by Ruby Jeans Closet. The pattern is called the Peony Flower Girl Dress, and is absolutely perfect for simple princess dresses. The instructions were super easy to understand, you don’t need any hard to find supplies and the sizes are perfect! I also like the pattern because it’s easy to change up a bit, so I can make each dress a little different to fit whatever theme I want. One pattern can yield so many different dresses. I was only able to finish four dresses before our trip, but I have plans for so many more once things die down.

The first dress I was able to finish was a Minnie Mouse inspired dress. My original plan was to make it red and white polka dotted, but I remembered last minute that Minnie wears PINK on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and CT knows her from that show. Luckily Joann’s has the same exact fabric in pink! I may go back and get the red and make a second dress, because it’s just too cute on her.

The only thing I changed on the pattern to make this dress was the waistband. In the instructions you’re supposed to put the band on the inside of the dress to hold the elastic, I put it on the outside to add a little detail. The next one I make I’m also going to put a little lace around the arm hole, just beacuse.

Oh and funny thing, CT is doing a robot dance in the first photo, It’s really funny and cute in person.

The second dress is Marvel Comics themed. This dress kinda happened by accident. While I was picking out the fabric for the rest of the dresses, my husband was wandering the store with CT. He found this fabric and asked me what we could make with it. I was still in “lets make dresses” mode, so I said I’d make CT a dress out of it. Since Disney is now associated with Marvel, I thought why not make it for the trip! I didn’t know what to call it, but by the end of the trip I said CT was dressed up as a comic book store. Ha, that totally confused people.

I did change the pattern a bit more for this dress. I cut the pattern on the line meant as a waistband guide, so that I could use two different fabrics (I thought an entire dress made out of this would be a bit much) I also added some of the patterned fabric to the sleeves as casing for the elastic. I think it added a nice little touch to the dress.

The third dress is actually my favorite one, and was a lot of fun to make. It’s a Snow White inspired dress, and was the dress CT wore as her actual costume for the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World. It’s super lightweight and very flowy, great for spinning apparently. A bunch of people called CT Snow White throughout the day, and after awhile she started to love that (I think she was a bit confused at first).

So the changes to this dress are very similar to the changes on the Marvel dress. I used the waistband guideline as the cutline again. I also used a different colored fabric for the sleeves, which I appliqued the red stripes on myself since I couldn’t find the right material in stores. I also added white binding around the sleeves as the elastic casing. Oh and I added the little red bow. I felt very good after making this specific dress and hope I can make all the princesses for her eventually.

The last dress! This dress is Alice in Wonderland inspired, though we were also told that it looked like Belle before she got that pretty yellow ballgown. Two costumes in one! CT really enjoyed wearing this one and everyone either called her Alice or asked if she’d met Alice yet (which she had, while wearing the Minnie dress).

This dress seriously took me the longest to make. It had a bit more details, had to be more precise and I had to free hand the apron pieces. I basically just winged it all! Ha! The way I changed the pattern on this one was kinda like the Minnie Mouse dress. I placed the elastic casing on the outside of the dress again, but this time I placed the apron pieces underneath the casing to make it look like all one piece. Because of the gathering around the neck, the apron pieces were only attached at the waist, their loose everywhere else. That way it laid flat. I didn’t attach the straps until I tried the entire thing on CT, that way I knew exactly how long to make them. It was a bit more work, but I’m beyond happy with the outcome. If I ever do it again, I’ll add some white casing to the armholes and some ruffles on the apron.

These dresses took me an entire week to make, but I’m happy I made them all. I think having themed dresses just added that little touch to our trip that we’ll remember for years to come!

Edit: I forgot the best part!!!… each dress cost me on average about $6 to make, and If I had a 50% off coupon for Joanns instead of the 30% off one I used, they would cost even less. 

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