Bah!

For the record, Simplicity 3628 is not a fun pattern to make. Not only did I have a LOT of trouble with sewing the panels together (I don't know if I did something wrong while cutting, or if they're just really hard, but the fabric just didn't fit evenly together), but I could not for the life of me get the sleeve caps in flat. Not that I'm very good at easing the sleeves anyway, but usually I can manage it more or less. Not with this one. And to top it all off, when I tried it on (before lining and all that, but after most of it was together), it doesn't even look good! Argh! It's very cute on the models, but it looked rotten on me. So, I'm abandoning it, and I'll use a different pattern to make my intended jacket. It's a good thing the corduroy only cost $4 a yard! Now I have to get some more.

I also put together some shirts for the girls (no pictures, I'm afraid) which went awry. I'm not sure what I did, but M's shirt was absolutely enormous. I had to serge it smaller for it to even go on her body. But A's fits fine and it doesn't look like it's small enough to have mixed up the bodices, so I really am not clear what happened. Oh well, they like them, and after re-sewing, M's isn't too bad.

And I did finish these dresses, which I absolutely love:

(A's is the same except the flower applique is a different flower.) This was some super sale clearance fabric from Hobby Lobby, and I really hope the colors don't fade too much, because I love them! I do think I'm going to take a break from the twirly dresses, though - I'm a little weary of all that gathering!

And the next project that I have to complete is a frog costume for A, anyway. Halloween's coming soon - I gotta get going on that!

Fall Fun

Well, today, for the last day of fall break, we mostly have heavy rain and sick kiddos, unfortunately. But we did have lots of fun over the weekend!

Friday, the girls and I went to the Botanical Gardens to see the scarecrows, which is always neat - people make these very elaborate "scarecrow" sculptures, and they set them up all over the gardens.
The girls really liked all the lollipops in this one!

Saturday we managed to fit in our second annual fall fun day in the mountains. The weather forecast wasn't very good, but our current all soccer, all the time* schedule makes weekend planning kind of tricky, and Saturday was basically the only possible day. As it turned out, despite the threatening skies, the weather was fine for us all day.

We and some friends went up to North Georgia to:

visit a corn maze:
pan for gemstones:
(such an intent look... You have to make sure you get all the pretty rocks!)

and visit Burt's Pumpkin Farm. I love Burt's.
(note the Halloween dress)

We went on the hayride at Burt's this year, for the first time ever, and I gotta say that it was totally worth it! Plus we bought a bunch of pumpkins, of course, and a piece of pie. It was really a lovely day.

Now it's a rainy Monday, and that's way less fun! Although I think I'll get another dress finished for each girl today, and that's a good thing. I have many more projects planned, so I need to finish the ones that are already cut out!


*Not only is A playing on a team (which I'm coaching), I'm playing on a women's team. Old lady soccer, woot! :) But it does mean that there's a soccer game almost every Saturday and Sunday for a couple of months. And M wants to play in the spring - I don't know what we'll do then!

I really do have crafting ADD

It's a little ridiculous, really. :) A month ago, I was completely obsessed with quilting. Buying quilting magazines, reading quilting books, buying fabric for quilts, planning to make a quilt for my bed, etc. And then in the last couple of weeks, I haven't considered quilting once. Instead, I've been making clothes. I don't know what prompted the switch - change in the weather, maybe? - but it's been all clothes, all the time. Since my last post, I've made the girls each another dress (for Halloween) and each a cute little corduroy skort. I made myself two shirts (although I don't like the one I just finished at all) and a skirt that involved a great deal more swearing and seam ripping than it ought to have required. I also have another dress cut out for each girl, fabric for shirts waiting to be cut, and plans to make myself a jacket. Or maybe two, if you count the brown cord that I bought last year to replace my lost jacket.

Ah well, I suppose the thing about the ADD is that I'll eventually work my way around to the quilting again. Hopefully in time to make the new advent calendar I was planning on....

Flower Garden

Despite the lack of posting on the blog, I've been slowly working lately. I have a number of things cut out, although this past week I was greatly slowed down by the two unexpected days off school due to flooding. But I'm working on winter clothes for the girls. I've even done some hand sewing. I don't usually, because it makes my wrists hurt after a while, but sometimes you have to hand sew to complete the vision! ;)

Anyway, I ran into a bit of difficulty with clear elastic, but I finally finished the first two winter dresses, and I'm quite happy with them. M picked out the pink fabric for her dress in the clearance section of the "pretty fabric store", and I got A the blue and green version of the same fabric, since those are her favorite colors. And this way they can coordinate without directly matching. (I'm not sure if that'll count in their eyes, but I'm hoping it does.)

Close-ups:

M's is more of a bouquet, and A's is more of a garden, but I like them both. No action shots as yet, since it hasn't actually gotten cold yet. Although it might be cool enough to wear them one day this week, so maybe soon.

I have 4 more similar dresses cut out and ready to make, plus some other stuff in process. I had a disaster with a skirt for myself - I got it almost entirely cut out, only to realize I didn't have quite enough fabric. Which I bought at Joann's sometime last spring, and they no longer have. Grr. (It's just denim, but none of the current denim *quite* matches, so it'd look weird in a panel skirt.) So I got more today to start over. Hopefully there won't be any more unexpected "inclement weather" days, and I'll get more done this week!

Sweet

My model wouldn't smile, but look how cute this turned out!


I saw this tutorial for a baker's hat the other day, and thought it was very cute. I was inspired to make a baker set for a birthday gift for a little girl we know. M is modeling for me since she's closest in size (although the hat's about to fall off. I hope it fits the birthday girl!) I'm very pleased with how it came out! I only had a fat quarter of the pink to do the binding etc, and I just barely managed to squeak out enough. I had some issues with the hat but I like it well enough. (My first try went into our own dress-ups. It has some problems, but the girls will play with it.) And the apron is basically like the ones I made a while back, except I used velcro for the back fastener rather than ties. I think the little oven mitt is my favorite part, though - it's quilted and everything! I traced one from our play kitchen to get the right size. I ran out of batting, though, so I have to buy more before I can make another mitt. Or I might make a potholder instead. I haven't decided yet. Today, though, I have my first official soccer game in the league I just joined, so I'm going to be a little busy! :)

The second day of school

didn't go as well as the first day, unfortunately. Apparently my poor baby was exhausted (and hungry, I think), and so she was laying on the floor half-asleep during free play time. :( They were worried that she was sick, so I went and picked her up. She came home, downed her lunch, and took a two hour nap. I'd say she was tired! This is a child who stopped napping when she was 2. And she's never ASKED to nap in her entire life! The whole "sharing a room" thing is really not my favorite in terms of the children actually getting enough sleep..... However, changing it would be very difficult at this point, so I'm just going to have to come up with a new sleep plan or something.

However, since she had naptime and then was cheerful, I actually managed to do some more sewing. I finished the new dolly quilt, and I'm really quite pleased.


I appliqued the star shape on top of the dots. Then when I quilted it, I stitched around the star and then did some lines. I don't think you can see them in the picture, but they look kind of neat, if I do say so myself.

The backing is the same letter fabric I used in the other dolly quilt:
It's not a spectacular match to the front, but it looks nice with the binding. I used my last little bits (I think) of my Park Slope birdies - I only had a tiny bit, so I had to do a really narrow binding. I machine stitched it. I realize that's not the official way to do it, but honestly, hand stitching is just too hard on my wrists - it's not going to happen on anything bigger than a doll quilt, so I might as well practice my machine binding now!

All in all, it went a lot better than the first one - although Mistakes Were (probably) Made, they're way less obvious than in the first, so that's progress. :) And M told me that it was a very pretty quilt (for A), so it's got at least one child stamp of approval. Now onto my next project... just have to pick one of the many!

1st day of Pre-K

Today was the first day of pre-k, so both girls are back to school now. Despite the pictures below, M was very happy to go back to school. She just won't smile for the camera anymore, so you have to trick her to get anything remotely like her actual face. Here she is with her giant backpack:
(And that was the smaller one!)

Here's a better shot of her first day of school dress (although possibly the most ridiculous face):
I spent a few hours yesterday whipping up a "puffy sleeve" dress for the first day. For some reason, both girls are very fond of puffy sleeves. Well, particularly A, actually, but M was expecting it for this dress. The fabric was the one she picked out a month or so ago. It's SO not my taste, but she looks cute in it. I didn't really do anything exciting with my time - but I exercised and went to Barnes and Noble with no one complaining! Come to think of it, that actually is pretty exciting, lol!

I made more progress on my next attempt at a star since my last post:

I'm actually quite pleased with it - the center is still a little funky, but it's a lot better than the first try. (I found a good tip about making the seam allowance a little more than 1/4 at the center points so they wouldn't be bumpy.) I think I'm going to applique this onto something for a dolly blanket. I'm feeling too lazy to figure out the angles on the outer triangles. ;)

So in theory I should have lots of sewing time now that both girls are in school. Let's see if it actually works out that way!