Gosh, I'm whiny lately....

I have yet another project that I thought was a big pain, even if it turned out really cute. I made the Portobello Pixie cupcake pincushion pattern, and it took me about four tries before I had one that I'll be able to actually use. First I made the "high calorie" version. It actually went together fairly easily, and I really liked my fabrics, but the thing was HUGE. I think the top - just the top - was 6-7 inches across. Much too big for the space I have available for a pincushion! (I couldn't really get a grasp of the size from the pictures, but it' svery big.) So, then I thought I'd just make the smaller one. And that one is much harder to put together. Plus I made my life difficult by deciding to do two colors for the "wrapper" part (why do I do these things to myself??). Only then I realized it needed an additional ruffle to tie the colors together, and then I realized with an additional ruffle, the bottom was just too small. So, I took it apart, made the bottom wrapper part a half inch taller, and sewed it all together again. But because of the way I'd done it, I had to attach the wrapper to the top by hand. It took forever. I feel like there was another version in there, too, but maybe not. Anyway, I *do* really like the final result, but it wasn't the easiest project I've ever done:

But hey, at least I have a cute pincushion now!

This is cute, too, but....

Wow, what a pain to make!

Sew Mama Sew had a month of tutorials for using your scraps, and I came across this tutorial for a fabric colors book for babies, and I thought it was adorable. I have a niece with an upcoming birthday, so I thought it would be a good project to make for her. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Now, I'd like to point out that my problems weren't actually the fault of the tutorial. It would have been easier if I'd followed the tutorial a little closer. In that version, you do the iron on transfers onto a piece of white fabric, and that's one of the squares used. *I* thought it would be cooler to have 4 colored squares, and so I ended up appliquéing the color names to the middle. That was a huge pain. I also didn't square up my blocks well enough, which was just laziness. Oh, and the cover page looked awful at first - something went very wrong with the appliqué, and it was completely crooked. So I had to salvage that without starting over (also laziness). And I added a layer of batting to each page so they would be a little thicker, which was actually fine, but did add a step and some thickness.

Anyway, here's a terrible picture of the cover (and one of my favorite of the inside pages):

Sorry about the picture quality - I never get good pictures at night, but I wanted to go ahead and get the post up. (The jacket post is still coming. The only picture I have is really unflattering, so I'm going to be vain and wait until I can get a better one!)

So I do quite like my final product, but it was a lot of work. And I caused myself problems. I hate that. Oh, well, hopefully the recipient will enjoy it! :)

So cute!!

A while back I found a link to these fairy tale finger puppets from somewhere. I thought they were adorable, and M has a thing for pigs, so I bookmarked it to make them for the girls for Christmas. I finished them yesterday, and they are SO DARN CUTE. I really want to give them to the girls NOW, but I guess I'll probably wait until Christmas. Actually, I have ideas about my own variations (other animals I could make), so there may be quite a collection by the time Christmas gets here! The funniest part is that even though the pigs were my inspiration, I don't like mine all that much. The others are much cuter. Ah well.

The three little pigs:

The Big Bad Wolf:
Goldilocks:
Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. (They're my personal favorites.)
They required quite a bit of hand sewing, but apparently that's what I'm in the mood for these days, because I quite enjoyed it. Plus I can carry it with me and bring it along when I'm waiting around for various activities to be done, so that's nice.

I'm also going to have another post soon about a jacket success (to make up for the huge fail of the last one!) I actually finished it last weekend, but I haven't had a chance to get pictures yet. I'm very happy, though. :)

Ribbit!

I finished this a while ago, but I was waiting for Halloween to have a good action shot. This year A wanted to be a frog for Halloween. (I'm a little surprised she hasn't done it before, honestly - it's long been her favorite animal.) So, here's what I came up with for her:


I made a green shirt and pants, then modified a hood from a pattern that I had. Then I made gloves and spats (with attached feet). I made approximately a million stuffed yoyos (okay, maybe more like 22) for the little balls on the hands and feet and then also for the eyes. We were both quite happy with how it turned out, although the hands and feet didn't make it very long in the trick or treating process. But at least I got some pictures. ;)

I like this mid-jump shot. And the adorable monkey. (Although she forbade me from making her costume this year. I don't think she's over last year's ghost costume disaster yet, lol.)
Happy belated Halloween!

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....