purplicious

My niece loves purple.  She loves to read.  Her birthday's coming up.  Must mean there's a new dress on the way!

Using "Purplicious" by Victoria & Elizabeth Kann as inspiration, I knew I had to include an art palette.  She loves to paint!  Each color patch has been free motion appliqued onto the skirt with a small heart in the middle.  Her name was stitched inbetween the colors.

 The dress itself is a dark purple with sparkles all over it that just didn't show up in the picture.  It has gathered sleeves, elastic at the arm band, and a zipper in the back.

Can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you, G!  It will be purplicious!

bunny birthday beauty

This is the bunny birthday dress.  I patched the skirt with a bunch of fabrics to match the bunnies.

The pattern is Jillian's Jumper from Olabelhe.

 

Just a few more pictures of the birthday girl with her fancy hair clip swirling about in her special party dress...

peek-a-boo skirt

Little Lizard King is another one of my favorite pattern shops.  Her patterns are cute, easy to sew, and well written and photographed.
I bought this pattern before Christmas, and finally got around to doing it.  She just released a couple more patterns - Ruffle Skirt & Georgia Dress.  They're on my list too!!

Don't you love the bright florals?  Bring on spring!!!

The pictures were taken at Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago.  oh my gorgeous.  I can't wait to go back!

little mermaid

One of my nieces happens to LOVE Little Mermaid.  I put together this spring top for her.

I added some watery shimmery ric rac along the bottom edge.  I love the sparkle!

It has an elastic back for a comfortable fit.

It needed a little something else - so I whipped up a pair of turquoise knit pants to match.

Happy Birthday, L!

teacher gifts

Conner happily picked out the fabrics and beads for these different projects.
A red scarf and matching clutch for his teacher.
He also made her a red bracelet that he put in the clutch.

Then for the teacher aide he chose these purple fabrics & beads.  I did the sewing, he strung the bracelet.

roses are red (and pink and white)

and lined with minkee!  This coat is an embroidered corduroy and specially covered buttons.

My third niece got this coat for Christmas.

seeing spots

Another niece got this ruffly polka dot jumper.  I covered the buttons in minkee and used a bright ribbon on the shoulder strap.

velveteen

My niece needed a special dress for Christmas and this is what her mom and I dreamed up.
The bodice is velveteen (nearly impossible to sew with!) and lined with muslin.
I don't know the name for the skirt fabric, but it's a fancy cream fabric, kind of stiff, and covered with flocked flowers.
The bow at the back is black satin.

pleated skirts

I tried out a new (to me) pattern for a pleated skirt.

It was a lot of fun to play with my fabric stash!!!

Check out Little Lizard King for this skirt and some of her other cute patterns!

go team!!!!

Conner is on a soccer team this fall.  It means one or two nights a week at a practice and a Saturday morning game.  It gives the little siblings and parents lots of time to chat on the sidelines!
Abby made a new friend - and they played together happily for a while.

I was using my husband's camera which I'm not used to yet.  Sorry it's a little out of focus.

Her little friend E was just the right size for the GO TEAM soccer dress.  She's concentrating so hard in this picture - too cute!

Nevermind that the game was behind her, she was still cheering for her big brother - I'm sure.

Here's mom's picture taken at home.  What a doll.

Thanks A for sharing your adorable daughter!  Thanks E for modeling!

my new purse

Check out my new purse - guess what?  It's blue!  If it looks familiar, I made a smaller version for my mom here.  It's fully lined with white dotted fabric & the darker blue floral.

It has lots of pockets.  The pattern calls for two large pockets on the inside.  I chose to sew one pocket into three sections and the other pocket into two sections.  They're perfect for pens, chocolate bars, sunglasses, notepads, Matchbox cars and numerous other goodies.

I put two key fobs on one side, and two circular key rings on the other side.  You can never have too many ways to organize!

Because I'm dorky like that, I made myself a little cell phone cozy.  I just wanted to something to keep it from getting scratched in the big cavern.  I suppose I could have just used one of the side pockets, but I wanted to keep those open for something else!

The top has a zipper - it's kind of a pain to attach it to the lining, but I'm glad it's there.  If I get sick of it, I can always rip it out and put in magnetic snaps.

There are two outside pockets as well (one on each side).

One more shot against my bedroom wall.  {Have I mentioned I like blue?}

 

{edited to add.... the original pattern is McCalls 5822}

{entered in Lemon Squeezy Home's Purse Week Contest - go check out all the great entries, get inspired, and vote if you would like!}

three sisters

Three sisters enjoying their sibling shirts (originally blogged about here).

I made the older sisters matching pinafores, and the baby got a matching onesie dress.

Aren't they adorable?

so sweet.

Thanks to Megan for her photography skills, and to Lisa for sharing her kids!  (Lisa also makes bows so check her out!)

pouches and bags

I know I've been missing for a little while here in blog land.  There are lots of reasons, none of them blog-worthy.  So let's just see if I can become more regular again!!!

Here are a couple little things I've been working on....

This little ruffled clutch from a Noodlehead tutorial came together so quickly and easily... even though there was a zipper involved!!!  It's a birthday present for a friend.  I think a few more may be in the works.

I also made a couple more pencil cases from Lier's Sew Mama Sew tutorial.

Do I dare say I'm getting comfortable with zippers?  Yikes!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this one yet, but Christmas is coming...I'm sure it will find a good home!

My son's already claimed this for some of his treasures, but then he saw some guitar fabric so that may be next in line!

I've got a bunch of fabrics picked out and in the wings waiting to be sewn together.  They'll be making an appearance (hopefully) in the next week or two as clutches or cases.  I've got to stock up on more zippers now!!!

featured and FALL!

Quick note - check out my feature on Little Lizard King.  She featured my pink & purple pinafore amidst some of her other customer creations.  I am in the midst of some great company - there's some other really cute outfits there.  She has a lot of patterns that I'm excited to try out!

I told you I would get busy with some fall clothes - so here we go!
We did a little photo shoot outside because the weather was finally cooperating with fall clothing!!!  It's been so hot, humid and rainy that we haven't been able to get anything good outside!

This first one is an upcycled knit project using the Little Blue Boo Sienna Dress, long sleeved version.  I don't really love it like I thought I would, so I'm trying to figure out what to do.  I am pretty sure the big sleeves have to go - I like skinnier sleeves better.  The whole top just looks so bulky and the bottom so skinny.  I think I need to tighten up the top a little.  (Not every dress is a success!)  Maybe I'll try some freezer paper stencil pumpkin face on the orange and a ruffle on the bottom?

This is another "Annikka's Dress" by Olabelhe designs.  The first time I sewed this pattern it was (surprisingly) blue.  However, I am actually kind of enjoying the fall colors on this one!

I chose a dark brown with black swirls for the arms & underskirt, a printed orange on orange for the bodice & cuffs, and a leafy print for the overskirt.

She had been looking at the pumpkins in our garden/weed patch and was ready to go back inside!  It was windy this morning!

As she was walking up the steps I realized I'm going to have to teach her long dress on steps etiquette - she stepped on it a couple times!  I also realized I'm going to have to find her some more tights that fit!!!

Another dress I finished up this week was a long-sleeved version of Patty Young's "Abigail" dress.  I've gotten a lot of compliments on the short-sleeved version, and wanted her to have one for fall/winter too.

Her knits are a little pricey (worth it, but still pricey) so for this long-sleeved dress I used her dots & a black floral knit from Joann's.  I'm really happy with how they went together.

Abby's getting quite good at posing by the tree in the front yard.  Today she was a less somber model - she happily spun around numerous times and grinned her cheesy little had off.

Hope you all have a relaxing Labor Day weekend!  I've got a couple not-as-exciting things to finish up, but hopefully will have a little time for fun sewing too in the midst of family time!  What are you doing with your weekend?