Friday, October 30, 2009

Alice {in Wonderland}

I had a very sick/grumpy little Alice today, so this is the best picture I could get. It ended up being a very cheap and seriously easy costume! For my "no sew tutu" tutorial go here.

Happy Halloween!!!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ticker Tape Quilt

I love finding new ideas to use my scraps, and I really like this idea from Crazy Mom Quilts!  It's something that you can prepare and then just add to as you get more scraps.  And the best part ... you piece and quilt at the same time!  Go {here} for a tutorial.

I've also seen her do one that is more of a twin size quilt ... a lot of work, but so cute!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

{No Sew} Tutu

I made my 19 month old a tutu for her Halloween costume last night and she wore it all morning. I love how easy these tutu's are ... and they really are "new sew" ... except of course for sewing the elastic together to make the loop.
The journey ...

I bought 5 yards of tulle, and for as fluffy as I wanted it I should have gotten more like 5 1/2.
Cut 4" strips, then cut the strips into thirds {20" long}. This is for a baby, so for a bigger girl you can just cut them in half {30" long}. It's really all up to you how long you want it ... just remember that you're going to be folding them in half!
Stack up a few strips evenly {depending on how fluffy you want it, add as many or as little as you want}. For this tutu I used 6 strips {when folded in half it makes 12}.
Put your fingers through the loop to grab on to the ends ...
grab the ends ... 
and pull through.
Position the grouping, then pull tight. {FYI ... I don't sew the elastic into a loop until the end because it tends to stretch when you tighten the knots}.
Once you have as many groupings as you need to fit around your child, sew the ends of the elastic together. {I usually add one more grouping to cover the rest of the elastic ... then shift some around to make them all even}.
My sweet girl showing off her new tutu {I asked her to say "cheese" and instead of her smiling while saying it, she just said it, resulting in a goofy mouth. ha}
The beginning of Alice {in Wonderland}. Now I need to make a white apron and black head band. Almost there ...

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Candy Bar Wrappers

I found these wicked candy bar wrappers this morning on Skip to My Lou. I love when I come across such a cute and easy idea! So I give all of the credit to her ... I even copied her wording ... so thanks, Skip to My Lou. Everyone go check our her cute blog.

For the mummy, stick two wiggly eyes at the top of the candy bar, wrap white crepe paper party streamer around the candy bar, and fasten off with some tape.
For the bat, print out the template {you can get it here}, cut bat out of black construction paper, add eyes, tape ends of candy bar wrapper to the back. Place candy bar inside and wrap wings around candy bar and fasten with double stick tape or a glue dot.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Memory Quilt {lesson learned}

Alright, today I did the second block for my memory quilt, but it didn't go as smoothly as the first. The difference; I used clothes with different types of fabrics. I knew that if I was sewing a knit fabric that I would need to use fusible interfacing, but the cotton ... or less stretchy ... stuff didn't need it ... or so I thought! I'm thinking that if I use the fusible interfacing on all types of fabric then it will work out a little better. That way there wont but such a difference in thickness. We'll see ... I'll let you know how it goes!!

So ... here they are. The first two blocks in my tedious {but fun} project. I wont have these two next to each other because every other block will have white for the outside border.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Memory Quilt {sneak peek}

Okay, well I finally started sewing together my memory quilt {and let me tell you ... this is a PROJECT! If the fabric is knit ... t-shirt material ... then I have to use fusible interfacing so they wont stretch too much.}. I'm excited how the first block turned out ... I'm only hoping I can pull this off!

I really have been struggling letting go of all of my girls' baby clothes ... kind of sad for me since we wont have any more kids. So I decided to keep them and cut them up for a quilt.

I took a "before" picture of most of the clothes I'm using.
Here is my first square. I'm going to do each block like this, only on every other block the outside border is going to be white. I'm going to try to coordinate each square, but as far as all of the blocks going together ... they wont.

Here are some of the clothes I used ...
{All of my girls wore this one. There are only a few things that they all wore, so I'm really trying to use those pieces!}


{This one I only used the end of one of the sleeves - so far - for the "pretty" tag}