My First Dress



Just a quick post. I want to have a flashback moment to the very first (wearable) dress I made. I thought (and still think) it was the most adorable thing ever. I have been hooked ever since. It's cotton, with ribbon straps. I made it last December and Sunshine was able to wear it well into the summer. It's always a little sad to me when she out grows out of the stuff I make her.



Notice the crib in the background, wow, how much she has grown in one year!



A princess dress



Little Miss Sunshine is obsessed with the Disney princesses.... She has many of the Barbies and a couple of the dress up dresses. She usually has changed into one of them before she even comes to wake me up in the morning. Soooo for an extra special Christmas gift I made her my own version of "Sleeping Beauty" dress. This is probably the gift I am the most excited about giving to her. I know she will just LOVE it.

the fabric......ooooo shiny

sparkle trim

Two great things about this dress..... It only took me about 2 hours from designing it to hanging it on the hanger.....and it cost a little under $15 to make. That is more than I usually spend on making a dress BUT, these little suckers cost $20 anywhere. Plus, this one is way more special because it is from Mom.

The Christmas dress

I really wanted to make Sunee's Christmas dress this year. I was really excited about it. I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like, red and black satin, with a BIG bow on the back. But to be honest, I was nervous about sewing with satin. My sister, again, talked me into buying a pattern. I used some of the pattern pieces for a sizing guide, but that was about it. I realized that this is probably the only thing they are good for. I bunched the rest of the tissue you paper up and shoved it back in the packet. I guess I didn't have to make the dress out of satin but I think it makes the dress look so much more "dressy". Here is the fabric.

Since satin has absolutely no give whats so ever. I knew I might have to venture into "zipperland". I have yet to use a zipper in any of my projects, so again, I got nervous. I chickened out, and did hook and latches instead.

Getting ready to attach the skirt....

The finished product.

My little model had to be bribed to take some pictures and I still didn't get any good ones. But you can still see she looks really cute in it.

3 week long curtains

I have been working on some curtains for a very special man in my life. These curtains took me three weeks to complete, no joke. I have made several sets of curtains for our house. However, the curtains in my house were much simpler. I completed them the same day they were started.


Sunee's room

Our room...yum chocolate brown

The dining room

I love love the pattern of the curtains in the dining room

These Toy Story 3 curtains were more complex and required a lot more thought and planning. They are made out of a set of sheets, fitted and flat. My curtain journey started with me taking the elastic out of the fitted sheet. This is a long and tedious process. But after that was done, I had two nice pieces of fabric to work with. After cutting the main pieces, I went to work on the straps. Each strap took forever (15-20 min). I needed 16 straps to complete the curtains, you can do the math.

A whole lot of measuring, ironing and pinning later, they were finished. I definitely think they were worth all of the time and extra work. I was impressed with the final product, and so was my nephew.

all scrunched up...cute huh?

I was recently talking to a friend who has an interest in starting to sew. I was explaining to her that curtains, (not these kind) are a good thing to start sewing because curtains are a bunch of straight lines. Also. that curtains really show you that most projects are about 20% sewing, and 80% of a project is measuring, cutting, folding, ironing and pinning.

So now I am so excited about moving on to some Christmas gift making. I hope to make Sunee Mae a couple dresses to open on Christmas morning, including her "Christmas dress"!

pumpkin deliciousness

No new sewing projects :( but I did make a yummy recipe that I would like to share with you. Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (recipe here). The recipe calls for yeast. J and I have been doing a lot of pizza dough making. I've been feeling the need to move on to an "intermediate" recipe. So after I mixed all the ingredients,(including the yeast) I had to let it rise for at least an hour. I only have the patience for the minimal amount of time, so after the timer went off, I quickly moved on to the next step.  I Smeared the cinnamon goodness all over rolled out dough.



all rolled up!





Then to the best part. I cut them all up using a thread cutting technique. It is so easy, and cuts perfect rolls. Put a piece of long thread under the roll and cross them over and continue to pull until the thread slices all the way through.

It was actually quite fun!(I'm such a nerd) After I cut them all, you had to let them rise again in the pan for another hour.



sunee looking on with approval

Since I was prepping the night before (because who has 2 hours in the morning to make this), I just popped them in the fridge (only letting them rise for 15 min.). This was later discovered to be a mistake. The next morning I popped them in the oven for 25 minutes, and made the cream cheese icing.

yum!

So out came the rolls, smelling and looking amazing. Here was the problem. Because I didn't let them rise again long enough before putting them in the fridge, they were not as fluffy as J and I would have like them to be. They still were good, just not perfect.  I'm planning on making them again for Thanksgiving brunch, hopefully I will have more patience then.

So I am working on a sewing project that has been taking a lot longer than I thought, hopefully I will post the finished project before Thanksgiving.

quick baby dress

A couple of days ago I made a cute and easy little dress for my best friends new baby. It was super easy to make, I just made it up as I went along.

I found this purple fleece at a garage sale. I got it and 4 other pieces of fabric for $3! Gotta love those garage sales. Won't this look so cute over a solid long sleeve shirt? I will make some for Sunee for sure.

Redemption

So I felt like I needed to redeem myself from the "unflattering dress" from yesterday. I saw this tutorial a while back, when it was still summer (http://sewastraightline.blogspot.com/2010/03/domesticated-skirt.html). I really liked this skirt. Today I thought I couldn't go wrong with this. I was so right. It is awesome.It is so comfortable, adjustable (for skinny days and fat days) reversible (it's impossible to keep my clothes clean with a snotty nose toddler) and there is so much room at the bottom! It is easy to squat down to pick up toys or run after my toddler. This is one of my favorite things I made. J said it looks like an apron. uuuhhh that's kind of the point, it is called the domesticated skirt after all.

My sister helped me pick out the fabric. I really like the color combo. Too bad it is too cold to wear it outside now, but I fully intend on wearing it around the house all the time. I also plan on making a lot more of these babies. Maybe Christmas gifts?  And now that I have made it, it would probably only take me about an hour to make.