Drive by posting

Drive by posting to share what I completed for the One Thing One Week Challenge over on Amy's Creative Side:

Yup, Halloween costumes, done. Well, except Mokey's belt was too big, so I have to fix that and remember to put his boot covers on him next time. I'll be back later when I get good pictures (this is a action shot from trick or treating at the campground Saturday night) to share more.

Boo!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....no, wait, that's Christmas, isn't it? Well, I think October is the most wonderful month of the year, anyway. We get nice cool days, crisp nights that make cuddling up under a warm blanket feel heavely, beautiful colors in the trees, cheerful orange pumpkins (have I ever mentioned that orange is one of my favorite colors? It totally is). It's the best TV time of the whole year, too. They really beef up on the ghost stories in October and I love a good, cheesy ghost story. (and my husband would be embarassed to know this, but the cheesy teen Halloween movies on the Disney Channel - they're just fun). And then you get Halloween - picking out costumes (in my case, making the costumes - they're under way, I'll post as soon as they're done), making jack-o-lanterns, trick or treating and trick or treaters and parties. Ahhhhh, love it. So, it isn't any wonder that my kids always have Halloween themed clothing as well as their costumes. Mokey's Halloween t-shirts from last year don't fit anymore and I had some Halloween fabric down in my stash, so I decided to make him a shirt this year. And.....since he still loves it when he and Princess match, well, I found a way to make a matching skirt for her out of the scraps from his!

Voila!


Mokey's shirt is Simplicity 3852, changed just a tiny bit to make it more of a bowling shirt than a Hawaiian shirt (i.e. I made the collar, pocket and sleeves black instead of the print and added a stripe of black down one side). Princess' skirt was made from the dresden plate skirt tutorial on crafterhours. Mine is a touch less full, simply because I ran out of the print! Oh, and I did a full lining, instead of the facing so I didn't have to worry about finishing any seams. If you can't tell from the pictures, the print is tossed candy corn with little purple spiders and the black is actually from a set of XL twin sheets I found in the damaged area at Ikea for $3 or somethig (I think, now, that it might have been there because it's missing the flat sheet, but I can't remember if I stowed that part someplace else to earmark it for something special or not). I used pretty much the whole pillowcase and a chunk of the fitted sheet.

Oh, and, can anybody tell me who that 12 year old girl in that picture up there is and what she's done with my cute little two year old? Oh, wait, nevermind, found her:

Whoohoo!

See that pretty little brown and pink button over there - right there, on the right. Yeah, the Princess' cute little first day of school dress was featured on Sew Much Ado (one of my favorite blogs to read!) for this week's We Did It Wednesday. I'm so excited I could bust!

One Thing One Week Challenge 2

Amy over at Amy's Creative side hosted a one week challenge. Challengers were supposed to choose one thing to accomplish over the week and link back today if we got it done.

My challenge for the week was to cut fabric for my very first quilt and I got it done and then some! I've actually got the blocks all pieced and ready to assemble into a quilt top! I don't have the border fabric cut yet, but I figure that's okay since I really need to have my blocks connected to get the proper measurements. Maybe I'll get that done this week.

Here's my quilt so far:

Bloop bloop

You don't know how close you came to being subjected to a cheesy pun about the Princess' first day of preschool dress. Seriously, it has fish on it; that pun was just sitting there staring at me, daring me to use it. Ha! So there pun!

Anyway....this was a big week for our household. Mokey started Kindergarten on Monday (but since this is mostly a sewing blog and I sewed nothing for his bts outfit, I'm not posting a picture) and the Princess started preschool today.

My original plan for her first day outfit was the knot dress I posted a little while ago, but then I realized that it's still in the 80's here (and what a blessed relief that is from the 90's we've had most of the summer) and that dress is just a touch too big to wear without a top under it (planned that way so she has growing room, of course, don't know why that had't occurred to me before). So, on Sunday I took a little time (while the hubby was out mowing) to go throw my pattern and fabric stashes to see what I could whip up in time. I had a different pattern picked out, but the Princess latched on to this fishy print (from Playdate by Patty Young) and was adamant that she wanted a fishy dress. Only one problem: when I bought this fabric, I was intending to make a bag with it and so I only bought a half a yard - not exactly enough to make a whole dress!

Enter Simplicity 3511. This pattern is my go-to pants pattern for the Princess, at least when I'm making pants to go under a dress or tunic, but I'd never tried the dress. I didn't have quite enough for the dress based on the fabric requirements printed on the envelope, but I eyeballed the pieces and I was pretty sure I could get it all out of that piece. I just happened to have a piece of cotton in the perfect shade of orange so I was all set (well, minus some ribbon and buttons).

I was a little afraid that the print and the orange would be too bright together, but the aqua ribbon separating them makes it work. Fit-wise it's a little shorter than I would like, but it can be a tunic in a month or so when it starts to get too short. It is a little hard to put on and off, but I think it has more to do with the fact that it only opens about an inch or so in the back rather than too small (I think any bigger and it would fall off her shoulders). We'll have to get better at getting it on and off because we both love it; it might just be my favorite so far!

Sassy

I made this weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it. This was meant as a "muslin" of this pattern to test my fit before I made it out of expensive fabric, but it worked out well, so it's wearable. It's McCall's 5882, designed by the Kay Whitt, of Serendipity Studios. She makes great patterns and they are very easy to follow. I ended up having to take this one in quite a bit in the bust and waist and tapered slightly differently in the skirt portion. Next time I think I'll make it a size smaller so I don't have to adjust so much. (please excuse the messy mirror, I did't realize how smudgy it was until I looked at the pictures ad I'm not that great with PaintShop).

Tinkerwho?

Okay, I admit, my daughter is slightly obsessed with Tinkerbell. Almost every morning she asks to wear a "sweeshie shirt", of which she only has two - one is long sleeved (and thus, too hot when it's 90+ outside) and the other seems to always be in the wash. So I thought she needed another Tinkerbell something so I don't have to say no 6 days out of the week. Wal-mart happened to have the Tinkerbell fabric I used on the Patsy Ann Apron top a few months back and even a couple of coordinates for about half the price I paid at the quilt shop back then (of course, isn't that how it always works), so I grabbed about a yard of each and settled on McCall's 6066 as the pattern. The pattern is technically too big for her, since she's so skinny, but the length actually worked out well and it has an elastic waistband anyway so it was fine. I love the tulle underskirt (although I think I'm going to trim an inch or so off - it just looks off). I think, too, that I'm going to end up making a flower pin out of the tulle scraps to pin on the loop. It's got great twirl.