Birthday Presents

Simon recently attended two birthdays for two little girls who were turning... TWO! They each received a homemade little outfit. Because I have no girl of my own and am utterly lacking in ruffles and flowers and beautiful girlie clothing.


I got the pattern for the tops from Just Tutes. It was super easy to make, but I had a hard time figuring out the measurements. I'm thinking I'm a little slow. The skirts were made from the directions for the Swing Your Partner skirt in Sew What! Skirts. I love that book! I was able to take basic directions for a skirt and make it in any size I wanted. No patterns. I hate pattern pieces. This is brilliant!

Thank Goodness For the Weekend!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't know how all the Mommy bloggers out there manage to get such beautiful pictures of their crafts on a consistent basis. I like taking pictures of my projects in the morning hours when the light is less harsh. Honestly though, I'll often settle for any daylight at all. And, still, most of my pictures end up looking something like this:


But - Hallelujah! - it's the weekend and I was able to take some baby-free pictures. Even if it's still taking me all day to write the blog post due to various weekend activities.


This is a quilted wall hanging I made for a friend featuring the hand prints of her three nephews. She was given the hand prints as a gift from her brother's family and asked me to make it into something for her wall, giving me complete creative freedom. It was rather daunting at first, leaving me to think about it for a long time, but I had SO much fun with it once I got started.

I decided upon something fun and whimsical in terms of colors and then decided to make the piecing fun as well. I used Pink Chalk Studio's Wavy Seams Tutorial to create all the fantastic curves. The tutorial turned out to be super easy and the results were fantastic. I love this method and can't wait to try it again on future projects.

Once I finished the piecing, I had a hard time deciding on a quilting pattern. I thought about doing free motion loop-de-loops, but that just didn't seem right to me and I ended up using my walking foot to shadow the curves in the blocks. It looks pretty snazzy. I'm loving the curves.

Apron For Mom

Yes, I'm still alive after a month of no blogging. I didn't mean for it to get away from me like that. First, there was a trip to New York. Then, there was a series of birthday gifts that I couldn't blog about lest the recipients see them. Next came Harry Potter and fear of the internet and spoilers. And, finally, came procrastination (my old friend). Well, I'm back and can put all that behind me!


This past weekend was my mom's birthday, and she had requested an apron since she doesn't have one. I just loved the pattern in Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing , so I made one up for her. I decided against fancifying it up with appliqué and embroidery, because that's just not my mom's thing. But now I want to make another one and do it right. Hmm, who do I know that needs an apron???