Knit!! Butterick 5495

What's up with the arms?! Its the only decent shot that my, uh, photographer got. 

While I have tackled zippers and buttonholes, piping and french seams...even a wedding dress, I have yet to try sewing with knits. What was I waiting for?! I will confess that up until now, knits scared me. I have seen adorable patterns that call for knit and have passed them by. On my last trip to Joanns I saw this fabric and decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a try! Turns out, it's not so scary after all. This top uses just one yard of fabric, and goes together very easily despite its tricky-looking detailing. I used a very narrow zigzag stitch to sew the seams, and it really worked great. I see more knits in my future!

Knitting Pouch

Last month, my friend Erin was here for a visit and we got some fun sewing in. Erin needed a pouch to carry her knitting things in, so we came up with this. It was the perfect project to teach her a few techniques, including the intimidating zipper!

Matching Summer Top

Here is the top I made for my daughter. I left off the sleeves and added some vintage lace and rick rack.

Nightstand Makeover: Play Kitchen!

When we were first married a little over 11 years ago, I found a pair of nightstands at a thrift store. It was love at first sight and the price was within reach. We have put them to use ever since, but when we moved into our new house we no longer had room to keep them together. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that it was OK to give them a makeover. For the stove, I removed the face from the bottom drawer and put a hinge on it for the oven door. The oven rack is two cooling racks trimmed and screwed down. The other nightstand will be a sink when I am done.

Embroidery

Here is a tea towel I did for Mom for her birthday. Never mind that it was in February. Oi! Oh, how I love embroidery. I've been mulling it around in my head lately how to incorporate it into a dress or shirt for myself...as if I need another project!

Simplicity 2365

For a while now my daughter has been asking for matching outfits. I put it off for a while, but recently found this fabric at my favorite Lancaster spot, Obi's. It was only $3.69 a yard and I love it! I bought about 5 yards thinking we could have matching dresses. However, we are both in need of summer shirts so I decided to head in that direction. (I still have enough left to make other things anyway) I haven't really delved much into making shirts, but let me tell you, I am a new fan! It is hard to find shirts that are a)well fitting, b)of decent quality, and c)cute. The pattern is actually for a shirt with sleeves, but I left them off. Who needs them anyway! :) I finished the arm holes with bias. I did tweak the pattern a bit, taking in the sides above my hips, and sloping the shoulders a little more. I love the shirt, except next time I think I will extend the tucks down a few more inches to keep it from poofing out in the front. The buttons are some vintage beauties I got at a yard sale for dirt cheap! Matching pictures to come...

Let's Go Fly A Kite Sundress

About a month ago I ran into a tutorial on Pinterest for this dress. I thought it was cute and had to make one! I didn't really start out to make a 'dressy' dress, but when I was digging though my stash I found the leftovers from my Christmas party dress. How could I resist? I had a scrap of a curtain (yard sale find!) that I had used in the past for a Princess dress. I did the narrower sleeves as the tutorial suggested and was glad I did. Also, I traced it from one of her closer fitting t-shirts but I feel like it's still a little wide. However, if it was more fitted it would require a zipper. Instead of buttons in the front, I made a few flowers out of the leftover scraps and beaded the centers.

P.S. Isn't she the most adorable girl EVER?! :)

Curtain Tie Back

This is a lame attempt to post something resembling a craft related project. So it's not much but after months of being M.I.A. it's at least a glimmer of creativity. Over the last couple of months, I've been crazy busy with one ridiculous thing after another. We also moved recently which added to the overall lack of margin and now that we are 3 weeks into our new lease I have had the opportunity to start digging through my sewing stuff (finally).

One of the rooms at our new place needed new curtains badly for the sliding glass doors.  The old ones that the last tenant left looked like a Dirndl covered in a decade of dust and dead spiders....yuck. I was trolling around Etsy the other day and found some really awesome tin curtain tie backs from the 1890s and ordered them. When they arrived, they were really cute but waaaaaaayyyy smaller than they looked in the original picture. After a little brain storming I remembered that I'd been hoarding some red Moda "Je T'aime" ribbon and used the two things together to tie back my curtains.  I still need to finish the ribbon edges but I like the way it turned out.