Happy 4th of July!

It wouldn’t be a holiday without a little icing!

Happy 4th from us!

Handmade Inspiration

 

 Gussy Sews is hosting an Inspiration Workshop! 

The word of the week:

 Handmade.

That pretty much sums up my home!  Let’s take a look, shall we?

 

and then there are Mom’s quilts, creations by my little artists, and canned goodies.

I’ve surrounded myself with Handmade love.

That makes inspiration very easy-to-come-by.

This post brought to you by the letter ‘B’

I was driving through a beautiful neighborhood in town and saw the coolest door hanging.  The house had this beautiful moss-covered ‘M’ hanging on the front door.  I LOVED it.  So much that I made a block, drove past the house again, and took a picture with my cell phone.  Yeah, I know. Creepy, right? 

When I got home, I looked online.  I found these beautiful letters here and here and here.  But--$50 or more.  I don’t think so.

Enter my father-in-law.  The jack-of-all-trades.  The only man brave enough to teach me how to use a jig saw.  He also brought plywood.  He’s awesome like that.

I (with a teeny-tiny bit of help) cut out a B.

I painted it with Elmer’s Glue and covered it with moss.

Perfect

 

This post is linked up to
 

The Easter Dress (from a month ago)

This is (or was supposed to be) my sewing/crafting blog.

But…

I haven’t shown you any sewing for a while.

I have been sewing.

Really, I have.

Lots.

But mostly for my shop. 

I’ve learned that sewing for business severely limits my personal sewing time.

But, I’ve snuck a little personal sewing into my days.

Like for Easter…

My Big Girl asked me to make her an Easter dress like this one. 

We raided the fabric stash and found a polka-dot print in her favorite colors.

I scoured the pattern books and found McCalls 6315 with a similar neckline.

I morphed this pattern marked “for knits only” with a pleated skirt and created her Easter Dress.

It took just a little adjusting (and an invisible zip), but she loved it!

And now for something that has nothing to do with sewing…

Have you ever seen 2 funnier little boys?

I think not.

Goofy Cousins!

 

Artbreak 2011

Each year, our regional arts council hosts Artbreak.  It’s great fun. 

The Big Girl had a piece included in first grade and in second grade. 

This year, her brother did too!  They were so excited to show off their pieces!

We had an additional treat at Artbreak this year.  The EGM choir performed on Saturday morning at Artbreak. 

We had a few minutes before the performance began, so the music teacher asked Addie to play her pieces she was working on for piano rally.  (A totally separate event that she went onto that afternoon.  She also came in 3rd and is competing at state, but that’s another post!)

Here is a clip from their performances: 

Dry Erase Fun

Every once in a while, the kids find themselves waiting on me.
Imagine that!
Recently, while they were waiting on me to finish a sewing lesson, they made these awesome drawings!
Makes me want to cover my walls with dry erase boards!

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A new spring skirt

Here’s my facebook status from last night:

at 8:00, as she is getting ready for bed, the Big Girl says: I wish I had a pretty skirt to wear with my new sweater tomorrow for pictures... Yeah. Guess what I'm doing...

Here’s my added comment from about 2 hours later:

It's done! 12 pleats, invisible zipper and all.

 

Here’s the nitty-gritty for the sewists out there:
I didn’t use a pattern for this skirt.  I just folded and pleated fabric until I got what I wanted.  I knew:

• her waist is 23 inches
• I wanted a front flat piece about 4 inches wide
• I wanted 4 1-inch pleats on either side of the front flat area (check out this skirt on our favorite doll)
• I wanted 2 inches on either side
• I wanted the back like the font
• I had a short invisible zipper in my stash to use
• it needed to have shorts built in because she’d be wearing it to school.

Basically, I cut two rectangles 18 x 30.  Using one rectangle, I marked it in the center.  Then I measured two inches to one side and started making my pleats.  After 4 pleats, I measured out 3 more inches (2 for design, 1 for seam allowance).  I did this same process for the other half of the front, just folding my pleats in the opposite direction.  Then, I made the back piece the same way.  I traced a pair of shorts to make the bloomers inside the skirt.  I put all this together, stitched up one side seam, added the zipper to the other and topped it off with a waist band.  Viola!  Instant skirt.  (Ha!)

She saw it this morning and loved it!  I grabbed these pictures just before the sun came up.

Sewing for a Big Girl

My Big Girl is 9.  And a half.  It makes me just a little sad.

Yep.  Thomas, that is exactly how it makes me feel.

She just won’t wear the cutesy little jumpers anymore.

 

Adriane’s Flower Girl is growing up too. 

She asked for some suggestions for sewing for her big girl. 

I thought I’d share them with you too.

Here are my tips for sewing for your 8, 9, 10, 11-year old…

1.  Don’t go shopping for clothes in most stores.  Really.  It will just disgust you.

2.  Give your Big Girl some fabric swatches, some colored pencils, some paper and get out of the way.  Really.  Step away Mom.  Major important---Keep your mouth shut.  Let her create.  Nobody’s saying you have to make every one of her designs.

3.  When you look at patterns, ignore those ugly photos on the front of the envelopes.  Again, this will disgust you.  Instead, try to see the construction lines.  Use your imagination (remember what that is?  you use it when you picture your baby as a, well, baby) and try to envision the patterns in cool fabrics.

4.  Take your Big Girl to the fabric store.  Try not to get disgusted.  With her.  Or with the rising costs of cotton. Yikes.  Before you go in the store, set some basic guidelines like “chartreuse and orange are not appropriate for Easter Sunday” or “I’m not paying $17/yard!!!” .

5.  Be ready to get creative.  If you do happen to find the perfect pattern to make the bodice of the dress your Big Girl has sketched, grab it.  Preferably at a 99 cent sale.  You can always tweak the skirt or the sleeves or the collar or… 

6.  Read the posts here and here.  Gush over them in my comment sections and draw inspiration from my work. Ha.

7.  Call a friend to commiserate that your baby is growing up and then get to work sister!  You’ve got a dress to make!

Last, but not least…

here are a few patterns that we’ve picked up lately…

   

http://www.simplicity.com/p-5035-girls-dresses.aspx

http://www.simplicity.com/p-4489-girls-dresses.aspx

http://www.simplicity.com/p-1639-girlsgirls-plus-tops.aspx

http://www.simplicity.com/p-2391-girls-separates.aspx

You can click on the pictures to find the numbers and please excuse the links rather than pictures at the end.  Simplicity’s website didn’t want to do what I wanted it to do.  :( 

Dabbling…

As if I needed another hobby…

At least this one kills the time during carpool line.

I found the patterns here.

July in a nutshell

Hi there.

Yep, it has been a while.

We been enjoying the summer with a little swimming, a little gardening, a little reading, a little canning, and a whole lot of sewing.

There have been:

26 hours of sewing classes

44 hours of instruction if you count the time each student was here

6 pillowcases

3 little girls’ skirts

1 pair of sleep shorts

3 aprons (2 that I made)

1 messenger bag

3 shopping bags

1 Estelle bag

4 Wonder Wallets

1 little girl’s purse

87% of Lila Tueller’s Bohemian Bag (Note: Wow. Not a quick project. There’s some piecing and some quilting and some raveling and some lining and some binding…Mine still lacks the straps.)

Wow. That’s a lot of numbers. Here are a few pictures to go along with those numbers.

Anyway, we have about 2 1/2 weeks left until school starts with a trip and lots more sewing planned. I’ve got another girls’ class in a week and, all of the sudden, the orders for LSU and Saints fans have picked way up. Must be 35 days until kick-off for the Tigers and 41 days until the Saints start the NFL season, but really, who’s counting!

I spy something green and purple and brown…

How often do you stop to notice the world around you? 

Not often enough in my case.

For some reason, I’ve been more aware this week.

And—colors have been catching my attention.

Take these pictures, for example. 

These were all shot from the car on our recent trip home for Easter.

How many shades of green do you see?  And the purples and the browns.

Absolutely amazing, isn’t it.  I think I need to go make something green.

PS.  I apologize for the crummy nature of some of these photos. 

When you are moving 65 mph down the highway with the windows up, you don’t always get the best shots. 

But—you can still see the amazing colors of nature.

$5 Challenge

I was inspired to browse through Dollar Tree with new eyes today. I took up Living with Lindsay on her $5 Challenge.

I spent $4 and made this:

To do what I did:

1. Grab some super cheap supplies. I found all these at Dollar Tree today for $1 each.

2. Paint the wreath and the medallion with something from your stash.

3. Paint the eggs with another great color from your stash. (I guess you really wouldn’t need to paint them if you didn’t want to.)

4. Hot glue the Spanish moss to the bottom of the wreath.

5. Glue your eggs in place also.

6. Sketch a bunny on your medallion. I just kinda free-handed mine. The kids recognized that it was a bunny, so that worked for me! ;)

7. Paint your bunny.

8. Put it all together and hang it up. Since I’m so cheap frugal, I reused the ribbon that came on the medallion to attach it to the wreath and to make my hanger for my wreath.

Have fun!