I got an ipad for my Christmas/birthday present. Probably the only good thing about being born so close to Christmas is that if you need something expensive you can justify it as counting for two presents. Sort of. You'll need something to do anyway when no one, not even YOU, wants to go out to celebrate your birthday. It's too cold. We just had new years eve. Etc., etc.

Anyway... I made myself a little sleeve with some super cute tree fabric and flannel gingham. I love it! It pays to hoard the cute stuff for yourself.

I can't say that I made the ipad cover because I really, really needed it right away. I made it because I was way overdue on the kindle and PSP covers I promised to make months and months ago. Thankfully, E is ever so patient.

E wanted something that would look businessy and adult on the outside in case his co-workers caught a glimpse, but that also had some fun element to it. We decided on a brown herringbone wool and navy blue owls.

If I ever made these again I would be much smarter about it, particularly for the smallest PSP case. I sewed all the fabric pieces together and then flipped them inside out, but forgot that topstiching around the edge is very difficult when the opening doesn't even fit around the sewing machine. Hard to explain, but lesson learned.

This bag was also made in September right before my vacation. I used the Go Anywhere Bag pattern by Noodlehead because I was too lazy to make a pattern myself that I had been contemplating for so long. This pattern was similar enough to the one in my head, so I bought it.

I loved the abundance of pockets and the deep strap opening allows for easy access to the bag without taking it off your shoulder. The back pocket above is supposed to be one big one, but I divided it into two. One side is actually bigger than the other so that I could fit a book into it. I also added two interior cell phone pockets.

This was my first time using piping and adding in a magnetic snap. I love the piping and am glad I learned how to add in the snap, but in reality I never use that snap.

Overall I love the bag, but I feel that the outside pockets, when filled with a book and water bottle, take away from the interior space of the bag. I only use the outside pockets for small things now. I guess I will have to make that pattern in my head someday.

My inspiration was this stripey dress above that I saw on Pinterest. I needed a beach dress for my trip to Hawaii in October and happened to have some fabric in my collection already that was similar. What luck! Of course, I made it at the last minute, so I decided to buy Burdastyle's Anda 7969 pattern partly because it was a similar style to my other beach dress (no sleeves and an empire waist), but more importantly because I could download it immediately and print it from home.

Considering I ended up wearing this almost every day of the trip, I think I would call it my second most successful piece of clothing next to the cowl neck t-shirt.

Pattern adjustments: I omitted the neck facings and lowered the neckline a lot, probably a bit too much, but it is the beach, so who cares. I also used elastic at the waist instead of the front tie. It was just easier to pull on and off that way.

I've noticed that the need/urge for new clothes or accessories for an upcoming trip is my greatest sewing motivation apart from making gifts for other people. I wish I could channel that motivation throughout the year instead of being rushed before a trip.

This little wine cover (or champagne to be precise), was made the morning of Thanksgiving. I have never been one to just whip something up, but I've always wanted to be that person. Things always seem to take much longer than I expect most of the time. Not in this instance, though.

I owe it all to my new narrow hem foot, which turns the raw fabric edge under and sews it down in one step. This thing is amazing! I just cut out a rectangle of fabric more or less to fit around the bottle and then narrow hemmed all the edges, even the vertical seam so that it looks like a fake French seam inside. Couldn't have been more than 15 minutes.

Our family had Christmas early this year so this wallet I made for my sister was finished up on the morning of the event, hence the terrible photos. Sorry.

I cobbled the instructions together from several online tutorials to get the desired design elements. I learned a lot from making this. I would use thicker interfacing next time for the main body and less in the zippered pocket. I would also make the snap shorter. It's a bit loose right now.

You may not be aware of this, but Santa out sources quite of bit of his production each year, particularly in the stocking stuffer arena. Makes sense, really. How else could he deliver so much great stuff?

I was lucky enough to become a vendor for him this year with these cute little pencil pouches. He even sends a follow up note to let you know how your product was received. Santa is so nice.

This was our first Christmas in the house because we were in South Africa last year for most of December.  I had grand plans to decorate with new placemats, napkins, felt garland, a winter door wreath, and stockings. Unfortunately, the stockings were the only thing to survive the time constrained to-do list.

We hosted the festivities this year, but celebrated early on December 17th because almost all of the family (medical professionals of one sort or the other) had to work on Christmas weekend.

I used this Fabric Worm stocking tutorial that I saw on Pinterest and it was super quick and easy to make. I used the remains of the red wool fabric from this skirt I made. I had no idea there was so much left. For the cuffs, I used different Christmasy fabrics, mostly from Joann's, to differentiate them. I didn't feel like assigning names like normal stockings.

Can you tell which one is mine, though?

There are no kids in the family yet, so these are all adult stockings. I know. Kind of pointless, but it was nice to have some sort of decoration up since this was the only thing I got around to. I did fill them with adult goodies, though, like tiny bottles of alcohol and delicious cookies.

The rest of our decorations were pretty minimal: a tree (of course), an extra string of lights, some branches, and the Evil Santa candle holder that my mom made. I kind of love his look. He's very stern. Very tough on the naughty kids.

Hello there.

It's been quite a while since I've posted, I'll admit. Lots of life things happening, but I have definitely been sewing all the while. I will be catching up with posts here in the next few weeks. If there's anyone still here I thank you for sticking around.

I also want to thank everyone who stopped by my table at the Merry Market charity craft fair we had at work a couple of weeks ago. I really appreciate your support and I'm happy that I could give money to Modest Needs, the charity we were supporting, at the same time. I sold 50 coffee sleeves in 3 hours and gave 10% of sales to the charity.

You guys are awesome! Thank you so much.

This is a little sun dress and bloomers (or diaper cover) that I made for a friend of mine. His niece, the recipient of this lovely quilt, is turning one year old and celebrating with a polka dot themed birthday party. This is a girl after my own heart. You may have noticed that I love polka dots. 

This was made using the McCall's 6309 pattern.

A couple things to note about this pattern:

1. This pattern asks you to measure your baby's chest, waist, and thighs. If you do not own a baby or can't procure one then it might be difficult to get the right fit. I looked up approximate sizes based on the baby's weight that I happened to know. Hopefully it works out. Someone online did mention that the chest and waist size are often the same size, so I went with that. I hope it's right.

2. The straps are ridiculous if you follow the directions. It asks you to sew them together inside out and then turn them right side out. Impossible. It's way too tiny to flip. I picked out the seams and folded everything under and topstitched.

3. The bloomer instructions ask you to sew in bias binding to make a casing for the leg elastic. I decided to try out the method in Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing book which calls for elastic thread instead of a casing and wide elastic. Wow. It is so amazing!

First off, I thought this would be the end of my machine. How could elastic thread ever work? Some how and it was super easy. When I showed it to some co-workers with babies they all said that this was the best idea because they've bought kids clothes with regular elastic that are way too tight on super fat baby legs. (Super CUTE fat baby legs, I might add. No judgements, babies.) I will be trying this method out on some of my own shirt sleeves, I think.

This weekend I finally took a stab at Simplicty 2599. I've been excited to try this out because it's highly recommended around the interwebs. The pattern includes pieces for different bust sizes.

I tested it out using a thin brown polka dot cotton fabric even though the pattern suggests using more silky fabrics. I haven't even tried using silky fabrics yet, so I wanted to check the fit first.

I love the way it turned out. It's loose, but form fitting enough for me.

I made a bunch of alterations. I prefer longer sleeves, so I lengthened them by 1.5 inches. I also lowered the neckline by 3 inches or so. In hindsight, I could have lowered it even more.

At first, I cut out the back piece on the fold so I could avoid making a button closure at the top, but then quickly realized I forgot to remove the seam allowance. So, I ended up sewing up the back anyway, but letting out the bottom five inches for more room in the hips.

And because I made so many changes, I had to make my own bias binding for the neck. I like that better than neck facings anyway, especially for a see-through fabric.

Biggest lesson learned: Fabric choices.

Okay. I know that fabric choice is important, but it really hit me recently that I have been focusing way too much on buying cotton fabrics. Basically I was trolling around Anthropologie's website the other day and started to notice that the shirts I liked were either made of silk, rayon, or t-shirt knit fabrics. Regular cotton fabric just doesn't come into play much there. And looking at my closet, my cotton shirts are more of the button-down structured type, which I'm not ready to create myself...yet.

I've realized that I should focus on buying more silky fabrics right now so that when I do make stuff for myself it's more approximate to something I would buy. I would like to hopefully create more upscale shirts that I can wear to work, but won't cost a thousand dollars like Anthropologie. I'm hoping this pattern will help me get there.