Julane in Elephant Dress (Will Work For Oreos)

Today I took scads of photos of my beautiful niece Julane in the Elephant dress, hoping to get some good shots for my upcoming sewing kit. Here are my favorites from the shoot. Her mommy promised her oreos if she cooperated and let me tell you, it worked! She was a perfect model. She filled out the dress so perfectly, and I think the chartreuse color (thank you Kelly!) looked really wonderful with her super light hair and blue eyes.

Elephant Dress

Here is my spoonflower elephant dress! Now to get some great pictures taken and put together my sewing kit. I timed the process and the whole project should take 2.5 - 3 hrs, including the cutting. I couldn't find a zipper anywhere near the color of this fabric. I don't even know what to call this color. Anyway, I just used a cream color and I think I hid it pretty well. I used this method of installing a zipper using a glue stick and it turned out really well. It's the first time I didn't have a nasty pucker at the bottom. I am slowly learning to be a patient seamstress! Things turn out so much better when you take your time and really try to do things right.

Sewing Projects

Some photos of me in a dress I made for myself out of giant blue houndstooth blanket material, and Heidi in the new whale dress. Elsie told her that she looked really cute in it and Heidi said "I know". Wouldn't it be great if grown women talked that way when you gave them a compliment? Elsie's skirt in the bike picture was also homemade, by Rachel.

Finished Whale Dress

Here's my spoonflower whale dress.

Finally

I got my 2 dress patterns printed from Spoonflower finally. I am ready to go! Only one problem. I thought for some reason that the fabric was 58" wide, and not 56" inches. So part of the insides of my bodice pieces got cut off. But that's okay, if something had to get cut off, those would be the best pieces for it to happen to. I got some plain fabric that I can use for the insides, and next time I have these printed, they will be adjusted to fit the 56" width!

Anxiety Bucket

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. - Phillipians 4:6

When I was growing up we had this orange plastic tub that my family called "the puke bucket", that my mom would put by the side of our bed when we were sick. It was such a great friend, you know, it took the worst we had to give and came back for more.

The challenge with the verse above is that you have to do something with anxiety. You can't just stop feeling things, you have to deal with them somehow. I need an anxiety bucket that Jesus can take away and wash out for me.

Genus

This is in the Spoonflower contest of the week. It's a fabric design for a cheater quilt. If you would like to vote for my design, please click here. Note that there are alot of designs on each contest page, you have to scroll down to see them all.

Must Have Big Twirl

So Elsie has a closet full of dresses that do not make her happy to wear. Not because they are not pretty but because they do not twirl big enough. A super-twirling froggy dress by Mamma-Made had set the bar 2 years ago and she just can't seem to go back.

The other day I made this dress out of some scrap material I had upstairs. It's the first time I made a garment without following an official pattern, so it was kind of an experiment. The bodice was from a size 5 pattern I have, and it turned out to be way too big all over, but she doesn't care. I made the circle skirt by just figuring it out, and the bow was because she likes bows. It turned out okay but I really need help with zippers. Look at the way it puckers at the bottom. I can never seem to get them nice and flat.

Serge of Joy

Ha ha. Check this out. My wonderful sister-in-law gave me a new friend for my sewing machine the other day! Yahoo! A neat thing is that the morning of the day she asked me if I wanted it, I had prayed that God would show me in some tangible way that he saw me and loved me. Then Cecilia offers me a serger, when she didn't even know that I really wanted one and had begun to look around for one. I didn't even know she had one. Cool, huh?

So today I learned to thread it and adjust the tension and yippee, I serged! Thanks God!

Elsie's First Sewing Project

This is my 4 year old daughter Elsie with her first sewing project, a my little pony embroidery on a pillow. I traced the picture from a coloring book onto the fabric, and she did all the embroidery (and the stuffing). She is very proud of it. She said it's the softest pillow she's ever had. Now she is ready to move on to something else.

New Projects

These are being printed at Spoonflower on one yard of fabric. Then I'll cut them out and sew them together, then I'll get some photos taken of a cute little 3 year old girl in them (anybody know one of those?) and eventually I'm planning to sell them as ready made sewing kits through Mamma Made Designs. Rachel has already done some really fun stuff with this. Check out her green tent dress and elephant dress. This is so much fun. I could do this all day long.

Installment 2: Taking a stab at some girls' dress designs

Installment 1: Taking a stab at some girls' dress designs

Walk

The Best Thing I've Ever Seen?

Just please, please please watch this.

Hoot Hoot, Woof Woof

97

This is a song snippet that was inspired by my friend Alyssa's painting,

which was inspired by:

Psalm 97:1-6,9

The Lord is king!
Let the earth rejoice!
Let the farthest coastlands be glad.
Dark clouds surround him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire spreads ahead of him
and burns up all his foes.
His lightning flashes out across the world.
The earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
every nation sees his glory.
For you, O Lord, are supreme over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.

Anna's Dress

My friend Amy's darling little girl in an outfit I made for her.

Art Noveau Spoonflower Contest

I didn't have much time to work on this but I wanted to give it a shot so I slapped this sort of sketchy image into the latest Spoonflower contest which is an Art Noveau inspired design with a restricted color palette. A long time ago I took some photos of my beautiful friend Kelly, I wish I could find the originals, but I used a photoshopped version of it as a basis for this design. Kelly recently gave birth to her fifth child (at home, unassisted by anyone other than her husband.. amazing!) and has always been one of the most creative people I know. Here's to you Kelly! If you want to vote in the contest click here. There are some really amazing designs to look at.