Quick Quilted Pillows

I decided to try my hand at recovering a few pillows. The original pillows had a zipper so I just stitched the quilted pillow so that the zipper could continue to be used. It worked and so I went with it! I love fleur de lis prints and had bought so much of it. I am just so happy that I found another great use for it!

Toy Bags

Organization is the name of the game. My son has too many toys to start, which we will purge eventually. For now though, my goal is to get the toys that have many small parts in the proper bags. So I followed this tutorial at Motherhood for Dummies and made some bags. The fabric I used was a soft denim. I used scrap ribbon or left over canvas like string for the drawstrings. I added felt letters on the front so my son would know which bag was for what toys. Since he is 5 now, the letter-sound correspondence will be great practice too 9T=Trucks, L=Lincoln Logs, B=Blocks). I also tacked down the drawstrings in the back so that he could pull them out by accident. As you can see, they are already being used!

Homemade Christmas-Grocery Bags

I decided to make some grocery bags for Christmas gifts. I used left over cherry fabric from Natalie's dress along with other food related fabric. The bag itself is duck cloth or twill type fabric and I used webbing for the straps. They went together quite quickly and I had fun finding items to put in them.

Homemade Christmas-Baby Block Toys

These baby blocks from Happy Together were so much fun to make. They flew together too. My son helped stuff the blocks. He is excited to give these to his cousin!

What fun this Christmas will be to give all these homemade gifts!

Sundress Woohoo!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Successful "Sewing Day" Project #2: Sundress

My second inspiration today came from Lil Blue Boo blogspot. A simple sundress idea and tutorial got me started and now at the end of the day my daughter has two of them.
Sundress tutorial

Since Natalie loves pink, I knew I had to make a pink dress, but struggled finding fabric that wasn't too grown up. To my fortune I found the perfect print.

It however, was not pink.

I think the dress with cherries has become my favorite, but of course I did find pink fabric and made her a second dress in her favorite color.



I also did variations to this project. I added the flower and button with removable safety pin and a bottom band to tie the whole dress together. I used the serger again rather than double folding (super quick). These were so easy and fun to make, not to mention to give to Natalie and see her bright smile.

Quick Apron

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Successful "Sewing Day" Project #1: The Quick Apron

My first inspiration today came from the makeitandloveit.blogspot.com site. I was in need of a gift idea for a wedding present. I found a pattern for just the perfect addition to the purchased gift (baking pans and kitchen utensils) along with a few of my favorite recipes. The quick apron tutorial seemed like a do-able project for me. The tutorial took me step by step through the process and I hope to make myself one too soon. I made the apron with a few variations. One variation was that I increased the main piece fabric to a full yard (36 in.) and gathered it. I then doubled up the pocket to make the inside look finished, folded it over and added a removeable (for washing) safety pin with flower and button to the front. One other variation was that I used a serger for as much of the sewing as I could to avoid having to fold and refold before stitching. This did save me some time, but I don't always have a serger to borrow. I can't wait to give this gift!