Well, hello blogging world! It has been a looooooong time since I have written anything on this blog!! I blame the move to Arkansas but that's displacing the blame where it truly belongs and that is with me and my laziness. But I did actually finish a project and had some thoughts about and I was really grateful that I could come to our sewing blog and write about it. Because no one on Facebook wants to hear about it and poor Ty does a great job humoring me and being understanding but he doesn't need to hear all this.
Its been hard to get into sewing since we moved here because the closest fabric store is Joanns and that is 30 minutes away. Whatever budget I have set aside for sewing was used just for the gas to get to the store and it just wasn't convenient. Oh how I miss the days of driving 3 minutes to get to Joanns. But last month the sewing gods smiled upon our little corner of Northwest Arkansas and opened a Hancock Fabric 10 minutes from our house! Oh glorious day!!! When I walked in, I felt rejuvenated. I felt inspired. I felt like I was being reunited with an old friend that I didn't really realize I had missed that badly. So I bought a pattern and some fabric and couldn't wait to dig in and get sewing again.
A little fact about me, I hate patterns like McCalls, Butterwick, etc. They NEVER turn out like the picture and I never had one actually fit the way it is supposed to. I made a little night gown for Elsie, a basic peasant top pattern, and you could have stuck two of her through the neck hole and the sleeves or longer than the dress and the dress was supposed to go to her ankles and it barely made it to her knees. I'm not exaggerating. It was a mess. I made a dress for myself one time and I ended up ditching it after I realized I made a mumu. The picture on the pattern was not a mumu. But the funny thing is that I have soooooo many of them! I love to flip through the pattern books and just dream of the possibilities and when they are go on sale it is really hard to resist the urge. The pictures are so deceiving that way. I get fooled every time! But this time I decided I would try Burda and see if maybe they had a clue about making patterns and writing instructions. So I used Burda 9503
I kind of mixed the two together to get the final project. I wanted to do the top but Elsie wanted a dress so I used the length of the dress but the ruffle and sleeves of the top. The mixing was the easy part. The ruffle was doable. The sleeves were murder!
This pattern is not for beginners. They say its easy but I was able to fluff my way through because I know some basics of sewing. I would read the directions and after trying to decipher the wording and the pics I realized they were telling to me to finish an edge with bias tape but they did it in the most difficult way. That is just one example. But overall, I'm please with how it turned out. It is a little on the big side but Elsie is such a string bean that I wasn't expecting it to fit perfectly. At least the sleeves are proportioned to the rest of the dress. I let her pick out the buttons for the sleeves and she really had fun with that and I was relieved when she choose two little purple flower buttons. She loved the dress and told everyone at preschool that her mommy made it for her. That made my day!!!
I'm not sure I will make it again, just because the sleeves made me want to give up sewing all together (I really messed them up but I'm hoping no one will notice that one is actually on backwards...oops) but it was a nice challenge and I'm glad that I can turn to Burda for patterns for the girls.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Getting back into the sewing groove
Posted by
Jill Manning
at
12:39 PM
1 comments
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Car Mat
I meant to post this so long ago...but such is life. For Christmas we trade names and that is who we get gifts for. I got my sister who has kids my kids' ages. I've always wanted to learn to make one and figured this was a good time to learn and experiment so I can make myself one. It turned out to be a little more work during my CrAzY Christmas season, but it got done (I think Christmas Eve I finally finished).
Top: Target, Harkins and Home Depot; a car wash (that you drive the car through),QT with a shoelace gas pump, In-N-Out (with a drive through), Frys and a Jiffy Lube
Bottom: Fire station, two houses (one has a "garage" aka pocket you can pull a car into); airport
Top: Police station; house and school
Bottom: Church, Temple and park; three houses (with again one with a garage pocket)
Posted by
Christian Family
at
10:11 PM
0
comments
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Myla's Easter Dress
Wow, to say we've been in a blogging slump is an understatement! :) Well, here we go again. This is Myla's Easter dress I made this year. It felt so good to get my sewing machine out. It was like seeing a long lost friend. I love, love, love this fabric. I've been holding onto it for a while. It's Joel Dewberry Heirloom. I just love the orange and minty-aqua colors. The pattern is from Violette Field Threads, the Emmaline. It was a really good pattern, easy to follow. Happy Easter!!
Posted by
Christie
at
9:29 PM
2
comments
Friday, November 30, 2012
'tis the season
Posted by
Maren
at
1:39 PM
0
comments
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Halloween Greetings!
Posted by
Maren
at
10:18 PM
1 comments
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Halloween Decor
Posted by
Maren
at
11:45 AM
0
comments
Labels: Maren's creations
Monday, October 15, 2012
DIY Harry Potter & Hermione Granger costumes

Posted by
Maren
at
1:11 AM
2
comments
Labels: Maren's creations







































































