Sunday 28 July 2013

A (Belated) Birthday Gift!

Quite a while ago I found some wonderful fabric on Spoonflower that consisted of stick figures doing gymnastics. Immediately I wanted to use this fabric to make something for my dear stepdaughter, our family gymnast. Well, time passed and the fabric sat, washed and ironed but unused. As my stepdaughter's birthday approached, I decided it was time to finally whip something up. So here's the result!


Because I only had two fat quarters' worth (a bit of a long story there!) I decided the easiest thing to do would be to make a tote bag and a little matching zipper pouch. I used this very easy tutorial to assemble the tote bag, and this tutorial for the zipper pouch. I had a cute blue polka-dotted fabric that I used as the liner (you can't see it here). Because the gymnastics fabric is a normal cotton, I also tweaked the tutorial for the tote by putting iron-on interfacing on the back of that fabric to stiffen the tote up a little bit. I wanted it to be a bit stronger to both hold its shape and be able to carry slightly heavier things, if necessary.

She seemed rather pleased with the result, and as she's heading off to University this fall (wow!), I hope she'll find both items useful.

If you've never made these types of items before, I highly recommend giving them a try. It only took a couple of hours to put both things together. They make wonderful gifts, and you can find themed fabric in just about any print you could possibly want, if you just spend some time searching the Internet. That way, you can customize a gift to each individual recipient. A win all around, if you ask me!

Back again hopefully soon with more blog entries! Hope you're enjoying your summer!

Sunday 21 July 2013

Pillowcase Dresses...Yet Again!

I stumbled on a pair of absolutely gorgeous embroidered pillowcases at my local Value Village thrift store and I had to snap them up right away. I knew I wanted to make matching garments for my two girls, but I kept putting it off. I wanted to try a new technique for the neckline than my normal method.

I didn't take any photos during the assembly. I mainly used this site for the style, but I referred to this site because she's got a great list of measurements to use.

So here are the completed items -- my younger monkey got a full dress out of it, but my elder kidlet ended up with a top (the pillowcases weren't long enough to make her a dress).





And here's a photo or two of the girls wearing their new outfits. They sang two little duets at our local Bible camp, and everyone there thought they were just adorable! (Well, I think they are, too, but I'm just a tad biased!)



Two little songbirds!

 One more project to check off the list! I'll be back soon with more...!