Little Girl Blouse

Last week I went up to Memphis to visit a close friend of mine. While I was there she gave me her serger that she has not used in a while because she just doesn't have time to sew right now.  I LOVE it!!!!  I could not wait to sew something up using my new serger.  I was unsure what I should make, so I decided to mix about 4 different tutorials together to make my little girl a shirt.  I made this shirt out of a mans dress shirt, and some complementary cotton fabric.  Here is how it turned out.  (She love this shirt by the way - and cried when I took it off)

I found a new tutorial online to make the little flowers that I stitched onto the from of the shirt. If you want to see the page they have tutorials on 10 different kind of flowers.  Here is the link: http://www.skiptomylou.org/2011/03/22/10-beautiful-fabric-flower-tutorials/

You can see that the back of her shirt is the buttons from the front of the mans dress shirt.  Sadly I didn't have enough fabric to make matching shorts.  If only the dress shirt had long sleeves instead of short sleeves it would have been perfect. 

My Little Chef

This summer my 4 year old decided that he wanted to help mommy cook.  He loves smelling every spice and helping me measure out the food.  Needless to say, he tends to get really messy when he helps me (as does my kitchen - smile) so I decided to make him a little apron to wear.  I made the apron using Spiderman cotton fabric on one side, and bottom-weight cotton on the other with Spiderman appliqued on.  That way the apron is reversible and he can always choose what side he want to face out.  I put a layer of flannel in the middle of the apron to make sure that it was absorbent, and that stuff wouldn't go right through to his clothes.  I finished off the apron by using some binding as the strings to tie around his neck and back.

Here is my son showing off his new apron:

Lets make a Fort

I don't know about you but my kids love to make forts.  This summer I got very sick of pulling out blankets and draping them over the furniture only to end up with blankets all over the house.  I went to the fabric store one day when they were having a 99 cent pattern sale and saw a pattern for a fort that you can drape over a card table.  I don't own a card table so that wouldn't work for me, but as I looked at the pattern I got some ideas to make a fort that fits on our diningroom table (We normally use our kitchen table, and our dining room only gets used when we have a lot of company over)  I have to say that my kids love it!  I used large mesh tulle for the window and door so that way their fort can have light, and not get to stuffy and hot inside.  To put the flowers and grass around the outside I just used tacky glue and some felt.

Here are some pictures of my kids playing inside.  This night I decided to have a little extra fun and we threw some couch cushions inside, and brought the laptop in to watch a movie inside of their fort.

Jungle Baby Blanket

Here are some finished pictures of the baby blanket I made using the fabric I posted pictures of back in March.  I think it turned out super cute!!!  I made this blanket matching fabric swatches my customer sent to me so that it would match the rest of the nursery.  I machine quilted the entire blanket, including quilting paw prints into the centers of the smaller squares.

I put soft matching fabric on the back of the blanket so that it would be very comfortable for the baby to curl up with.  The binding around the outside edge was all machine stitched on.  I absolutly love the bright colors on the blanket!!! Here are some more pictures:

Paisley Dress

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a long time.  I have had a crazy few months.  My husband was unemployed for 3 months this summer so I was not doing much sewing during that time just to save on money.  Now I am starting school again, and am going to have a busy couple of months, so my posts will probably be infrequent.  Last week I was stressed out one day so I decided to try and sew something up that I could finish in one sitting.  I made my little girl a new dress to wear to church on Sunday.  Here is how it turned out.  I have never been a fan of paisley fabric but I have to say I really love this dress!!!