shirred spring dress

I have been wanting to make a sweet little shirred (aka smocked) dress for more than a year now for Henry's girlfriend, Adalyn. Shirring is a technique that uses elastic thread and turns any fabric into a cute, ruffly, stretchy fabric that is just perfect for dresses and skirts.

Here's the problem. I tried umpteen tutorials and could never get the hang of it. My fabric just would not bunch. I eventually gave up in a super graceful way that definitely didn't involve pounding my fists on the sewing table or uttering curse words.

Fast forward a year and it's Adalyn's 4th birthday. I am bound and freaking determined to shirr her a dress, so I look for more tutorials. I eventually see a little note at the bottom of one that says in big red letters something like "if you have a Brother sewing machine, you're going to have a really hard time with shirring."

Oh, fantastic. Well that explains it.

Turns out that Brother machines don't shirr well due to the fact that they have a drop-in bobbin with no bobbin tension adjustment. There is a work around though. It sounds totally scary, but I promise it's not. You just tighten one little screw with a tiny Flathead screwdriver and VOILA! You can shirr! Here's a link to the video that will show you how to shirr on your Brother machine. Don't be afraid. It's worth it.

If you don't have a Brother, congratulations, because life just got a whole lot easier for you.

Now that my machine was shirr-ready, I followed this tutorial from Pretty Prudent to whip up this adorable springy dress for Adalyn out of some vintage fabric. Pink and purple paisley. Doesn't get much cuter than that.

Check out that shirring. And those pom poms. Come on.

I even had Henry model it to be sure it would fit Adalyn, since they're the same size. Yes, I have photos. No, I will not be sharing them. You're welcome, future 15 year old Henry.

Here's Adalyn modeling her dress. My future daughter-in-law, ladies and gentlemen. Those who can't seem to produce girl babies can sew for the girl babies of others.

This would be a great technique to use on grown up skirts too. Could you imagine a shirred comfy waistline on a cotton skirt when you're pregnant? I'm not (thank goodness), but this would definitely have been nice to have when my belly was the size of a beer keg.

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done in a weekend(ish): boys' bathroom refresh

The boys' bathroom is the final frontier of our house as far as redecoration goes. Not that there aren't a million and one things we (I) still want to change, but it is the only room that's gone completely untouched since we moved in. I mean completely. Same gross green walls. Same nail holes from the old homeowners. Same 80's towel bars. You get the picture.

I shared my design plan with you guys about a year ago. A year. By anyone's standard that's a freakishly long time between planning and execution. But here's the thing...it didn't feel right. There was nothing wrong with my plan per se, but I just wasn't feeling it. So I stalled. And I don't think that's a terrible thing. Better to sit on it and come up with a better plan (or, rather, wait a year for a new plan to magically materialize in your mind while you're supposed to be working on something else) rather than force it and spend money on something you ultimately won't like.

Or at least that's what I'm choosing to tell myself.

Last week I woke up after a late night Pinteresting session (I should not be allowed to Pinterest after 9 PM) and decided it was THE DAY to do something about that bathroom. So I grabbed a can of paint from the garage and got busy. It was kind of fortunate that I had the exact color that I wanted leftover from another project and ready to go. It was meant to be.

I call this a weekend-ish refresh because it totally could be accomplished in a weekend, I just chose to stretch it out over about 5 days. Painted day 1, nothing day 2. hung stuff day 3, plumbing nightmare days 4-5. But more on that in a moment.

Here's the room before. Ugh, it's so ugly it hurts my eyes. So embarrassing. Do you like how I didn't even bother to take the potty seat off the throne before the photo? Keeping it real.

The only things this space really had going for it were the white tile which is in good shape, and a skylight that brings in mucho natural daylight. This is most certainly not the tile I would pick out today if I were doing a total remodel, but since we aren't going to drop the money right now for an overhaul, it's totally non-offensive, and that's good enough for me.

Henry's Knight Birthday Party

My sweet Henry man turned 4 this weekend. He requested a Knight birthday party (not to be confused with a night birthday party. Very different things) and I was happy to oblige. This was a fun one to put together. Pretty photos now; details at the end.

Hazel Hedgehog quilt-a-long

Happy Friday! Greetings to all of the new folks following the HazelQAL blog hop, and a warm welcome to all the regulars as well.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of woodland creatures (I made a hedgehog out of cheese last fall, after all), so when the opportunity popped up to join Gnome Angel for the Hazel Hedgehog Quilt-A-Long blog hop, I was all over it. I had no idea what a quilt-a-long actually was, nor had I ever participated in a blog hop before, but I wasn't going to let a little thing like complete-and-utter-lack-of-knowledge stop me.

If you're interested in making one for yourself, the pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman. Angie over at Gnome Angel has a discount code available. I love a good discount. I used the Hazel II pattern to whip up this child sized quilt.

Christmas doll house pillow

Let's just talk about this pillow. I know I say this all the time, but this might be the cutest thing I've ever made.

It was inspired by inkandbobbin over on Instagram. She makes these adorable little dollhouse-style pillows that she calls Whimsy houses. Most of them are on the uber-girly side of the spectrum, which always bums me out because I want all of these cute things but mostly my boys just want to play with trucks and dinosaurs. I've been toying around in my noodle how to make these more boyish so we could have one around the house without the Hubs throwing up.

But then this amazing thing happened. She started making a limited amount of Christmas ones.

Yes! Christmas is always the answer! It's not girly....it's festive.

And since I can never bring myself to spend money on something I can create myself, I dove in. No pattern or anything. I just winged it.

Most of this fabric came from my stash with the exception  of the framed Christmas characters. They are from my favorite Spoonflower fabric designer and you can order it here. She's not paying me to say that. She doesn't know I exist....yet.

That sounded creepier than it should have.

I fussy-cut the little portraits out and zigzag stitched them to the pillow behind the doors and windows. Then I couldn't stop, so I added them to the roof. And inside of the door. And over the trees.

If I were to make one of these again, I think I'd use fusible web to attach the appliques before I stitched them to give them some more hold. As I stuffed the pillow, some of the stitching pulled apart from the applique pieces, so it looks a bit amateur hour. And I left some raw edges exposed on the door and windows. I was in that "oh my goodness I just need to get this done so I can cross it off my list" mode. 

You now that mode. Don't pretend like you don't.

That pink Christmas tree makes me smile. You know that part of the Charlie Brown Christmas movie where they go to the tree lot and they are all pink and made of aluminum? Charlie Brown is completely disgusted, but I am swooning because PINK TREES!

I could have easily gotten away with a fat quarter of the fabric, but went ahead and got a full yard. You just never know when you're going to need Christmas Portrait fabric, amiright?

Henry liked it more than I thought he would as evidenced by his super cheesy smile. Max LOOOOVES it because his favorite game is peek-a-boo and now he can play it with the pillow. Which means he isn't playing it exclusively with me. Which means I now have time to do things like type out blog posts about pillows. 

Win-win-win.

Clearly the roof had to coordinate with the quilt I made last week. I mean, nothing in the world would make any sense if it didn't.

Oh, and our octopus is now a reindeer. Obviously.

I still have one more Christmas sewing project for the house that I'm hoping to finish this week. If I wait until next week I'll only get to enjoy it for a few days, so I need to get ON IT.

Anyone else crafting up some holiday goodness? Please link up in the comments below. I'd love to see what everyone is working on.

Lastly, if you want a cute pillow house of your very own, mosey on over to inkandbobbin and buy one of hers. They are amazing.

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woodland creatures birthday party: the maxwell man turns 1

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow my baby turned 1. Some sort of time warp, I guess.

Much as I tried to keep things simple and low-key, I friggin LOVE to throw parties. So as the day of the party approached, I kept adding little handmade projects here and there. It's a disease.

Here are all of the sweet little details that made up Max's Woodland Creatures 1st birthday party.

my "shop small" list

Thanksgiving is fast approaching (yay!) which means that Black Friday is right on its tail (booooo!).

Yep, I'm not a Black Friday fan for the following reasons:

1. We just spent a whole day talking about how grateful we are for what we have, only to trample each other in the store for a crappy TV.
2. As much as I am a people person, I hate crowds. I loathe being shoved against gobs of strangers with the fire of a thousand suns.
3. My pants don't fit he day after Thanksgiving. Why the heck would I parade that fact around in public?
4. I love sleep. I will do nothing on vacation that would make me wake up early on purpose.

All of that aside, there are some great deals to be had and Christmas is a-coming. That's why I'll be doing my Black Friday shopping from the comfort of my sofa AND supporting some of my favorite small businesses. Other than the obligatory Friday afternoon trip to Target once all the crazies have gone home to nap.

I'll never quit you, Target.

Here's my non-official, non-comprehensive list of some of my favorite small businesses and their handmade goodness. Many are made right here in the USA.

Oh and I know a lot of you are from Canada/Australia/Great Britain. I love you guys too. But I hate international shipping costs. XOXO

FOR HIM: You'll note that the men in my life like to drink, or camp, or drink while camping. Basically, I love lumberjacks. What can I say? I have a type.

Mason Shaker | Huckberry | Drop Catch | Best Made

FOR ME, I mean for HER: It doesn't always have to be expensive to be awesome. But sometimes a splurge is totally worth it. Covered all the bases on this one. And nope, no clothes are included in my list because it's hard to buy clothes for other people!

candelles | jessicandesigns | initialKstudio | abeautifulmess

FOR KIDS: Because the littles deserve to be stylish too. Nothing on this list is made of plastic. Hoorah!

finktoys | littlebowandarrow | littlehipsqueaks | wrenandrumor

Of course I'll also be hand making some of my gifts this year, but not for everyone on my list. That would be insane.

If you have a favorite small business please share it in the comments below! Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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paper piecing: I now know what the fox says

I've been seeing the most adorable fox, cat, and owl quilt blocks gracing my Instagram feed lately. And I wanted one. BAD. Only I didn't know how to do it. But then our quilt club assignment this last month was to try paper piecing, which I did not in any way understand.

Turns out, that's how you make those intricate blocks. Who knew.

Oh wait, everyone but me knew.

At any rate, paper piecing basically means that you print your pattern on paper, arrange your fabric on it very strategically, and then sew right on top of the paper along the lines. No math skills or intricate fabric cutting required. 

Check out the image below. This is the back of that fox block.

You absolutely have to watch several You Tube videos to figure this technique out. You're basically sewing a mirror image of what you want your block to look like, which kind of hurts my brain. I found this video tutorial to be helpful. There are many different methods; you just have to find the one that makes sense for you.

Using a plaid fabric was not my most brilliant choice. Trying to match the plaid pattern when you're mirroring objects is challenging to say the least. But it mostly worked out.

I made this pattern myself because I'm cheap a designer who has to figure out everything for myself. The good news though is that you can buy this pattern along with instructions on how to assemble it into a quilt here. These are the gorgeous blocks that inspired me to take the plunge. The fox with the glasses, it slays me.

And paper piecing isn't just for furry creatures. There's lots of modern and traditional geometric patterns that this technique is great for.

Quilt Club met last night to look at everyone's work, buuuuuut I had to leave early to go tuck in babies, so I don't have photos. So sorry! But I'm sure they were awesome.

6 quilt club blocks down for my ROYGBIV sampler quilt. It's going to be a hot mess, but I love it. 

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DIY tassel garland

Does the Internet really need another tassel garland tutorial?

Yes. Yes it does.

Why? Because of the gross misuse of the terms "lengthwise" and "widthwise" on the Internet. I'm here to help you, friends.

Max's first birthday party was this past weekend. I can't wait to share all of the fun details with you, but that's going to take a minute (read: a week) to pull together. In the meantime, I wanted to give you a sneak peak with this little tutorial.

I've seen these cute tassel garlands all over Pinterest and Instagram for the last few months. I thought they must have to be somewhat difficult to make since everyone was buying them instead of making them.

Nope, not hard at all. You just need a little bit of time and hopefully a glass of wine. These are perfect for party decorations, holiday decorations, and kid's room decor. Here's the step by step guide.

tooth fairy pillow DIY - Star Wars style

My friend Jenny from high school reached out to me last week with an interesting request. Her oldest son, Dylan, was about to lose his first tooth. He is a very light sleeper, so the traditional tooth fairy method of sneaking into his room and slipping money from under his precious little head just wasn't going to work for them. Her request was for a tooth fairy pillow to hang on the door knob. Brilliant.

She said that he likes red, blue, yellow, and Star Wars, and left the rest up to me. Then creativity immediately struck.

Storm Toother!

(see what I did there?)

sunday stitch vol. 15 - sittin' on top of the world

It's finished! It's finally finished!

Talk about a labor of love. This, my friends, is Max's baby quilt.

Baby quilt? But doesn't he turn 1 in a few weeks?

Yes. Thanks for pointing that out. 

My sweet baby Max turns 1 in November, and I managed to squeak this baby quilt in while he is still technically a baby. I saw this quilt pattern in the book Let's Sew Together, and fell madly in love. It was the entire reason I bought the book. Thus far I've used the patterns in the book to make this robot and this rag doll, but the world map quilt is my masterpiece.

A few helpful notes on this pattern if you are wanting to undertake this project:

sunday stitch vol. 14: hound dog is the new sock monkey

Earlier in the week I shared with you how I whipped up a fox costume for the big kid. This costume smokes that one in the speed department, clocking in at a mere 15 minutes.

Well, to be truthful, I had a bit of a head start.

2 Halloweens ago, I made Henry a sock monkey costume. And it was amazing. Sorry for the blurry photo. It was 2012 and I only had an iPhone 4 or something.

I used this tutorial, in case you want to make your own. It uses actual socks, all pieced together. A labor of love.

Cute as it was, this Halloween Henry decided that he would be The Fox and Max would be The Hound. I like making their costumes by hand, so my plan was to find a brown long sleeved onesie and brown hat to transform into a dog costume. Much like my fruitless search for orange tights for Henry, I came up disappointed.

But then, light bulb moment. A hound dog looks remarkably like a sock monkey. It just has longer ears.

BINGO.

I pulled the monkey costume from the closet and began the transformation. I removed the red patch on the bottom with my seam ripper (lest people think a hunter shot the poor dog or that he had mange or something) and removed the red pom pom from the hat. I saved them, but I'm really not sure why. Just in case, I guess?

I cut 2 dog ear shapes from brown felt, folded the monkey ears down, and top stitched to secure. Done and DONE.

These two little guys are going to be pretty darn cute on Halloween. That is, if Max keeps the hat on and Henry keeps the mask on. Otherwise they'll just be kids in brown and orange outfits and look like they have a mom that didn't try. That's really the more likely scenario. Whatever. As long as they get plenty of Snickers for me to steal.

I promise I did not ask Max to pant like a dog for the photos. He did that all on his own. He's a method actor.

Got your costumes ready? I'd love to see pictures if you whip anything up for your kids or yourselves! Post them to Simply Crafted's Facebook page.

Be sure to check out other fun sewing projects over at hi and hello.

 


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