Works in Progress

So I have spent a lot of time this week working on two different dresses and they have both been causing me a lot of problems. The first one, the black and white dragonfly dress, when I sewed up the seems it was way to tight. I got really discouraged and decided that I would just wear it when I lost weight. Then couple of days later I got some more momentum and decided that I could let out all the seams, which means unpick everything I had sewn and go back to square one, so i did that, now it is fitting well, but the top band of the dress didn't have so many seams, so I need to piece on some more fabric, which is a pain, but I will do it, but that is the main reason I haven't finished that dress.




The other dress is the dress that I worked on a LOT when my mom was here in the end of april. I completely reworked the bodice on a mock up while she was here, so I finally started sewing the real dress together, and I got the triangle piece in sewn nicely into the bodice so it is modest, and I think the bodice fits really well. When i finally got the skirt sewn on, I was really disappointed. I really do not like how the skirt looks on my hips. I have very large hips proportioned to the rest of my body and for my frame, and this dress screams that out, and it just doesn't seem right. So I am back to the drawing board on the skirt part of the dress, since the way the pattern is designed is not going to work for me. I am thinking of reshaping the skirt so it is a lot sharper a-line skirt and so it doesn't gather to the middle section at all, therefore giving less poof for my hips, so we will have to see. This little snag will probably mean that it is a number of weeks before I finish this project.

Autumn's swimsuit

My 38th complete project for 2008!



So Autumn needed a new swimsuit for this summer, maybe 2 or 3, but atleast one. She chose out this black and green striped fabric that I had actually gotten for me to make a swimsuit, but I am a nice mom and let her have it, thinking that I could probably work it out to still cut out a swimsuit for me. I thought the swimsuit would look really cute with horizontal stripes, so I cut the entire thing out, not even bothering to check if the swimsuit fabric stretched that way, well it didn't. So after I had cut it out the wrong direction, I then had to cut it out again the other direction, so maybe there won't be enough for me. The only problem is that the pattern doesn't seem to cover Autumn's voluptuous bum, it keeps giving her wedgies, so I will have to work that out for the next swimsuit, which she wants to have a skirt built into it and it will be a pink and whit striped swimsuit.

Hooray for swimming this summer!

Skirts!

My 36th and 37th complete sewing projects for 2008!




Autumn loves skirts, as in she wanted a lot more skirts for the summer than shorts. I let her decide everything, because she basically won't wear clothes that I pick out, and I don't fight her about it, so she pretty much wears exactly what she wants everyday. The brown skirt is scraps from a skirt that I made last summer for myself, and the khaki skirt is leftover from a pair of pants I made for myself during the winter.

Also all the skirt I have made her have built in shorts/bloomers, so that she can do whatever in the backyard or whatever and her underwear won't show. It makes making skirts take a lot longer but I think it is totally worth it.

Another T-shirt

My 35th complete sewing project for 2008!


Not much to say about it. I think this is the last t-shirt I am making for the summer for Autumn, I am getting close to the end of the summer clothes project.

Play Dress

My 34th complete sewing project for 2008!



My very girly 4 year old daugher loves dresses. So I decided she needs a couple of play dresses, that are fine to get mud on and everything. This fabric is some more from my Grandma's basement that I have been holding on to for a couple of years. Autumn LOVES the dress, and really wanted me to finish it before she had to go to preschool today, so we finished it up and were only a few minutes late. I have one more play dress that I am still making for her. I am really excited about it, it is fabic that I bought 4 years ago to make her a summer outfit for the following summer.


Here is Autumn before preschool. She was really proud of her outfit, and that she then picked out the flip flops that matched, and she wore two headbands, a white one and a turquoise one, so everything matched.

More Summer Clothes

My 30th, 31st, 32nd, and 33rd complete sewing projects for 2008!

The froggy shorts (Autumn is very excited about these, because I have a pair out of the same fabric that I made 6 years ago right after I got married. I usually wear mine to bed during the summer, but she loves having matching clothes).


The Green Shirt. I made a nice button up shirt for myself out of this fabric, and the pattern called for way too much fabric, I had tons left over, enough to make her this shirt and there is still enough to probably make a small baby outfit for sometime in the future.


This shirt was made from scraps from the quilt that I finished for Jennie and Janardan for Christmas. I love this fabric, I wish there was enough to make me a shirt too.


Just a plain 'ol black t-shirt, but a great thing to have when Autumn's favorite thing lately has been making mud pies. An interesting side note is that 2 years ago Ben and I had practically no money and I was worried about what I was going to do for Autumn for summer clothes, and I found this whole box of t-shirt fabric in my Grandma's basement, that has passed away. It was such a blessing, and I still have fabric leftover from that box, this t-shirt is an example.



Spring is definitely here, and I feel confident that it is going to stay. I am trying to finish up the rest of Autumn's summer clothes by the end of this week. I still have 2 little dresses, 2 skirts and 2 shirts. Once I finish all those clothes, I really need to make her a couple of new swimsuits, so that will be next on the agenda because Seven Peaks is opening up soon. Well maybe before the swim suits will be a new dress for me because I have it all cut out, and we have a wedding to attend int 2 weeks, so I guess we will just have to see what happens.

Autumn wearing her new clothes

Mickey Mouse Wallhanging

My 29th complete project for 2008!



I finished this up for Prairie's birthday tomorrow, but this has been in the works for a while. I wanted to make her a wall hanging for her bedroom for before she was born, but never figured out exactly what I wanted to be in the wallhanging. When I did Autumn's nursery stuff, I did the sesame street characters and I had known even before she was conceived what was going to be in the wallhangings. For Prairie's bedroom, I just had a more difficult time deciding. I got the idea to do the Mickey Mouse Club logo over a year ago, and actually started this about a year ago. This has been just waiting to be quilted for over 6 months, so Prairie's birthday was the impetus I needed to complete it.














For historical purposes this is what Autumn's bedroom looked like when she came home from the hospital in November 2003. As you can see she has a Zoe and Grover wallhanging, and they are still in her bedroom.

Mickey Mouse Sheets

My 26th, 27th and 28th complete projects for 2008!



Prairie is moving into the bunk beds, and I wanted her to have some sheets that matched her bedroom decorations and not Autumn's. We have a bunch of sesame street sheets that fit a toddler bed, but I thought Prairie needed her own, and my mom was nice enough on one of her visits to buy this fabric for me. So I sew up her sheets so she can have Mickey mouse sheets.

picture take in Feb 2006

I don't have a good pictures of the quilts I made for Prairie before she was born. This is a picture of the quilt tops with other projects, so the quilts haven't been quilted at this point, but you can see that her bedroom stuff is navy blue mickey mouse.


This is a blue mickey mouse receiving blanket that I made for Prairie before she was born, and was used a lot, swaddling is amazing!


This is a picture of Prairie's crib all ready for her to use the day we got home from the hospital with her different mickey mouse & friends quilts.

Other Projects

the quilt made by my grandma

So in attempt to clean out my house, I decided I needed to whittle down my fabric stash. Though I am finding that some fabric scraps I am having a hard time letting go, like scraps from the girls carseats, or special dresses. So I decided to make sunbonnet sue quilts for special fabric scraps that I want to remember. Then whatever else is leftover, I will put into my charity quilts. I got the idea because my Grandma made one of those quilts for my mom when she got married.

a work in progress block with the scraps from Prairie's carseat cover

So I was working on making my blocks when my sister and her friend Jason were over at my house and I was saying that I couldn't do sunbonnet sue quilts for my sons (when and if I have them), but I still wanted to do memory quilts for them. So Jason, who just got accepted in the BYU animation program, drew a counterpart to sunbonnet sue, who Jennie and I name Mr. Lapels. So now I just need to have a boy so I will have a use for the pattern. Jennie then had the idea to do quilt blocks with sunbonnet sue and Mr. Lapels together.

This is the sketch of Mr. Lapels that Jason Kaleookalani Rivera did for me

So I am working on getting the fabric set aside for these blocks, so that I can cut up the rest and sew them up into my charity quilts.