Happy Easter!

I just came across photos of these fantastic fabric Easter eggs on Flickr and retro mama has been generous enough to post a tutorial on her blog. You must see these - so cute!

We're back from vacation to Disney World and had such a great time. With the warmer weather coming I'm sort of in the mood to clean my sewing room. Whether or not it will get done is another story!

Today I'm going to try out this ear warmer tutorial. Yep, I said ear warmers. The kids both have soccer games tomorrow and for some reason lately it's been really cold on Saturdays around here. Their league never cancels games and I don't want a repeat of the day we went to watch our kids play in weather that was 34 degrees with the wind chill. It was awful. So we'll see if I can get 3 pairs of ear warmers made today.

Car organizer

We have an upcoming car trip. A reaaaaalllly long car trip. I'd been meaning to make a set of these car organizers for some time, and there's nothing like a long trip to kick me into gear.

I used the tutorial as a guide but did the construction a bit differently. For once thing, I used my serger to finish the raw edges and then folded over, pressed, and stitched instead of the double folding of the hems. This was so that I could cut down on the bulk significantly. Also, instead of hemming first and then adding the pockets, I added them first and then hemmed the whole thing with all the layers together.

What I don't like is that mine isn't hanging very well. One reason is the car has a sort of plastic bar thing across the back for the passenger to hold on to when I take those crazy corners. Another reason I think is that my daughter put a bulky stuffed animal in one of the pockets. I think another tie or something about midway down wouldn't be a bad idea. The only thing is, the front of the seat is concave and I wonder if a tie across there would be annoying on my back as I'm driving.

Another thing I might do differently is round the corners at the top. Rounding the corners would need a bias binding for the edges instead of hemming. I wonder what that would look like. Hmm.

Does that Snow White doll scare anyone else?

Another play dress

I cut this one out at the same time as the Valentine play dress, hence the reason they're pretty much exactly the same. Saves time and energy even if it ends up being kind of boring. I find I tend to sew more things that will get worn on a regular basis and that are comfortable because I want my kids to wear what I make and I also don't like to iron very much. It seems like everything "fancy" I've made ends up hanging in the closet with only one or two wears and that makes me sad.

Valentine's Day dress

I needed some motivation to sew and Valentine's Day was it. I decided that I had just enough Chez Ami hearts fabric left to make the girl a cute little dress for her school's Valentine's Day activities.

The pattern I used has become quite the standby in our house, as it's easy and fast to make and the girl loves the style because it's so comfortable. Well, actually we only use the knit dress part of the Farbenmix Olivia pattern, and I often alter it a little bit with this time being no exception.



I made it into a curved bodice style instead of all one front piece. I also left off the hood and the pocket. I shortened the short sleeve a bit and finished the edges with binding instead of hemming. I used a size 110/116 cm here.

She woke up and was thrilled with her new little dress!

I have a son that can't seem to wear a pair of jeans more than 5 times without ripping holes in the knees. Everyone says that's just what little boys do. Well, long pants weather will be gone very soon. I really don't want to buy more jeans in his current size for him to only be able to wear them a few times before the colder weather is gone!

I wanted to find a way to patch his knees that was different. I came across this video tutorial on Etsy's handmade blog, The Storque, and I gave it a shot.

Here are my results.



What I like about this technique is that it allowed me to avoid hand sewing the patch on. His pant leg was just big enough to fit over the free arm of one of my machines (whew).

He wore the fixed up jeans to school today and hopefully he doesn't come home with a new rip!

The top 100 tutorials of 2008

The Long Thread blog has posted a great list of links to the top 100 tutorials for 2008. It contains everything from baby and kid items to things for the home. Definitely check it out when you're in need of some inspiration!