Cool beach gear...

Dillon left this morning for the beach with my parents, and I made him a beach bag and muscle tee to take along. :)


The blue on the front is a scrapbook patch from me&my BIG ideas. I love using sb materials in my sewing.


And the elastic on the neck and arm holes is a cute stripe that matches perfectly, here's a closeup, and a sneak peak at Lucas's almost-matching shirt:

Sewing for Svea: modelled

She's such a cutie, here she is modelling the hoodie, pants, and sweets top that I made for her 5th birthday:

For Hannah, part two

This was supposed to be gifted to Hannah this past Friday, but their plans changed and we weren't able to meet up with them before they left for WI. However, I'll be shipping this out to her as soon as they arrive at their new house.

The bag:


The contents:


All packed up:


Dillon really liked the colored pencil roll, so much that I'm going to make one for him, for his trip to NC with my parents next week. Hmm, maybe I should get started on that soon. :)

Sewing for Svea...

Svea, my friend Amber's DD, will be 5 on Friday. My fave little girl to sew for :heart: I should really do it more often.

KS hoodie from fabric.com pink FT:


Sweatpants and bell-sleeved swing top from Ottobre, pink FT and sweets knit:


I had Lucas try the pants on, so I could see if I could mod the pattern to make them for him, and see if they were "boy" enough for him (the pattern was meant for girls, and the smallest size is 2 up from his current pant size), and they are too big and too long, so I really hope they fit Svea, who isn't that much bigger than Luke. But the good news is that I can mod the pattern for him, and he thinks he neesd pink pants to match his friend. I said "how about orange?"

Cute little things...

Ever since he made little Halloween gift bags last fall, Dillon has been after me to find neat little things that he can make. After seeing the snugbug tissue holder that I made for Hannah (the one that holds bubblegum, lol), he decided that would be good. We cut 3 out in various sizes, one is just as the sewalong specifies, one is a bit narrower (leftover strip after cutting out quilt sqaures, just used what we had), and one is 2 inches wider, and I added 1" of length to each section to make it bigger. The black (motorcycles) and blue (ocean life, from the ocean/beach quilt swap at AW) worked out great, so we put snaps on them. He refused to sew the pink one (although he did iron and fold it with me), but when I sewed it up and flipped it, I realized that I didn't add enough length in one section, so the flap didn't fold all the way down, it only cam halfway. Wracked my brain on how to make it useable as it was, and decided to put eyelets in the top corners and string thin ribbon thorugh it. I tied it around the headrest of the passenger seat in my car, and it works great for holding CDs, and the smaller pocket has my Rita's card in it, lol.







TFL!!

Productive

After I got the moaning and groaning out of my system, I made a sweets shirt and pink FT hoodies for a very *sweet* little girl who has a 5th birthday coming up. Made the matching FT pants a few days ago. Haven't gotten pics yet, will try to get them up tomorrow, we'll see. But hey, see, whining can be productive, LOL!

Where I whine and ramble

I need to get some sewing done, but I'm just not feeling motivated...and you'd think that the mounds of fabric taking up space in my tiny house would be a motivator...but no, I like to look at them. What I need to do is stop buying more fabric, and stop trading for fabric. It's bad, I tell you. Hello, my name is Jessica, and I'm a certified fabric collecting junkie. Stash Game is coming up, starts next Saturday. That's when the girls on the sewing board sew as much as they can during a 4 week time period, making everything from fabric/notions that they already have. You get positive points for sewing "from stash", and negative points for buying, i.e. adding to the stash. It's been a really great motivator for me in the past, and I'm looking forward to it again (we do it 2x a year, usually Feb and Aug), but I feel like I just have no time anymore, as much as I want to, I am just too beat when we get home in the evening to do anything, and I have to get to bed, so I can get up at 5:30 and start the whole thing over again.

OK, enough moaning, time to shower and get dressed and maybe sew.

Tshirts for Swap...

Here's my contribution to the Tshirt Swap, finally.

2 size 2T raglans, from KSFT:


Size 8 and 10 boys color blocked shirts, from 3/06 Ottobre:


Size 12 girls shirts, also from 3/06 Ottobre:

For Miss Hannah, part 1

This is a gift bag I'm working on for a friend's DD, they are moving cross-country in a few weeks, and this is something to help keep her occupied on the trip.

Part 1: Tissue holder made into a bubble gum holder, and a pencil roll filled with pens, pencils and colored pencils. Still working on the bag to hold these things and the rest of the stuff. :)

Swinging again

I finally got around to making myself a new bag. I've wanted to make a Swing Bag for me ever since I made one for my Mom in May. This is, again, heavily modified, as I shortened and narrowed the body piece, added pockets inside and out, added a mag snap and key loop, and squared the bottom of the bag. It turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I call the fabric Watermelon Stripe. The inner and outer pockets have ribbon at the top, the outer just to add more pink, and the inner for contrast so I can see where the pockets are.





I also made a matching key fob, but forgot to take a pic of it.

Now I need to get back to t-shirts for swap. :)

Shopping bags

These are made from leftover 4th of July fabric, and an online sewalong. They're just right to keep a stash of bags in the trunk of my car, to be pulled out when we hit the grocery store, Target, etc.

Birthday dress for Tori

My cousin will be 1 later in the month, so here's her bday gift. Ottobre baby dress from 2/05, but with gathered skirt, rather than tiered, Heather Ross pink/orange/brown stripes that I got in a fabric swap back in March. :)



Close-up of the stripes, because they're just so cute:

You'd think I don't own any other fabric

And I'm so darned tired of this snakes fabric! It's all my boys want me to sew with, or it certainly feels like it. Otto boxer briefs for Dillon, I mod'd their pattern to fit a size 128 heiney. :) And I fixed Dillon's snake shirt, just hemmed it up a bit. Oh so exciting, I know.



TFL.

I hate the way thi sturned out!

Dillon asked for a short-sleeved snake shirt. No problem, whip out the 2/05 curved raglan and get to work. It turned out 2-3 inches too long, I don't like the blue with the snakes (yes, it matches, but I guess my eye prefers contrast), and you can't see the curve of the sleeves from the front. What's up with that?



I'm going to shorten the hem, and make matching shorts and they can be PJs. Then I'm going to remake the shirt with orange interlock for the collar and sleeves, using the KS raglan pattern. I'm so tired of looking at this fabric, even though I really like it.

FOE and show

I can't really call this a sew n show, I hardly sewed at all. I use this flip-top chest as a seat when I'm at the machines, and when I'm wearing shorts, my legs stick to the vinyl top. Made a FOE-edged cover to put on it, and I think it tones the color down nicely, and it's removeable, as I didn't want to change it permanantly. You can see before pics here.



Close up of the fabric, I really like it:


TFL!

And now for something completely different!

(from 7/2006)
Well, not really, but if I'd titled this post "More Ottobre tanks for the boys", you wouldn't have opened it, LOL!

The one on the right is for Lucas, it's got a "Stars & Stripes" woven scrapbook label from JA's on it. The left one has a sewed-on football patch, it was actually my first attempt at Lucas's shirt, but then I realized I'd used the wrong size.

And Dillon's red/black at last. Looked so boring I had to jazz it up a little with the soccer ball.

Oh, and the little tags say "Teenie Weenie". :)

Steering wheel covers

(from 7/2006)
I have been wanting to give this idea a try for a while now, and just got around to doing it today. I like the way this steering wheel cover turned out, and that I got to use this fabric at last, it's really cute. It jazzes up my boring gray car interior very nicely.

And here's the second one I made, just constructed it a bit differently.

I wrote a SewAlong for this project for my sewing moms group, if you're interested in seeing it, just let me know.

Tank for Dillon

(from 7/2006)
At last, a tank for Dillon. Finally got around to tracing off the pattern and diving in. He picked out this American flag last week, and begged me to make him something with it. I thought he might wear this on Tuesday, since I've completely misplaced the Old Navy flag tees I bought for both boys back in May.

I think he likes it!

Revisiting the dress factory

(from 6/2006)
A few more dresses, custom made for the daughters of some online friends.

Gathered skirt in Batik Stars

Circle skirt in Batik Stars

Gathered skirt in sparkling stripes

For Kallan

(from 6/2006)
Cute little tank that I made today for the DS of a sewing mama friend who is moving to Italy. They are in MD this week, awaiting their military flight overseas, and we got to hang out with them today. I have another in the works for her older DS, but machines were conspiring against me finishing it.