My son asked me to make him a stuffed paramecium.  This was a fun project that he helped me with.  We used fleece for the body and cut out the shapes from felt.  Sew on the shapes, add some pom-pom trim and voila!

I love quilts with little houses on them.  I saw this pattern for a mini-quilt in an old quilting book and fell in love with it.  It is about 9 inches square and uses bits of fabric that are no more than 1 inch square for most of the pieces.  This is my first attempt at foundation piecing, and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  You just have to pay attention when you are sewing the fabric to the paper to make sure everything is facing the correct way.

I used a bunch of my scraps for this and was able to use unique fabrics for almost every piece.  There are a few repeats, but I tried to make each piece different if I could.

I made these cute little "Bartlebys" and had to share them.  I love how they turned out.  I painted the face and the mouth was stitched in black thread.  I made the witch hats out of muslin, painted them black, and then blasted them in the microwave for about 20 seconds so they would dry out nice and crumpled (NOTE:  if you microwave them for more than that, the muslin with get burned and the hat will fall apart and fill your house with a smell worse than burned popcorn ).  The spider web cheese cloth that dipped in instant coffee to give it a vintage look.  The spider was button from Jo-Ann's.  All in all this was a fun project to make, and pretty easy - check out the latest issue of Create and Decorate for the directions.

My mom saw the child's version of this dress and wanted me to make an adult size for her (she is very petite, less than 5' tall, so kid's clothes don't look too crazy on her!).  I used the Pink Fig pattern and just upsized the bodice to fit my mom.  We kept the skirt the same length and width - since it was gathered, it would fit the larger bodice without a problem.  I shirred the back with elastic, but if I make another adult size, I will just add in a zipper to make the bodice more fitted.  My mom loves it and wants me to make myself one so we can match .  I probably will make some other variant on this, full skirts are not my thing!

I recently purchased Heather Bailey's Flutterby pattern and made Max the ladybug for my son.  Since this is a toy he is going to play with, I left off the legs and antenna (he would have pulled them off anyway).  My son also said he didn't want any pins in his .



I think he turned out pretty cute, but I am working on another that I plan to use as a pincushion. 

My Jo Morton club is having a block swap on Tuesday. We are supposed to make up 6″ blocks in Jo Morton fabric that we can swap with other club members. Mine is a fun block pattern called “Thrifty” that uses a selection of red, blue, and yellow fabrics. I played around with some other blues from my stash and ended up making four variations.

Which color variation do you like?

I have done a lot of quilting and made quite a few purses, but never made a dress before.  This was finished a few days ago and it turned out much better than I thought it would.  The McCall's pattern was pretty easy to follow - there was a bit of confusion when trying to sew the straps onto the halter top, but I just kept reading the directions and looking at the pictures until it clicked.  I used the scraps to make a matching hair tie.  A few people have asked where I bought the dress.  My standard reply is "this old thing?  I made it myself." .

I just finished these Christmas ornaments - a cute little snowman family.  These were all made in felted wool.  I plan to make more with different faces and different colors.  I like the little earmuffs on their son , it reminds me of my own family.

I have a fun tote made from Charm Squares, the problem is things always fall out in the car when I am using it.  I made another one, but I modified it by adding a zipper.  Now no more things fall out!   I used a charm pack and a few fat quarters so it had a nice scrappy look.  Fusible fleece was added to the exterior and lining fabrics so the tote holds its shape - things got a bit bulk from my sewing machine when I had to attach the zipper, so I might use a different combination of interfacing the next time I make one so it is lighter and less bulky.  Hope you enjoy it!

I just finished this cute little Dolphin by Melly and me for my son.  Her name is Dee Dee but my son calls her "Big Mama Whale."



I used some nice fourth of july fabric I had left over from last year and fleece for her eyes.  I ended up gluing on the eyes with fabric glue, as I forgot to sew them on when I was putting her together.

This is an easy and fun pattern to make - the whole thing took less than two hours.  A lot of kids I know will be getting one .