Last month I got to participate in my very first Craftster meetup! We were each to bring a spring-themed craft to swap. I crocheted this cute little robin from this pattern (http://www.crochetme.com/media/p/90051.aspx). I made up the nest and eggs on my own.

My niece just turned 3 a couple of weeks ago!  When I asked my brother what kinds of things she likes now, he said anything to do with princesses. Every princess needs a pretty crown. 

I used two sheets of stiff felt and sewed them together using my machine's lone decorative stitch. Lots of pretty, shiny stick-on jewels, surrounded by glitter glue for a little extra oomph (I have small children; I know how destructive they can be).


On the back, put a length of elastic through a tube of fleece for easy-on, easy-off!


My daughters thought that it was so cool, they have now commissioned me to make them each a princess crown. Sure, why not. 

Here are my three most recent completed garments.

Floral print dress. Don't remember the pattern # off the top of my head, but I see it everywhere. I actually started this dress ohhh, three years ago. Two pregnancies later, I finally got around to finishing it. Problematic pattern, though -- it's very full in the front, which means... it makes me look pregnant.  The neckline is also very wide, so I had some issues with it sliding around. Haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with it. I think it would fit someone with a fuller chest than me.


Don't be fooled; I'm actually cinching it in on the back.



Fringed skirt. Again, don't know the pattern #. It was an eeeeeasy pattern, though. Identical front and back for the skirt + a waistband. Voila. The pattern goofed, though, and called for 12" too little of the fringe, so I had to go back to the fabric store for more. Good thing with fringe it all kind of blends together and you can't tell where one section ends and the next begins. Fabric is a blue-gray lightweight wool. I had a ton of it left after making my 1940s era jerkin a year or so ago.



Polka-dot Walkaway dress! I've had this pattern for years, but again, pregnancies delayed its incarnation. I did it in two days. Really not a difficult pattern, either. I was a bit nervous about putting on all that bias tape because usually I suck at stitch-in-the-ditch, but apparently all the planets were aligned correctly last night: I applied 8 yards of bias tape and didn't have to pull out my seam ripper once! That, my friends, is a victory. 




Thanks for looking. 
 

I gave myself nearly four weeks to get all these outfits done for Easter -- 6 days on each of the kids' outfits, and 6 days for a dress for me and some buffer days... But the night before Easter, I was still hammering in snaps on the baby's pants. lol So much for my plans. But I did get the kids' clothes done. Whew!



First is the little seersucker suit. It's a jacket and overalls.




The girls' dresses I made from the same pattern, in their favorite colors. I have such girly-girls; they loooved having new dresses to wear! I made the gloves around Christmas time.





After busting through those, I feel kinda lost now -- I don't know what to do with myself! lol Time to find a new project, but one without a deadline.

WOW! Everyone is getting their packages all at once and there is some super cool stuff in there! Can't comment on each of them individually, but I did enjoy looking at all the pics!

I received a great package from flower yesterday! Let me tell you, she packed this thing to the gills!

First, five gigantic dryer balls! I've got a couple of them thumping away in the dryer right now! It worked out awesome that Thursday is my laundry day, so I didn't have to wait too long to test them out!


Then, a sweet little felted coin purse, which I love! I'm so glad she made this because just the other day I had to practically turn my purse upside down at the checkout to try and get to my change and thought to myself that I was going to have to make one.


In this pic, you can see the color of the coin purse a little bit better. Also, a stack of flannel baby wipes in cute monkey fabric, and one of two felted soap savers! They look like they were made from a sweater sleeve, which is so cool!


Then my 2 yr old dd artfully displayed the shrinky dink garden stakes that flower had received in another swap but wasn't able to use. The girls are really excited about "putting pictures in the ground."  And I'm looking forward to knowing what the heck I planted in which row! lol


For a fun surprise, flower made up a whole bunch of really adorable little hair barrettes, which the girls wanted to wear right away. We use hair pretties on the 2 yr old all the time because for some crazy reason her hair grows straight over her face; we have to clip it back so that she can see!! lol Here she is modeling the barrettes that she chose to wear yesterday:


And fun for my baby boy (ok, so he isn't exactly aware of it, but fun for me ): flower generously passed on some baby clothes that she didn't need and also handpainted a couple of onesies. There's a bunch of really cute little things that I'm looking forward to dressing him in!


And then, in the continuing saga of the cracked egg book, flower wrote a sweet little note to my dd and sent the book back to her. She has been carrying around that letter ever since we opened the package yesterday; you really made her day! Thank you!


We all had so much fun going through that box and I've just about put everything to use already! Thank you soooo much, flower! I feel like I got the better end of the deal!

Grenouille78 sent me the most awesome package!  She also did some serious stalking! 

Grenouille78's little girl is so kind hearted.  She decided to send a much loved book about a chick hatching from an egg for my boys.  One problem...it's in french!     Grenouille78 didn't want to deceive her daughter or discourage her loving gesture, so she sent it.  I'm sending it back, as requested, with a thank you note.  Isn't she a wonderful little girl?  Grenouille78 must be a wonderful mommy.

Thank you, grenouille78, for all the lovely items.  I adore everything!

p.s. grenouille78, if you have better pictures, please feel free to post them.  I only have a cell phone camera and it stinks. 

Yay! I'm so glad you like it. I have to say, stalking is kinda fun. Aw, thanks for the sweet things you said about my little girl. I'll have to show her the picture of the book; she'll be so excited to know it got there!

Here are some other pics of the main swap items. Draft snake army! Although, the oil lamp in my pic is not the same one that I sent to Flower (I sent her prettier jars ); this was my prototype!



Those next two packages look great, too! Lots of cool fabrics.

I guess this is the best place to put these! I made them during our heat wave this past summer. I took craft sticks (a little bit longer and more slender than popsicle sticks) and measure up about an inch and a half from the bottom. I pressed a tack through to make a hole. Tried first gently tapping it, but the wood is so soft that it just split. But it wasn't too hard to press the tack through without any additional help. Then I took a head pin for jewelry making and poked it through all five sticks and twisted it back on itself. You could probably find brads made for this purpose, but I was going simple. With the sticks opened, I traced the shape for a template and used that to cut out my fan-making material. The first few I made out of wrapping paper. Just glued it straight to the sticks. Then I got a little more ambitious and decided to make one out of fabric. I used the same template, but added a little around the edges for seam allowance. Then I sewed channels for the ribs of the fan. The fabric isn't actually attached to the ribs in any way, but you would have to work at it to get it to slide off. The one on the left is the fabric one and the one on the right is wrapping paper.



These only took about a half an hour each to make. Super quick for cute results! After I did these ones, I decided to make a larger, nicer fan. I found some silk in the remnant bin at the fabric store and cut twelve inch sticks and... that was as far as I got. Our weather got cold again and I put it all away. lol I guess I'll get it out this summer.

This was a Christmas gift for my oldest niece! I got the idea from one of those free pattern flyers they have at Joanns. The pattern was written oddly, though, so I just ended up winging it. The pink gingham was a shirt I bought a couple years ago originally to make a cheytown dress out of for my dd. Never got around to it, obviously, but I think it ended up making a very sweet apron!

The Sunday before Christmas, my girls and the other children were going to sing "Away in a Manger" during the church service. DD #1 is a thumbsucker (much to my chagrin. If anyone has any good solutions, I'm open). Her teacher asked me if I could encourage her to sing without her thumb in her mouth. It's a constant battle around her, so I knew just telling her to keep her thumb out was not going to work. So I thought, what if they had pretty little gloves to wear with pretty Christmas dresses, make it a big occasion, y'know? So dh and I really hyped up the idea of wearing princess gloves and both girls were super excited about it. I bought a 1/4 yd of stretch lace fabric and found some glove-making tutorials online. I traced the girls' hands and then set to work. It took me four attempts to get a wearable glove. The first time, I cut the glove out with the stretch going the wrong way. The next two times I hadn't cut the fingers wide enough. Once I finally got the right size, make the rest was easy! I was super pleased with them and the girls were so happy to wear them. And there was no thumb-sucking during church! Win! (I didn't make their dresses. Just no time this year).

Or Nemo, as the rest of us know him.  DD#1 for some reason has always pronounced it with an L. Anyways, I saw this pattern in a crochet magazine (Crochet Today, I think?) this summer and just knew that it would be a big hit with my girls. I made them each one for Christmas. Ah, it was such a good feeling when they unwrapped their fishies -- they were soooo excited! Totally made my day! And every time I see them carrying their fish around the house it makes me all warm and fuzzy again.

I had never made anything like this before. All the color changes made me put it off until December, but then, it turns out that you never fasten off the other colors; you just keep them all attached until the very very end. Maybe other people already knew this, but it was like an epiphany for me!