I've been dying to try the twirly skirt tutorial http://houseonhillroad.typepad.com/photos/twirly_skirt/ Finally got on that this week.




In the first one I copied a shirt that vegbee posted awhile back. I had to add side panels because my first shot turned out just a little more revealing than I would have liked. But now I have a good prototype and I was able to copy the shirt to paper so I'll have a quick pattern for next time.

I bought the shirt for the second one, but I put the appliques on myself. They kind of suck because my machine is stupid and doesn't have a satin stitch so I have to make due with the zig zag.

She calls them her "skaters". I play roller derby and one of the teams wears gingham tutus so I guess that's where that came from.

The last one is a rostitchery pillowcase-style dress:
 
I put butterfly buttons on the top near the elastic because I did a REALLY bad job getting the elastic sewn in and the bias tape attatched neatly. Now all I've got to do is sew on the eyelet and I'll be done! Woo hoo.

Holy mother of god - this dress sucked big time! I really wanted to pitch it in the trash at one point, but I get kind of stubborn and it was going to be finished or I'd kill myself trying. Seriously - it was a McCall's Easy Stitch and Save (M5370) but I just had to make it harder on myself!!

I've mentioned before how much I really, really hate to gather. So I thought I'd get all sneaky and gather the tiers with elastic thread. Not such a brilliant idea. The top tier went on just fine, the second and third tiers required me to enlist an extra 2 and then an extra 4 hands so I could get it pinned evenly. And it doesn't really hang/twirl like it should. But dang it, it's finished!!

No action shots because my little model was super cranky. And as it turns out, it's way too long for her and a big in the bodice as well. I'm just packing it up for next year because there is NO WAY I'm pulling it apart to shorten all the tiers. I don't want to just pull the hem up more because I want the tiers to all have the same proportions.

I was 100% exasperated after my "easy" mc calls project - even if it was my fault that it became hard - and so I decided to whip up one of cheytown's button down to dress dresses...

Much easier, much faster and MUCH cuter! It only took me the morning yesterday. She wore it to the airport to go pick up my folks and seriously, about 5 different people asked me where I got it.
Cheytown, you rock and I am going to make many more of these dresses!

I made this Saturday night in about 2 hours. The top was a New Look pattern dress that only has 4 pieces. And the pants are a pj pant pattern that I just sewed cylinders of scrap fabric from the top onto the hems with elastic thread (MY NEW LOVE!!!! More of that coming soon. Seriously, I think I'm going to build a shrine to the stuff.)



Hooray for fast and easy! And elastic thread!

...but gather I did for the bunny's newest dress - it's New Look 6689:




I didn't get the edge of the ruffle all the way up to the top of the button-y part, but no way was I going to rip up the whole thing just for that. Maybe I'll try the pattern again using elastic thread to sew up the ruffle piece. Aside from the ruffling/gathering mess, this dress came together in no time flat.

I know they're not technically clothes, but whatever.

Anyone have any good hints at how to make the "boutique bows"?

It feels like something I ought to be able to figure out on my own - and I have made some - but they don't turn out like the ones you see on ebay and such.

I even went so far as to buy a pdf instruction set once. The chicks first word of advice was to buy an EZ bow maker. THAT p*ssed me off enormously. "Hey, thanks for your $9.95! Now go spend another $10 so you can make the bows I said I could teach you to make!!".

Grrrrrr.

I also don't want to spend the $$ again because I just want to whip up some basic bows. I don't need/want to know how to make those gigantic, layered things that make kids look like potted plants or like a ribbon monster is trying to eat their head. 

No offense, of course, to anyone who does like that kind. The bunny and I just aren't frilly, girly-girls.

I made this yesterday in no time flat. I'm a self-taught sewer so I never knew you could get a hem to curl until I saw vegbee's tutorial.

I took an old t-shirt of mine gave it a few snips, made a casing, ruffled the hem, tacked on some ties and voila:

Front:


Back:


I have 5 t's ready to go for similar tops. Yay.

So I made two batches of soap crayons. They actually came out really well. Unfortunately, while Ivory soap is "99.7% pure", it's not Johnson's No More Tears and once the soap hits the water, my toddler would get it in her eyes which lead to all sorts of screaming, crying and guilty feelings on my part.

Now I have a great big bowl of grated Ivory soap - at least 12 bars worth as I was going to make the soap crayons to give as Christmas gifts to her little playgroup friends, now I'm obviously not going to do that. Any ideas of what I should do with it? I hate the thought of pitching it, but it's been sitting on my kitchen counter, taking up space for almost two months now.

Anyone have any ideas or sources? I've been wading through the ususal suspects and I'm not finding anything that doesn't make me want to puke. And why do they put the maternity stuff with the pjs? I'm looking for mostly easy kind of stuff - a line skirts and the like - I thought about just making bigger ones, but after awhile the front and the back hems get messed up as your belly goes out.

Hi all! I've been lurking for awhile and love all the great ideas ya'll have - but now I have a problem of my own.

I'm putting together some hinged boxes and purses and I can't find latches, specificaly, non-brass latches, anywhere. I've hit JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby. I looked on eBay. I've been searching google. I'm ready to pull my hair out because I've got some really kick-a** fabrics to use and I want to start them! Anybody know a good place to look? Or if not do you have some suggestions about closure options aside from latches?

I've thought of rigging up some kind of bead-like toggle clasp, but I'm really kind of got my heart set on silver-colored latches.