My daughter made Butterick Retro '52 pattern 4918 for the winter formal at her school.  Here she is with her brother before the dance.

I helped with cutting and pinning, but she did all of the sewing including the intimidating (to me) zipper.  (I sewed the wrap though... she spent two hours doing her friends hair, so she didn't have time.) 

Her friends said she should make the dress mauve like on the pattern envelope, but she's so pale we were afraid she'd really look washed out. 

Thumbnails if you're interested in how much fabric went into the skirt.  (yes, she was being silly and wearing a tutu over her jeans)


before gathering


And just 'cause you might want to see her silly extra stays mustache...

Sorry if this is too off topic; mods feel free to delete...

I have a friend who needs help "Keeping the Faith" and I need help matching some music and crafts.  One idea I have is to embroider a pillow case (for sweet dreams) - with the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" or Louis Armstrong's "A Kiss to Build a Dream On"

I actually have more song ideas than craft ideas, so if you have suggestions for that too...

Here are the songs I'm thinking of:

"What a Wonderful World"   Louis Armstrong and/or the Ramones
"As I Lay Me Down"   Sophie B. Hawkins
"Have a Little Faith in Me"   John Hiatt

My daughter helped me pick out these fabrics - the first one she picked was the border. 



I'm not crazy about the green sashing, but I love the stripes, even though I wanted them to be vertical and they came out horizontal.  (I know - I could rotate the whole quilt 90 degrees, but I like the bigger blocks best this way.) 

I was pretty happy that it was my first quilt and there's only one really visible "floater."  The yellow in the striped fabric looks like a stalk of wheat, so I think I'll try a stitch to mimic that when I quilt it. 

I made this stencil from a picture of my daughter for her birthday.  She said, "It's cute.  It's me!" but I'm not all that happy with it. 



I don't know if it was just because there was so much more paint on it, but I'm much happier with this stencil I made for my son. 



Do any of you experienced stencilers have any advice? 

Mods, please feel free to delete this if it's inappropriate. 

I've been reluctant to pay for the reusable bags at the grocery store, 'cause I don't feel like paying for their ads, but...

Here's a chance for MN residents to get a free reusable bag without any store logo!  Of course there's a catch... you have to fill out a short survey.  It took me less than two minutes, so I thought it was worth it. 

Here's the link: http://www.reduce.org/bags

I just saw a commercial for something called a Crayola Cutter.  Does anyone have one?  It's designed for kids and it says it works by perforating, not slicing.  What do you think?  Crayola Cutter

Does anyone know a safe, inexpensive adhesive to temporarily stick things to skin?  My daughter wants to have temporary glitter tatoos at her (12th) birthday party and I'm hoping I can just buy some crystals and make some kind of glue instead of buying a sheet of tattoos.  (You know one sheet will have a heart, a flower, a star and a couple other things, but all her friends will want hearts, right?)   

Since I had a deadline (Mother's Day), I finally have a finished project to post.    Here's what I think of as the inside:



And here's the reverse:



I had the floral fabric for a while ($2/yd at WalMart!) and I was disproportionately tickled to find a matching blue at JoAnn's.  I thought the blue looked a little plain though, so I made my first applique ever.  It was a lot harder to do than I thought it was going to be.  (I think it would have been easier if I had a walking foot? or if I wasn't trying to make it act like a pocket.)  The pocket on the ouside is too shallow for much more than a pack of gum, but c'est la vie.  I made the straps extra long because my mom and I have long forearms and hate it when we can't easily slip handles over our shoulders!  It's not great, but I'm happy with it and it'll be perfect for my mom.  She always carries waaay too much stuff around in ugly old WalMart bags!