She Hath Fix-ed It

You may remember a very short time ago I posted that I had finally set up my Etsy shop, and I felt rather apathetic, er, overwhelmed. At a loss as to how to do the graphic design/photography aspects of this whole idea, I called up my Very Good friend Shari, and said,"helllllllp!!!"

So she did.

Reaaaallly. No REALLY. Like, I think at this point she may have put more work into my shop than *I* have! Shari has ridiculous photography talent and technical know-how, and that is why I am so honored to have these pictures of my creations!! Wow, just wow. Let me share:

Anyone else smell the apple and pumpkin pie with in this shot?? Thannnnnnksgiving....mmm....

Not going to lie, kind of happy about these butt shots. Um, who wants her butt to look bad? Not me, my friends.

(Incidentally, my irreverent husband calls these aprons, "the ones where you're not supposed to wear anything underneath.")

Just gonna let that sit...

Whoa, and on a completely different subject: kids aprons! Wait, I think I need more white space...

...

...

Okay, I'm good now. Um, how adorable is her little daughter modeling these kiddo versions? I love her "popped" foot and her pink Chucks!

Up close the mini-aprons are just like Mommy's. :)

Having visited my rather overstocked sewing room, Shari knows a thing or two regarding how passionate I feel about fabric. Specifically, I want to make love to piles and piles of beautiful fabric, dive into it, smell it, stare at it. I have a love-love relationship with it. I will only accept the best, quality and print-wise. *sniiiiiiff* Fabrique!

So, in the interest of taking fabric pictures "for custom orders", she took several shots of various piles of my fabric. *ahem* Yeah...these are for custom orders. Not for whipping me up into a frenzy of fabric lust. *cough* Nooooooo. Strictly busnaz.

These are all Christmas prints from a recent Fabric.com order. I got a great deal on them, as they were all on sale, and then I had an additional coupon code. Regular prices per yard for premium quilting cotton, as you may know, usually run ~$10 a yard. So happy that Fabric.com and Hawthorne Threads are always hooking me up so I can enjoy my favorite habit without having to pay full price every time. :)

Incidentally, these prints are mostly from Robert Kaufman and Alexander Henry, and they make me feel all Christmasy giddy inside.

These are some vintage Joann's prints. A while back they decided to jump on the whole Japanese novelty print bandwagon and came out with a few Japanese-inspired whimsy prints of their own. I gobbled these two up, but sadly my daughter is not so much into prints like this. Princess or fairies or flowers or bust, she says. Oh, she is so hard to please! :p~

Recognize these? Leftover scraps from the Glam Garden dress I made for my daughter's 1st day of school. Still completely gaga over this line. I don't have enough for anything big, but I figured I'd put them out there for some of my checkbook covers and wallets. At the very least, I am making something for me! :)

I am all about these saturated blue/turquoise prints lately; these are from two different designers. The top one is from Tina Givens' Fairy Tip Toes line, and the two down from that are from Jennifer Paginelli's Flower Power. These two lines are printed on the most amazing, luxurious quilting cotton. It is perfect for more structured items like aprons, and wears so wonderfully. The quality honestly spoils me when I am working assembly line, because it puts even some of the other premium quilting cottons I use to shame!

More of Tina Givens' Fairy Tip Toes. I am amazed at how she makes these rather different colors work together all in one line. Combining brights and pastels is no easy feat. Sooo beautiful--I can't wait to sew them into girly-girly-ness, whether it be some of my aprons, other kitchen items, or maybe a little girls' dress??

Speaking of clothes, YES, I am still sewing those. My kids need pajamas like they're naked (they aren't, actually, but you get the idea), and I still have those freaking Michael Miller knits calling my name very, very loudly. With two craft fairs under my belt in the last few weeks, I haven't had time to clothe my own kids, so I hope to remedy that a bit this week.

Until next time!

Lil' Kingdom Apron

I felt really guilty about sewing so much lately and, well, not sewing so much for my own kids. Like, reaaaaaallly guilty. Hello, my beautiful daughter is pretty much one of the main reasons I DO sew. Putting handmade clothes, made by my own loving hands, on my kids is 1000x better than clothes from any store. It is a serious sewing-crack high, I'm tellin' ya.

DD has noticed me up in my sewing room (duh!) these past few weeks and taken to spreading out all of the patterns and magazines I have for HER stuff, just sort of hoping that I'd take the hint. "Mommy, is that one for me...?" Poor thing.

And so I finally took pity on her and made HER a custom-drafted mini-version of the adult aprons that I've been working on.

Fabric: Lil' Kingdom by Michael Miller. This fabric is TO DIE for. I always buy the good stuff when it comes to quilting cottons, but this particular line is just a cut above. It's thick and soft and crisp, and the colors really pop. It's just beautiful.

Pattern: Drafted by me.

She LOVED her apron. I even convinced her to wear jeans with it. (She usually refuses to wear any kind of pants, insisting that she can't, "sit criss cross apple sauce," when wearing them. Child has a boo-tay.)

Okay, fine. I had to bribe her with chocolate AND the apron in order to get her to wear the jeans. Sheesh.

Beautiful top stitched crisp apron-ness. :)

I really wanted to make sure this apron was appropriately child-like, yet still a scaled down version of my rather sexy adult aprons. I think I succeeded?? I have mad requests from friends and family who want copies of it...luckily I did have enough fabric to make several more. I put one up in my Etsy shop, which is now live!

Yeah, the Etsy shop is live. Like, I dunno. Ooooooh, this selling thing is wigging me out! I have no idea what I'm doing; I am SO not a businessy person at this point. I am sure I must be doing everything completely wrong. And how silly am I to add this onto all the other holiday/traveling stuff I do this time of year??! Nuts. Srsly. Ah well, visit my shop if you feel like it. If not, that's okay, too. :/

(Best marketing line. Ever!)

Apronique

Erm.

Yeah. Have had a hard time gettin' up in the sewing room these months. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?! Am I ever happier than when I have glorious fabric feeding through my fingers and waving my magic wand at my sewing machine?? Staring upon my finished creations? Sharing them with you all so you can gum up your keyboards with drool? What better endorphin rush is there?

Wait. Don't answer that.

Suffice it to say, Sewing is, like, waaaaaaay up there. Yeah.

I am happy to report though, my friends, that inspiration has struck! I have been busy at my sewing room with a fever, makin' stuff like crazy & like it's nobody's business & like I have Satan breathing down my neck.

This sewing has and shall manifest itself in several ways:

1. A beautiful Cinderella dress for my daughter. OMG. I must blog this thing, but wah wah, I really botched the pics from our Disneyland trip. Must take new pics and then: drool-worthy blog post!

2. Gifts for family members, chillens, etc. You know "A Handmade Christmas" and all that shoot.

3. A FREAKIN' ETSY SHOP!!! Yes, Yes, YES! I will be selling some things. SOME things. We'll see how it goes. Like I said, inspiration has struck like crazy, and for some reason it has particularly settled in the make-20-aprons-but-what-shall-I-do-with-them area? Oh, sell them. Also, apron ornaments (srsly, I don't know. My muse is hungry or something and doesn't want to get anything on her dress), ummmm, wallets, and ummmm...maybe some other Christmas decs. This will be a way for those less sewing & fabric enabled to enjoy some of the fruits of my sewin' schwang. And who doesn't love sewin' schwang? I know I do. :)

Stay tuned for more posts and info in the next week!