Catching up

This past month has been interesting.

Instead of sewing internally, I sewed almost exclusively for others.

Some people paid me for my handmade items, some items I gave as gifts.

I did 2 craft fairs and sewed something like 40 items.

I blogged nothing, and these are all the pics I have. Hodge-podged from various iPhone snapshots and poorly lit 10pm bleary-eyed shots.

There were aprons.

(My beautiful friend Sarah modeling one of my cafe aprons AKA her new birthday present because she looked hot in it)

(Custom sea shell/beach theme apron, but this photo totally misrepresents the color, which is NOT yellow at all)

(Custom "purple" apron)

(Little thing I started doing on the inside waistbands)

There were various custom items, most of which were patterns or things I hadn't made before. Which was an experience. I am proud of myself for being brave about that.

(Wet bags lined with PUL)

(Open handle for snapping onto stroller)

(Added this as an extra to the shell apron)

(Custom Sleeping Beauty cape for a darling little girl)

(It's really not crooked)

(Princess Insa skirt)

(Her mom sent the blue fabric, as well as several yards of this pink camo she had meant to turn into blankets. So I did that, too.)

(Minky scarf for the same precious girl)

A few lucky people got presents. I only managed to get pics of these.

(Cozy knit double-sided blanket for my 2-month old nephew)

(Minky scarf for my 4 year old niece)

(I love this button)

My wonderful friend Shari took more pics of things I will be offering in my shop. They have been ready since before Christmas, but the holiday rush took over, and I haven't put them up yet. Something I will be remedying!

Oh! And I did sew pjs for my kids. The problem with handmade pjs is that your kids love them too much. They aren't off the machine long enough before the kids have grabbed them, and then those kids won't take them off. Or stand still for pictures because they're on a holiday/sugar high. Darn them.

I want to talk about my New Year's resolution, which is to sew all of my family's clothes for one year, but I think this post is long enough already. I have so much to say and so much to show that I am just bursting! Big sewing and blogging plans for this year, to say the least!

Love you guys for still reading this. Muah! :)

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!

Bon Voyage Emmaline

I am happy to report that I have successfully been sewing up my gobs of Bon Voyage fabric, just like I said I would. This is cause for celebration, because my sewing plans change constantly, and my whims can easily push a "must do!!" project out 6 months just like *that*.

This time I have made an apron for myself, which I am very proud of. Aprons are one of those utilitarian items that I love to make for other people, but I can just never bring myself to make for me. So this is definitely an accomplishment.

Pattern: Emmaline apron by Sew Liberated. It's lined! Excuse to use up more of this fabric! Annoying if you want to purchase new fabric for it!

Fabric: Bon Voyage fabric by Timeless Treasures. Pink bikes, pink Paris print, brown dots, and brown birds for trim.

I think this pattern would be flattering on lots of girls with, er, *girls* because of the nice bust gathers goin' on. As I don't have much of a chest, it just conceals the area, which is good. So basically, it's good for both the well- and anti-endowed.

Look, Ma! It's reversible! You can see the wind whipping it out a little bit. The skirt section is nice and wide, so it has great coverage and, again, is suitable for all shapes and sizes.

Yay, reversible topstitched goodness!

I accidentally centered the Eiffel Tower on this, go fig. I didn't have enough fabric to be super picky, but as fate would have it, it worked out. I am not one of those super anal matchy-matchy matchers (too impatient and lazy!), but I do try to line things up when I can.

P.S. My bodice is not crooked, but my picture is. Sewing skillz = adequate, photography skillz = suckage w/no patience to learn. C'est la vie!

I still have at least one more project out of this fabric, as well as some scrappy ideas for all the leftover odd bits, so stay tuned!

I made good aprons?

Sometimes I am so bad about checking my Flickr photostream. I will check it every day for a few weeks and get nada, then I'll forget to check it and when I come back I have a bunch of comments. It's sort of like waiting for a pot to boil, I guess.

Anyway, I happened to log on tonight, and I had two nice items waiting for me:

1. Some of the aprons that I made for gifts last year made it into a group called Aprons of the Year 2009. Check it out! I'm on the front page! Go me. What's funny about it is that I rarely make aprons. Maybe I should make more if I get this kind of positive feedback when I do? Here are the aprons (if you can't see very well, just click on the photos to see the larger image):





2. I had this awesome note from some nice lady from Holland named Marchien:

Hi,
I saw a lot of your flickr-photos today and I love your sewing. I'm on the Ottobre list and from the Netherlands. The clothes you made are so beautifully made. I read you are very enthousiastic about your coverstich machine? I'm considering buying one myself. Well, good luck with your sewing!
Greetings from Holland!
Marchien

How sweet is that?! And I LOVE Holland! I mean, I've never been there or anything, but if I could, I would totally go.

On a different note, I failed miserably at the stash game (big surprise), but I did sew a bunch of stuff. That I will post about soon. I promise.