Sweet little Sundress for a sweet little girl.

I LOVE making stuff for Miss M. I will be so sad when she no longer wants me to make her things. Maybe that day will never come, but it is likely it will. My good machines are in the shop and I am sewing on my back machine. Which is not a great machine. It thread barfs a lot and has tension issues, but I powered through on this project and am taking a break until I get a smoother machine back.

This is my favorite little girl's dress pattern.
McCall's M5613.

It is sweet and little girly but also modern. Can be made in any fabric and is easy to fit and easy to sew.

I make view B and this one is the fifth one I have made.

I like to line the bodice, which makes it look nice and finished. Also helps to make sure the top is not see through if you have a thinner fabric.

I bought this pony fabric a while ago for Miss M and just did not get around to making her anything. Last week I had a little free time so I busted out my pattern stash and realized this would be perfect.

The horses are more upside down than I realized. I did not look at it too hard and thought they were a little more tossed than they really are.

However when M looks down at the dress the ponies look right to her, so it works. And she mentioned several times, I LOVE this dress. Which is really all that matters.

Of course since it is new she HAD to wear it today. And of course since it is a sundress it was only 46 this morning. Which is extra weird for GA this time of year.

But she made it work. She paired it with a florescent yellow cardigan, knee socks and sneakers.

Here she is testing out the pockets.

I have a fun sundress cut out for myself but I just can't sew it with this crappy machine. I am off to cut out some more fun projects so that when I get my machines (maybe just one will survive) I will have some fun projects just waiting to be sewn.

Happy Friday!! 

Upcoming Decatur Holiday Marketplace

Hey Peeps!

Hope you had a nice break full of food and family and maybe a little shopping. We had a great time up in the mountains of NC. We ate, and played and did a little shopping. Speaking of shopping.... do you have the Decatur Holiday Marketplace on your schedule? No? Well why not? Add it now it will be Friday December 7, 5:30 - 9:30 and Saturday December 8, 10 am - 8 pm.

They do offer one thing that the mall won't get you - an hour of FREE babysitting and crafting - from Color Wheel! Must sign up in advance!! So plan ahead peeps!

While your kiddo is crafting away for an hour come see me! Here is a sampling of what I will have there:

Fabric Napkins $12 - $16

Fun Tote Bags! $25 - $30.00

Re-Usable Lunch Sets - includes a snack bag, a sandwich bag and a napkin all for $12.00.

I will also have individual snack bags and sandwich bags! Mention this blog post at the Decatur Holiday Market and get 20% off your entire purchase! My booth only!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Hugs - Chrissy

Work, work, work......

I have to admit, I was a little bit lazy in January. Which I am now glad of because as the old saying goes, "when it rains, it pours!". And man has it been pouring. I will spare you all the sorted details.... for now. But in the midst of all my drama I managed to get some  work done. Here is a list that may or may not interest you but it makes me feel better to see it:

- New spring napkins over to Home Grown. You may be admiring my lovely new packaging. I am hoping these hold up a little better than the baker's twine. Also noticce how I have large and small napkins all matched up and pretty.

- My Etsy store back up and running. There are only a few things up right now but I plan to get more on there over the next couple of weeks.

- I am also working on re-organizing some things in my studio at home. And I am teaching more sewing lessons. While I really do not mind working and working hard I always look forward to January. It is always the one month that I feel no guilt about taking a break and re-assessing.

I spent a lot of January thinking and planning and buying supplies. Now it is time to put all those plans and thoughts into action. But of course many things are trying to get themselves in the way! It is what it is and I can only do what i can do!  Right?!?!

Did you notice Easter is crazy early this year? You think there is any chance my family will be getting new Easter clothes? A dress for M, a shirt for E and perhaps a little something for me? Well there is at least a chance this will happen. One of my resolutions this year was to make sewing fun again and not just a business. So we will see.

What have you been pondering so far for this year? Are you out of your January re-charge phase and back to work? Speaking of which I better get to gettin.

Peace Out - C

Where is November going?

How is it already the 9th of November? Wasn't it Halloween like yesterday-ish? Part of the problem for me is that I was in bed with this awful sore throat crap for like 3 days and have been about 75% myself since. But once I no longer had a fever, I was able to get tons of napkins packaged up and tagged so that I have something to drop off for the Paidea show next week.

I have close to 100 sets of napkins ready to go. But if you need to buy some in the mean time you can see up there in the right hand corner there is a link to my Etsy shop!

Sadly my good machine is still in the shop and needs about $150.00 in repairs. But it is worth it, I miss her. I tried to do some tote bags on my back up machine but just not happening. So I switched gears and finally made the proto-type of the pin-up boy stocking.

  

I am going to add my funny word bubbles and stuff to the next ones but I wanted to get the size and shape of the stocking right. Each one will feature a different one of the "boys". I am waiting on a fabric.com order, what is up with them lately? They used to be so fast. Now they are just a hot mess. I hope it improves because I don't know where the heck I would get stuff if I had to give up on them? Any way I have suiting and some other fun stuff coming so that I can make more pillows and stockings and other fun stuff with the boys. 

Hope to have my good machine back next week and get all this sewing for the shop done. Oh, and did I mention I am now Weekend Manager at HomeGrown! I am their first (and only) actual employee. Beth was getting sick of working on weekends and I needed a job so seems like it was meant to be.

Have a great weekend! 

Peace Out - C 

 

Halloween, Part 2

I was feeling SO grumpy yesterday that I actually considered just letting Eric take M trick or treating. But I eventually got over it and put on my Halloween gear and faked it til I made it. I am glad I did. We had a great time.

I am the Lorax! I Speak for the TREES!

The Lorax and the Onceler are buddies.

All the neighborhood kiddos.

Man this costume is hot. And can I eat some candy? And take a break?

Oh no! The Onceler skinned the Lorax!

Heading home with one of her favorite buds and Grammie!

After about 8 houses M decided that she had enough candy and that she just wanted to hang with her buds. So Eric (the best Dad around) carried her costume and her pumpkin. She escorted her best 3 year old bud until they were both exhausted. We called it a night around 6:45, what party animals!

Now that October is over November is all the sudden here!!! How did that happen? Man I have a ton of work to do.

Peace Out Peeps!
- C

Holy Crap on a Cracker it is cold!

Halloween in GA is usually a pretty safe bet that you will be sweating through your costume. However this year because of old Sandy we have been having bizarrely cold temps. I even busted out my UGGS. And they are ugly as heck, but I like to have warm feet so when it is actually cold I do wear them.

Since this weather caught us by surprise, the Divine Miss M did not have a warm jacket that fit at all. She was wearing sweatshirts and little hoody jackets and was just fine.

A couple of years ago I bought 10 yards of this love bird fleece that I fell in love with. And I also fell in love with this pattern McCalls M5743.

It is so easy to make and comes out crazy perfect, every time. I have made several changes to it and it is just so versatile that I use it over and over. My two older nieces and a few clients have all gotten love bird jackets from me.

M and I went shopping and the people at the store pissed me off. So instead of buying her a jacket we went home and I made her one.  I mean seriously you don't have a dressing room? What is that? The whole reason we came to the store is to try clothes on! If I wanted to buy a bunch of stuff and roll the dice as to whether it fit or not there is this thing call the internet and that is what it is for. And yes she could have tried on a jacket without a dressing room. But it was the principle of the thing! Ok back to making a cute jacket.

The only thing that has ever been a challenge with this pattern is the button holes. Apparently two layers of fleece is just a little too much for my machine. The pattern calls for three little buttons at the top. But M likes BIG buttons and lots of them so added more and spread them out. This handy little gadget lets you evenly space button holes without having to actually measure. And we all know how much I do not like actually measuring anything.

My machine was ok on the first 3 button holes. But it just gave up on me in the end. I had to do my own tight zig zag stitch and fake the last 2 holes. They actually came out looking better. So next time I make this coat (and we all know there will be a next time) I will just make faker button holes. Basically I make my machine go through the steps of a 4 step button holer even though it does the fancy automatic ones. Next machine I buy will have an old fashion 4 step button holer! Fancier is not always better. See how you put the button in the back of the foot and it measures it for you and everything. Well it is all good in theory but that foot gets hung up on think fabric really easily.

I got the jacket done (from start to finish in about 3 hours) and M was kind enough to model it for me.

 This is what you get when you ask a 5 year old to smile.

Hope you guys have a safe warm Halloween! I am trying to get my Halloween Spirit on so I hope to have some good pics for you tomorrow.

Peace Out - C