Been a Busy Month

Been a crazy month, with K’s birthday, K’s first dance recital, being not only a paper cutting test cutter but also a sewing pattern tester, and Christmas, it’s been non-stop go go go here.  I am unable to show off the test cuts or the sewing pattern testing I have done yet, but I will post them once I get the ok from both designers.
Here are some of the photos of crafts from K’s party. We had an Under The Sea theme.

Treat bags

Cupcakes

Party Hat

Fish Net

Made some Christmas Subway Art to hang up on my wall.

 

Christmas Cards I made for the family.

I decorated K’s door with streamers for her to run through in the morning when she woke up on her birthday.  She was all sorts of confused and called for us to get her out when she woke up.  I plan on running and getting some red and green streamers to do for Christmas morning too.


I really wish I could share my test cuts and pattern testing dress I made, the dress is a definite one that will have several made for her throughout the years.  I love it!!  But soon enough, she is still testing out size fittings for the other sizes, hopefully it will be fairly quickly.

Halloween Skirt for K

Tonight I did up a skirt for K for Halloween.  I was going to do a dress, but I couldn’t decide on the style I wanted to make, and since I had bought a cute ribcage with candy pieces shirt for her, I figured I would just make a skirt to wear with it.  I ended up doing just a simple skirt with ruffle.

Knit Ruffle Dress

I got K’s new dress made. This is the first garment I have made using knit fabric.  I usually use cotton.  Last time I worked with knit I hated it!!  It is so stretchy and always bunched on me in the machine, so I dreaded working with it.  I found a pattern though that K just loved, she literally would walk around hugging the pattern package, so I knew I had to overcome my hate for knit and attempt to make it for her.  I got a suggestion from a friend to buy a walking foot, and I have to say it was definitely a godsend!  Worked like a dream.  Knit, you are again my friend, well except for cutting you! 

The pattern I used was the dress from New Look 6961.  I didn’t put the applique on it, only cause I don’t want to do that in knit because of my fear of it going all crazy bunchy on me, and I didn’t have the right interfacing to attach to it.  I am not completely happy with it, I think either the bottom ruffle needs to be shortened, or the middle ruffle needs to be a bit longer, it just looks off to me.  Also not fond of the material I used for the bottom ruffle. I am thinking of cutting off that fabric and attaching more of the plaid fabric or maybe I will pick up some yellow for that layer, if I can get it off of K that is…she wore it Sunday, I washed it that night after she was in bed so she could wear it again today (Monday) for school, and she still insisted on wearing it to bed tonight too.  I think she really likes it, hehe.

Thoughts On My Mind

I had a friend recently participate in a fabric charm swap, and it got me thinking of wanting to do one as well, but I can never seem to get into one on time before they fill up.  So it got me thinking, well maybe I will just host one here.  My only concern with that is, I don’t think I have the right following base to host a fabric swap, I believe most of my followers are paper crafters instead of fabric crafters.  So I got this bright idea, what about a paper charm swap?  Doing 6”x6” charms, we could get 4 out of each sheet of paper, or going 4”x4” charms we could get 9 out of each sheet.   What do you guys think? Would you be more interested in doing a fabric swap or a paper swap? Depending on how much interest I have in it, will determine the amount of sheets or yardage of fabric you will need to send.  Please leave some feedback and let me know what you all think. Would you like to participate in either of these types of swaps?

On a side note, I am working on a couple sewing projects, so look for those updates and photos in the next week or so.

 

Edited to add in a brief description as to what a "charm" is:

When you do a fabric charm swap, it is a precut piece of fabric normally in a 5”x5” square, and each person would get 2 or more of each fabric submitted, depending on the number of participants. Every person will receive back what everyone else submitted, and they would use those pieces to create an item, and then submit a photo of the item created using each piece/pattern. In the case of a paper charm swap, I would have everyone send me their sheets of paper along with a SASE, I would do either a 6x6 or a 4x4 precut charm and then I would send those stacks out to all participants in said SASE.