The Prom

 The dress is complete, the hair is styled.

 Matching bow tie

 waiting for her date to arrive

Trying something new

My skill set is with the sewing machine and thread.  My oldest daughter is a very talented with yarn, but me, not so much. But sometimes a gal just has to pull out the crochet hook!  Twice a year my church holds general conference.   It is a fabulous two days of listening to the prophet and leaders of the church.  I LOOOOOOVE General Conference. I have eight hours over two days to listen and learn.  I have found that if I keep my hands busy with some fiber arts, I listen a lot better.  Makes no sense I know, but if I have yarn in my lap, I am hearing everything.  So in October and in April, I will pick up my hook.  My youngest is going off to college in a few short weeks.  She is going where there will be snow and cold, it will shock her poor little Texas body, so this time I decided to try my hand at a hat.
I am not a big yarn fan, so this is actually a repurposed t-shirt. I cut the t-shirt into 1 inch strips, connected all of my ends, pulled them tight and rolled the ball.  I then used a size N crochet hook. That was a first for me using one so big.  I'm thinking the cap turned out fine, considering I had no idea what I was doing, and just kind of made it up as I went along.  Oh yeah, I must have started over 4 times, so the pulled jersey is very forgiving.  The hat reminds me of a 1920's flapper.
Chances are this will end up in a drawer, or on the floor of her closet, but for a few minutes, I believe she will actually wear it!

The next prom dress redo

Ignore the track tan... I needed a real body as a model!

Another prom dress makeover.   This one was a little different, it not only was strapless, but had a big gap in the back also.  
So the solution was as follows:   I took some of the very full underskirt and made it a straighter skirt.  Using the cut off fabric, I pleated a piece of fabric that almost matched the pleats on the bodice.  I then used a piece of cotton underneath, sewing the pleats down fabric to facing.  The back shoulders were made the same, without the pleats.    I secured the pleats with hand sewing.  I used a basic wedge shape for the front and the back shoulder pieces.  


As for the open area in the back, I simply made a "boob tube" using the rest of the satin and flesh colored swim suit lining.  It is worn underneath the dress.

Prom 2012, modest remodel

Once again, we have found that prom dress designers do not make dresses that are not sleeveless or backless.  Is there a shortage of fabric in America?  What is the deal with dressing our daughters in a little fabric as possible??  Regardless, my sweet child spent all of 20 minutes shopping for her prom dress. Bless her heart, she is a girl who takes after her mother in the shopping department.  Ok, she actually gave it 10 minutes more that I was comfortable with.  Oh well!   So this is what happens when you add a shoulder seam and a double cross over cap sleeve.  I think it's going to work!

Dang those are blurry pictures!  I promise good ones on the night of the actual dance!

Three very happy ladies.  indulging in some shopping and project choosing.  It's quilt show time!

Wild Things

I had a request for a job a few weeks ago.  It was a job that needed to be done quickly, as she had an event that the aprons were needed for.  Her business is a custom designed scrapbooking thingie (I work in fabric, not paper, so it's out of my element).  The customer was wanting her logo to be appliquéd in animal prints and embroider her logo on a denim apron.  

Checking out the spacing

Example of the animal prints

The finished Apron

Close up of the ruffle on the pocket top

The Happy customer

 The appliqué turned out very clean and I really like the way the animal prints pop on the blue.  The ruffle was a little added to touch that appeases the girly-girl that lives inside this sharp woman.

I'm excited to do more applique, it's like coloring, except I get to use fabric instead of crayons.    

Me, Quilt Designer!

So I had this idea

I have become "that" woman, you know, the one you see at Walmart with the state flag of Texas on her purse.  And dangling from the holes in her ears.  I don't know how that happened.  I remember when we moved to Texas, I asked my new neighbor, who happened to be a native Texan what it was with everyone from Texas, do they really believe they are superior to those who live in the other 49 states??

She just looked at me and said "yes".  I remember rolling my eyes.

figuring out how it was going to work...

Fast forward 17 short years, and here I am, using the state flag of Texas as home decor.  Do people in other states decorate with their flag?  Or is it because Texas state flag is so awesome?? I mean I have never seen a "Utah" room, (Although I have seen an "Arizona" room, but I'm pretty sure that is code for indoor porch type room).  

choosing my fabrics

  I truly have been obsessing with this idea for months now.  I can't explain it, I just have a NEED to make a quilt with the Texas flag on  it.  And eat fine mexican food.  Which ironically enough is not necessarily found in Texas...personally my favorite mexican food is Sonoran style, made famous in Tucson Arizona.  Oh dang, I am distracted....

Cutting all my fabric into 2.5 x 6 inch strips.  24 of each

I decided to make a "quilt as you go" style quilt.  The thing is I have a fabulous embroidery machine, and I have absolutely no need to be fulfilled as a seamstress by hand quilting anything, so I designed this to be made with the embroidery machine, and then assembled with the sewing machine.

After the strips were ready, I assembled each square into a "split rail" design, being sure to rotate where each fabric landed in the squares (also know as OCD sewing)

This whole project just pops when pressing each step of the way.  I love how crisp it looks when pressed correctly.

the tools of the trade...

So now I have all my rail fence squares done, they measure 6 x 6.  I cut my backing pieces 8 x 10 so I had enough room to use the fast frames.

finding the center of my backing

 

using the fold and finger press method, I folded my pieces in half, both directions

then I used the marking pen to mark the center of the inside of the backing

now i'll be able to place my needle of the embroidery machine right where it needs to be

using the binder clips, attach to the fast frame.

the first thing to run on the embroidery machine is an outline stitch.  This is the size of my square after all the trimming and folding is complete.   So it's right at 6 inches.

Place the cut batting on top of the outline

place the split rail square on top of the batting

using my own stippling design, I made this stinkin' cute block.  Look close, it's a star and stripes design.
On the actual quilt, the stripes change directions every other square.

This is easier to see the stipple design.  

The finished quilt

close of of all 3 colors... notice the change of direction in the strips...very OCD

the star was made by using a freezer paper appliqué, attached with a blanket stitch.

another closeup

Momma always did say to sign your work....

How to embarrass your teenage daughter without hardly trying

the pioneer girl

I think her shoes are different from each other!

This is what I do instead of clean my house...

My entryway is now sporting a brand spanking new wall quilt.  What a joy this project was.  This was one of the projects that my sister and I bought last year at the Houston Quilt Show.  This was "we can't come back unless we finish at least one of the projects we spent money on this year" quilt.  It's a quilt-as-you-go by Prairie Sky Quilting.  This one is named "Easy Diamonds Quilt"  Being the OCD woman who likes to play with big machines, I converted the pattern into an 'in the hoop' project on my embroidery machine.  I can't really say how long it took, as real life gets in the way of what I really want to do in my sewing room. (That would be laundry and feeding my family)  I bought the fabric in January, I cut the pieces in April and have slowly put it together since then.  I highly recommend this quilt pattern company, the designs are fairly easy to assemble and lots of fun.

How the prom dress turned out

Yeah this should have been posted months ago, but you know "out of sight, out of mind".

The creation of A's prom dress began with 2 patterns circa 1959.  What fun to fit these two together.  Basically I took the bodice off one, and the skirt off the other, tweaked the mid section and re-drew the lines to put a cap sleeve on it.  The original had an off the shoulder flounce kind of thing (don't you love the precise technical terms?) Anyway, she accessorized with green stones and gold shoes.

More Summer Sewing

Today was a sewing day!  Yay!

Miss R arrived with one of her father's t-shirts in hand, and we got started on this very fun summer skirt.  The idea from this came from one of my friends who saw it on sewlikemymom.com  It turned out to be a very fun and doable project

Miss R is ready to start!

concentrating....

it all started with one of Dad's t-shirts

cute shirring on the waistband

playing with the fancy decorative stitches on the sewing machine

the finished project!

I'm thinking that the ease of this project will result in a lot of skirts this summer.  Basically we hand wound elastic thread onto the bobbin.  Then using a strait stitch with medium tension, we started at the top edge and continued around 7 times.  Tied the ends of the elastic in square knots and voila! it was done.    

Summer Sewing

Miss R and her finished project

close up of the surprise birthday present for her mom.

I love to be in my sewing room.  I love creating different crafts.  I have a friend "R" who also loves creating.  So this summer we are playing with all the fun tools and toys in my sewing room.  Lucky for me she has a working knowledge of the sewing machine, so we were able to start right away.  With my scraps, a rotary cutter, the iron and sewing machines, we whipped this up in a few hours.  She was especially thrilled with playing with the ruffler attachment.   Stay tuned to see what the rest of the summer brings.