A thank-you apron.

I needed to make a "thank-you" gift for a girl in my ward. Still thinking of my color scheme from the table runner (see previous post), this combo stood out to me.




This is the most simple apron design I make. I lay out one of my Williams-Sonoma aprons onto the fabric, then trace the outline. Once you have the basic shape, you can embellish as much or as little as you are in the mood for (or have the time for!). In this case, I used the pocket tutorial from Dana of Dana Made It. Of course, I enlarged the pocket since this is an adult apron, and I left out the buttons. Finally, I added a 6 inch ruffle at the bottom. I hemmed the bottom of the ruffle, and serged the top edge. Next, I sewed my gathering stitch, gathered it up, and top stitched to attach to the apron. Super simple, but adds a nice feminine touch, if I do say so myself.

I don't really think it needs anything else, but I'm having fun with it, so I'm trying to decide if I should make a flower to attach up by the neck straps. Cute? Yes? No?

Christmas sewing is OVER!!

On December 23rd when all of my Christmas sewing was finished, I finally decided to make myself the table runner that I've admired of Liz's. Loosely following the tutorial found on the Craftzine blog, here is the finished result:




Trying to compliment my black and white curtains, while using the last bit of scrapes of some of my favorite fabrics, I hope this runner will have a place in my dining room for many years still to come.

Thanks for the hot tip Liz. Loved the inspiration from that tutorial. I ended up making my rectangles the same dimensions of those in the tutorial, I just made more of them, so that my finished length was 78" long. Lots of long, straight sewing lines. Kind of boring to sew, but anything but boring to look at when it was finished!!

It's the simple things...

That make my day! I got new fabric in the mail. Too bad I'm heading out of town tomorrow for almost 3 weeks. I might just have to make room for fabric and patterns in my luggage. The Anna Maria Horner and Amy Butler on the left came from Annee in Korea. The other four I found at a closeout sale in an Etsy shop, Imagine Fabric.

Portable DVD Case

Grace and George got a portable DVD player from Grandma Blanche for Christmas. It should come in handy with all of our traveling in the next week. I felt it was necessary to spend my evening making a special quilted case for it!! I have no idea if there is a tutorial out there for something like this. I'm sure there is. However, I decided to do this one all on my own.

If I had it to do all over again, I would length the flap that folds over. However, I'd say for making it up as I went along, I did a pretty good job. I'm satisfied.

Why I love to sew.

Grace got a dollhouse for Christmas. She was playing with it when she discovered that the bed didn't come with a pillow. There was an urgency in her voice. "Mama, the bed needs a pillow."

No problem! I let her choose her own fabric, and then had her help me stuff it with *cloud* (what she calls batting).

Nothing makes me more happy then being able to use my sewing abilities to solve a crisis in my little girl's life!!

Boy Shirts

I love the Super Hero shirt, but I wasn't sure if a 9 year old would think it was cool, so I kept it really simple. These shirts are for Christmas, but both of John's nephews have birthdays close to Christmas, so they are birthday shirts for Christmas. Kill two birds with one stone?!

Teak is 9.

Riley is 6.

I 0riginally saw this idea on House on Hill Road and knew that someone needed a shirt like it. I figured boys don't get excited about cute fabric, so I played it safe with felt.

Teacher Gifts

Here I loosely followed the same tutorial that Liz used on her welcome basket dish towels. I tried orienting my patchwork stripe going vertically instead of horizontally. I'm still undecided which way I like best. Sorry about the bad pictures. As per usual, these were done very late at night, and wrapped up immediately, I'm lucky to have remembered to take a picture at all.

The little fabric labels were purchased on Etsy here. I love the addition of the little Christmas sayings. All in all a fairly simple project to give out as neighbor and teacher gifts this year. Paired each towel with a Bath and Body Works foaming hands soap, and I'm done!

Thanks for inviting me over!

I am so honored to be a part of Made on Maple! And to show my devotion and love to you Liz, I am emulating your t-shirt design for George's great 8th birthday this Saturday. I hope it will pass the "cool" test. And if it doesn't, surely it's cool enough to be a pajama shirt.

Thanks for the hot tip Liz. Commemorative birthday t-shirt now checked off the list! Sew sweet!

Sisterly Love

I got a package in the mail today. I opened the box and found these...

and immediately changed my pants because I was so excited to get such a sweet present.

Thank you Sew Sister. I love you!!

B is for...

BALENA

Or "bitchin'" as John described the pillow when I first show it to him.

I first saw this idea on my Sew Sister's blog and loved it.

Car Mat

George is getting cars and trains for Christmas. Trains come with tracks. His Aunt Sarah is making him a Car Cozy to hold the cars, but what are you supposed to drive them on??

A Car Mat

The Welcome Basket

This basket was originally inspired by a basket I found at Target after Thanksgiving. It was 50% off, and I picked it up because I just knew it would come in handy. As I drove home I started thinking about my girlfriend who just bought a house, and thought I should make a Welcome Basket. It was like a domino effect as I scrolled through countless bookmarks I'd saved just waiting for the opportunity to be sewn!

Patchwork Kitchen Towels

These are my new favorite gift to give. Super quick and super cute!

Patchwork Quilted Hot Pads

Fabric Coasters

Fancy Rubber Gloves

Tell me these don't make you want to clean!

And of course a Welcome Banner. Every home needs a welcome banner! The idea for the scallop banner came from Alicia Paulson's book Stitched In Time.

The Wreath

I saw this wreath by KnockKnocking, and thought how hard could it be to wrap yarn around a styrofoam wreath. 3 days, too many trips to Michael's and JoAnn's, 2 skeens of yarn, and lots of hours later I had a wreath. For the record, Agnes has some serious talent. This isn't as easy as I thought it would be!!

Parents like pictures

I always give pictures in frames, but this year I resolved to make all my gifts by hand.

For my Mom:

Picture Ornaments (pictures not included yet)

For my Dad:

A Grandkid Banner

For the Italian's parents:

A Grace and George Minky Throw Quilt