Who was that masked man?

The kids loved their capes. The oldest wasn't for sure if he was too old for it or not....unitl we got home. They've all been wearing their capes morning, noon and night. It's been nothing short of a superhero fest. Which makes all the agony of the sewing worth it. I think.

But next year, if I decide I must be creative and sew something for all the kids, I'm gonna start a whole lot earlier!

Sew Tired

So, they are finished. And so am I.Quite exhausted here, if I do say so myself.

The supercapes and masks were a little more intense than I anticipated. I think next time, I'll just buy them on etsy. No I won't, because I have this compulsion to do things myself. But I'll sure think long and hard about it.

For the boys capes, I appliqued with satin emblems and letters.

For the girls capes, I was wanting to do a princess crown in the background and thought the satin would be too tricky, so I used felt.

All in all, I think they turned out pretty cute. Just as long as you don't look too closely.

The necks were a nightmare. Sewing curves with satin is something that I am going to avoid at all costs in the future.

Well, I'm off to finish packing.

My sister and her family are flying in to Oklahoma tomorrow so the kids and I are headed up to see them, then drive to Missouri to visit Grandparents with them and my parents, then turn back around and head back to Oklahoma for our family Christmas next weekend. And yes, I know that was a run-on sentence. But that is how I feel this next week is going to be. So I'm keeping it.

Have a great week!

Crazy Sewing

So by request of Mrs. Troop, I am posting pictures of the baby quilt I made before Thanksgiving.

I wasn't for sure how it was going to turn out because I was using such an eclectic combination of fabrics.

I loved the colorful oval dot fabric and picked the rest of the fabrics to go with it. I was even able to incorporate some vintage popcorn chenille fabric which I adore.

I backed the quilt with a pink chenille and I think it turned out pretty cute. At least it is original and they won't find any others like it. So there's that.

And now I'm off to my next project. Superhero capes and masks for Christmas.

I need to have these done by next Monday and so far I've just got one mask and one cape done.

Wish me luck!

There's Nothing to See Here

I appreciate all the comments and e-mails requesting pictures.

But there is truly nothing to see here.

Just a flat grassy yard and lots of boxes.

But since it is pictures you want, I will show you what I have been doing while away from blogland.

I've mainly been unpacking boxes and trying to organize my home.

I helped my husband re-assemble this storage building.

And we only had one piece left over.

If you are considering moving a structure such as this anytime in the near future I would highly recommend using a Sharpie and using numbers and arrows to indicate which pieces go where and in what order.

It's not as intuitive as one might hope.

And here is my daylily collection .

I think they did just fine.

My parents drove down to help us move in and my dad and my husband planted all the daylilies the day before the movers came.

We couldn't have done it without them. We were just too worn out.

And then just because I didn't really feel like I had enough to do, I made my daughter a Minnie Mouse skirt to wear for her Birthday. It started out that she wanted a Minnie Mouse party. It is now that she wants to BE Minnie Mouse for her party. I saw one on Esty that was just adorable. I just couldn't bring myself to pay for it when I could probably sew one up for much less.

So I just did it.

In the midst of all the other chaos.

I made her a full circle skirt using Hancock's Minnie Mouse fabric and a poodle skirt pattern.

Which is really just true love because sewing with patterns gives me hives.

But she adores it! While I was cutting it out, she was sitting and watching and started making up a song that went.... "I love my mommy..... because she makes...... a Minnie Mouse skirt.....for my birthday...... She is so special..... She is so sweet........ she makes a skirt....... just for me....."

That right there made it totally worth it.

Now my problem is that my oldest mentioned to her that Minnie Mouse wears yellow shoes and white gloves. I told him thankyouverymuch for that. She now is hoping that she will get a pair of yellow dancing shoes as a Birthday present.

Anyone have an extra pair of yellow girls shoes in a size 10 1/2?

Crazy Quilting

So here it is.

The quilt I made for my nephew who should be arriving soon from Africa.

The crazy part came when I suddenly realized there was a baby shower the next weekend and I had not started on the quilt yet. My parents were in town so that helped because I was able to run to several different places to get fabrics that I thought would work. I actually bought all the materials on Saturday and had the quilt finished by about 11:45 Sunday Night. And I left the next morning for Dallas to look for houses with my husband. And I mailed the quilt from Dallas to one of the girls hosting the shower so it would be there
in time for the shower on Saturday.

Crazy.

I started out with about 12 different patterns and colors of material
all cut out in 7" squares and ended up using only about 7 of the patterns.
It is so hard to know what will actually flow together
until you get them all home.

I switched around all the pieces so many times to come up with the most pleasing pattern that I was seeing spots. I didn't want the pattern to be too uniform but I wanted it to be balanced somewhat. I seriously had a hard time with this one. So don't be critical. I did the best I could. I even got my mom and dad involved in the pattern scheme!

My sister-in-law mentioned she was going with blues and browns
as her colors so I just winged it and picked what I thought might work.

Even as I look at it now it think.....
I really should have put this one there and that one here.

I did a cute little top-stitch in brown and backed it with blue chenille.
And I purposefully did not line the squares up exactly
so it would have more of a home-made vintage feel.

Okay, so my intent was actually for them to all line up.

But I had chenille squares along with the cotton squares and
sometimes the chenille would just get too stretchy and then I
could not get them lined up for the life of me.

So I'm just going to go ahead and stick with the home-made vintage feel story.

I have this philosophy that presentation is half of the gift.
And I love to use satin ribbons when I can.
I think it really adds a lot of sweetness.

So I wrapped it up with the widest, bluest, satin ribbon I could find.

And there you have it!

Crazy Quilting!

(I hope he adores it and knows that his aunt loves him so much!)

(you can see how it looks in his adorable nursery here)

The Cowkids

So I know you are dying to see the cowboys and cowgirls from Christmas.

They were cute!

But difficult to photograph.

Yee Haw

Drum Roll Please....................

So here they are.

It doesn't look like much but I have a lot of time and energy wrapped up in these babies.

And yes, those are actual working pockets!

They really turned out well.... despite the over ambition...

They really took a lot more energy and talent than I had budgeted for.

Fortunately my creativity and critical thinking skills really

came in handy but my talent does not lie in sewing.

I enjoy sewing as long as everything goes according to plan

but when the fabric slips or needles don't work

or I have to start taking apart seams....

I start feeling a little over ambitious!

I'm really thinking that the chaps are

going to have to wait until next year.

I've got skillz I tell ya.

Mad skillz!

I don't know if you can tell but in the middle of all the stars are rivets.

That's right.

Genu-wine metal rivets.

The first one took me 10 MINUTES to put in. Seriously.

Now I can put them in so fast it would make your head spin.

Skillz.....that no one can take away from me.

On the girl vests there is fringe on the pocket.

That was a lot of extra love.

Now I must go continue to clean my house.

And if someone would please just leave me a post telling

me how adorable these are and how talented I must be

and how you are just SURE that vests of this caliber

MUST be selling for around $2000 in a boutique,

that would just make my day!

(even if you have to lie, I'm okay with that)

(very tired and needing some appreciation)

(looking for claps here)

Pretty sure this won't count toward

my heavenly rewards of gold brick

so yes,

I am seeking the appreciation

of my fellow man.

:)
Please Appreciate.

Toast, French Toast

That is what I am going to be if anyone wants to come look at our house today or tomorrow.

Cause I been a sewin.
(yes I realize that is completely incorrect English,... just using it for emphasis) (my mother was an English teacher and I believe she occasionally reads this blog) (hi, mom)

My ambition has once again gone before my talent and I decided that I could make 5 cowboy vests and chaps/skirts for my kids and my neices for Christmas.

I am talkin insanely ambitious here.

Cause my house is for sale, and I've got 3 young'uns who I have been lettin run rampant in order to get my sewin done, and I'm really just not as talented as I think I am.....

But, I now have 5 little cowboy and cowgirl vests that are just about as cute as they can be..... from about 8 feet away. I haven't even attempted the chaps/skirts yet. I need to get my house back in order before I start wrecking it back up again. If that makes any sense at all.

I will try to post pictures tonight because the kids still have not seen the finished product and I want to keep it a surprise.

I'm sure ya'll be checkin back all day long to see if I have posted pictures or not. Maybe it will boost my ratings. (now you KNOW for sure that I have not gotten enough sleep, I'm just getting goofy)

And my house, it is a wreck. I'm not even brave enough to post pictures of it. It's that bad. And I'm toast..... french toast....... burnt french toast........

I just needed someone to know.

I am off to clean.

Crazy Sewing

Okay, so there has been some crazy sewing going on here in the last couple days. I mean crazy as in... my husband is out of town, we've just listed our house on the market to sell, I'm trying to keep the house "show ready" with 3 small kids while also trying to complete school each day and also feed them 3 meals a day and get all the laundry done crazy. And I decide that my neice who is turning 1 needs a new birthday dress... and not only that.... it needs to be reversible....... crazy.

So here is the first side. It is a fine wale pink courderoy with her initials embroidered on it along with the cutest brown bows with pink polka dots! It turned out SO CUTE!

Here is where I got into trouble. This is the other side it reverses to. It has the cutest little birthday cake with chenille icing and very cute white bows.

The problem is that you could see through to the other side.

Ugh.

Learn from my mistake. Don't try this at home! Just go ahead and make 2 dresses if you must have both the monogram and the cake! It's just not worth all the tears and frustration and knashing of teeth! It's not. I promise. I had to try and "line" the middle of the dress and it just didn't work out so well. If you look closely you can see where the lining is in a big square behind the cake. It looked fine on the monogram side, but this side it shows through just a hint. It actually is not quite as noticible in real life as it is in the picture.

And don't even get me started on button holes. If I put a button hole in something, it is TRUE LOVE! I was doing just fine until I got to the button holes and if my mom had been living just 15 minutes away, I would have promptly drove to her house and through tears begged her to finish this dress for her youngest granddaughter. But she lives 2 days drive away. So I didn't. And yes, I did consider priority mail, but there would not have been enough time for her to finish it and take it to my neice. So I got out the sewing manual and figured out which foot thingy needed to go on and which setting it needed to be on and I got the thing done. But it wasn't pretty. Fortunatley the button holes are covered up by the cute bows. :) That worked out well!

Crazy sewing. That's all I have to say about it.