Shawnte's Baby Gift #3

And finally, here is the last of the gifts that I made for Shawnte's new baby girl...like 3 months ago now. Man, what is wrong with me???

This is was what took up most of my time with the gift. It was a dress I decided to make for baby Demi. I remember not having very many dresses that would fit Sienna when she was first born, so I wanted to make a dress she could wear to church in her early months.

I didn't use a pattern for this, but used Sienna's baby blessing dress as a guide for size and shape.

It took awhile, and I definitely ran into some bumps, but in the end it turned out alright, and Shawnte' loved it, so that's what matters, right?

*On a funny little side note, when Shawnte' pulled this gift out, and found out that I made it, she exclaimed, "I seriously thought you bought this from a store!" Though no presents were being passed around, she insited on passing it around, and when it got to someone that was there that I've known for awhile, this person was overheard to say, "Umm, you can totally tell it's homemade." Duh! That's because it IS! That's the point! I just laugh about it. Goofball.

Shawnte's Baby Gift #2

The next portion of my gift to Shawnte' was a set of bows I made for her little girl. Special thanks to my friend Alyssa for guiding me through the first one! There was a set of mini clippies, and 3 big bows for a headband, hat, or ponytail.

Shawnte's Baby Gift #1

My sister-in-law Shawnte' recently had a baby shower for her baby girl, Demi. She had the shower on a Saturday, then gave birth that Tuesday morning! I was able to make some gifts for her shower...so here's the first installment...

Hats...enough said.

Smocked Dress for Emily

I made this little dress for my friend Lyndee's little girl Emily for her first birthday. For instructions on how to smock your own fabric (an easy way to do it, I should say, not THE only way), refer to my first post on Sienna's smocked dress (not the 4th of July one).

Whadaya Know...More Hats.

Here's my latest updates on hats for the Farmer's Market. I branched out a little this year and am making other things for it too, which I will post about shortly.

And just in case you wanted to see what it looks like on the cutest, picture-hating little girl ever...

This hat is actually a fushia color...though in the picture it looks red. The color combo was inspired by my friend Sandi's little girl's bedding.

Japanese Cherry Blossoms

Allsion's Burp Cloths

I made these for my friend Allison, who I did the Twinkle, Twinkle shower for. I also made her a hat, but it was a design I have already featured on here, so I decided not to be redundant and post the hat.

These were really simple. It's amazing what you can create with just a little bit of fabric and the applique' stich.

Sienna's Bow Holder

I made this for Sienna's birthday -- she really needed a place to put all her bows, instead of just letting them wander around one of her drawers. It was made to match the color scheme in her room. I got the idea from my friend Alyssa, the same one who made the amazingly cute invites in my previous post. She makes these for the farmers market, which is what made me want one, and later, want to make one.

What's nice about this, is that it didn't cost me anything. And since Sienna dies over anything that displays "pretty" things, this worked out for everyone.

I just used scrap wood we had lying around, paint I already had, fabric, paper, and embellishments I already had, so just to reiterate -- this costed me nothing.

At the end of each strip, you put a side of velcro on the tip, and the other side about 4-5 inches up the strip, so you can loop it up to hold headbands, as pictured.

I used fabric for the strips but it is easier and quicker to use thick, grossgrain ribbon. I didn't have any on hand that I liked with this particular design, so I just sewed up some strips and stapled them onto the back with a staple gun.

Colson's Blanket

This Blanket was made for my sister-in-law, Shasta's new little boy, Colson. I'm pretty new at quilting (if you could consider this real quilting), so please don't mind the mistakes. I loved the color combo of this though, which was totally accidental.

Bow Head Band

I love the look of big bows on adult heads! Maybe because it reminds me of getting all dressed up for church when I was little in the late '80s-early '90s time period. You just weren't finished getting ready unless you had a huge bow! I wanted to make one on a head band for myself, so here's the instructions, (though it's pretty straight-forward).

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, I completely forgot to take pictures in the process, but hopefully the instructions will be clear enough)
What you need:

Fabric (in color of choice, and amount depending on how big you want you bow)
Sewing Machine and thread

Headband

Hot glue

Step 1: Cut out two rectangles that are just a little bit bigger than you want the bow to be (for seam allowance)

Repeat this step if you want a smaller bow on top as pictured, using appropriate measurements.

Step 2: Place the 2 sides together, wrong sides out. Sew around the edge, leaving a hole so you can turn it inside out.

Again, repeat this step with the smaller bow, if using.

Step 3: Turn inside out, and stitch over hole. I would make the hole in the center, so that the band covers up where you are sewing over the outside.

Repeat for smaller bow.

Step 4: Cut out a strip of fabric that is about1 1/2 to 2 inches in width, by 3-4 inches in length.

Step 5: Fold in half length-wise, wrong sides out. Sew up the length of the tube

Step 6: Turn tube inside out

Step 7: Iron all your peices so they lay flat. Remember to use a low heat if you are using synthetic fabric.

Step 8: If you want to use tulle, as I did on the top, Cut out a peice that is the size of the smaller bow, or if you didn't use the smaller bow, cut it out a tiny bit smaller than your main bow.

Step 9: Place the Big rectangle flat, then place the smaller rectangle flat on top of it, then the tulle on top of that. Sew a straight, large seemed line down the center of the rectangles. Gather the bow by gently pulling on the ends, and pushing the edges of the fabric toward eachother in the center.

Step 10: Wrap the tube peice around the center of your gathered bow as tight or as loose as you prefer. Cut of the excess, if any, and hand sticht together.

Step 11: Put a dab of hot glue on the very front and center of the bow, behind the tube, and secure the tube in place.

Step 12: Slide onto your prefered headband, and you're done!

  

Blanket for Liliana

This is a blanket I made for our new(ish) little niece Liliana. I made it awhile ago, I didn't get it to them until March, and here it is May before I'm actually posting about it. Yikes, I'm on the ball, huh?

Anyway, here it is...I loved the colors on this one.

Baby Shower Gift

I went to a baby shower this weekend for one of my friends here. I made her some burp cloths, and of course, a hat.

Josten's Christmas Gift #2

Here's the 2nd of Josten's handmade Christmas gifts. I made him a camo scripture case to take with him when he goes to trainings. I kept it simple so it's "approved" to take with him, and so it blends with the rest of his gear.

Sienna's Christmas Present #2

Here's the 2nd of Sienna's homemade gifts... her very own purse! It's even reversible!

Breck's Gift #1

Josten's Gift #1

This was the first of two gifts for Josten. I know it seems like a cop-out to make a hat, but he really wanted this, I promise! He specifically asked me for it! Anyway, here it is!

Sorry It's not a better picture, I haven't taken a better one yet.

Sienna's Christmas Present #1

This is my first finished Christmas gift, more to come very soon!

Sienna's little caplet:

Sienna's Christmas Dress

I tossed around the idea for awhile of making Sienna a Christmas dress, but never really made a sure plan to get things under way because I was a little intimidated about it for one, and for another, I didn't know if I'd have time. So I got her a little Christmas dress on clearance, and she wore it last Sunday, and I figured that was that. Well...no it wasn't. I figured I still had a good week before Christmas Sunday, and though her other dress is very cute, I still wanted to see if I could pull off the design I had in my head.

Part of what made me so intimidated was the fact that I have never actually sewn a real dress before, unless you count the little smocked dresses I made this summer, but that's totally not the same as a real, fancy, church dress.

The second thing that made me intimidated, is that I didn't have a pattern, because I of course had a specific design in mind... so I pretty much winged the whole thing.

In the end, I was pleased with how it turned out. It fits her well, though I probably won't post a picture of her in it until Sunday. I also learned a lot about sewing apparel, especially without a pattern, which will come in handy.

So here it is, the first (of many I'm sure) handmade Christmas Dress!



Oh, and another interesting tidbit about this dress - This was our Christmas table cloth from last year! It was in perfect condition except for a big stain on one end of it, and I loved it so much I didn't want it to go to waste...And it didn't! Don't worry, I used the non-stained end of it!

Hats for the Holidays

Oh boy has this holiday craft show made me busy! I wanted to be over-prepared for this show, so I could have optimum opportunity at having multiple styles and sizes on hand, so people could actually buy the ones they wanted. I ended up making 35 beanies in the end!!! I decided to do a line of holiday hats, which actually ended up only being 3 different hats (multiple sizes though), since I kind of ran out of time to amke any other sets. I've still got some fun holiday ideas for next year, which I may end up doing for market next year in the fall. I also re-stocked on some of my original ones from the market. The show went reall well for the first week, I sold quite a few which was nice, and got some special orders. The next week of the show is on saturday, which they said is usually the more busy show, so we'll see how that goes! Anyway, the top few are just some new designs I tried, very similar to my others, with a little variance here and there. The last group are my holiday hats, some are actually the holiday line, and some are just fun holiday colors.




Here are the holiday ones, the ones with the tags are the actual holiday line, and you can read their names :)




This one was fun, I tried a new stitch pattern, and thought it was cute:

More Kitchen Goodness for the Bride-To-Be

Here are the next parts of my gift for the bridal shower I mentioned earlier in the apron post. They're all part of the same gift, so they coordinate.

The first are hot pads, pretty simple to figure out; 2 pieces of fabric with batting and binding, then a simple quilting over top.



Next are dishwashing gloves. I have also wanted to do these for a very long time, and I found the perfect excuse with the shower once again! I got the tutorial from Little Birdie Secrets.