Stacy and Blake's New Clothes

My sister was up for a visit and I couldn't resist making clothes for the adorable kids.

(pictures are horrible, I know, my good camera broke so have to make due with my old one for a while)

anyway, the skirt took a whole 20 minutes to make and the shirts were store bought shirts with appliques I popped on them - took another whole 20 minutes. But they came out cute and Val loved them!

Shirring - the beast that I have conquered!

I've been battling with shirring for days now, trying to get my settings right and the elastic adjusted just right to get the right results. Finally after hours and hours and yards and yards of wasted thread, I won!

Whimsy Couture was kind enough to let me test out her pattern for lacettes - a kind of fancy legwarmer.
When I volunteered to help test, I didn't expect shirring to be that big of a deal; just wind elastic into the bobbin and you're good to go. Turns out, Brother sewing machines are notorious for giving trouble when shirring. And my Brother SE400 was no different, she was not into shirring!

After winding the elastic (by hand) loose, then tight, long stich, then short stich (and everywhere in between),tight tension and loose tension (and everywhere in between); I finally, finally found my way.
Turns out, on my machine, I need to wind the elastic very tight, short stich, medium tension (around a 6ish). I also need to make very sure that the elastic catches in the tension bracket in the bobbin (which means hand threading the bobbin - what a pain in the ....)

But the results were worth it - Audrey now has warm legs for dance class and I'm that much closer to being a real sewer..

Whimsey Couture will have the pattern for sale on her esty site here very soon for those who are interested in making these cute legwarmers. They are very easy to make and a quick sew - providing your sewing machine will shirr! :)

PJ's for Audrey

I have to find the pattern number for this pattern, but it went together quickly and easily. And of course, its Tinkerbell!

Of course, getting my daughter to sit still so I can take a picture...impossible. Even more impossible, getting her sister to stay out of the picture!

The Crayon Roll

This was one of the big Christmas gifts this year. I think I made about 10 of these.

Tutorial is here.

They went together so quickly and easily. And Audrey loved to pick out the fabrics for all her friends!

Cosmo Bag

January is over and I completed my first bag of the Style Stiches Sew Along. I'm so proud of myself. It came out so great!

Here are the fabrics:

And the final product:

I must admit, it went together fairly easy. The only complaint I had was the 4 million pieces of interfacing.

Now, if only the weather was nice so I could take it to the beach!

The gathered clutch

I made what seemed like 100 of these as Christmas presents. The tutorial is here.

They were so fun and easy to make, I just couldn't stop myself from making more and more.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pics of them all before I gave them away :(

oops.

I didn't stray from the orginal tutorial although everytime I meant to try to make it a wristlet. One of these days I'll have to make another one :)

Purse

My mother is my biggest sewing fan. Anytime anyone mentions anything that I made, she's the first to speak up and let them know that I made it.

So who else would deserve a new handmade bag for christmas?

I made it from this pattern.

Don't mind the toys in the background, I do have kids, ya know :)

This was my second bag from this pattern (here is the first one). So it went to gether pretty easily with no very little problems.