Twincess Designs

Mother's Day Quilt

2013-05-15T15:55:00.001-04:00

I finally did it! I made a quilt! I love how it turned out but man it was hard! I have even more respect now for all of the talented quilters out there. Granted, part of my issue was the time crunch. I decided to start this the Sunday before Mother's Day. "Oh sure, I've never made a quilt before. I'll just whip one up in a week." Not my best plan.

Before I get into what I did to make this quilt, let me strongly urge you to go check out Craftsy. It's kind of awesome! There are all sorts of video classes that you can take part in. Many of them are paid classes but they have a couple of Block Of the Month Classes that are free!!!! I used the 2012 Block of the Month Class taught by Amy Gibson . While I didn't make the actual blocks, this class was still very helpful to me in learning how to make half square triangles, and how to baste, quilt and bind my quilt. Go check out Craftsy! (I have purchased fabric for and plan to make the actual blocks for the quilt taught in this class.)

I wanted to keep the quilt simple so that the hand prints really stood out. I decided that I would just make half square triangles for the non-hand print blocks. As previously mentioned, there is a great video on Craftsy about how to make HST. There is also a great tutorial on In Color Order.

For the hand print blocks, I just traced each grandchild's hand and drew it onto the back of some
Wonder Under and then ironed it onto the wrong side of my fabric and cut it out. I then peeled the backing off of the Wonder Under hand prints and ironed them onto cream fabric and did a zigzag stitch around the hand to secure it. I have to admit that stitching around all of those fingers was a bit tricky. I just went slow. Finally, I used the embroidery feature on my sewing machine to add all of the grandchildren's names and the year.

Next, I played around with the layout. First I stitched the blocks together in rows and then I stitched the rows together.

Then the fun part, NOT, basting! Again, I followed the instructions on the Craftsy video. I did not enjoy this step. It took forever and then when I went to pick up the quilt many of my pins had not gone through all three layers. Ugh!

OK, finally time to quilt. First, I put my walking foot on my sewing machine. This really helped to feed all of the layers through. Plus I like that little arm on the walking foot that helps with your line spacing. I was a bit scared to just wing it so I started by drawing in lines through the center of my blocks.

I sewed over all of my lines first.

Then I filled in the spaces in between. As you can see, the spacing isn't perfect but once the quilt was completed it wasn't noticeable. Also, the quilting took more effort than I expected. Even with the weight of the quilt supported on the table, I really had to PULL it through my machine.

I trimmed up the extra border of batting and backing fabric to make my quilt nice and square. Then followed the Craftsy video instructions for making and applying the binding. The only change that I made from the video was to machine sew the binding to the front and then fold it over and hand stitch it on the back. I am not the best at hand stitching so I wanted it to be on the back.

Here is a picture of the finished quilt prior to throwing it in the wash. It looks nice but it isn't all nice and "crinkly" yet.

Here are some shots of what it looks like after washing it. Now it's all nice and "crinkly" and "squishy". I didn't prewash my fabric. I also used good quality quilting cottons, Warm and White cotton batting and Aurifl cotton thread so that it would all shrink up uniformly.

Oh and here is a little peek of the backing fabric.

This is Nama opening it on Mother's Day. She loved it and wants to hang it up. I told her that she could if she wanted to but that quilts are pieces of art meant to be used and loved. Either way, I'm glad that she liked it!

Happy Quilting and Happy Mother's Day!

Brave Birthday Party!

2012-10-09T13:28:00.001-04:00

My girls turned 7 last month and they really wanted to have a Brave birthday party. I did a search on the internet and tons of ideas came up. I’ll share some of what we did.

First, the girls “needed” to have some Merida birthday dresses. I found Brave fabric at Joann’s and this cute Merida applique file at Lynnie Pinnie. I also learned a great tip for making appliques that saves soooo much time and frustration. Sew your applique onto a piece of felt first and then cut a small border around your applique and sew it onto your dress, shirt, bag, etc. This also means there won’t be any of that itchy stitching on the inside either! Yeah!

I just made them some basic t-shirt dresses but I think they are cute!

The most helpful resource was on Disney Family. All of the following ideas are from this site.

We made the bear paw cookies as well as fruit skewers to look like arrows.

I cut out and laminated these cute Brave charms and the girls strung beads and these charms to make necklaces.

(Source)

I printed out these activity books to go in the party favor bags.

(Source)

I also used these cute Thank Cards. I made my own invitations but the ones on the Disney site are cute too.

For decorations I made ruffled streamers and tissue paper pompoms.

For the ruffled streamers tutorial go to MADE.

The pompoms are very easy.

You will need tissue paper, floral wire or pipe cleaners, fishing line for hanging, and scissors.

Spread out 8-12 sheets of tissue paper and fold it back and forth accordion style.

Cut the corners off of each end to make them rounded.

Pinch it in the center and twist the floral wire or pipe cleaner around it.

Start to pull the sheets apart one at a time.

Keep pulling and fluffing until it looks just right and hang with fishing line.

For activities, we beaded necklaces, made snow cones, put on temporary Brave tattoos, and colored a giant cardboard castle.

Then it doesn’t hurt to have a sister who just happens to run school enrichment programs as well as super awesome birthday parties. She planned a whole scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and everything. The girls were searching for the lost cake.

My girls took turns reading the clues and then everyone would run to the next location. At each location my sister had set up different activities that needed to be completed before reading the next clue.

Some of the activities were:

Archery

A “Horse” relay race

Keep the wisps in the air and try to get them into the witches house

Learn and dance the jig

Everyone had a really great time! Thanks auntie!

Then they found the cake and we all had cake and ice cream and opened presents. All of my cake pictures came out blurry but it was really cute so I hope that you can get an idea of it anyway. It was just from our local grocery store and they did a great job! Yes there are two sets of Merida decorations on there. One for each girl of course!

Happy Birthday Girls!

Resources:

http://family.go.com/disney/pkg-disney-character-fun/pkg-disney-brave/
http://www.disneydonnakay.com/2012/06/disney-party-boards-brave.html
http://www.birthdayinabox.com/activity-guides/disney-brave-blue-wisp-hunt-brave-party-game.html
http://kidsparties.about.com/od/birthdaypartythemes/tp/Brave-Party-Ideas.htm

Book Club Treats

2012-09-18T10:07:00.001-04:00

I hosted book club at my house last night. It’s always fun getting together but as of yesterday morning I had no idea what I was going to make. I also knew that I wanted it to be quick to make but still yummy because I would have to do the grocery shopping and cooking with my two boys in tow. I ended up googling Book Club Appetizers and a ton of recipes popped up. I decided on some fun fall recipes.

(Please excuse the picture quality as one of my girlfriends had to remind me last minute that I should take some so I snapped a few real quick with my IPhone. Recipe credits are at the bottom of this post.)

Here’s what I made:

Pumpkin Pie Bites

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter

Optional
1/2 cup chocolate morsels
vegetable oil
re-sealable plastic bags

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Use a circle cookie cutter or small glass to cut shapes for each pie crust.
Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. Apply egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. (I skipped this step)
Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined.
Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped pie crust.
Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Remove pies to cool.

Makes 24 pies. Keep refrigerated.

To decorate, melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl in the microwave on medium. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Transfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut the corner off. Drizzle or draw jack-o-lantern faces on pies.

Cream Cheese Toffee Apple Dip

8oz cream cheese

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla (Please not that the original recipe says 2Tbs That is way too much!)

1/2 bag of toffee bits

Whip softened cream cheese until smooth. Mix in sugars, vanilla, and toffee bits. Chill. Serve up with apple slices.

Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

This is actually a recipe that I have had for a while. I love it! I usually makes these at Christmas because of the white and red.

Makes: 30 Cookies Time: 30 minutes

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 cup quick-cooking oats

9 Tbs. soft butter

½ cup soft dark brown sugar

½ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup roughly chopped pecans

¾ cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Measure flour, baking powder, salt and oats into a bowl. Put butter and sugars into another bowl and beat together until creamy. Then beat in egg and vanilla extract.

2. Beat in the flour mixture, then cranberries, pecans and chocolate chips.

3. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, then place them on your cookie sheet and squish down with a fork. Bake for 15 minutes until cookies are tinged a pale gold. Remove to cool.

Happy Baking!

Recipe Credits are linked with the names below.

Pumpkin Pie Bites

Cream Cheese Toffee Apple Dip

Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli

2012-08-23T23:20:00.001-04:00

So I was having one of those days. Nothing major, just a bunch of little things that kept adding up.

* Potty training accidents with both of my boys.

* I took 6 kids to the last free movie of the summer and it was a madhouse.

* I broke off half of one of my molars during the movie.

* It took me 3 hours to finally get through to my dentist and when I did they told me they couldn’t “squeeze” me in until next week!

* Had great plans for trying to get a bunch of laundry done and was getting nowhere.

Ya know all the typical mom stuff and I was feeling bleck!

Then… this arrived in the mail!

Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli, creator of Sis Boom Fabrics.

I won it a couple of weeks ago in a giveaway on Living with Punks.

Jennifer was even kind enough to sign it to me. Bonus, she also sent along some of this lovely fabric! Yippee!!!!

My kids wanted to play in the yard so I sat right down in the grass and flipped through all of the gorgeous pages in this book.

I want to live in this house and I think I need this quilt like right now!

Now to decide what to make with the lovey fabric that Jennifer sent me.

At first I thought maybe a cute ruffle pillow.

Then I saw these great totes and I knew that I wanted to make one. I’m a sucker for a new bag.

Go check out this lovely book and happy sewing!

P.S. Then to lighten up my mood a little bit more, I looked up to see this!

Donut Dresses

2012-08-16T10:40:00.001-04:00

O.K. so I’m sure you’re wondering, “What the heck is a donut dress?” Let me explain.

My mom lives on an island off the coast of Rhode Island and among other things, she owns a donut shop. My grandmother started making the donuts 59 years ago and we’re still making them.

As they say in these parts… they are “WICKED” good!

They’re called Payne’s Killer Donuts and the logo is this little scary looking donut guy.

I grabbed a killer donut shirt and some knit fabric scraps and started planning a dress.

I was inspired by Ashley’s lovely knit dresses over at Lil Blue Boo. Any of you that read her blog also now that she loves donuts so I figured that this was a good match.

I love the exposed serger seams and now that I finally have a serger I was psyched to give it a go.

I also lucked out because I found an old cover-up with a lettuce hem around the bottom and I was able to use that for the sleeves. I know that I should be able to make this myself with my serger but I haven’t tried it yet.

The girls love the dresses because they are colorful and the knit fabric makes them super comfy too.

Check out my other posts about sewing with knits HERE and HERE.

Happy Sewing!

P.S. Here is my mom acting like a nut while I’m trying to take donuts pictures!

Boys’ Knit Tanks

2012-08-02T16:41:00.001-04:00

I found this real nice tank top pattern from Fish Sticks. It is really simple and easy to follow and best of all, it’s FREE! The tank pattern ranges in size from 12 months to 5t so you can get a lot of use out of it too. Along with their blog, Fish Sticks has a nice pattern shop full of things I want to try. Go check them out.

Review: If you have never sewn with knits before, this would be a great pattern to start with. It is very straightforward and not to “wordy”. Since there are no sleeves it makes it very easy to sew up.

I’m having a hard time judging the sizing on the pattern. My boys are three but typically wear a size 5. I printed out the pattern for the size 5 and could tell that it was going to be way too long so I just cut off a bit. I think that next time I might make it a little wider too.

Overall, I am very happy with the end results and my boys were happy that I made something for them as I sew things for their sisters more often. They even ask me for their striped shirt. It’s nice when they actually like what you make for them!

Thanks to Fish Sticks for the free pattern and I plan to try out some of their for purchase patterns soon.

If you would like to give knits a try here are a few project suggestions:

Free Tutorials:

Fish Sticks Blog

Made

I Am Momma Hear Me Roar

From An Igloo

Patterns for Sale:

Fish Sticks

Lil Blue Boo

Carla C

Mod Kid

Train to Crazy

Lille Skapet

Happy Sewing!

P. S. You’ve got to love photo shoots with boys.

Hey we’re pretty funny!

Word!

Seriously?!!!

2012-07-24T14:45:00.001-04:00

And this would be why I don't sew when the kids are awake!

My stepmother asked me to hem some pants for her. Easy enough right? So I trimmed off some of the length, serged the bottoms, and folded up and sewed the hem. One problem, I never turned the pants inside out so the cuffs are folded up to the outside! Ughhh!

Looks like I have a date with the seam ripper!

At least I get to sit outside and look at this cuteness while I seam rip!

P.S. I'm posting from my phone so we'll see how this post turns out.

P.P.S. I ended up needing to go on my computer to move the photos around because they were all jumbled up. They are still blurry for some reason. Final verdict on posting from your phone: good in a pinch but not the best way to go! :)

Bucket Hats and Boys Shorts

2012-07-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

I wanted to share a couple of cute beginner patterns/tutorials with you that are great for the summer season. Truth be told, I actually made these last year but never got around to posting about them. So here goes…

Bucket Hats

and Boys Shorts. (Actually both of these patterns are great for girls or boys!)

The bucket hats were made using a pattern from You Can Make This.

They are reversible with patchwork on one side and a solid print on the other. The pattern gives a really cool step by step technique for making the patchwork. Even a beginner could do it! In fact when my friend Caryn was learning to sew last year this was one of the first patterns that she tried.

The shorts were made using a free tutorial from Dana at Made. Dana’s original tutorial was for pants and then she gives some simple steps for modifying them to be shorts. How nice is that?!!!

Happy Sewing!

Fourth of July Outfits

2012-07-07T00:30:00.001-04:00

I hope that all of you had a very happy Fourth of July! We had a wonderful time with family. We had so much fun riding on granddad’s boat, playing at the beach, climbing trees, etc.

I wanted to share some of the outfits that I made for the kiddos.

I made 90 minute shirts for the boys. (Please ignore the serger threads that I hadn’t cut yet.) This is a tutorial from Made and it is super easy. The boys wore these for watching fireworks on the beach.

I also made these rocket shirts for the boys.

I used a few different techniques to make these shirts.

1. Freezer paper stenciling for the stars and space ship on the back of the shirt.

2. Bleach pen for the smoke.

3. Applique for the rocket. This rocket ship pattern is from Crap I’ve Made.

I found this super cute and easy idea for flag shits for the girls. They are a quick sew but I would recommend drawing your lines for the rickrack placement before you start to sew. I tried to wing it and the shirt stretched and twisted too much and I ended up have to whip out my seam ripper on the first shirt.

We wore these shirts to the Fourth of July parade.

Happy 4th!

2012-07-04T13:14:00.001-04:00

Have a Very Happy 4th of July!

Maternity Shirts to Biker Shorts Upcycle

2012-06-26T10:11:00.001-04:00

I was going through some old boxes of clothes the other day and came upon a couple of boxes of maternity clothes. Now I have absolutely no plans of needing those again! However, since I started sewing, I have the hardest time getting rid of old clothes because now I look at them as free fabric!

I grabbed of couple of maternity shirts out of the pile and starting thinking about what I could make. Being maternity shirts, they have that lycra stretchiness to them so I thought that these would be perfect for biker shorts for the girls.

I decided to make them yoga style like the pants I posted about HERE. (There are more detailed photos in that post.) That means no annoying elastic. The top band just folds down and they are super comfy.

My girls love them. I have made four so far and plan to keep going through the pile to make more.

Maternity Shirts to Biker Shorts Upcycle

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Happy Sewing!

Lil Blue Boo Hoodie

2012-06-13T16:16:00.001-04:00

I love this hoodie pattern from Lil Blue Boo! It was one of the first patterns I used when I was venturing into sewing with knits. See my previous post HERE. Ashley gives some nice tips for sewing with knits. Now that I have my awesome serger, it is even more fun!

The pattern is really straight forward and is great for boys or girls. You could even add some length and make it into a dress like Christine at From an Igloo did HERE.

It was definitely funny trying to have a photo session with two three year old very active boys. A bit different from my girls who love to model. So here goes…

I added an appliqued paw print to go with the doggie fabric. The boys really like it. They think that it’s one of Blue’s Clues!

I lined the hoods because the wrong side of the doggie print fabric was white and I didn’t want that showing when their hoods were off.

Here they are in their set from a couple of years ago. I miss them being this little. Sniffle Sniffle.

Wait boys…. come back!

Happy Sewing!

Happy Un-birthday To Us!

2012-06-05T19:04:00.001-04:00

Sometimes you just have to have cake! Today we baked a cake for absolutely no reason and sang Happy Un-birthday to us! I have very vivid childhood memories of doing this with my mom and sisters. I'm glad the tradition continues! Now go bake yourself a cake!

Play Dough Recipe

2012-05-31T13:48:00.001-04:00

Have you ever made homemade play dough? I have tried a few recipes and this one is my favorite. It was given to me last year by my girls’ preschool. It is easy, quick, affordable, and fun!

Our Favorite Play Dough Recipe:

Include your child in measuring, pouring and kneading. Making the dough is great science fun. Playing with play dough strengthens small muscles in the hand, crucial to later writing skills!

Microwave until boiling:

2 cups water

2 tablespoons oil mixed with drops of food coloring

In a separate bowl stir together:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 teaspoons cream of tarter

Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir together vigorously. When cool to the touch, your child can knead the mixture to blend. Store in a plastic bag or container to keep fresh.

We made lavender and pink play dough.

For the lavender we used Wilton’s food coloring and for the pink we used traditional food color. Both worked great! The nice thing about the Wilton’s is that there is a lot more variety.

Oh and if you are trying to take a picture of your Play Dough title, be quick about it and watch out for cute little boys because this could happen before you know it!

Happy Playing!

Happy Memorial Day

2012-05-28T23:08:00.001-04:00

Happy Memorial Day!
I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. I know we did!

Machine Applique and Embroidery

2012-05-27T21:50:00.001-04:00

So I had a big birthday a couple of months ago. No, I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, I got a couple of really amazing presents. I actually can’t believe I got both of them.

The first was a Brother se400 Sewing and Embroidery Machine.

The second was a Brother 1034D Serger.

I’m working on learning how to use the embroidery machine. It is a great first machine because it is also a sewing machine and the price isn’t too outrageous. The only down side that I can see so far is that it can’t stitch any bigger than a 4”x4” hoop. So if you want bigger than this save up because most embroidery machines cost over $600! I don’t see that happening any time soon.

So I really like my Brother se400. It has a great instructional cd too. There are many helpful tutorials on the internet for learning to machine embroider and applique. The best one that I found was HERE at Love From Texas.

Jessica gives lots of step by step instructions with photos. She also links to her favorite sites for buying embroidery patterns. Very helpful!

I thought that I would start with a free peace sign applique that I found. I thought since it was round that it would be super easy.

Ummm, I didn’t think about having to cut out the holes in the middle of the peace sign. Lets just say that it didn’t go so well. Even though I knew that I would have to be super careful, I still managed to cut a hole in the t-shirt. Ughhhh!

To salvage the shirt, I decided to cut through the other holes as well and sew a green piece of fabric on the inside of the shirt kind of like a reverse applique. It didn’t turn out too bad. I had to leave a little bit of the blue t-shirt fabric around the edges of the holes so that the stitching wouldn’t unravel.

My girls still liked it so I guess that is all that matters.

For my second attempt my girls wanted a butterfly. Beautiful, no holes!

Here’s what it looks like with just the fabric pieces sewn down pre-embroidery.

Here’s what it look like after being embroidered. I think that it came out pretty cool.

I have to say that I am pretty excited about my new toy.

I also made some cute Easter Bunny appliqued shirts for all four kiddos.

Happy Sewing!

Janey Jumper Pattern Review and Super Late Easter Post!

2012-05-02T14:38:00.001-04:00

O.K., so I am super late with this post. Better late than never right?

(See the bottom of this post for a link to the Sock Bunnies tutorial.)

I used the Janey Jumper pattern by Lindsay of the Cottage Momma to make some Easter dresses for my girls. I really love how they turned out.

First of all, the Janey Jumper is not a PDF pattern. It is an actual paper pattern that is mailed to you. I loved not having to print out and piece together my pattern before starting.

There are lots of very clear step by step instructions with photos. Best of all, Lindsay is super sweet and when I got stuck on the final step, I e-mailed her and she got back to me quickly! Fortunately, I had already figured it out. I would highly recommend this pattern to the intermediate sewer. This dress is completely lined (which I love!) however, due to this it may be a little tricky for the novice sewer.

My favorite part of this dress is the beautiful scallops. Lindsay gives a really genius way of making these turn out perfect.

Best of all, my girls loved them and they looked super cute for Easter.

On your mark…

Get set…

GO!!!

I also made a smaller version of this dress for my friend’s daughter to wear on her birthday. Isn’t she cute?!!!

Happy Sewing!

P.S. I did a freezer paper stencil on the lining just in case the girls ever wanted to wear it reversed.

P.P.S. I almost forgot to tell you about the sock bunnies. They are from a very clever tutorial by Ashley over at Lil Blue Boo.

Easter Skirts

2012-04-05T13:08:00.001-04:00

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail!

The girls wore their new Easter Skirts to school today.

Aren’t they cute?

The best part is that you can make this….

…from this. (Kitchen Towels from Target.) Awesome right?

I can’t take credit for this idea. Ashley from Lil Blue Boo posted this cute tutorial for making the skirt. Go check it out.

I’m glad that I added the rick rack to the bottom. It just finishes it off a bit. My girls are tall so I also added a pink waistband for some added length. As you can see, one is as bit taller than the other so her waistband piece is a bit longer.

The girls were good sports because our photo shoot was as bit chilly!

Easter Skirts

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~~Hoppy~~ Happy Easter!

How to Make Your Own Printed Ribbon: A Tutorial

2012-03-16T10:12:00.001-04:00

Here is a quick and simple way to make your own printed ribbon. Truth be told, I took the pictures for this tutorial last year and never got around to writing it so here goes.

Materials:

Ribbon 7/8” Wide

Transfer Paper

Scissors

Iron and Ironing Board

Computer and Printer

For this example I wanted to make my girls some ribbon with their preschool logo on it so that they could show some school spirit. I found the image on-line and then saved it as a JPEG. Next print out your image and check to make sure that it will fit on your ribbon.

Now copy your image several times in rows across the page. It is best to have your page in landscape so that you can get longer strips. I did this test run on regular printer paper. If everything looks good with your test print, print it out again onto the transfer paper. Follow the instructions on the back of the package. The most important thing to remember is that you will need to PRINT YOUR IMAGE IN MIRROR IMAGE!

Now carefully cut apart your strips.

Iron the strips onto your ribbon and peel off the paper backing.

Viola! Lots of beautiful ribbon for making hairbows!

Go To Dress

2012-03-02T10:31:00.001-05:00

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Have you seen the tutorial for the "Go to Dress" on the Train to Crazy? It is super cute and makes a super cozy knit dress. I have been eyeing it for awhile and wanted to make one. I even happened to have some of the exact same fabric that Andrea used in one of her dresses. I hope that she doesn't think that I am a "weirdo" for copying her. :) What is it they say, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."?

Anyway, I love the end results and the girls looked so cute heading off to Kindergarten today. The tutorial has lots of pictures and very clear instructions. It would make a nice first time project for sewing with knits if you have been wanting to give it a try.

For more details on sewing with knits, see my post HERE.

Happy Sewing!

Cowl Crazy

2012-02-22T22:46:00.002-05:00

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So I went a little "Cowl Crazy" over Christmas. I made them for just about everyone! It all started with the Cowl Knit Along over at Luv in the Mommyhood. I made one for myself and then I just couldn't stop.

Here are my mom and sisters modeling their cowls. These are all the Breckinridge Cowl.

Here are my sister in-law and two nieces modeling their new cowls.

Breckenridge Cowl

Speedy Cabled Cowl and Speedy Cabled Beret

Quick Cabled Cowl

I also made one for my aunt and for my husband's secretary. I haven't knit in about 6 years and it was nice to get back to it. Even when I used to knit it was only very basic scarves and maybe one or two hats. I think I even have a half finished blanket still lying around somewhere. :)

I have been trying to branch out and try new things like cables. I am currently working on a hat that involves some lace work. Hmmm... we'll see how it goes.

If you are interested in getting started with knitting here of some web sites that I have found very helpful.
Knitting Help and The Knit Witch both have some awesome knitting videos. If you come across a stitch in one of your projects that you don't know how to do just look on one of these sites and there will most likely be a video for it. If not, I have found Youtube to be very helpful.
Ravelry is full of awesome free patterns for just about anything you can think of. I love that you can type in the type of yarn that you have in your stash and see what others have made with it. There are also tons of knitting groups that you can join on-line.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T16:30:00.003-05:00

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Happy Valentines Day!

In my last post, I shared some cute dresses that I made for my girls for Valentine's Day. It was the first time ever that I was actually prepared and had them ready two weeks early. That NEVER happens. I was so proud of myself until.... My girls came home last week and excitedly announced that they get to have Pajama Day on Valentine's Day! That'll teach me.

Of course that meant that sure enough as usual I was sewing the night before.

I just made some simple flannel pj's and the girls actually painted these shirts themselves.

I first saw the idea on the cover of this month's Family Fun Magazine. Then Dana at Made had the brilliant idea to paint it onto a piece of scrap fabric first and then sew it onto a shirt. That way if you mess up in the painting portion you don't ruin the whole shirt. Then just cut out the heart shape from your scrap fabric and sew it onto your shirt.

It is a super easy idea too. Just use a glue stick to stick a paper heart doily to your shirt or scrap of fabric. Paint and let dry or use a hair dryer to speed things up and peel off the doily.
Like I said the girls painted these themselves and then I just went back over any missed spots. The secret is to put the paint onto a plate and then just dab the brush in the paint and then dab it again all over the paper doily. NO BRUSHING!

I think they came out pretty cute!

Of course I had to make up a couple of cute hairbows too! :)

Here are my kiddos getting there goody bags today. Just simple little things like notebooks, silly puddy, treats, etc. and they are so thrilled!

Tonight's dinner will be eggs with pink heart shaped pancakes!
The hubby has a board meeting tonight so he won't be here. Waat Waa!! :(

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Dresses

2012-02-02T13:51:00.001-05:00

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I found this really cute idea for Valentine's Day dresses on Pinterest. I just love them! Best of all, they require very little material.

Before After

Just take some extra large men's t-shirts and some scraps of fabric from other old shirts and you can make these adorable dresses.

There is a full tutorial on Make It and Love It. Go check it out and be sure to browse around this site a bit. There are lots of cute ideas to me found. She also has a cute Valentine shirt idea for boys that I think I might try too.

I love the sweet little ruffled hearts and so do my girls. The only change that I would make would be to make the ruffled heart about 1 1/2" bigger on all sides than the cut out heart shape. I only cut it about 3/4" bigger and I wish I had a little more wiggle room. Other than that I would follow the tutorial exactly.

The following photos are what happens when I tell my girls to pose however they want. :)

Happy Sewing!

Go Pats!

2012-01-22T22:47:00.004-05:00

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Woot! Woot!

The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl!

Christmas Picture Outfits

2011-12-08T10:27:00.001-05:00

I having been dying to post these! I was actually prepared this year and we had our Christmas pictures taken the week before Thanksgiving. Sure, I stayed up until 3:00 am the night before finishing the outfits but it was so nice to have them done! (Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the “how to” on the outfits.)

I love how they all turned out!

I love how they got the boys to look like little cherubs. Don’t be fooled!

My little girls, sweet as usual.

O.K. so here is the lowdown on what I did.
For the girls: I bought this fabric last year after Christmas from Chez Ami and was just itching to finally use it. I knew that I wanted cozy yet girly dresses in a Hanna Anderson like style. Christine at From an Igloo posted this nice tutorial on how to make a cute twirl dress using knit fabric and it was just what I wanted.
Christine used the Lil Blue Boo Hoodie Pattern for her top. I own this pattern too and highly recommend it. See my post about it HERE. However, it doesn’t go up to my girls’ size and I was being chicken about guestimating up.

I looked through my patterns and found

McCall’s M6157

I like the gathered sleeves and the length of the bodice but I didn’t want it to cross over in the front like it does in the pattern. I ended up cutting two of the back bodice pieces for each dress and then just cutting down the neckline a bit on the front bodice piece. Once I had my top, I followed Christine’s tutorial for making the gathered twill skirt.

For the boys: I wanted to make an applique using the fabric from the girls dresses. At first, I was thinking maybe a snowman and having the polka dot fabric be his scarf and band on his hat.

Then I googled boy’s Christmas appliques and found this cute little truck idea. I like how it’s a bit more “boyish” and I love the button wheels. I used all knit fabric so that I could just straight stitch the applique and not have to worry about fraying. (Quick and simple was my goal as this was all happening at about 2:00 am after finishing the girls dresses.) Go HERE for my tutorial on straight stitch applique.

Happy Holidays!