Dress Adjustments (#49)

 yes, this totally counts as a project, since it took me 2/3 of my pregnancy to finish! I have worn this dress for 2 other pregnancies- it's my favorite. And I swear, I have not grown any taller, but when I got this out to wear it 6 months ago, at the beginning of my pregnancy... it felt too short. Especially when I would sit down. So, I thought and thought of a solution, and decided to add a ruffle to the bottom. It would have been impossible to match the green, so I went with a little bit of brown knit fabric.

I love how the ruffle turned out. I actually like the dress even more now. It's amazing how just a few inches longer, and I'm suddenly feeling more comfortable wearing it. 

I did forget how hard it is to work with knit if you are too cheap forget to get stretchy thread and a ball needle. (Wow, I sure confess a lot on this blog!)

This is just a side view for my mom, so she can see how big my stomach her grandson is getting:

 I also made a "cami secret" insert for the top. Don't know how well you can see it, and I didn't want to take a close-up picture of my chest (as voluptuous as it is right now). I thought it helped tie in the brown, and I've always had to strategically safety pin so no cleavage showed any way. A Cami Secret, for those of you who don't know, is basically just a little triangle of fabric that you snap onto your bra, and it covers your cleavage. I found some at Walmart, and I have loved them, so just used one for a pattern. These are especially nice when you live somewhere hot like I do, and you don't want to wear ANOTHER layer, so you hate when your shirts need a tank/cami under them, but you also prefer to not look like a hoochie mama.

Anyway, I love how it turned out so much, that I think I am going to try the same thing on my daughter's favorite skirt that she is growing too tall for.

Linked to Tator Tots and Jello

Just In Time For Valentine's Day- Table Runner Project #48

Along with my goal to use up all the fabric in my closet, and finish all my unfinished projects, I dug up my Valentine's Day fabric....

I love this fabric. 

I am almost finished with a little quilt in this fabric, and can't wait to show it to you.

Last year, I was at a friends house, and in the mail she got a lovely Valentine's Day table runner from her mom. I knew I wanted to make one, but wouldn't be able to last year. So, this year in January, I asked her if I could borrow it. I made a pattern from it, and here we are:

 I ran into some problems with mine... this often happens when I do it different from the pattern/thing I'm copying. Hers was done envelope style, and mine was bound. I decided to use pre-made bias tape. I have never used bias tape, although I have made my own bias binding before. Apparantly, bias tape is a lot stiffer than the binding I have worked with before, and this had A LOT of curves, so it was difficult to work with, and didn't always lay flat...

 I wanted to use this heart stitch on my machine, and didn't think to use my walking foot, so also ran into problems there...  my old quilt teacher, Dixie, would be scolding me right now. She said you never point out your mistakes when showing your quilt... but I confess a lot of things here that I probably shouldn't.

But, most importantly, I am really happy with how it turned out, in spite of the challenges. I love it on my piano, but think I will make another one (I have enough fabric!) and put them running down my dining room table.
What do you think?

Texas Flag Quilt- Project number 47

I bought the fabric for this last June, before I knew I would be spending half my summer on a 6,000+ mile road trip, and the other half of the summer recovering from the road trip.
Then the day before school started, I found out I was pregnant... so this quilt got put on the back burner right behind my throw-up bucket until I felt well enough to really get going on it.
Over Christmas break, when my husband was home a lot to make trips to Red Box and push play to watch the kids, I finally got to it.
It's a pretty simple quilt, since I was doing the Texas flag, I didn't even use a pattern. Just figured out how big I wanted it and added the borders...

I had made this other quilt for my son- get this: 9 Years ago!!!

Ya, I know, it's held up well. I wouldn't even believe it was that old, but I did put a label on it... 2004 it says!
And believe me, it's been washed A LOT! If you look close, you can see that it is starting to wear out... but it does make me glad I used good fabric and thread.

So, about a year ago we bought a bunk bed for my son's room. Not that he needed it, but we thought it would be nice to have for quests. You can never have too many extra beds when you and your husband both come from big families...

so I kept debating whether or not to make 2 new matching quilts, or to try and make one to match the quilt he already had.... I didn't have fabric requirements for the log cabin quilt, and didn't want to risk not buying enough, or to spend extra $$ buying too much (especially since you all know that I have a closet full of fabric already...)

So I decided that I could just make one in red, white, and blue, and it would be close enough until I was ambitious enough to make 2 new ones.

At a friend's house, I saw a Texas Flag quilt that her mother had made.
That was it! It would be perfect, especially since we live in Texas!!!

But I still haven't told you the best part about this quilt:
I have a friend that just moved here about 8 months ago. She. has. a. long. armed. quilting. machine. THAT. SHE. RENTS!!!

Yes, After it was pieced, I went to her house, she taught me how to use it, thread it, wind the bobbin, and we even did a little practice quilt for about 3 hours, and she only charged $20 for the instruction.
Then, she helped me load my quilt, backing, and batting onto the machine, and it only took me 1 hour 45 minutes to quilt it! And I did it all myself!!! She charged me $10 and hour to use the machine. Awesome deal   for those of us to will never don't currently have the money or the space for a long-armed quilting machine, but who still want to quilt our own quilts!!!

I decided to quilt the shape of the state of Texas into the star... I like how it turned out.

 You'll notice that the backing from the first quilt (9 years ago) is the same that I used on the outer border.

I made this pillow sham to go with the other quilt. It has gotten more worn out than the quilt... I've decided to make a pillow sham to match to new quilt as well.

 
And here's one more shot of it on the bed: 

 So, I'm super motivated now to get some more quilts ready to go!!

Kick Buttowski Birthday Cake

A few weeks ago, a friend that used to live by me (has since moved to another part of town) called to see if I could make this cake for her son's birthday.

Of course, I said yes!

I didn't know then that I would end up having emergency surgery last week, at 6 months pregnant.

I wasn't sure I was going to be up for it, and almost called and cancelled, but it was such a simple cake, and I could do it sitting down, so I went ahead with it.

I didn't know who "Kick Buttowski" was, so I had to do a little research. 

He is a little daredevil cartoon character from the Disney Channel.

 Well, I think Jaxon like it, so that's all that matters!