Fall Dress

One of my favorite fabric stores on-line is called Hawthorne Threads. Not only do they have beautiful fabric, they also provide coordinating fabrics on the same page or a link away with the one you are interested in. My hardest part. Plus, there are pictures of dresses, quilts and more included. I actually pinned this dress on pinterest and when I saw it on this website, well... I just had to buy it.

Here is what I ended up with:

And I am in LOVE!

And so is she.

I bought extra fabric to make Karis a skirt or top and possibly myself a skirt. I have been looking forward to sewing something for myself since it has been a while. And I just love that my girls still enjoy getting handmade clothing. Warms my heart!

Flutter Sleeve Dress

I love how the fall season likes to make an unexpected grand entrance. And, of course, we always welcome it. You know there are cool days ahead, but there are some that are cooler than you expect. Time for pumpkins and everything pumpkin. I know, you were thinking pumpkin spice latte, but I was thinking of pumpkin cheesecake and Trader Joe's pumpkin butter. My favorite. The mornings have been getting cooler and I love walking out to crisp, cool air. This past Saturday was the unexpected grand entrance. It was suppose to be almost 70 degrees. But I think it reach a very crisp and breezy 60. By the evening, it was in the 50's and chilly. We were also at a beautiful fall wedding, on a farm where there were pumpkins everywhere! With October showing up so quickly and these cooler days, I realized I needed to get started on sewing some dresses for my girls. Each season I think, "should I sew or just go buy??" Thanks to Pinterest and Zulily I keep pinning all these ideas for sewing. So, I went on my sewing Pinterest board (SEW CAN DO THIS) and found a dress that I have wanted to make for a while. It reminds me of a Matilda Jane dress. It sent me to an Etsy shop for a Antique Fair Flutter Sleeve Dress pattern. With a few easy clicks, I bought the pattern. And I am so happy I did. It came with a long but easy to follow tutorial with pictures for every step. So I went shopping for fabric! I have had my eye on this Amy Butler fabric for a while. I spent way too long trying to pick the perfect coordinating fabric to go with it. I always second guess myself after I buy it, unless it's off a website where they have matched coordinating fabrics for you! I love those websites! Hawthrone Threads does that for you, check them out! My other favorite place (because it is close by) is Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC. And this is what I bought there:

A sweet lady in my church who could no longer sew and knew I did was so generous in gifting me her sewing stuff- fabric, lace, buttons, zippers, everything. The buttons were a favorite! Before I buy buttons, I like to dig through my stash and find some jewels in there. And I loved these with this dress.

Here is the finished product. I think this is my favorite by far! Confession: I hung this dress visible downstairs so every time I walked by it, I could look at it. I don't have a lot of things that I am good at. But when you practice at one and see your improvement overtime, well it is just rewarding. I feel so proud of this one. Especially when I think back to the first dresses I've made.

Here is Piper at the wedding with her best friend. Piper loves this dress too. It twirls.

bow ties anyone?

Don't you just love little bowties? I made these bowties for a friend and a cute whale applique. All three of these for a neat baby shower. The idea is to decorate a onesie to bring to the shower. The bowties snap off. Easy to clean and easy to change out!

And this was for another friend. Some cute little one year old is going to be a stud!

simple skirt

birthday room makeover

Piper wanted a little room makeover for her birthday. Without changing the paint color on the walls (since we just built this house) we bought some new covers and made some pillows. It is amazing what a few small changes can do. My inspiration was Piper's famous heart balloon. She doodles these all the time. They are in almost every picture she colors and draws. It's her signature. And I just love it. I love them. They are Piper.

A little sneak peak of her room. I still need to get some fun pom pom garland to hang over those pictures. Speaking of those pictures, that was a fun pinterest project she and I worked on this summer. Hand print mermaids. She loves mermaides too.

Easter dress

Ever make a dress and realized you are not pleased with it? So you take it apart and redo it. Or even worse, put it in a pile to come back to and sadly you never do. To much disappointment I made a dress for my youngest for Easter and was never satisfied with it. And because it was the night before I let her wear it anyway. It was not bad, it was just not what I imagined it would be. Determined to not let this one sit in that pile I decided to redo it. With a few tweaks, this dress ended up being one of Piper's favorite summer dresses. Simple. Twirly. Comfy.

And this kid, she is our sparkly yet feisty, full of life, full of joy and loud giggles 3rd child. Only this one could convince a grandmother to buy fake nails like this. Could you turn down this face?? And yes, we let her wear these nails to church.

pink chalk fabric

Ordered some fabric from one of my favorite online fabric stores Pink Chalk Fabrics. They are celebrating 6 years and I got a cute party favor (pink measuring tape). Not sure what I am going to make with this fabric. I just wanted to show you what I got.

baby blanket

I love making baby blankets for baby showers. This one may be one of my favorites. 1 1/4 yard of flannel and cotton. Easy and sweet!

fabric shopping and peach tree blooms

Have I ever told you I love fabric like most women love shoes? I love going to the fabric store and just looking. But I am also a woman so I like shoes too! But back to the fabric. I love when I walk into the fabric store and I see fabric I like and it is sitting right next to other fabric in the same line of designer and color. Makes visioning a dress or skirt much easier than walking around for an hour doubting your choices. That is what happened when I saw these. This fabric was just sitting there asking to be a dress and skirt. So I had to get it.

I used one of my favorite patterns Simplicity 2171 easy and so many different ways to use it.

The skirt is from a pattern I got off a great website called MADE. Click HERE for the link to the skirt pattern. She has so many variations too.

This was a spontaneous photo attempt. It was very overcast. Maybe too overcast. But when the peach trees are in bloom you cannot delay. It is a short window. So I bribed the kids and got these sweet pics. I am glad they love each other. Well, most of the time.

Memphis skirts

Last summer my crew went to Memphis to visit one of my best best friends. We do not get to see each other often. So this trip was much needed. My family loved being there for a week. Do you have a friend that just gets you? That would be her. She sews. She also taught me how to smock. I love talking to her about things we want to make and things we actually make. While I was there, she took me to one of her favorite fabric stores. We bought some fun fabric to make her girls and my girls skirts. We ended up having too much fun and not enough time to sew. So, I came home with the fabric to finish what we had started. Here is one of the skirts I made.

Piper is my skirt girl. She loves skirts and dresses and all things twirly.

She is also my little shadow. While I was drawing out some ideas, she too decided to do the same.