Sewing our summer wardrobe

I love to sew! 

I still laugh at that statement because I disliked it so much as a teenager in home economics class.

       I started back sewing around 8 years ago and haven't stopped since.  My favorite things to make are totes, diaper bags and purses of all shapes and sizes.  I go against the grain and don't always use patterns.  When I have a special project to do I design it in my head and just start cutting, that makes each one of my handmade gifts truly one of a kind.
       Recently, I made a custom purse for a dear friend of mine, my best friend,  for her birthday last month and she LOVED it so much.  She picked the main fabric (Harajuku Girls Invade New York City) and I picked all the coordinating fabrics.  It took me about an hour in the fabric store to decide which colors I wanted to pull out of the main fabric.  I think the mauve/pink and blue really make the 
Harajuku fabric pop.  

(Photo credit to Sheila D.)

I love when I can make something for someone who truly appreciates all the hard work that went into it.

In fact this very same best friend was so inspired by my sew obsession that she went out and bought her very first sewing machine.  Now she is as hooked on sewing as I am and I have someone to brainstorm sewing ideas with!  How awesome is that!  I gave her, her very first sewing lesson a few weeks ago (not that she needed it, she is a very crafty lady) and she has already made three dresses.

My latest obsession project:

SKIRTS

       I'm a skirt girl, I LOVE skirts.  So many woman have moved away from wearing sweet, feminine clothes.  Wearing pants and shorts just isn't my thing.  Skirts instantly makes you feel more girlie and younger.  I found some very good tutorials and fell in love with the bias cut knit waist skirts.  They are crazy comfortable and fall so beautifully on an size figure.  Anything cut on the bias is just gorgeous.  I ordered a $40 skirt from a designer off Etsy and figured out how she made it and started cutting out my own skirt.  A hour later I was wearing my first skirt creation!  Two hours after that I had made matching skirts for my daughter and I.  Ok, I was hooked on skirt making, they are so simple and the fabric combinations are endless.  My skirts only cost me around $8 -$15. You can't beat that!   The few skirts I had been looking at in some clothing magazines were $40 and up, ouch NOT in my budget.

  You can make them any length you want and the fabric combinations are endless.

I bought these fabrics from Hobby Lobby.  It took three yards of fabric because I gathered the second layer to make it more full.  When you are doing a bias cut skirt you cut a full circle out for the top layer and straight strips for all the other layers.  The knit waist is so comfortable, and you don't see it because your shirt covers it. 

I also love the  Mock Smock Cotton Prints that you can find more and more of these days.  All it takes is a seam up the back and you are done.  I added two ribbon ties to make it into a halter top for my daughter.  It is so cute with leggings you can get a Target for $4-5 dollars.  Top cost around $12 for materials. 

This is the -Fancy Nancy Posh Puppy I found it at Joann's Fabric.

This fabric was also purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I used a dark navy knit for this waist band too.  The thicker the knit the better, the thin knit stretchs too much.

Matching skirt for my daughter.

This is a good picture of the knit waist band.

Another skirt I made for my daughter using the mock smock fabric.  This could easily be a top too.

Taking a break waiting for the wind to calm down, it was crazy windy today!

Happy sewing!

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Prepping for the Cullen Garden

       We have had some gorgeous weather here the last few weeks and everything in the garden is starting to wake up and bloom.  My tulips in my front burm garden get taller and taller with each day; even our dogwood tree has blossoms all over it. (I don't think they will last til Easter) 

      Of course the last two days have brought thunder storm after thunder storm across our city and some cold 40 degree temps too.  The children have been spoiled to the longer sunny days and being cooped up inside watching it thunder and rain isn't their idea of fun.  It isn't mine either.....  I was very tempted to throw them outside yesterday and tell them to go play in the mud just to get them out of my house for a few relaxing moments.  No rain today but I think we will visit our wonderful children's museum.  They can run off lots of energy and I can relax and read a little.

 

Our vegetable garden spot.  Small but we pack a lot of great plants in there every year.  See the rosemary bush, we are going to move it over to another flower bed to make room for my vegs.  This is my oldest plant, when I first started gardening in my parent's backyard I planted this rosemary bush when I was fourteen.  It has been moved 4 times. 

A view of our very wet rainy backyard this past Saturday.  The tree in the foreground is a white crape myrtle and the other tree is our Johnafree apple tree.  See the lack of grass there on the bottom left, I will tell you about that in a bit.

What I have blooming right now in my yard:

Dogwood Tree (my sweet tree that my mother in law gave me from her yard 10 years ago)
Purple Tulips
Johnafree Apple Tree (my husband trimmed it back so I am hoping we will get more apples this year)
Jonquils
Wild Violets (Only because my sweet 5 year old brings me bouquets of them every day)  Of course when my real flowers go in the beds these get pulled out.  They are extremely invasive!
Azaleas blooms are just starting to open.

         Inside I started a little herb garden from a kit I purchased from Big Lots.  It was a cold, dreary winter day when I splurged in the hopes of a little green Heaven to sit in my kitchen window to help get me through the last few months of cold.  I was a little sceptical if it would actually work so I saved my receipt and hoped for the best.  Beside Burpee's had their name all over it so that made me think it would be a sure thing.  The kit was $5 and contained basil, chive and parsley seeds, seed starter dirt, two Miracle-Gro packets and it was packed in cute oblong metal tin.

Sure enough it all grew and did so well I had to go buy some peat pots to transplant some of the seedlings out.  I am super excited that now I have 9 basil plants and 3 parsley plants ready for my outdoor garden. 

I also bought seed packets of my three favorites flowering annuals.  These are always are in my flower beds every year:  Zinnias, Bachelor Buttons and Cosmos. 

I used a  Jiffy Greenhouse to start some of my flowers seed early this year. I sure hope my early prep work pays off, this is the first time I have used the Jiffy seed starter kit.

(Purchased at Lowe's Hardware Store: $8.97) 

My husband has been working in our garden plot for our vegetables this year.  This warm weather has him starting early too.  Huge plus for me because we are always a little late getting our vegetable plants out; but this year we are ahead of the game.  Our sweet elderly neighbor across the street gave us his tiller last fall.  This was something we have always wanted to purchase but it wasn't in our budget so we had to borrow a tiller every year.  Of course that meant usually fixing it first and giving it a good tune up and returning it better than we borrowed it.  Isn't that what your parents taught you, mine sure did. NOW we have our own, aren't wonderful neighbors GREAT! 

 

See that handsome little guy in the picture above.  He is the reason I have a patch of dirt where there should be Zoysia grass.  He will also be the reason I have no Zoysia grass in my yard this year or at least in the repeated circles he rides his 4-wheeler around and around and around my yard.  By the way if you are in the market for an awesome kid 4-wheeler I highly recommend the Razor electric 4-wheeler.  It has pneumatic tires (not those plastic cheap tires on all the other kid ride-on toys)  It cost a little more but it will also last!  It is rated for ages 8 and up but my 5 year old does just fine riding. 

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A simple thrift store find~redesigned

I decided I really needed to get out of this winter, snowy, icy yucky funk I have been in.  We normally get, oh maybe two good snow falls in January and February but we have had alot of snow this year.  We southern girls are just not into snow.  We like it for about 5 minutes and then we are over the pretty white stuff!  Our last snow was Wednesday a week ago.  Our city completely shuts down with the first speck of a snow flake.  People flock to the grocery store and empty the shelves with wild anticipation of a snow storm that you think would last a month.  I can say with great enthusiasm I am OVER ice and snow, I went outside Thursday to play with the peeps and their dad and 5 minutes into snow bliss I slipped and fell on ice.  I think I tore every muscle in the back of my right leg.   All I could do was just sit there as the ice under my injured butt began to melt.  I managed a faint whimper and my sweet 8 year old tried to help me regain some type of grace under the excruciating pain from the choir of leg muscles screaming.

All I managed to say to my husband as he tried to 'dust' the snow off of me; was if I could please go inside and cry in a fetal position in a corner somewhere.  So today, four days later with the sun warming up and melting the 'white crap' outside; I decided I really needed to get my blog going again before I start losing the wonderful followers I have!

~Sweet and Simple~

I have always, always wanted a cigar box purse and for some reason I just never got around to making one from scratch.  I was thrifting around in one of my favorite junk shops last year and came across a cigar box purse.  Perfect!! I thought and then I flipped it over to see what was on the other side and was disappointed to find a beaded (in my opinion) gaudy print of a roll skating car hop.  Thanks but No thanks and walked away.  Then I started to think about it and the potential it had so I went back for a second look and to see how easy it would be to take the fabric print off.  For $3 I couldn't pass it up!

Cigar purse before:

Love this side:

I took the metal corners off with a small flat head screw driver and pealed back the fabric (it was backed with thin cardboard and only glued around the edges.

I picked a beautiful floral upholstery fabric, I have been saving for awhile now, to recover the blank side of the cigar purse.  I put a thin layer of craft glue along the edge, let it dry completely with a heavy book on top to weigh it down, then replaced the metal corner

I wanted to dress it up a little more so I cut some black tulle and tied it to one side of the handle and added a vintage rose pin I found at an estate sale years ago.

Isn't it the cutest, sweetest little out-on-the-town purse you have ever seen.

Happy early Valentine's Day!!!!!!

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