2014-September: Layered Skirts

I wanted to make this skirt for E's friend's birthday, because I had a lot of fat quarters laying around and a pattern that used small strips.  I figured I'd make one for E., too!  E. picked out the fabric for the friend, and then more for herself.

The gift skirt

E's skirt

I will say that the skirt came out really cute, but it had a couple of flaws.

First, all the glitter on my glitter tulle came completely off after one wash!  Oops.  (Luckily it magically didn't get all over the rest of the laundry load.)

Then, over time E. would play with the tulle and rip it and just kind of destroy it till it was all ragged and I cut it off bit by bit.

Second, the layers or tiers on the skirt are sewn together just so so that the overlap on each row wrinkles up really badly and flips up, showing the inside and somewhat covering the row above.  It just looks messy.  Not sure how to fix this, because without the overlap it's just sort of patchwork stripes.  The overlapping layers do add to the cuteness!

Way later on, I added a couple rows to her skirt so she could keep wearing it, and she's still wearing it!  That will be a separate post. :)

2014-Summer!

Just a quick note to record for the historical archive (what?) that for the summer of 2014, I didn't really do any sewing projects.  Why?  Well,

* I was wrapped up in my pregnancy (yay!),

* then we took a trip to Cape Cod (from Vancouver WA since we were still living there) for A's conference which took up basically the month of June,

* then since I knew we'd eventually move and sell our house, I did a whole huge project of re-tiling the kitchen floor,

* etc.

After all that, I was back to the sewing machine for more projects to fit in before the baby came! :)

2014-May: Ocean Life Twin Onesies

Custom work for TWIN girls!  I used E's pop-up animal sounds book about ocean life to find images of various sea creatures.  I think they came out great!

2014-May: Space Onesie

Space!! More custom work for Little Brother.  And yes, that is an accurate solar system on the sleeves, OF COURSE!  The most fun (and actually trickiest) was layering the watercolor technique of the background . . . and adding those silver stars.

2014-May: Pets Onesie

Another commission!  Little brother needed a onesie to match his big sister's family pets shirt I had done. :)

2014-April: Cat and Bunny Shirt

This is a shirt I had been painting on the side of some others, mostly to use up extra paint!  I would add to it bit by bit with various colors.  I was going to sell it in my shop, but ended up keeping it for E.  I like the style of the "animals in gardens" theme I was doing at the time and will probably make more like this!

2014-April: Butterfly Fairies Shirt

This is the second shirt my friend commissioned me to do at the same time as the mermaids one.  It's convenient to hand-paint two shirts at once; while one is drying, you can add to the next!

2014-April: Mermaid Shirt

Another shirt I was commissioned to do for a friend.  I really loved doing the scales on the arms!!  I also like how the hair turned out, along with the matching design on the cuffs.

2014-March: Appliqued Balloon Pants (with ribbon tail)

Here is some minor sewing I did: E's costume for her preschool performance!  She wanted to be a pony (Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony), so I appliqued some sweatpants for the "cutie mark" by her bottom and tied together some ribbons for a tail "belt".  Oh, and made a little packet of grass for her to "eat".  Here it is!

I cut out balloons from woven fabric

Pinned then zig-zagged in place

Finished off with sparkly fabric paint!

Here she is wearing the whole deal right before the show.

Nothing fancy, but a lot of fun for her!