Chocolate Withdrawals

I think I am going through post Valentines Day chocolate withdrawals. I ate my whole box of chocolates in 2 days not to mention my husband bought 2 big bags of kit kats last weekend that I helped eat. I was out of it today. I was so tired that as soon as I put the baby down for a nap I fell asleep on the couch watching TV with my daughter (both morning and afternoon naps) my daughter watched way too much TV today. Anyways I blame it all on the chocolate. It reminded me of this I {heart} Chocolate dress I made last year after Valentines day.
I never blogged about it so I guess now is as good of time as any. This dress was made from a clearance t-shirt and 2 skirts from walmart. Both the t-shirt and skirts were to big for my daughter so I cut them down to her size then attached the skirt to the bottom of the t-shirt withthe brown skirt longer than the striped skirt giving it a layered look.

It is the perfect dress for my chocolate loving daughter and she still wears it now. Its all knit material giving it a stretch so it has grown with her over the year.
I made a simple bow in cordinating brown and red ribbon that can be clipped on a head band.
or a hat. So look out for clearance clothes as you do your shopping you never know what you can find, even if they aren't the right size. I paid only a dollar for each piece making this dress $3 and about 30 mins. So heres to coming out of the chocolate coma and getting on with my life.

Linking Parties

Ugly Dolls

I bought stuff to make these ugly dolls with my BBBS little sister long before they became famous because the Obama girls had them. They are really easy to make. I originally bought a simplicity pattern on sale that had 5 different patterns in it, but we didn't use it. We each drew what we wanted our doll to look like and then cut out 2 peices of fleece in that shape. We used buttons for the eyes and embroidered the mouth. This was a great way to teach Dede, my little sister, some basic sewing skills.

Tag blanket and animal

My cousin just had her first baby. I was a little behind in getting her present to her, but in my defense I didn't know the baby would come early. I am glad everything is going ok and that she finally got to come home. Here is a little tag blanket and tag elephant I made for her. The same day I made this elephant I noticed that homemade by jill who I got the inspiration from put a tutorial and pattern on her blog so if you want to make one check out her blog.

Beautiful quilt

I love this quilt from pigtails and snails she made the pattern herself. You could win this beautiful quilt on her web site. Check it out.

Apple t-shirt dress

Before
After
I bought this apple t-shirt at Stuff (a consignment store) for $3. It was brand new it still had the gap tags on it and everything. I thought it was cute but it was way to big for Addi and to small for me so I decided I would use it as fabric to make Addi a dress to where to the apple orchard next week. I used the hems fom the bottom of the shirt and sleeves as the hems om=n the bottom of the dress and dress' sleeves. This made it really easy I just cut out the body of the dress and then the sleeves. Attached the sleeves to the body added edging around the neck and sewed up the sides. I love it and for my first attemt at sewing baby cloths it turned out really good.

Baby legwarmers

I finally made something of my to do list. I made these baby legwarmers. I used this 10 min tutorial on flickr. It took me about 10 min a piece but I am not the most experienced seamstress. I had these on my to do list for awhile and even had some socks that I got from the dollar store (I obviously love our dollar store)then I saw that homemade by jill made them and they were really cute so I decided to try it. I have 2 pieces of advice. One is to use a thread that matches. I just used my white thread that was in my sewing machine because I wasn't expecting my first pair to turn out and since the socks are dark you can see my stitches on the cuff. My other piece of advice it to pin it how the tutorial suggests. I pinned the first one and then thought I was to good to pin on the second one and I ended up picking out the stitches and redoing it.

Rag quilt

These quilts are so easy. You cut your front and backing into squares and then sew them together with the other squares to that the seams are on the top. This way your front and back are already sewn together and there is no need to quilt it. You also don't have to worry about a nice seam because once you are done you snip all your edges and wash the blanket. This makes the edges fray making a nice texture. The hardest thing about this quilt is lining up the corners of the squares. My corners are not all lined up right but if you want to make it easier you can make a strip rag quilt. then all you have to do is be able to sew a straight line.

Chalk board rolls

So I was suppose to post yesterday I know but I didn't have a picture of what I wanted to post so I will just post something I do have a picture of Chalk board roll. These are way cute and I am sure kids will love them. They are made with chalk board material so you can draw on them with chalk. This one has a little pocket to hold chalk and eraser but I have also seen them where the chalk board material takes up the whole mat. These mats then roll up because the material is flexible and there are little ties to hold them together. These would be perfect for car rides or church. This picture is one I took of a mat that Ben Franklin (craft store) made but I was just going to make up my own pattern to make it what ever size I want. Both the chalk board material that you write on and the material that looks like a green chalk board my mother-in-law and I found at Ben Franklin so just look around at different craft/fabric stores in your area.

Fun, Fast and easy project

I am in big brothers big sisters and I meet with my little sister every week. DeDe (thats my little sister) wanted to make a stuff animal, but she has never sewn before so to teach her how to sew I helped her make a pillow case. This was very easy and a good first sewing project. I just used a pillow case I already had as a pattern. Since DeDe had never sewn before the hem line around the top of the pillow wasn't the straightest and we used white thread so it was very noticeable so we took matching ribbon and used iron on tape to attach it over the hem line. I think it looks really cute and no one can see that we didn't sew straight.

Ribbon tab curtains

I made these curtains for my daughters room (well actually my mom did he sewing while I was asleep with the baby). The are probably the simplest curtains you can make. Just buy fabric the length you want the curtain and hem the edges. We did about a 1/4 in hem along the sides and 1 in hems on the top and bottom. In the top hem sew in 2 pieces of matching ribbon and then tie the ribbon in a cute little bow.

Strip Quilt

Here is a quilt I made for my mother-in-law. It is a strip quilt and is one of the easier quilt patterns to start out with. Just get 1/2 yard 6 coordinating fabrics, cut the fabric into strip varying in size from 2 in to 6 in thick. Next sew the strips together in any order that you like. For the back I just got 2 yards (this depends on how long you make your quilt)of a matching fabric. I machine quilted this quilt with my sewing machine by sewing in the grooves between the strips.