Clothes Tweaking

Thrift skirt... too long

Check. Cut off extra fabric, sew the slit up a bit and hem.

Thrift skirt... too short

Check. Unstitch hem, sew a band of grey along the fold of the existing skirt's hem. hem the gray and I sewed up the front seam for a more finished look.

Plain black tee

Liquid stitch some lace

Wa-la. A bit more visual interest and no sewing!

Plain tee (see my hand prints in it where I smoothed it out? Creepy!)

Moon and stars 

(Issues with it: stars were too small, bottle dripped bleach, paper too thin, too much bleach sprayed out. Next time I will use cardboard and splatter paint it on)

Cheap silk remnant from thrift store.

Three straight lines and a silky pillowcase

Using this tutorial and some thrift remnant fabric, I made a maxi skirt.

Ignore the messy bed.

Twice now I've removed the "extra button" from the inside of my pj tops and sewed them above teh highest button and made a button hole so that my pj tops are a bit more modest.

My old mace container. Dustin wanted me to rig it for his belt for when he's out fishing.

Check.

Glider Fix

As a baby gift from my parents we received a glider. I LIVED in that thing. It is so soothing to me. I would love to see the hours total I spent in that thing nursing and rocking my baby.

Well it broke on the move.

These bars cracked and the glider collapsed to the side when you tried to use it. Fast forward about two months when Dustin finds this back massager at the local high school band garage sale for $2.00. Ahh, there's the motivation needed to fix up that chair.

We had plywood left over from cutting a piece to fit above our window a/c unit. Dustin cut it with the Dremmel and while he was at the hardware store buying screws, I went to work. 

I covered the pieces with two layers of this batting that I had left over from making Dustin's Elf costume for Halloween in 2010.

I just laid the boards out, cut around, folded it over and hot glued.

Then I hunted through my fabric stash for a coordinating fabric. Enter the .80 piece of burlap from the thrift store used to make the flowers on the wreath seen earlier.

Cut again and hot glue, pulling the fabric taut.

Tada!

Put it in place (we did one for each side to prevent future breakage, cause we're smart like that)

Tip 'er back up and admire.

Then relax.

Scripture Cases

I may have mistakenly announced during the introduction to my talk on Sunday a few weeks past that I enjoy sewing. Well one of our elders came up that day and asked if I would sew him some scripture cases. I said of course but I was nervous. I've never made anything like this. I didn't have a pattern and he had some kind of specific ideas :)

I told him I'd do my best and he brought me fabric, a native american blanket and some zippers. I also didn't have his scriptures, just a paper tracing. 

I spent some time thinking and then decided to get to work. These details are probably not nearly detailed enough to make your own off of, I'm not that good at explaining sewing. Sorry :(

I first folded over an edge of the jean and ironed some iron on facing to the inside of the fold and then sew to keep it nice and flat.

Then cut out the outline for the main piece, making sure to center the pattern. Then I just stay stitched the pockets to the ends of the main blanket piece.

I then sewed the zipper all around (doing the corners was tricky the first time, the second time was much faster).

Finally I sewed black double fold bias tape on. This worked great with a normal sewing foot. NOT the walking foot. I guess each has their place. 

I whipped out the second case in a fraction of the time of the first!

He requested that this patch from the blanket be included on the Book of Mormon case pocket. 

I'm glad he asked me, it was a great experiment but it really ups the stakes when it's a project for someone else! Glad it's done.

Book Storage

I've scored a number of great books at the thrift stores lately. Now for some usable storage. 

Little Gal is good about putting books away in slots, but not on a big open shelf. 

Instead of spending tons of money on a new book shelf, I just grabbed some boxes we had here, fit them in one another for some divisions/levels and wa-la.

 Pretty, right?

 Add lots of hot glue and duct tape

 For a more finished look I covered it (very wrinkly, I'll add) with contact paper. Another thrift store score.

 Not perfect and I didn't care.

 There are two shallow shelves and one deep one in the back for larger books. It holds a good amount and is easier for Hadley to keep clean.

 She's happy. I'm happy.

Table Play Tent

I purchased this flowery sheet at the Salvation army, washed it and placed it on the table. It covered the front, back and side. I pulled in the sides and sewed up and made a "box" on one end. I then cut a square to cover the other side. 

 I then cut 4 "windows and sewed them on around each small pane and the whole window. I then cut the panes out.

I cut up the center and sewed a dart at the top so the door doesn't tear up any higher. Then sewed long strips and added one to the inside and one to the outside of each side to tie the door open.

 We've played in the tent a few times. It's great for enjoying some coloring and snacks!

Inspiration

Recently we heard that our little town had a Salvation Army store. We set out on our walk this morning to find it. We scored all of this for under $7 because unknown to me, the Lord smiled down on me and it happened to be buy one get one free on craft items today!!

Four classic books

8 zippers (2/.25)

a queen flat sheet and a TON of fabric. My plan is to make this:

Lace (I'm collecting it to make this 

skirt someday. I've already made the underneath skirt part. Now I just need enough lace)

Pillowcase Dresses 2

For $2.10 in pillowcases and some fun sewing time while watching Drop Dead Diva, my newest TV guilty pleasure, little lady now has 4 more dresses. She LOVES the silky one but they are all a bit large for her except the yellow gingham. That was a smaller pillowcase so I just moved the pattern around a bit as I cut to make it a bit smaller and cut it shorter. It worked!

 She looks so sweet and it is so thin and airy and summery.

The Pillowcase dress. I'm hooked!