Her favorite color is blue, far and away, but I couldn’t resist sneaking a few pink ruffles in there too.

She was afraid the wind would blow her hat off.  She was so concerned about it she clutched her hat most of the morning.  Clutched it so hard the stitching is coming loose.  She just didn’t want to lose it.  Silly girl.

Looking at these tulip gardens makes me want to spend a small fortune on bulbs and have thousands of tulips in bloom at once.  You know, in that yard I don’t have.

There was a group of gardeners trimming flowers and one of them snipped a flower for her.  Actually, I kind of wanted to ask them if I could take home all the one’s they were clipping off, their buckets were full of such pretty colors of petals.

Her dress is handmade, from a thrifted sheet, pink ruffled petticoat was from a costume warehouse sale last year. I had to change the ribbon on the hat from cheapie plastic looking pink to classic stripes, and I think her shoes and ruffle socks are from Target, they were gifts.  I’m so glad I took these yesterday.  I haven’t been using my camera much lately, and looking at these pictures was a good reminder to me why it is important to pull it out everyday.  I have never regretted taking pictures.  But often wish I’d taken them when I didn’t think it was worth pulling out the big camera.  Lesson learned, well, learning.  Slowly, I’m learning to just bring my camera All. The. Time.

I made this today.  I am in an online quilting bee and this is our first month.  This is for Sherri.  This is the first bee I’ve been in, and I am a little intimidated by all the “real” quilters in it.  I have made a lot of quilts, but I still don’t really consider myself a quilter.  Not really.  I am good at sewing squares together, and I have a lot of quilting fabric, but if it’s not a square?  Well…. it makes me nervous.  But this one was all half square triangles, so kind of a square.  Kind of.  Anyway I gave it a shot.  And I love it!

Truth be told, I actually made TWO of these blocks today.  Only, the first one didn’t turn out quite right.  Actually, if we are starting at the beginning I have made three of these.  One last night as a practice/trial run/can I really do this test before I cut into the pretty fabric that Sherri sent me.  And it turned out perfectly.  And I guess I got cocky, because the first one I made today? Well, not perfect.  It’s destined to be a doll quilt for Creamie’s babies now.  She’s already claimed it.  I better hurry up and get that project finished before she shreds the unfinished edges!  Thankfully there was plenty of fabric to make a second block this afternoon.  I cut more carefully, sewed more precisely and pressed the thing within an inch of it’s life.  And I didn’t lose any of my triangle points to the demon seam monster. Victory!

This block is a free pattern from quilterscache.com called the Double Aster Block.  It is 12.5″ square (if you can trim edges straight, which I still need to do before I mail it back to Sherri) so 12″ finished size.  I hope she likes it! (I found this picture on Pinterest that led me to the free pattern).

In other news.  We’ve been battling spring sickies here for almost two weeks.  Scott stayed home from work yesterday, we are all drugged up all the time, and we’ve gone through a TON of tissue over here.  We are thankfully down from the box per day per person we started at.  That makes for very sore noses, even though I only buy expensive “plus lotion and aloe” super soft tissue.  Poor Creamie went through a whole box herself one day.  That’s 125 tissues on her little face in 10 hours.  So so sad.  We are getting better, slowly. Creamie is back at school.  Scott is back at work.  I’ve been craving food but I can’t taste anything.  I don’t want to cook anything.  The only thing that sounds good is warm.  I’m not too picky, if it’s warm I’ll eat it.  I made a heck of a dent in the fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies the other day…. I’m sick.  It’s all fair game.

And today ended in twirling.  I think it’s still a win.  Now, about all those things I didn’t do today…

And it has a removable pot.  (Of course it does, right?  Wouldn’t be as cute without it. No really, it wouldn’t.)

I did change the pot just a bit, I added the scallop border at the top, which made it about 1/4″ taller.  But I think I like it that way better anyway.  If I make this again I’ll probably do some embroidery on my pot before I stitch it together.  But I didn’t think of that until it was too late this time around.

So the real question is does this type of cactus have a purple and blue flower?  I don’t know.  Probably not.  In the book she used two yellows for her flower, but I don’t have any yellow.  All my bits of felt are leftovers from a Christmas present I made for my mom last year, which never made it to blogland.  And there was no yellow.  But since I got this book two weeks ago I have actually been looking into wholesale felt and bulk pricing and I really am quite obsessed…. it’s ridiculous.  And now Creamie wants a cactus too.  One little lipstick just doesn’t compare I suppose.

Felt Lipstick.  Doesn’t get cuter than that.  She has been carrying it around and trying it out since I finished the last stitch.

Yep, it even has a cutie little removable lid.  It kills me.  The whole thing is only 3″ tall.  Which is a lot of very tiny little stitches.  Particularly considering it has 17 different pieces…

But even with 17 teensy beensy pieces, it only took me a little over and hour to make.  My kind of project.

And she’s such a girly girl it’s her kind of project too.  Win win all around.  Jeanette Lim, the author and designer of the book also has an etsy shop full of beautiful and amazing felt patterns.  I want every single thing in her shop.  Seriously.

I was at work at my little quilt shop a few weeks ago and saw the pretty Heather Bailey dotted paisley fabric that is in the border. (It’s a reprint from her FreshCut line.) It’s not really my colors, but I couldn’t stop staring at it and touching it.  So I grabbed some more things that went with it and a little ricrac and came home. That was on a Tuesday.  On Friday I cut it out and started sewing and by Saturday at lunch the quilt top was finished.  It was a record.

I dropped it off for my friend to quilt (she longarmed it) and waited for my turn.  In the meantime I sliced off the edge of my finger. That day she called me to say it was done.  And then she was super extra nice and when I told her what I did she told me to bring in the binding and she’d trim the quilt for me and machine stitch it on.  And so with my less than 24 hour old wound I did what anyone would do and spent 3 hours watching a movie and stitching that binding down by hand.  With a lot of Tylenol and a huge bandaged finger.  The first 12 inches or so was pretty awkward, but after that I got in a groove and it went much better.

My favorite part of this quilt, other than the fact that it is done and I’m using it everyday…. actually, wait.  That is my favorite part.  But I really like how the ruched strips turned out.  They took FOR.EV.ER.  I don’t know that I’ll do that again.  Maybe.  They are really cute though.  And I love the ricrac.  And that I got to use some of my favorite print, Henna Garden from Sandi Henderson in there too.  (It’s the green on green circle/floral print.) But mostly I love that it is done.

I backed it with minkee, which is the softest stuff on the planet and my friend Kellie quilted it with feathers in the big border, leaves in the small green stop border and then loops and swirls in the middle.  And if I was making it again I’d probably choose the darkest blue polka dot fabric for the binding instead of the bias stripes, but whatever.  Live and learn and snuggle down in your finished quilts and then don’t worry about it.  The quilt is finished at 58″x72″.  I didn’t use a pattern, but I’m making another one for a friend and I’ll share more details when that one is finished.

Also, I woke up to snow this morning, I’m sure it will be melted by tomorrow.  Which in my book means that it doesn’t count.  Stupid Lame Winter 2012 is over and we are officially in Spring.  Which means I’m on medication for allergies.  Yeah, they have already started.  Sigh.

These are all shirts from marathons she ran, places she visited (Egypt, Jerusalem, Denmark, Poland!) or people she helped working as a physical therapist.  It was a fun, though enormous project to work on.  The finished quilt is 94″x110″ which is almost King Size. My two brothers are holding it up for me and their average height is 6’6″.  We grow them big here.  I used a heavy woven cotton/twill for the back because it will probably be used as a picnic quilt more than a bed quit.

All the shirts she gave me were gray or white except this one.  And it just didn’t work on the front, no matter which way I tried it.  But I couldn’t very well throw it away either.  And it’s a good thing I didn’t because even though I bought 10 yards of fabric for the sashings and the back (that plaid is 60″ wide) I only had a tiny piece left.  You know, about 4″x10″.  I needed that shirt in the back just to take up some space!  Also, my brother are kind of dorks, especially that one in black. HA!  I hope you love it M!

Quilt Stats: 30 shirts for the front, cut into 14.5″ (unfinished) squares, I used more than 20 yards of lightweight interfacing, ironed onto the backs before I trimmed them down to keep them from stretching.  That’s important when you are quilting with knits. Sashing is 2.5″ finished, same as the stop border.  The outer border I think is 4.5″.  I wish I could have made it an inch or two wider.  Oh well.  The back has about 30 pieces in it, just what happened when you are sewing all the scraps together.  Which is also why the plaids don’t match up perfectly.  Bummer.  I added a grayish border to the blue shirt to help it stand out, and so the blues wouldn’t butt up next to each other and clash.  And because those extra four inches were necessary!  My friend Kellie at the quilt shop where I work quilted it for me, and I bound it in a light gray by hand.  If I was doing it again I would probably picked a little darker gray.  It didn’t look nearly so light before I had it all finished.  Isn’t that the way it goes.

Every year at church we set up an angel tree to help the families in our neighborhood that need it the most. (You pick a tag off the tree and buy a gift for “Adult Male” or “6 month old girl” or whatever.)  In the past Scott and I have always taken a few tags and returned our anonymous gifts.  It’s part of what Christmas is all about anyway and we feel strongly about helping people who live right by us.  But this year we just couldn’t do it.  Instead, I helped make stockings for these angel tree kids.  I could at least do that.  But one day at church I was sitting there in class, the angel tree set up right in front of me.  And I noticed a new little tag.  A family had been added at the last minute.  And right there in the center was one tag that I couldn’t stop staring at.  It said “Girl, age 7. Want: doll”.

I stared at it for the entire 45 minute class.  I have absolutely zero idea what the teacher was talking about.  But my heart was racing, knowing what I was going to do.  Then while I very impatiently waited for class to end (I did have the presence of mind to realize that it would be rude to stand up in the middle of the teachers lesson and walk right up to the front of the room…) I had a minor anxiety attack thinking of the possibility that when class was over someone else might get to it first.  I KNEW this little tag was for me.  As soon as the closing prayer was over, the “Amen” still hanging in the air, I maybe climbed over the empty row of chairs in front of me and snatched the tag as quick as I could.  Maybe.  But I made it.  And that’s all that matters.

We didn’t have any money for Christmas, but I have enough craft supplies to circle the planet, twice over.  And I knew I could make a beautiful doll without spending any money.  But one that this little girl’s parents could never hope of buying.  There was only a few days until these gifts were supposed to be returned so they could be delivered.  But I talked to the woman in charge and told her I would never make it in four days.  But I’d have it done and wrapped and at her house by the 22nd of December.  Then I got to work.

I combined two different patterns to make this doll.  She is part Poppy Doll (from Fiona Dalton at hop.skip.jump) and part Little Red (from Larissa Holland at mmmcrafts).  I’d never made either of them before, but after I looked at the pattern pieces I knew I could combine my favorite parts of both to make this Christmas Doll.  I did end up buying about 6″ of brown felt for her hair and braids.  I just couldn’t make her hair jet black (I saved that for her shoes), or gray.  And those were the only options in my stash.  After I made my doll I started pulling out fabric scraps for her wardrobe.

And then I decided that I was going to go all out.  Because little girls need dresses, and shoes, and a school bag.  And it was Christmas. She just just wouldn’t have been right without them.  Her shoes took a few tries to get right.  They are black felt with a working button closure.  Her school bag is purple felt with a vintage button clasp.

As soon as the bag was finished Creamie declared it “so baby cute” and then informed me that she needed keys and a phone and a chapstick and a notebook to go inside.  But I thought I should probably make her some pants before I worked on minature chapstick.  I tucked an extra set of hair ribbons and a silver heart necklace (a gift from a highschool boyfriends parents.  I never even wore it)  into her bag instead.  I did have to make her pants twice because the first ones just didn’t come on and off easily enough.  And the rest of her wardrobe pattern drafting went surprisingly well.  I think I had my own little angel watching me, making sure i didn’t screw anything up too much because there just wasn’t the time. This little blue shirt has buttons up the back, and is fully reversible. The other side is a cute tealish blue gingham.  I had plans to make her a pair of jeans and another shirt or two.  But it just didn’t work out.

Because it was December, and I couldn’t very well send a little girl out in a little sleeveless shirt, I drafted a pattern for a wool coat too.  The Little Red Riding Hood pattern has a beautiful red wool cape, but I didn’t have any red wool.  And a Little Green Riding Hood just isn’t the same.  I used the hood as a starting point and in much less time than I anticipated I had this cute green coat with wood buttons ready to go.  See, that was the sewing angel watching out for me again.  I kind of wish she’d stay around all the time.

Of course that wasn’t all, because she also needed some flannel jammies.  So I drafted that pattern too.  I had the perfect pink polka dot left over from making this blanket and amazingly the perfect color of ribbon trim.  A small miracle.  And I think adding 1.25 inches of 1/16″ elastic to the bottom of the long sleeves was one of the most frustrating things of the whole doll making procedure.  Sheesh!  I ended up threading it through with a needle because I didn’t have a saftey pin small enough to do the job.  Those 2.5 inches of elastic were enough to drive me to eat up all my chocolate stash.  True story.

And last of all, with just a few alterations to the jammies pattern I was able to make her a party dress.  Because little girls need dresses as much as they need coats and bags and jammies and cutie little shoes.  I finished tacking down the lining by hand while in the car on our anniversary lunch date the afternoon of the 22nd, and when I got home I added button holes and the sash.  But I made it.  Kind of. (I ended up cutting the drop off kind of close.  But I was NOT letting her go out the door without getting a few pictures.)  Santa was already loading his sleigh when I arrived, box in hand, smile in my heart.  It was something I’ll never forget.  I don’t know which little girl opened her on Christmas morning.  But I hope she likes her.  I hope she wasn’t wishing for a Barbie, or a Bratz doll or something lame like that.  All Christmas morning I kept thinking about my little 7 year old girl, hoping she wouldn’t be disappointed.

I will make this doll again.  I thankfully made (and kept!) my labeled paper pattern pieces so I won’t have to start over next time.  I think next year I’ll make one for Creamie.  And a little boy to go with her.  (I already have a huge list of clothes I can make. ) While I was working on making this Angel Doll she asked me a few times who it was for.  And I told her it was for a little girl who didn’t have any presents for Christmas.  She probably didn’t understand, but she accepted the fact that it wasn’t for her.  And she was totally OK with that.  She gave this Angel Doll a lot of hugs and rockabyes before she was finished, and was happy to help me wrap up all her clothes in tissue paper and put everything in one big box.  I can’t wait to do it again next year.

This tutorial is just for a Twink costume.  I didn’t make the Rainbow Brite costume.  I borrowed it from my sister, and she and my mom made it years ago.  It is a royal blue dress with a full skirt.  It has a heavy interfacing petticoat underneath to make it stick out.  Add white trim around the bottom (this is fusible fleece) and a red belt.  The finishing touch is rainbow striped thigh high socks.  You’ll need two pair.  Cut the feet off of one pair and wear as rainbow sleeves.  Add some killer red shoes and you are good to go.  Now, onto Rainbow’s little Sprite named Twink.

For my twink costume I purchased rainbow striped tights (I found mine at a thrift store, but Rainbow Striped babylegs/legwarmers are pretty easy to find.  This pair on Amazon is only $4.  I also purchased a red long sleeved onesie for her to wear underneath her Twink costume.  Now, onto the sewing!

The Twink costume is basically a white fluffy pumpkin.  When I was talking to Scott about it he said “It’s a pumpkin in fun jeans!” (please  tell me someone else remembers this episode of TheOffice…) I used this basic Simplicity pattern and combined the pumpkin bodysuit with the hood from the lamb costume (sans ears).  Simplicity has renumbered their patterns and this is now labeled Simplicity 2788.  It is available at Joanns, Hancocks, Hobby Lobby, Amazon or any number of different places.  I bought mine at Joanns on one of their 99 cent sales I think.  Use the measurements on the back for yardage required.  I am not going to go into that here because it’s all right there in the pattern that I used.

The white fuzzy fabric I used is white  Silky Furry Fleece.  I got mine at Joanns (here it is).  It comes in Red and Brown and Cream and Black and White.  I lined the whole costume with regular white fleece.  You’ll need to line it because the stuffing goes in between the two layers.  Creamie was only 9 months old when she wore this, and I had to take about 10 inches out of the smallest size because it was so large.  The costume has velcro at the shoulders and elastic around the bottom and it goes together pretty easily.  I did modify the hood just a bit, besides leaving off the ears.  I added about 1.5 inches to the length in the back so that it would be long enough to cover all of her neck and meet up with the bodysuit and to make it look like one piece.

The belt was really easy.  1: I used royal blue nylon webbing and a bit of Velcro to hold it together.  After I had the bodysuit finished i measured around it while it was on Creamie and cut the nylon to length.  I used less than 1 yard. 2: For the little pouch to hold star sprinkles I used a scrap of red felt (about 2.5″ x 6″.)  Round the corners on the top flap a bit and then just stitch it together, no need to turn it inside out.  Sew on a button and make a tiny slit for the button hole. 3: The star is from a sheet of stiff yellow felt (you can buy pre stiffened felt at craft stores.)  It is 3.5″ across.  I hot glued a belt loop onto the back so that I could thread it onto the blue belt. 4: Thread the star and the pocket onto the belt and you are good to go.  I decided to make them all separate pieces so that I could wash the bodysuit separately if I needed to.

Her little star antennae are also separate pieces.  Because I was sure the hood would need to be washed after she wore it.

Cut four stars out of the stiff yellow felt and hot glue a big fat fuzzy pipecleaner in between them.  Then I attached the pipe cleaners to two alligator clips with a little hot glue and by wrapping the wire around the clips.  I clipped the antennae onto the hood by sliding the bottom side of the clip through the fuzzy fabric.  I could have made button holes or something but I just shove the clips through the fabric.

I tried to find cute little red shoes for weeks but in the end decided it would be cheaper to just have her wear socks over a pair of shoes she already had.  I bought a pair of red socks and cut off the tops.  I just zigzagged around the edge of them with my sewing machine and she wore them over her shoes.

Put all of that together and it is one of the cutest costumes I’ve ever made.  If you have any questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them here as well.

A few nuts and bolts things: 1: If you are traveling, take off the bodysuit before you strap your kid into their carseat.  That one should be pretty obvious.  2: I am not affiliated with Amazon or Joanns or anyone else and I am providing links to products they sell as a convenience to you.  I am sure similar items can be found other places.  3: If you want to make these to sell in an online shop or at a craftsfair or whatever, go ahead.  But please provide a link back to this tutorial in your listing or on a tag attached to the costume.  That’s just being nice.  4: I’d love to see any costumes you make, please email them to me at pinksuedeshoe at gmail dot com or leave a link to your post/picture/whatever in the comments.  Happy Halloween!

I was going to give it to my sister, for her baby girl due next month, but it ended up having a lot more pink in it than I think she’ll like.  So, I’ll have to come up with something else.  Which, lets be honest, will be pretty easy.  I came home with a new little stack of fabric today. (Quilt details: 43″ square, made up of 9 patch blocks and large blocks measuring 7.25″.  Inner border is 3/4″ in brown, outer border is I think 3″… I don’t remember now.)

I really like making baby quilts because I can piece the whole thing together in one good afternoon and evening.  Bigger quilts seem to take forever, but I can totally rock out a baby quilt in one day.  (You know, because at this point in my life I don’t quilt them myself. )  It was just a fun and fast little project, but I really do like the whole process of picking out fabrics and then thinking up a pattern that will work.  Weeks ago, when our first Halloween fabric arrived at the quilt shop I designed and made a Halloween quilt and made up a bunch of kits.  And as soon as my mom saw it she commissioned another for her birthday (which is today, Happy Birthday Mom!).  Those kits sold out in two weeks so I was glad I didn’t wait to bring hers home.  I of course don’t have a picture of that one, so I’ll hopefully have hers done next week so she can enjoy it before Halloween and I’ll post pictures then.  Creamie had a very early bedtime tonight (YAY!) and I am hoping that her new antibiotics help her kick whatever it is she has been sick with for the past 2 weeks.  I’m off to make my favorite cookies, recipe tomorrow.