Here’s another catch up/throwback post. These were all at a Disney costume exhibit at the Henry Ford forever a go now. I thought it would still be fun to post it though. The detail on the costumes was absolutely beautiful and I enjoyed getting a glimpse behind the scenes. From a seamstress’ point of view it was wild to see the techniques and craftsmanship that went into these costumes.
Here’s the Fairy Godmother’s costume from the 2015 live action remake of Cinderella. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s so fluffy and sparkly. I loved the different fabric textures and sewing techniques and how it all worked together.
And here’s the Cinderella dress from the same movie. They used a couple of different fabrics to create the shimmer, as well as using some CGI to help things look even cooler in the movie. If you look closely at the bottom, you can see the different layers and colors of shiny tulle that was used.
These are the day dresses for Cinderella’s stepsisters in the live action remake. If I remember correctly, they primarily in these color palettes for most of the movie.
Here’s another live action remake- This one is Beauty and the Beast. This is the village dress that Belle wears until she gets to the castle. The costume designers were trying for French countryside to pay homage to the story’s origins.
Here’s Gaston’s costume. The color was so bright and vibrant. There were a lot of military elements involved in the costume.
Here is Belle’s famous ball gown. This one was really cool because it was very fluttery and they had silk screened the print and bejeweled it. I really enjoyed the cool shaping on the bodice as well.
This was from the live action Maleficent movie. Look how cool the shiny vinyl is! This is supposed to be the dragon part of the costume. The big puffy white thing in the corner is Aurora’s dress. I believe it was from a wedding scene.
Here are the Mary Poppins dresses- original and remake, and the original carpetbag. I really enjoyed spotting the differences between the two costumes and finding the nods they made to the original. How many can you find?
Look out! Here comes the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus. I absolutely loved these costumes! The patchwork is fantastic and lovely. All the colors and textures for the fabric make them look especially rich and fancy even though they are supposed to look old fashioned.
There were some guy costumes too, but I wasn’t as interested in them. They had similar colors and not as much embellishment. Jack Sparrow’s costume was one of the most interesting ones with all the colors and details.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse of some adventures! Maybe we can all find an adventure of our own!
I did some sewing, of course, for my Disney girl’s trip and thought I should share it! The first three are embroideries that I was playing around with with a possible intention to making something for the trip. They didn’t get made into anything, but they are Disney themed and pretty to look at. The first one is, of course, Cinderella’s Carriage.
The second one is the Beast’s rose. I accidently put part of the pink where the golden lines was supposed to go. I think it still looks good though.
This third one is Ariel, but the colors are slightly off from what I wanted them to be. I really liked the background fabric though and wanted to keep the colors matching that. I will maybe redo it. K said she liked it, so perhaps she will get something made it with. I hadn’t cut the extra threads yet in the picture.
I made this shirt for Disney bounding, which is where you dress up themed as a character without actually being dressed in a character costume. I went as Rapunzel, because, of course I did. 🙂 I braided my hair and put flowers all down my braid. The purple skort in the picture below has pockets and matched the purple in the shirt perfectly. I also had a sun necklace and a set of frying pan earrings. In the movie, which is where these images on the shirt are from, Rapunzel wields a frying pan several times to great effect. It was the day it rained so in the next picture, I have my cozy Disney hoodie I bought so I wouldn’t freeze. We kept saying we didn’t intend to bring the cold winter weather from home with us to Florida.
I made the purple skort by combining two separate patterns. I used my favorite skort pattern and then added pockets from a gathered skort pattern I had. It turned out super cute, although I made have to redo the waist as it is a little loose.
I made this rocket shirt on a whim and was excited to wear it to Epcot. It’s very comfy and cute! I liked getting to wear something science themed there. I also was excited to wear something I made on the day we went to the Festival of the Arts! It seemed like it fit with the theme as well. Both the Rapunzel tee and the rocket tee are from Peek a boo Patterns, but I think they may have retired the pattern, as I can’t find it on their website to purchase any more.
I also made another skort that was accidently reminiscent of Jasmine or Merida. It was a darker teal with gold dots on it. I liked it and it was made out of athletic material (as was the purple) so it kept me nice and cool. I don’t have a good picture of it, unfortunately. It’s super cute though! It’s a little gathered, so it looks like I’m wearing a cute gathered skirt, but it’s got the shorts and the pockets too.
It was fun to have an almost completely handmade wardrobe to wear on the trip and I think I’m getting my sewing mojo back. I hope you enjoyed hearing about them!
These are all from the National Quilt and Sewing Expo. I always take a million pictures, but there’s so many cool quilts! These were all Art Deco style!
Hello! I’ve been having fun and getting more confident with my embroidery machine. Oh yeah, did I say I bought one? We’re going to blame my Mother in Law as usual for most of my expensive sewing purchases. 🙂 I have wanted an embroidery machine for a while. Since my vintage green sewing machine is named Shirley, I named embroidery machine Florence. It makes me smile!
So this year, I embroidered a bunch of Christmas gifts for people. Please excuse some of them being still in the hoop. I forgot to take pictures of the final product, as between being sick, switching jobs, and the normal holiday rush, it was just not something I focused on.
This one was for the Husband. It suits him perfectly and I just need to find a good frame for it. It’s supposed to look like one of those embroidery samplers, but snarky. He has assured me not everything is for spite… but I know a few things have been. Mostly on my behalf lately, which I’m okay with. *bwhahaha
A Scandinavian deer for my parents. Isn’t it pretty! It was so fascinating to see how the machine sewed everything and I love how it turned out. The pattern is a set of Scandinavian animals, so I’m excited to use more of them in the future.
This one is from the same pack as the deer and really was one of the main reasons I bought that set of embroidery patterns. I had a grand vision of making everyone tiny little embroidered ornaments this year, but only managed a few of them. I do like them though, so maybe everyone will get them next year instead. So you know… forget I said anything if I’m in the habit of sending you presents. 😉 I did have a lot of fun trying out different color combinations with them. I do need to iron that wrinkle out and reframe it, but they came out super cute!
This mint chip ornament went to K2 because she said she liked it. Sometimes when I’m unsure of something it will go to the person who actually does like it. I did too, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else would get the mint chip theme.
Look! A bookmark! Something that I almost never use for its intended purpose. This is made of only thread and water soluble stabilizer to make free standing lace. It was one of three? four? attempts. I did not throw my very expensive embroidery machine off the house for how annoying it was to make, as it wasn’t the machine’s fault. The stabilizer was like thicker plastic cling film and it just kept shredding itself, as you put it in the hoop by itself with no fabric. It also got shoved into the needle plate at one point by the needle, causing me to have to take the needle plate completely off to get it out. There’s apparently a different kind of stabilizer I need instead that’s much easier to use and more fabric like. This stuff would work on top of thicker towels, I think, where it’s not by itself so I am going to save it for those projects. I may have a free standing lace gnome pattern for bookmarks too… 🙂
My friend K1 got another blue towel with an embroidered chicken too, but it says something rather rude and I thought I should protect my poor, innocent, and noble mother from seeing it. 😉 K1 loved it though as it fit her chickens to a tee, so I am satisfied. Fun fact, I got these towels and some other ones from the quilt expo and they are very good quality! These tea pots make my heart enormously happy and I want to make a whole apron set with all of them on it. I think I have 8 or 9 of them. it’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’m a sucker for adorable mushrooms, even if I am allergic to nettles.
Also from the quilt show tea towels were these two that I made for my mother. I completely fooled her too, she didn’t think I’d made them! Both of these designs came from the set that came installed on the machine and I was excited to use them. I fiddled with the colors on the tree. It was originally mostly red, but I wanted to have it match the green towel. I think they both came out looking very nice!
Probably my favorite and most complicated Christmas present were these dice boxes for my older brother and SIL. The blue set of dice has little tiny lutes imbedded in them, since they were for my SIL. My brother got the brown dice box and swirly dice. I also made them this towel with a funny saying on it. If you roll a 20 on these 20 sided dice in table top games, it generally means you’ve made it and whatever you’re trying to do succeeds. If you roll a 1, you’re essentially dead if it was an attack move, or fail at whatever you were trying to do.
The dice boxes were made all with the embroidery machine! They are an “in the hoop” project, meaning the entire thing was done in the embroidery hoop itself. I just cut them out after they were done. I’ll have to make more and take video because it was super cool!
I sent this kitchen towel along with the dice boxes too and it makes me giggle. I wanted to experiment with the variegated rainbow embroidery thread I bought and it came out looking really cool. The thread looks fuzzy in the lighting below, but it isn’t actually in real life.
I have some more embroidery projects too, but they were made for other things or as tests, so I’ll have to make another post and maybe show some video of the machine working. It is pretty magical!
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Christmas fun! I’m looking forward to showing off more projects as I get more confident. Also, if you have any ideas on what to embroider, I’ll take them! I only need so many dishtowels!
I went to the the Sewing and Quilt Expo this past weekend with K and we had such fun, even though it was significantly smaller than in previous years. The classes were excellent though and I’ll write more about them later. For now, here’s the animal quilts I saw there.
This one is called Dog Pile and I only have a partial pic to remind me of the name. I ordered the pattern to make Piggy a quilt.
I’m so far behind on documenting my recent sewing that I decided to just make highlight reel post to try to catch up. It’s appropriate, since it’s now Me Made May! Me Made May is where you make a goal to wear all handmade items. Generally it’s a way for people to rotate their closet, maybe put together some new outfits, and learn what works and what doesn’t for them. When I first started sewing more clothes, I was so excited to eventually to have a big enough wardrobe to participate and now I don’t know what angle to take with it because most of my wardrobe at this point, is me made! I have been trying to let myself give away me made items that don’t fit for one reason or another, so maybe that can be my goal this May.
Looking at these pictures, I’ve learned that my pose is one hand on hip, foot cocked- probably from my dance days. 🙂 I’ll have to experiment with other poses for this year. I’m struggling with how I look in some of them, but wanted to be brave and post them because while my body may not make me happy, the outfits do. Please excuse the mess in the background. I haven’t been able to organize the basement yet.
First up is my Christmas jammies. My pet jammie peeve is when they ride up my legs in the middle of the night and my ankles get cold, so I have started wearing more leggings in the winter. I saw this shark in plaid pjs fabric on Purple Seamstress and immediately ordered it because.. Sharks! In plaid jammies! They have buttons down the bottoms!!! Whimsical and ridiculous, just like me! The Husband has given up attempting to reign in any hope of a normal wife, by the way, although he claims I’ve gotten weirder over the years. (He’s not wrong. ;)) The grey is a thermal print that doesn’t have a lot of recovery, so I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It’s nice, cozy, and warm though, so it works perfectly for the sleeves. The patterns are both Patterns for Pirates- the Relaxed Raglan and the Peg Legs leggings.
This shirt is one that I thought I wrote about, but may have done that elsewhere, so excuse it if you’ve seen it already! I made this Sinclair Cachet, modified with a bottom band, for workouts, gardening, and sleeping. I wasn’t sure about the material when I bought it, but it was on a really good clearance sale, so I tried it out and liked it a lot! It’s drapey and cool. Perfect for yoga too. I realized this shirt pattern is the same pattern as my favorite RTW shirt.
This is a Relaxed Raglan from Patterns for Pirates and also a great example of fabric type making all the difference. I can wear it with jeans or with work pants and it looks fabulous either way! I did accidently sew the neckband on backwards, but it doesn’t bother me to have the little seam in the front. I made big thick bands on the bottom and for the cuffs and I really like it. It’s cozy and warm without being too hot and is made from hacci sweater fabric. The hearts are more grey in person.
This sweater. Where do I even start?! It’s made from the softest hacci fabric I have ever felt. I think it’s actually brushed hacci, so is cozy, comforting, and warm. I made a bigger collar but was pushing the limits of the fabric I had bought, so couldn’t make it as big as I wanted. I love it! It’s nice to wear to work because it’s longer and makes me look much more put together than some of my outfits. It’s the Grandpa Cardi with no pockets from Patterns for Pirates as well.
I was wearing these pants actually while typing this. They are one of my pairs that I wash and immediately put right back on. The fabric is running in weird ways though, so I’m not sure that it’s all that sturdy, despite being super duper comfy. But I really like them! The pattern is a free one from Petite Stitchery, the Women’s Yoggers.
This is a triblend fabric, which is one of my favorites, as it’s warm, but not too warm and it feels lovely to wear. Triblend is a mix of rayon, spandex, and cotton and when I find it, I buy a bunch of it. I love how this tunic fits. It’s the Patterns for Pirates Relaxed Raglan with a wide band on the bottom. It’s very cozy.
These pants gave me fits, but I was able to finally figure it out and they are one of my favorites now. I used a faux linen and made work pants. These are actually the Yogger pattern as well, but without the cuffs. They are loose enough in the hips, but don’t make me look like I’m wearing pants that are too big. I had some issues with the waistband, but it doesn’t show under shirts anyway.
And last, but certainly not least, my sewing themed accidental track suit. I made the top, a Be Creative Hoodie from E&M a while ago, but then got more of this fabric and made a pair of Yoggers. Much to the Husband’s dismay, this is my favorite around the house combo when I’m chilly. I think it’s fantastic! How can you not love the neon notions? Also notice the purple hair. I think it was right after I had got that batch of color done. Currently my hair has blue highlights and side swept bangs! It still has the purple and the pink as well, but they are faded. It gives a cool effect though when the older colors come through in the light.
I hoped you enjoyed a glimpse at my favorite sewing projects. Hopefully I’ll have some more to share shortly!
Here’s some smaller sewing projects that I’ve made recently. I looked back and realized that I hadn’t been posting anything of sewing or food. Mostly because it’s been hard to make myself do either for some time. Having the monthly challenges is helping, but sewing hasn’t been as much of a draw for me lately. I’m having some struggles with low motivation and difficulty making decisions, so it’s been hard to pick what I want to sew and when. Our basement is still a mess. It got overwhelming very quickly. The upstairs public areas have stayed relatively tidy since we’ve started to have people over more. The basement however, is still in recovery mode from the repairs. Hopefully we can get that sorted soon as well.
I did sort and put away a bunch of woven fabrics the other day and have been boxing stuff up for my local Buy Nothing group. Some of the fabric and patterns that I haven’t been able to use for a while, or didn’t really care for any more went to a group that works with disabled individuals to teach sewing and a bunch of the other fabrics have gone to beginning sewists to help them make muslins and other things for practice. I sent a big box to a sewist friend of mine and have one started for K1 too, although it’s been long enough she may have forgotten it’s coming. 😉
Anyway, here are some projects. Some of them are gifts from Christmas!
Here’s some snuffle mats I’ve made for the dogs in my life. Piggy has one too, but we have to monitor pretty carefully, as she gets super excited and tries to rip the fabric thinking there’s food inside. Silly girl. I swear, we do feed her the vet recommended amount!
The blue and black one is for my sister in law’s dog. She also likes to inhale her food, so hopefully this will help her calm down too. You hide the food in between the fleece lines and on top of it and the dog has to snuffle her way through to find the food or treats. Piggy loves hers!
The second one is for K3. Her pup is on restricted movement right now due to an injury, so I thought maybe it would cheer him up. I tried a different folding technique on the ends and if it works, I may make another one for Piggy too. These are all completely washable, much better than the ones that are tied to a plastic mat. You can’t wash those and that seems unhygienic, considering how drooly dogs get.
I found some new doll clothes patterns and even though none of the kiddos have complained about the doll wardrobe lately, I was getting bored with it. I did have a request for a cheerleading outfit though and may have gone down the rabbit hole of really fancy doll clothes patterns on Etsy. It’s also possible that I now own patterns for a full doll size tutu with the Basque bodice… You know, the really fancy, stiff pancake tutu with the heavily embroidered bodice? And the Giselle flowy tulle tutu that can also be a ballgown. And maybe a Regency style doll gown (I would look terrible in the Regency style, but it’s so pretty, so the dolls get it instead.) And maybe also the following adorable patterns. This first skirt is the Tie Dye Diva Potato Chip Doll Skirt- Because you can’t just make one! I made this one super fast and it has the tiniest little pockets that are surprisingly easy to make. I also own the skirt in real kid and people sizes, so there’s that. Tie Dye Diva is one of the sponsors for the 52 Week Challenge.
These two are also from Tie Dye Diva- the pink shirt goes with the Potato Chip skirt (not these two obviously) and the dress is a reversible dress for a 14 inch doll of which I now have Anna and Elsa from Frozen. They came from my Buy Nothing Group as well and I had a mighty need to dress them in traditional Scandinavian clothes. What can I say, as tiny as they are, doll clothes are proving to be the thing that gets me out of my sewing slumps a lot. And I’m a grown-up, so get to decide to dress up the dolls. Plus, my American Girl doll, Kirstin is now retired and needs more clothes. I do have her sewing patterns too, but wanted a full Scandinavian costume. The 14 inch doll clothes are hard to find too, so who knows, if I can get them looking nice enough, I could sell them.
The last doll clothes item is this raglan shirt. I don’t remember who it’s by though so will have to tell you when I make the next one. This set of fabrics matches a hoodie I have and it makes me happy because they’re so cute together. I’ve wanted a doll raglan for a while because ragland style and dolman style (where the sleeve is part of the top piece) are the easiest styles to sew and I abhor sewing tiny little sleeves in flat. Now I can make all the cute baseball shirts!
Piggy also got a sweater when she was nervous about the windows being replaced. I had to keep her in the basement with me. We should have probably given her the stronger meds that make her calm, although the herbal ones worked too. Isn’t she adorable? When/if I make her more, I’ll extend the back and the belly coverage a little. The front fits fine, but the back and belly is slightly shorter than I’d like it to be. I have thought about making her a mesh shirt for hikes that has fabric on the belly to keep her from getting itchy, but mesh along the back so she doesn’t overheat, which bully breeds, especially bulldogs, are prone to have happen.
Her new collar says “Don’t go bacon my heart.” with hearts and bacon. I couldn’t resist although it made the Husband sigh and shake his head. He loves me and my punny heart though, so it’s all good. 🙂
I made this bag to hold my dowel rods for my dolls at work. It’s a set of hanging racks that you can use for display if you’re selling at craft fairs and such, or in my case, when the office dolls need to go shopping at the clothes store. It gets set up in very elaborate ways, but I kept having dowels roll under my couch and it was very annoying. Now they’re all safe and together and my office doesn’t look quite as much like a toy store exploded in it.
I made us chopstick curtains for the kitchen too! We just had the windows done finally so now can have pretty things. Unfortunately, the curtain rod that was up there needs to be changed out, as the hanger bits in the wall just fell out when we took it down. Whenever we try to do house projects, we always find stuff that makes us either very annoyed or very confused. Things just weren’t done or not done correctly which makes more work for us. But my curtains will look super cute once we get a new rod for them!
I made this adorable gnome shirt too for K1’s kids, but I don’t know if it will fit any of them now, as it’s been a while. If she thinks it will, I’ll send it, otherwise I’ll find someone else to give it too. I don’t want the cuteness to go to waste in my basement!
I thought I had talked about this apron on here, but looking back, I don’t see it. So this was one of my Mom’s Christmas presents. The pattern is called “Pickle Dish” so she obviously needed to have it! I used pickle fabric for the backing and canned pickled veggie fabric for the contrast. I think this picture was taken quickly right before wrapping it for the trip there, so I don’t have any detailed pictures, unfortunately. It was my first time making the block and it was a doozy! I used the Accuquilt block die for it, otherwise it wouldn’t look as good. I will try it again because I need a pickle dish apron too, but I’m still recovering. 😉
So that’s the non-clothes or not for me items I’ve made lately. I’m going to post the clothes for me in a separate post to not clutter things up. I really haven’t posted about sewing since January, but I promise I’m still stitching along. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my sewing room!
(I swear this isn’t a sponsored post!) I’ve had my Accuquilt machine for a while and it’s been super useful and fun, so I wanted to share some things about it. The Accuquilt is a die cut machine for fabric. Here’s the machine when it’s ready to go:
I was introduced to it through my MIL when we used to cut our jellyroll strip pieces for our Jellyroll Quilt class. (She’s fond of getting me hooked on “sewing game changers” that happen to be expensive. Not that I mind, obviously!) I finally got one of my own after a really bad tendinitis flare made it impossible to quilt or sew. I just can’t cut fabric for that long without hurting myself. Cutting fabric is my least favorite part of sewing, only shortly after ironing in levels of “eww.” Since it’s more accurate than rotary cutting as well, it makes my quilts look much more professional. Sadly, it does not iron my quilt squares for me, so it’s not quite perfect, but you can’t expect everything I guess.
On to how it works! It has dies that are plastic on the bottom and foam on the top with some mysterious heavy thing, probably metal or wood, I would guess, in the middle. It has blades hiding deep in the foam that form the pattern you are trying to cut. Here’s a picture of what the die looks like. This particular die is a Block on Board one, which means you can make a whole block with just these pieces. They are turned to make sure your fabric is cut on grain, as a lot of quilt fabric can be slightly off grain.
This particular block is a Bear’s Paw block. Isn’t it cute? I’m going to make a Scandinavian Christmas gnome quilt with it.
To use it, you make a sandwich with the die on the bottom, up to 6 layers of fabric, and then a special cutting mat. Then you put it on the flat part of the machine and gently guide it through. The machine compresses the sandwich/foam and allows the blades to come out and cut the fabric. It comes out the other side, as you can see. but you have some time to get around the machine and support it on the other side.
After it comes out of the machine, you can pull off the extra fabric and you’re left with the cut out pieces for the quilt square. Then you can do the fun part and actually sew!
This quilt will be a Scandinavian Christmas Tomte quilt. I have this fabric in a bunch of different color ways and I think it will be super cute!
I’ve been enjoying collecting all my die cutters for it and have used it to make a bunch of quilts without hurting my hand. This was the first one I made, although I used my MIL’s Accuquilt. We took a jellyroll quilt class together and decided to make our own rolls instead of buying one. The borders weren’t cut with it, but the strips for the blocks were. I have this quilt in my office currently for naps and times when people might need a comforting blanket.
This quilt is one I made for my boss for her wedding. It’s the same pattern, I just had forgotten the sashing in my office quilt. I really liked how sunshiny it is!
This is probably my favorite quilt I have made and I gave it to a friend of mine because I thought it belonged to her after I made it. It uses two Accuquilt dies- the Gnomies and the Snail’s Trail die. The Snail’s Trail is one of the block patterns that I really wanted to make, but I was intimidated by the smaller pieces. I didn’t think I could get the pieces cut accurately enough, so I was super pleased with how it turned out.
The latest quilt I’ve finished is this one for my friend above’s mom. It did get a little wonky. I think I forgot to flip the rows as I was sewing them together.
I can’t find the picture of this quilt finished, but it had another row of hexagons and then also another big black border on the top. I made it for my Secret Garak swap in one of my craft groups. I was pretty pleased with it.
I have three more quilts cut out so far: one hexagon with gnomes, one similar to the quilt above with really pretty florals, and one made of strips to be a bookshelf quilt! Won’t these two be super pretty?
I hope you enjoyed seeing what’s been helping me with doing more quilting lately. I’m excited to start using more of my die cuts once my sewing area is more set up. Wish me good, quilty luck, smooth thread, and never empty bobbins!
