CINO Junebug Dress

Let’s Dance! At least that is what it looks like Kylie is doing in this photo! 🙂

Showing off her new cowgirl hat with her new dress.

Just showing off her modeling pose.

In the middle of a spin but the look on her face it like, seriously Mom, what am I doing here!

The back of the dress.

The front.  I love, love, LOVE this dress!!

I loved making this dress! Anything designed by Jessica from Craftiness Is Not Optional will be fantastic without a doubt! Kylie picked out her fabrics and I think it came together beautifully! I can’t wait to make more! She already asked me for a sleeveless dress and top!   This dress will be released SOON! So go check out Jessica’s blog and try to be patient! 🙂  Waiting is the worst when I know you will be able to buy such a cute pattern! 🙂

Life

My life is busy as everyone else’s is busy but I think I put more on myself than I really should and never seem to find a way to slow down and say no or just do stuff for me.  I think about it but yeah, that just never happens.

I over do it most of the time and need to occasionally take a day or two and step back and just relax and do absolutely NOTHING!  The past two days that is exactly what I have done, for me!

I for the most part sew every single day.  Well not always sewing but at least working with fabric in one way or another.  I make my girls hair clips and head bands and dresses and pants and tops galore…their closets are stuffed!  I also sew for others!  So yes I am busy with that but I also have a family of four others to care for as well.  I am super grateful for my dear husband who works his butt off to help keep our family steady and living comfortably.  It isn’t like we haven’t had hard times, we have, like most couples and families but we always, always find a way though.  Money may be tight at times but I always find ways to make it work..as best I can.  But, my children and husband are happy..that makes me happy.

My son is now a man himself..almost 17 years old and just growing up way too fast in my eyes.  I remember being a single mother and caring for him all on my own and the struggle that was but boy we sure made it though ok.  I met my husband and my world grew by leaps and bounds with love.  He loved me but his family also took us both in with open arms.  Zachary and I were never left out of any family functions or just life in general from the start and I can’t thank my in-laws and the rest of the family enough for that.  I love being a part of a large Italian family.  The parties are fantastic!  EVERY SINGLE ONE!  The laughs, love and joy and even the grief are felt and held close to my heart from them all.

Recently we lost the matriarch to the family, my husbands dearest Grandmother Dorothy.  She was always there with a smile on her face and a hug to share.  The family surrounded her with the love that she shared through her life right back during her final days and I know she felt the love in the room with her.  The sweetest woman I knew lost the battle but she left behind lots and lots of people who grew as children to adults and just as people by knowing her.  I feel blessed to have been able to spend the past 12 years of my life knowing her and sharing in the joy of being a part of her family.  

You will be greatly missed Dot.  I told the kids that now she is in heaven with her long ago lost husband enjoying a beautiful picnic in a field full of flowers.  That made them smile to know she was truly happy.

So there you have it..just a few of the billions of things running through my head this morning..well afternoon now since I had some computer issues to deal with while writing this.  My brain never turns off…what to sew next, what to cook next, what needs to be cleaned or put away, what to do with the kids during vacation, what do I have to get done by a certain date..what this and that and truly it never ends.  I write notes to myself at my desk and on my bedside table at night just to try to get the thoughts out and so I can move on!

Welcome to my crazy world!

Sewing projects…

Here are just a few of my recent sewing projects.  🙂  The girls love it and I have fun making them pretty things to wear.

All of the following dresses or tops are from Create Kids Couture patterns.   If you sew and have a little girl go check them out!  New patterns out all the time and each and every one is beautiful!

Felicity’s Simple Peasant Top

Cora’s Tiered Top (Sundress and Maxi Dress options too)

Ivy’s Criss Cross Ruffle Dress (Or top or maxi dress!)

Fairy’s Double Layer Princess Dress

Mia’s Reverse Knot Twirly Dress

Lacey’s Apron Top with reversible option

Joy’s Lace Twirly Dress

Harmony’s Twirly Lace Skirt

Violette’s Swirly Peasant Dress

Kylie showing off her dance moves!  LOL

So as you can see I have been doing a lot of sewing.  I truly enjoy it and it really  makes me feel good to make these beautiful outfits.  The girls aren’t always thrilled to go outside to take pictures after I am done but then they usually don’t want to take them off after we are done.  🙂  It truly warms my heart.  I am hoping to start selling made to order dresses sometime soon and many will be made with Create Kids Couture patterns.  The owners, Tiffany and Shannon are every day women like you and me and they just saw a need and taught themselves to do it.  I am so thrilled to get the opportunity to make items from their collection.

 

 

Where have I been??

I noticed that I haven’t posted on my blog since March!  Yes, I said March!  That is insane, even for me!  But It has been a super busy year for me.

The kids got out of school and we had a busy summer playing with friends and just hanging out.  At that time I just didn’t have time or the interest in keeping up my blog much.  I just had way to many things on my plate already.  So I just left it  hanging.  It isn’t like a have a billion blog followers or anything!

I have been searching for the perfect home for my family for a few years on and off but last fall started going full force, determined to get us out of our crappy apartment and into a space to call our own.  We found one we liked but it needed some roof work and we were worried things would go down hill for us quickly if we got that and had the roof situation over our heads.  So we held off and just kept looking.  We found a few that were just OK but nothing we liked as much as the one with the roof situation.  Well our Realtor happened to take over as the Realtor for the home we liked and let us in on the fact that the house was up for grabs and the price was even lower and the owners were going to fix some of the problems..mainly the roof!!  So we were like..oh yes, absolutely, get us in on this and fast!  Well it was fast.  From the day we found out to the day we owned it..it was maybe 30 days!  Well we signed the papers at the end of July and that night we started moving stuff in.  I couldn’t wait to get out of that apartment!  We had black mold in the basement because of constant flooding problems that the owners knew about and did nothing to fix.  Anyway..we got our house!  I am so excited and have been for the two months we have lived here.  It is OURS!  We have fantastic neighbors and the kids love having their own rooms and I really enjoy the fact that they don’t fight at bedtime anymore!  Another perk just for me..I have my own sewing room!!  I love it and I have spent a TON of time in there over the past two months.  We have a really nice yard with chestnut trees and a walnut tree, beautiful garden beds all around the house and my favorite thing??  The huge butterfly bush out front.  We have had tons and tons of beautiful butterflies visiting us daily and still with just a few buds left on the bush we still get some monarch butterflies that show up each and every day.  Because of the nuts from the trees right now we also have tons and tons of squirrels!  They are funny to watch.  Especially when our cat Ruby goes jumping window to window to catch a glimpse of them.

I have a ton of photos to share but I have to go find them and upload them to wordpress which I don’t have time to get done right now.  But soon I will be sharing photos of our home.  We still need to paint the walls throughout and take down some wallpaper off of the plaster walls, which is going to be interesting.  Does anyone know how to do that the right way?  We have wood floors throughout except for my sewing room which has a low pile carpet.  Two full baths, a sun porch, a deck and a beautiful kitchen!  Like I said, I love it!!  Our house was built in 1879 so it is very old but I love all the charm.

I have to run but I will be back to post photos soon!

Little Bow Zipper Wallet PDF Pattern – Testing by ME!

I had a great opportunity to be a pattern tester for Michael Ann over at MichaelAnnMade.com so I took her up on it and go the opportunity to sew up this cute little bow zipper wallet!  It truly took only about an hour to do and that is only because I was taking my time to make sure I followed each and every step to the letter.  I think next time it may only take me about 30 minutes to whip one together!  And there will be a next time…there will be plenty of these to go around!

I love how it came out!  I used some fabrics scraps so I didn’t even need to really cut any pieces off of the yardage I have laying around in my sewing area.  I just went to my scrap drawer and pulled out a few matching pieces and ta-da..here is a cute little wallet!  Mine came out at about 5 1/2 inches wide by 4 inches tall.  I even learned a few new things about sewing with zippers and putting together a cute zipper bag!  These types of bags always kind of scared me off because I always thought that I would totally screw them up because of the zipper.  Yes I have put in a few zippers in dresses for the girls but they still kind of scare me!

This is what the inside looks like!  I love it!  🙂

And the backside too!

I learned how to shorten a zipper with this tutorial, which I have never had to do before.  Super simple to say the least!  Now I will always have the right size zipper on hand!

If you have any interest in purchasing this pattern from Michael Ann just follow this link to her Etsy store:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95955568/little-bow-zipper-wallet-pdf-sewing

It is only $5.50 and that is SUCH a deal if you ask me!  I can make tons of these for gifts and for the girls and seriously it is paid for after making just the first one!

Head on over to Michael Ann’s Etsy store and check out the cute items she has for sale and this wonderful pattern!

Life taking over..

I haven’t been blogging much this year.  The past few months we have all been fighting colds or allergies and honestly I just wasn’t up to blogging about all of our sickies and boring you all.  

Melody has been sick the most and is scheduled to see an allergist next week so hopefully we can come up with some type of answers as to why she is sick so often.  We all have allergies of some sort so hopefully we can find out what is really making Melody feel so icky all the time and move on to better things.  She can be healthy..I know that but it would be nice if it happened more than a day at a time.  

Me?  I have been feeling icky on and off too.  My allergies have taken over my life and I just don’t have the energy I should.  Today I woke up feeling achy and tired (I didn’t get to bed as early as I had hoped) and I ended up taking a four hour nap!  Me, taking a nap!??  That hardly ever happens!  I woke up feeling even more achy and just not myself.  Maybe it is the stress I put myself under to get things done quickly in the past few weeks.  (Pattern testing on short notice but loving the results.) Or maybe it is the heart ache thinking about how I lost my father 12 years ago this past Saturday.  It always weighs heavy on my heart and I doubt I will ever truly be past that type of pain.  He was my rock and was always there for me and I miss him dearly.  I take on a LOT of stuff for the girls schools/PTO as well, so maybe I need to start saying NO to some things.  I go to the Dr. in two weeks so maybe she will have some ideas as to why my allergies are acting up so much this year too.  Who knows.  I take on a lot all the time but it seems that recently it is more than normal and even though I am not a “working” mother..I am still a MOM who does it ALL!!  Sometimes I just feel sad, depressed, overwhelmed, tired, fed up, content, happy and just in general a mixture of it all..so no, I am not insane..just normal I guess.  Us Mom’s take on a lot and normally don’t get the credit we deserve.  

Well it is dinner time I better get going.  Melody is finishing up her homework and Kylie is coloring.  Zachary is finishing up one of his weekly chores then likely going to play some video games or read.  I just am looking forward to bedtime!  

Glass Half Full Quilt by Lindsay Sews

As you can tell by my title to this blog post I will be writing about a quilt.  A beautiful quilt.  My first official quilt sewn!

Yes, I sew but I never really made a quilt before.  I love how it came out and I hope to give it as a gift to someone very soon!  This quilt is a crib size quilt 45″ x 45″.  How I was involved in making this quilt is kind of interesting.  I was checking out Facebook, like I do very often and came across a post from a blog that I follow, Lindsay Sews.  She was looking for pattern testers for a new quilt pattern that she  made.  I was like, well I have never made one before but I am sure I can figure it out.  (This was all before I even saw what it looked like!)  But I was up for anything!  When Lindsay emailed me I was first of all shocked that she even trusted a first time quilter to test it for her but also so very, very grateful.  Once she was sure I wanted to be a part of it she sent me the pattern.  I printed it up and was like, oh boy, I have a lot of work to do here!  It just seemed like a lot when I have never made one before.  Once I got started on it the quilt really came together rather quickly!  There are two quilt squares that you make multiples of for the quilt top.  I made templates out of cardstock so that I didn’t have to stop and measure every single piece cut and it really helped me out in making this quilt.  Some people enjoy measuring but me, I love a good template!

This photo was taken with my cell phone so a bit fuzzy but you get the idea I used to make the block templates.  🙂  It really helped me with the cutting to size of the major pieces!  (Plus Lindsay used it in the pattern! I am so honored!)

Speaking of pattern you can find the complete pattern for the Glass Half Full Quilt here.

I really enjoyed the time I took to make this quilt (about 10-12 hours) and I know it would be great for just us here at home as a lap quilt or as a baby quilt for yourself or the ones you love!  Please show some love to Lindsay for all of her hard work in making this beautiful quilt pattern.

You can find Lindsay Sews on Facebook here.

Here are a few more pictures of my finished quilt from the picking of fabrics to pieces, piecing it together and quilting and finally the finished quilt!

This is where I started with my fabric choices before I started cutting pieces to size.  I did end up deleting a few and adding a few by the time I was done.

These are the fabrics after washing but before ironing that I chose for the front main fabric and backing.

This is one of the quilt blocks.  (I tried to edit it and rotate the image but WordPress won’t save the change.)

The back of my pieced quilt top.  🙂

The front before I sewed it together.

Quilt back before sewing it together and quilting.  I had it laid out on paper because I was going to use spray adhesive to attach the top, quilt batting and back together before I quilted.

Adding the binding.

And the final finished item.  Front and back!  🙂  I really love this quilt!

Thanks Lindsay for letting me test this quilt for you!

A bit of a close up of the top after quilting.

If you love it as much as I do please make sure to visit Lindsay’s blog here and also pick up your own copy of this Glass Half Full Quilt here!

Women of Faith

This weekend I am heading to Women of Faith in downtown Hartford and I am just so excited.  I have been to one of their events years ago and it truly refreshed my soul.  It was a year after my father died and it meant so much to me to be there spending that time with other women who understood my pain and also were there to support me through it.  This time it is many years later and I am going with a new friend and I just can’t wait!  It is going to be so much fun to be there with so many women who want to learn more about themselves and about God.

I can’t wait to see all of the special guests that they have this weekend as well.  Natalie Grant, Sheila Walsh, Luci Swindoll, Lisa Harper, Nicole Johnson, Angie Smith, Ken Davis and Mary Mary!!  Music, stories, faith, love and joy all rolled into one!  I can’t wait to be “refreshed, encouraged and inspired”!!

I need this!  I need this time to do something for ME!  I am the type of person who does everything for everyone else so I am taking two day of my life and spending time on ME!  Again, I just can’t wait!  Two more days and I am off to a weekend of happiness!

I will be taking my camera and taking pictures of the weekend and sharing my experiences when I can so stay tuned!

KCWC – Day 4

So today I got alot done around the apartment and with the kids but I never even got downstairs to my sewing machine.  😦  I had plans to make another nightgown for Melody today but I will have to get to that tomorrow.  It is already 11pm and I am too tired to even think about starting to sew right now.  But I did take a few pictures of Kylie modeling her new nightgown this morning before she got dressed for the day.  She LOVES her new nightgown and is wearing it right now while she is sleeping like a little angel.  🙂

I had Kylie try on her nightgown and she was being silly and then started spinning around.  I was using my cheap/portable camera so I didn’t get the best pictures out of it but I still find them oh so cute.

KCWC – Day 3

Today for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge I completed three items!  I am pretty proud of myself because I don’t think I have ever made so many things in one day..ever!  Well considering I have only really been sewing for under two years that says a lot for me.  LOL  I love how everything came out with the two fantastic tutorials that I used too!  I am so grateful for such wonderful people out there who create these tutorials for people like me to learn from and create wonderful clothing or household items for my family!  🙂  I can never thank them enough!

Please head over to visit Jess at Craftiness Is Not Optional and Jen at iCandy Handmade!

The first two shirts are reglan tees made using this tutorial here at Craftiness Is Not Optional.  It went together super quickly and I know I will be making tons of these shirts for the girls and maybe even Zachary.  (Just not with the heart fabric for him..lol!) Unfortunately I had to take pictures tonight in horrible lighting with the flash and just on hanging on a hanger but you get the idea.  Once the girls try them on I will get much better pictures to share.  This one was made for Melody in mind.

 The next one was made for Kylie.  I love them both.  ❤

This nightgown I made using the tutorial here on iCandy Handmade.

I have had this fabric in my stash for awhile and figured it would look so cute as a nightgown.  So glad I decided to use it because it is so cute and I know the girls are going to fight over it!  🙂  Thank goodness I am making another one tomorrow so they can just take turns wearing them.  (They are so close in size now that they can share things like this without any problems.)

So that is what I have accomplished today for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge.  Three days down and five more to go.  I can’t wait to see what I whip together for the kids tomorrow!