Photo shoot

I've been working on my own boys tie pattern and after finalizing one of the sizes, wanted to take some pictures of Riley in one....He didn't

Refashion disaster

Okay, maybe the word disaster is a bit harsh, but my first refashion definately didn't turn out as I had hoped, and I am acting like a two year old because I am not going to finish it. My idea was to turn these mens ties into ties for my boys.

I am working on, and have almost finished making my own boys tie pattern. I thought I would use that pattern as my template and that is whern I ran into my first problem because my tie pattern isn't made the same as these were, so I didn't have enough fabric to line the tie with. I thought about what to do for days, and it finally came to me as I was thinking in bed before falling asleep. A lot of the solutions to my sewing problems come to me this way. Glad to have that out of the way, I went on to make the tie.

Cutting the tie was harder than expected. Cutting silk is not like cutting cotton. But I didn't worry about it, and just thought I would be careful sewing it together and not worry too much about the lines not being cut exactly straight. That is where I messed up. Because I didn't cut the pattern out straight, I didn't sew it straight, so it's curved on one side. Not exactly a good look for a tie. So, here is my half done tie. My tie pattern is really two pieces.

Trying to look at the bright side, at least I only ruined one tie. I've still got another one I can try to refashion.

Made by Rae Jackpack Backpack GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I've been wanting to make this backpack and now Grosgrain is hosting it as a giveaway. It would be awesome if I could win it, so I wouldn't have to make it myself. I could finally scratch something off my to-do list.



Made by Rae Jackpack Backpack GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Putting my plan to work

After signing up for wardrobe refashion, I decided that I don't really have anything in my closet that needs rafashioning. After recently donating some clothes to a local thrift store, I shouldn't have anything in my closet that I don't wear. Now, while we all know that women don't wear all of the clothes in their closets, I am still not ready to potentially ruin any of these said clothes that don't actually get worn in a wardrobe refashion attempt. So, I decided I needed to go thrift shopping for some items.

At the first store, I bought 2 mens ties to be refashioned into ties for my boys. The ties didn't have price tags on them, but I didn't think they'd be much money. They ended up being $2 each, which isn't expensive, but is the same price that it would have cost me to buy fabric to make them ties. I guess at least this way I get brownie points for reusing what's already out there. I also bought a big pink and white striped seersucker skirt for what I thought would make a great market skirt. In fact, I could probably get 2 or 3 market skirts out of this one skirt. Another dress later and I spent just over $10 at the first store, which isn't alot, but after Jenn only spent .99 cents on a very cute vintage pillowcase I was feeling like finding good deals thift shopping is a learned art.

I plan on refashioning these to fit the boys

I'm not entirely sure anymore what I'm going to do with the baby dress. I don't think I was thinking properly when I bought it, because it's a size 3-6 months. We'll see what I can come up with.

I did better at the second thrift store and found an awesome mens buttondown shirt for only .99 cents that looked brand new to make a mens shirt dress.

The third thrift store we went to was not a thift store I think is ideal for finding things to refashion, but finding things to actually wear as is. They only carried designer labels, but I didn't realize this until I found a tank top I badly wanted to refashion and upon looking at the price tag saw it was $18.00. I sadly put it back on the rack and continued to look. After going back twice to look at it, I decided to buy it even though it was expensive and I am just going to cut it up because this is the refashion that I am most excited about.

Taking pictures I realized why the tank was so expensive. It was brand new with the tags on it. Brand: Bebe Original Price: $64.00

Now, off I go now with scissors in hand and unpicker in the other to try and come up with some decent refashions.

I took the pledge

After seeing all the things people make over at Wardrobe refashion, I finally decided to stop coming up with reasons why I shouldn't sign up and decided that maybe if I did sign up it might encourage me to actually try refashioning something....something other than a lightbulb box.

Making Pillowcases

I taught another sewing lesson to some neighborhood girls and we made pillowcases. Kai joined up today for the first time. I wanted them to get more comfortable sewing straight lines and thought this project was perfect.

We used a rotary cutter and mat to cut our entire pattern. No scissors this time.

Kai ironing the contrasting band on her pillowcase

It was cute to see the girls reactions as they saw their pillowcases coming together. Class is two hours long, so I bought some scrap fabric and thought we could make fabric bookmarks if we had any spare time. Unfortunately, class actually ran a little late. Not quite sure why. I think maybe it's because I encouraged them to read the instructions and try to figure out what it was saying before I jumped on in and did it for them.

Kai with her finished pillowcase

Annake with her finished pillowcase

Here is the pattern we used. I'd say for the seamstress who is not learning, it would take 20 minutes to complete.

A giveaway

My sister, Stephanie, had cataract surgery recently. I know what you may be thinking. No, I don't have a 70 year old sister. My sister and I, who are still relatively young at 31 years old, had cataracts. I was diagnosed with them when I was about 20 years old. However, it wasn't until I had my first son, Riley, that I felt like my vision was being compromised by them. I had my cataracts removed about 3 years ago and my sister, who was only diagnosed with cataracts recently, just had hers removed.
The location of our cataracts magnified the sun brightness. So much so, that our doctors said we were legally blind when ouside in the sun. Inside, it wasn't quite as bad, but we still couldn't do things like thread a sewing machine.
Cataract surgery is fairly routine. However, during the recovery, you aren't supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds. Hard to do when you're a young mother with small children. Stephanie's in-laws took her children for a week on two different occasions during her recovery. Our parents helped in their own way as well. Stephanie sewed a purse for her mother-in-law as a thank you. I really like this bag.

But it's not this purse she is giving away... it's this purse below, which is still really cute! This is the purse she made for our mother and she's giving another one away to a reader. So, head on over to the sewing room to see the details about the give away.