A Pink Sparkly Fix

Sewing for little girls is so much fun. I had been wanting to make a little crayon tote for a while now. I made Kayla a little crayon roll up but how many crayon holders does one child need? So I decided to make a couple of little bag for a co-workers peanuts. The girls are ages 2 and 3. Cathy said that Sadie needed a little bag to carry around her Barney dvd's in. I originally drafted AND cut out all the pieces of a complicated dvd carrier. Finally sanity set in and decided not to invent this wheel. I had purchased a Lazy Girl purse pattern in Minnesota and decided it would be the right size for a 2 year old and should be able to hold her two inches of Barney dvd's. Cathy requested that it be safe for Sadie to sleep with so I changed up the purse strap and put two short handles on instead of one long strap. The font used for Sadie's name is called Walt. The tiny purse pattern was a pattern I got from my friend Pat. She has a Quilting Arts subscription and every now and then will show Ann and I fun little, quick projects. This was the perfect little accessory to use up some left over fabric. The purse is quilted with a flower pattern and her name is also quilted into the design. If you think my cursive handwriting is bad, you should see me quilt in cursive style. My "S" doesn't quite look like an "S".

Now for Emily, I made an ultra-deluxe crayon tote. Sometimes, improvements are such a great thing but on this project it was not. I wanted the tote to be durable enough for a 3 year old. I put iron-on interfacing on the crayon pockets. The end result was that it is hard to get the crayons in and out of. I also decided to put some iron on vinyl behind the crayon pockets so the crayons wouldn't get on the fabric. Then I had to put rick rack to hide the end of the vinyl. You can see where this is going, one thing leads to another and the project starts to snowball. I was proud of myself for sticking with the mission of having a fun, functional tote. Another mistake I made was to not really think about the measurements for the crayon pocket. In the design process, I guess I was only thinking about the measurements for a coloring book so that was the width measurement that I was thinking about. It should have been a little wider to give more ease for the crayons. The font used for Emily is called Fairytale which I thought appropriately went with the whole pink princess theme.

To finish the project, I took card stock and used some Wonder-under and ironed on leftover fabric to the card stock. The most time consuming part of the project was deciding what decorative stitches I wanted to use to embellish the card. Pretty easy. I can't wait to try some more cards. Oh, I forgot to tell you that all the fabric was sparkly. Perfect for a couple of little girls. So I was able to get my pink sparkly, girly fix for the last couple of weeks.

Music used for this project: U2 (well that's a given) and The Dresden Dolls. I had Coin-Operated Boy playing over and over. I needed a fun song while to listen to while sewing this fun project.

Finally, a finished quilt

I started this quilt last year. Actually, that's pretty good for me, 9 months from start to finish. Can't help it. I seem to get side-tracked with all the sewing projects waiting for me. This really could have been finished much sooner. I was just dragging my feet on sewing the binding down. That is usually one of my favorite parts. Anyway, it's done and ready for Whitney to use. The middle of the quilt was my trademark stippling but on the borders, I added flowers. Whoa, adventurous for me I know. The pattern is from a Atkinson Designs book called Minnesota Hot Dish. This was an easy quilt to make and was a great pattern for batik fabrics.

Are ya tired of vintage?

While on our trip in Minnesota, Jeff and I stopped at a couple of antique shops in Duluth. I found a booth that had some wonderful vintage patterns at a great price. There were a couple of ladies patterns from the 50's but reluctantly decided to pass on them. I did score this wonderful Cinderella apron pattern. That was a little pricey but it was 50% off. I paid $9 for it. But I think it was worth it. The little sailor dress in the picture isn't that old, maybe 1970 or later but I have this thing about sailor dresses. They just say "cute, cute, cute" to me. Sailor outfits make little children look like children. Look out girls, your sons will be getting a little sailor suit from their grandma! I think my favorite, besides the Cinderella pattern is the McCalls dress pattern. The pattern number is 1671 and it's a size 12, copyright 1951. It has a shear overlay on the dress. Very cool.