An Ugly Fabric Challenge

Last spring at work, a few of us decided to partake in an ugly fabric challenge. The challenge was pretty simple. You could make anything you wanted with the fabric, garment, purse, quilt. The rule was that the item had to be finished if it was a garment, purse, table runner. If you were making a quilt larger than a baby quilt, only the top had to be finished. Unfortunately, there were no winners because no one had finished their items.

I picked the fabric from my stash and the reason why I deemed it ugly was that it is a teal colored fabric. It is a more difficult color to work with.

I figured that I would make a garment and then decided at the last minute to use a Chelsea Anderson pattern from McCalls.

Baby Gifts

Lauren has a baby shower coming up for a friend. She is making a diaper cake and wanted some personalized things for the cake. I made a little tag toy, burp cloths and embroidered the onsie. I don't like working on the onsies because they are so small. I usually put the baby's name on the burps but the mom changed the spelling of the name and Lauren wasn't sure what she was going to end up with. I decided just to do a monogram design instead.

Sweat Shop is Back in Business

The sweat shop has re-opened. It had been shut down for the weekend due to child regulators banning sewing equipment being in the same room as prom dinner guests. What I really need to do is to add my other two machines to the table. I usually have two machines at the table. I'm thinking that three would be better. Each machine having a special job. The baby items that I make call for different stitches and methods hence the different machines. The burps go back and forth between embroidery, serging, decorative stitches and regular sewing. My husband (the whole family for that matter) does not like how the sewing area keeps taking over the house. I've run out of room in my sewing/laundry room. I've run out of room in the guest bedroom. So now, I move into the dining room to sew because of the table space. My goal is to get several projects finished this summer. The task being more fabric out than fabric in. Can I do it?

Here's a look at what I've been working on. I've got a onsie that has "Diaper Diva" embroidered on it. I started making a little 6 inch tag toy. I embroidered the baby's initial and I now need to sew it into a little tag blanket. I still have several burp cloths to embroider and put together. At the machine, I'm embroidering a Weight Watchers Pocket Holder for one of our WW at Work leaders. She requested a pink and green holder. I still need to make a holder for Whitney and a couple more for work. The baby items will be shipped to NYC to my daughter. She has several friends who are expecting this year. Burps are a lot of work, but I love looking at them when they are finished and hope the parents enjoy them as much as I do. What you don't see is all the quilts in different stages of completion.

The Final Prom Dress

The final prom dance arrived last night. It was bittersweet. I drag my feet getting started on the dresses. I do enjoy picking out the fabrics and trims. I'm always so fearful that I will mess something up and have to start over. Taylor and I picked out the fabric in about 10 minutes. She's pretty particular on fabric and color. It did take a few trips to find the trim for the bodice. It so happens that I bought brown lace on clearance at Hobby Lobby. It was perfect! The fabric was a plummy taupe and when you put the brown lace on top of the fabric, it looked like it was dyed to match. We did have some problems with fit. The waist was about 3 inches too big. I solved that problem by tacking the excess fabric down like a bridal bustle. Hey, there was no way I was going to dismantle the dress so close to prom. Taylor and I agree that it's our favorite dress of all of them that I made for her.

Sewing Saturday at Jewelers Mutual

Last Saturday, we had a sewing day at work. We have a great space to sew, lots of light and table space. We get the coffee going and away we go. Our company allows us to reserve the cafeteria for weekend events.