Peek-A-Boo Pull Bag

Made a new product for my shop tonight. It's called the Peek-A-Boo Pull Bag. As with anything the first time I make it I find all my mistakes! So this one will be for my daughter. I'll still photograph it in the morning because I have enough fabric to make at least a couple more just like it. I'm quite pleased with how it looks, just need to tweak a few things!

Spring Break

What's everyone been doing with Spring Break? As usual I had big plans for cleaning, organizing, sewing and more. ....



Uhhh I did some laundry. Haha! No seriously, I got a bunch of cleaning and organizing done. It just seems like right when you get in the thick of it is when the kids need you! Also, just two weeks ago we were sweating and wearing shorts and tank tops in the 85 degree temps... today? 50'!! The heat is back on and I've been wearing sweaters. What. The. Heck.

I do have a couple quick sewing projects I'm looking forward to sharing with you all.... if I ever get to them.

T-Shirt Skirt Tutorial

If you're like me then you're constantly on Pinterest! I'm always seeing things I want to try but as a working mom with 2 little ones it's hard to get around do trying them all.... unless you're invited to a pinterest party and then you go crazy, hahaha! Our playgroup had a MNO (Moms' Night Out) tonight and we were all invited to bring something from  Pinterest . Sooooo... I brought a drink, a snack AND a sewing project! The project I made was a T-shirt skirt. It seemed like the perfect thing for any busy mom to throw together. And considering the 85' degree temps we've been having here in Illinois, despite it being mid-march, it's an easy wardrobe refresher!

I was inspired by this graphic:

Which I then tracked to this tutorial. So I snuck a peek in hubby's closet, but felt bad about stealing a t-shirt he still wears and I didn't want to try this on a t-shirt that I wouldn't ACTUALLY wear as a skirt, so I swung by Old Navy and picked up a clearance top! It went basically the same, but I had to make some small adjustments since I used a boat-necked top. Full disclosure: I spent more than 30 seconds on this. Haha! But definitely no longer than 30 minutes!

Here's what I started with:

Since it was a sort of boat neck neckline with extra wide shoulders, I had to make a few adjustments. The first thing I tweaked was closing some of the shoulder opening. I knew I needed to do this because I had slipped the shirt on to my waist to get a feel for how it would look and lay. So from the shoulder down a few inches I closed it- but careful, you're not going all the way or you'll lose your pockets!

Here's what it looks like with my new seams:

Then you'll need to stitch your sleeves shut to create pockets. My top had 3/4 length sleeves so I didn't sew at the cuff, rather a bit higher. Here you can see them sewn:

Then you can go ahead and cut your excess sleeves below your seam:

The rest pretty much follows the the graphic at the beginning of this post. So step 1) Cut from the neck to your shoulder- in my case I cut up to the point where I'd sewn at my shoulder:

(in this picture I'd only cut half way to the new seam, but it needed to be cut all the way)

Here you can see it cut on both shoulders and folded down:

I then folded it all the way around and pressed it to have a nice waistline:

My original intention was to have it be drawstring, so I sewed a casing all the way, leaving an opening in the front in order to be able to tie it:

I didn't really like how it felt/held up though so I'm going to add elastic to it and sew the casing completely shut. 

Overall, I love it. So easy, super cute and a one of a kind skirt!

Tutorial: Making a Fabric Basket Lining

When I was a kid we always got those plastic Easter baskets, usually ready made or if not, just stuffed with random stuff. As a kid, they were fantastic. As a parent, I can't bring myself to purchase a cheap (overpriced) plastic basket every.single.year. So after I bought my Pumpkin's Easter basket for her first Easter, I decided we'd be re-using it. Now that our little Junebug has joined our family I needed to buy a second basket. I didn't have a lot of time to shop around, so I bought the first one that I *sort of* liked. Well, it's not nearly as cute as my Pumpkin's basket, so I needed to dress it up a bit. Since this is the first thing I've made in a while without a tutorial from someone else, I decided it was time for a tutorial of my own!

1) measure the inside diameter for the bottom of your liner. This is just to give you an idea of how much fabric you're going to need, because unless you have a big enough circle cutter you'll probably just end  up tracing the bottom to cut the fabric, like I did.

2) Measure from each end of the handle to find how long your inside pieces of fabric need to be.

3) Measure the height of your basket to know how wide your fabric pieces need to be. Keep in mind if you want it to fold over like mine, you'll need to include that in your measurements.

Add 1/2" to your measurements from steps 2 and 3... so if you measured 15.5" x 7.5" like I did, you'd cut rectangles that are 16" x 8".

4) You should end up with 3 pieces of fabric: a square from which you will cut your circle and two rectangles for your inner sides.

5) This is where I got bummed, my circle cutter wasn't big enough to cut the perfect circle I needed so I had to go old school. Darn it! So, here's where you'd trace your basket. This actually works out quite nicely, because the outer edge of the basket will measure slightly larger, thus giving you your seam allowance. After tracing your circle, cut it out.

6) Press the edges 1/4" in on 3 sides of your rectangular pieces. Yes, just 3 sides.

7) Pin the unpressed (bottom) side of your rectangular piece to half of the circle (right sides together). It should look something like this. Pardon the pinning, I get overzealous anytime I'm not pinning straight, like fabrics together!

8) After sewing this is what it should look like:

 

9) Repeat step 7 and it should look like this:

10) Sorry I don't have a picture for this one but now you're going to double check the inside height of your basket and determine where you want your inside pieces to split to allow room for your handle. You saw at the beginning of this post that my basket was roughly 5 1/2" tall, so I chose to sew 4" together and leave the rest open at the top.

11) Now, on your previously pressed corners of your rectangular pieces you're going to created tapered edges. This allows some space for your handle on the finished product. Simply fold, at an angle, from the corner to where you stopped sewing and press again. You'll also press 1/4" of the top side down, to give you the finished look without any raw edges. Beginning in the middle of the "V" you see below, stitch from one opening to the other side. Repeat on the other rectangle/inside piece.

12) Slip it into your basket and voila! You're done. I whipped this out in under an hour so I'm sure anyone could do this quickly =)

The new age of postcards

Are you planning a family get away soon? Looking to share your trip with family and friends? How COOL is this?! Send postcards directly from your phone! It's an app called postagram and it's available for iPhone and Android. Sarah explains it all here. LOVE this!