Easter Baskets!!

Easter is approaching. Quickly. My 3 year-old loves holidays. She loves the anticipation and she loves the excitement of the day. This year will be an extra fun Easter because we will be in our very own house. After living with my in-laws for 8 months, this is going to be a welcome treat!

I decided since I have such cute pink fabric laying around, to make some cute little Easter baskets for my 3 girls. I used two different fabrics for each basket. Here's a some pictures of how they turned out. It's hard to see the inside fabric, but they do match and make such a cute, cute Easter egg/candy holder :)






First let me talk about the fabrics.
The babushka fabric I had left over from a custom backpack order I did for an Etsy customer in Australia. The fabric is pricey because it comes from Holland. I bought it here. I really want this fabric in pink and blue, but by the time you pay for shipping and the fabric, you are looking at about $20/meter. Although I did get 3 backpacks and one Easter basket out of one meter and still have some useful scraps leftover. I lined that backpack with Michael Miller Disco Dot in pink and green. For the other two I used some "Springy" Heather Bailey fabric that I had on hand.

I followed this tutorial. I did make a few changes which I will note here.

* I didn't have fusible fleece on hand so I just used some scraps of warm and white cotton quilt batting
* I serged all the raw edges. It looks a little neater and will prevent fraying.
* For the handles I used two layers of warm and white cotton quilt batting and I also interfaced the fabric with lightweight interfacing.
* I did use some nice heavy interfacing like she suggests for the baskets. It makes them so sturdy and they do stand up very nicely. In fact I think they are more sturdy than some of those baskets you buy in the store....and these ones were virtually free. I only used what I had on hand.

Happy Sewing and Happy Easter!

Summer Project #3 Two Quiet Books

There they are. Two stinkin' quiet books. I'm soooooooooo glad they are done, because this was my least favorite sewing project ever. So tedious and so time consuming. They better keep my kids quiet! ;)

I think this is the part where I should explain which each page is...but I'll leave that out. I think it's pretty self explanitory. It is after all...for babies and toddlers.

Some of the pieces are snapped on. Some are attached with velcro. If you would like the pattern and to see another fabulous example, click here. My friend Jodi put together the pattern from a quiet book she had. Cute idea...just make sure you have loads of time and patience before you start. Maybe the fact that I made two at the same time made it seem to go on forever!! :) But I'm glad I made them.

UPDATE:

Okay, so they work. They do keep the girls quiet.....except:

I should have made three!

Something to Wear!!

You know those people who always say they have nothing to wear to a certain function/event??? Well, I really have nothing to wear to my husband's law school graduation.

Here's the problem...

• I still don't quite fit into all my pre-twins clothes (I can get stuff on, it's still just a little snug).


• Literally zero $$ (especially since I found out I have to take another certification test this summer...bleh).


• I'm nursing so I can't wear a dress (I have one...I just don't think it would be appropriate to lift up the entire dress to feed one of the twins at a graduation ceremony).

So....... my sweet friend Jodell came to the rescue and helped me make this beauty with some fabric from my stash. We didn't even use a pattern!! The skirt is fully lined with some sweet white muslin that I purchased at fabric.com and it also has a side zipper. This is about a size 8.

I think I look terrible in the picture and it looks so much cuter in person...but we were in a hurry to take it the pic. You can buy similar shirts in Jodell's etsy shop.

I love sewing days with my bff :)

Special thanks to my sweet 7 month old Genevieve for taking a 3 hour nap while we worked on my outfit.

My Mother's Day Gift...To Myself

My husband had his very last law school exam Saturday. Needless to say we are broke and there's no extra moola for gifts (fabric, yes...gifts, no). So for a mother's day gift to me, he gave me time (precious time) to make this rad apron. With teaching part-time, 6 month old twins, a two-year old, an etsy shop...it is nearly impossible to find time to sew unless I sacrifice my already limited sleep.

My friend Jodi can whip one up in 45 minutes (seriously, she's done it). I used her pattern, but changed it a little. I only had a little bit of fabric to work with since I still had to have enough to finish making this gift set and then have enough to make my apron. I didn't add a ruffle. (I'm not a really ruffly kind of gal anyway) and I closed the bottom with bias tape (that I made myself). The straps are shorter than I would have liked (not enough fabric). I also made it full length. Right now I'm feeding my twins 1 meal a day and it is messy!! I don't have time to be changing my clothes during the day or washing them for that matter, so I'm hoping my apron will cut down on the already abundant amount of laundry. FYI: The Amy Butler Lotus line is out of print. Good thing I recently ordered more. It's my fav.

I also made one for my mother-in-law for mother's day. She loved it.