Chevrons & butterflies: Three ways to make a pieced skirt

It has been a long time since I sewed something for my 3 girls.

Although I don't have them wear matching clothes in our normal day to day life, 

it is sort of fun to do occasionally. As long as they'll let me I better enjoy it...

Since I tend to get bored when I make the same thing over and over,

I used three different methods to make their skirts.

I will describe what I did & post a link to a tutorial or pattern for a similar skirt.

I will start with the easiest one:

The basic single layer skirt

This skirt just consists of two strips of fabric sewn together, and after that you just treat it as a if it were one piece of fabric. 

You can follow the directions in this pattern to make the skirt.

The hardest thing was to match up the chevrons at the seam, which was easy...

Next is the double layer skirt.

This one is a little more work, but still pretty basic.

Basically the skirt has 2 layers:

the chevron fabric is the basic skirt,

and there is an extra strip of fabric sewn on top of that.

To create a similar skirt, you can use this layered skirt tutorial.

This works great if the fabric you are using is sort of thin,

and you don't want to line it. 

And last but not least the tiered skirt.

This one was the most time intensive.

Not hard, but ruffling fabric and matching up the tiers is not my favorite thing to do.

However, I thought I could handle one :)

A tutorial for a similar skirt can be found HERE.

Shared at Sugar Bee Crafts, Today's Creative Blog,  girl. Inspired and The 36th Avenue.

Laundry sorting trick: Sock keepers

Sometimes there are simple things that make a job quite a bit easier.

This is one of them:

One of the things I strongly dislike about folding and sorting laundry, 

is matching socks and figure out who they belong to.

I would spend quite a bit of time holding up socks to see if they were the same length, 

and once I had paired them all, trying to figure out which child was the owner.

A few months ago I read about something that could help to eliminate this chore:

Give each child their own laundry bag, let them put their worn socks in it.

Then just wash the whole thing, throw it in the dryer like that,

and hand it back to them to be sorted. 

I used cheap laundry bags, and sewed a strip of patterned fabric along the zipper so that my girls would know which one belongs to them.

The result?

After 3 months of doing this

(yep, I am a slow blogger)

I have to say:

it works GREAT!

For them it's easy to put their worn socks in the bag every night,

and after laundry they just match up their socks and put it in their own drawer.

Should have done this YEARS ago!

Now, go make your own sock keepers :)

Shared at: Sugar Bee Crafts.

DIY Owl Nursery

I'm excited to show you the newly decorated nursery of our youngest!

Her room is pretty small, so it was a challenge to use all my ideas,

without making it too crowded.

I bought some owl wall decals quite a while ago, 

intending to use them for her room.

But somehow I never got around to actually putting them to use.

Then, my husbands mom reminded me that she was going to make our daughter a baby quilt.

She has this amazing tradition to make every grandchild a special quilt.

And you should know that she already has 9 grandkids!

Anyway, she always lets us moms give input:

we can pick a pattern, or colors, or theme, whatever...

So I told her I really liked owls, and showed her these owl decals.

She found a neat pattern that I really liked. 

I thought it would be hard to find fabric that would match the owls, 

since there were so many colors.

But we found the neatest fabric line,

matching the colors of the owls,

 and she made the most amazing quilt:

Needless to say I was in awe when we saw it!!!

Our youngest likes the cheerful colors too and likes to play with it :)

I got the leftover pieces so that I could decorate some more,

and I bought extra fabric for some bigger pieces.

And that was the little push in the back I needed to start working on this room...

I really like to use embroidery hoops to display some pieces of pretty fabric.

I also like the way it creates different sized 'dots'.

I used some small scraps to decorate a plain wipe box:

Remember these owls?

They finally got a home in this shelf, 

that I found at the thrift store.

I gave it a fresh layer of paint while I was painting the wall...

Some more close-ups...

I wanted to incorporate a little chevron, 

without it being too overwhelming:

You can find the tutorial to create this chevron picture frame HERE.

And some simple embroidery on one of the embroidery hoops:

I framed the print you can find here.

And I made a pennant banner, to showcase all these pretty fabrics.

I really like banners for kids' rooms,

they are so cheerful!

A matching pillow for the rocker.

A personalized canvas, with an owl, pictures of the fabric, 

and her name (which I took out for privacy purposes).

And, a canvas made with scrapbook paper.

I am happy with the results, it is both cheerful and relaxing at the same time.

I would almost like to trade rooms with her...

I am planning on putting up tutorials on some of the items I made once I have time to do that.

Shared at Sugar Bee Crafts and Sarahndipities.

Simple knit bibs made from recycled t-shirts

Have you ever noticed they usually make store-bought fabric bibs out of very light-colored fabrics?

What better way to show off all these tasty baby-food stains?!

I was tired of  the old, stained bibs we have laying around here.

So I went through my donation stack and used a couple of my old shirts to make some bibs that won't show stains as easily.

(OK, maybe I shouldn't have used one that has white stripes, but I really like stripes...)

So fast, and so simple.

And, since it pretty much only took recycled materials, super cheap, too.

I didn't take pictures while I made them, but the process is pretty simple:

1. Trace a bib you like, adding a small seam allowance. 
2. For one bib, cut two pieces of fabric, using the pattern you made in step 1.
3. Cut out a simple shape out of a contrasting color, and sew it on the front piece.
4. Line up both pieces, right sides together, and sew them together, leaving a small opening in the bottom for turning.
5. Turn the bib right side out and press with an iron.
6. Top-stitch the sides of the bib.
7. Add velcro or snaps to create the closure of the bib.

Easy Lace Ruffle T-shirt Refashion - Tutorial

Are you ready for a very cheap, simple and fast refashion?

All you need are the following supplies:

* A plain t-shirt with a rounded neckline

* Ruffled lace trim in either a matching or contrasting color

(See pic below, I found mine at Hobby Lobby.)

* Tread, same color as trim

You will need the following tools:

* Sewing machine

*Scissors

*Pins

(My excuses for the bad pictures below, 

I tend to do most of my crafting at night,

which doesn't really help...)

Begin by cutting a piece of trim slightly longer than the neckline.

Pin it down, folding the ends by the shoulder under.

Cut a second piece of trim, about half the size of the first one.

Pin it down underneath the first row, making sure there is an overlap.

Cut the third piece slightly smaller than the second one, 

and attached it like described before.

Cut and attach your fourth piece.

Now, it's time to sew the pieces in place.

Sew the bottom ruffle in place, while you lift the other ruffles.

Do the same thing for the next two ruffles.

When you get to the last ruffle, you start by sewing the side of the trim to the shirt. You had pinned it down with the edge folded under, so sew through both layers.

(Matching up with the seam on the shoulder.) Then, just follow the neckline.

Finish up by attaching the other end of the trim to the other shoulder like described in the previous step.

Enjoy your new shirt!

Shared at Today's Creative Blog, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Craft-o-maniac, Sugar Bee Crafts, Brassy Apple, Tatertots and Jello and Tea Rose Home.

Toy Leash

Our baby girl keeps us busy with her newest trick:

Trying to throw everything on the floor:

her toys, burp cloth, you name it...

Enter the toy leash!

When I saw a link for a tutorial HERE,

I knew we HAD to have one.

I basically followed the directions,

but instead of piecing it together, 

I just used one piece of fabric.

Other materials needed:

Some thin batting inside,

matching thread

some velcro,

and a toy ring.

One end attaches to the toy,

the other end attaches to just about anything:

Straps of the car seat, high chair, stroller, you name it.

So simple, but it keeps us from having to pick everything up all the time,

and even better, it keeps her toys clean when we're out and about.

Would also make a great baby gift.

Some random projects: crochet baby cardigan, ruffle scarf and vinyl snowflakes

Here are a few projects that I've done recently:

A little crochet cardigan for our baby girl for this spring:

Trying to decide if I like it better with or without the flower. 

For a bigger child, I would just attach a pin and make it so that I could take it off, but don't want to do that for a baby...

I love how fast it came together...

* * *

For myself, I made this ruffled scarf:

Using elastic in the back, I shirred it. 

In the picture below you can see the elastic on the back side.

So easy, just sew straight lines with elastic instead of regular thread on your bobbin.

There may be more of these in my future...

* * *

And this is something I did a while ago already:

I made vinyl snowflakes with the Silhouette Cameo.

They looked almost out of place with the weather we had for the last couple months,

but last week, it finally started to look right:

Love the intricate design of the snowflakes.

And decided they'll stay a little longer, even though the snow is gone again.

Who knows, the snow might be back?!