you like me, you really like me!

I really felt the love this weekend! I had several happy things happen that completely brightened my day! First off I received the Liebster Award from the lovely Rachel at imagine gnats! It is a sweet and silly award passed from blog to blog. It is given to recognize and spread the word about blogs with under 200 followers.  It was so kind of Rachel to choose my little blog. She is such a sweet person, I look forward to reading here blog everyday. She is amazing at quilting and I am so excited about here new adventures in to embroidery. Rachel wrote a lovely comment of about my blog in her Liebster post. Here are the rules of the Liebster Award:

The RULES:

*choose five up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers

 *mention them on my blog

  *let them know by sending them a message that they have been nominated

I am so excited to continue the fun and pass the Liebster on to some of my favorite blogs:

Siesta and Sewing: Cindy is an amazing seamstress!  The amount of clothes she makes is completely astounding and inspiring. I love seeing all of the clothing she makes for her adorable family. She is really great at adapting patterns and adjusting them to be cute and practical at the same time.

Comfy and Pretty: I love the title of this blog so much and I love that "comfy and pretty" is also the philosophy behind what Tara makes for her two little ones. She has tons of great tutorials for extending the use of your kids' wardrobe.

Bandy Canyon: Ashley is a creative mom, who blogs about everything from cooking to crocheting. She has such a positive perspective on family life and she hosted an amazing skirt week full of wonderful tutorials!

Congratulations to my nominees, thanks for all of the hard work you put into your lovely blogs! They are such a joy to read!

Okay remember when I said this was a really great weekend. Well not only did I get my sweet little Liebster award, on Saturday my mom stumbled upon an amazing fabric sale and bought me a ton of great fabric! Then to top it all off I also received a special something in the mail! 

Jennifer Paganelli graciously sent me a signed copy of Girl's World  and some lovely fabric to giveaway as part of my Sewing Book Spotlight starting in just 2 days!

I'm so excited to get started!

patterns vs. books vs. tutorials?

 I'm gearing up for next month and the start of my sewing book spotlight series. I hope you will enjoy it and that it will be useful to you. It has already been a big motivation for me to get sewing! Preparing for the series got me to wondering... What do sewers like to work with most: patterns, sewing books or online tutorials?

  I feel like each form has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I am a big fan of sewing books! I love the great pictures, number of projects and the tone of the author that you get from a sewing book. I love to linger over a great sewing book. Somehow it makes me feel creative and productive even if I am just laying around on the couch! However, they can definitely get expensive, there are often "filler" projects and I could do away with the obligatory "intro to sewing" at the beginning of every single book!

  Patterns are available for every budget and skill level. New patterns come out every season and you can be more specific in finding the exact item you want. But there isn't a lot in the way of inspiration on most patterns.  The quality of patterns also varies greatly. Some teach you and help you to become a better swear and others leave you confused and frustrated!

  Finally we have online tutorials and patterns. They definitely win budget-wise, you can't beat free! They are very inspiring to me. I am constantly astounded by what I see on other sewing blogs. I have a several boards on Pinterest devoted to the great tutorials I have found. But when it comes down to it, I have made very few things from the great tutorials I come across.

In the end I am so thankful for the amazing creativity of others! In whatever form in comes, I am glad to benefit from their talent.

So what do you think? Do you have a preference or opinion? I would love to hear some more perspectives on this topic!

LTTSA:bear (or monkey) carrier

I am so excited to get back to Jessica's little things to sew-along! This month the project to sew was the bear carrier from the much loved book Oliver+ S: Little Things to Sew. This little carrier was very fun to make and easy to sew. I was able to use scraps from other projects for my fabric.

Our little monkey is very safe and secure in his cute carrier! 

 I must admit at first my main motivation for sewing this was to get a chance to win another Oliver +S pattern.  This just wasn't one of the projects that really caught my eye, when I first flipped through the book. But after seeing how happy this little carrier made my little girl, I am so glad I made it!

Sorry for the crazy amount of pictures. I couldn't resist the cuteness of the bear carrier and my little one in her Oliver+S Family Reunion Dress. 

 This was one of the first non-clothing items I have sewn for my daughter. I am so happy with how it turned out! I am really looking forward to next month's Play Town project. What is your favorite non-clothing item to make for the little ones it your life?

last day of sew-along: it's finished!

 Ta-da! The 2-in-1 Jacket from Sewing for Boys is finished! I am so happy with how it turned out. My sweet little George finally has a made-by-mom piece of clothing! Here are a few pictures of the last "button-attaching" part of the pattern.
First I had to get all set up for making the buttonholes. I really dislike making buttonholes, my machine is wonderful but not very high-tech so I some times dream of a having a fancy new sewing machine that will make buttonholes with the touch of a button.

After you have finished the buttonholes, mark the placement of the buttons by marking though the slits in the buttonholes. Just ignore the big blue dots, I ended up changing the number of buttons I used and moving things around a little.

To make it reversible, sew the buttons on both sides of the jacket. I did this but I am thinking about removing them since I really like the khaki side and I am not a fan of that one button that shows at the collar. 

So here it is!

I think George was more excited about playing peek-a-boo behind his door, than his new jacket. But I'll pretend that those cute smiles are for the jacket. 

* Go check out Jessica's corduroy version of the jacket and her wonderful toggle buttons, so cute!

Thanks so much for being part of my first sew-along! As promised someone will win these boy-friendly sewing goodies. I'll choose a winner on Monday. Just leave a link in the comments to your 2-in-1 jacket!

slight sew-along delay!

I wanted so much to have the perfect buttons for George's new jacket, but the last few days have not been very conducive to mommy slipping away to the fabric store.  The funny thing is that I did get to go (with the kids, and my helpful mom) to the one fancy quilting shop we have in our town. They have wonderful fabric and all sorts of cute little extras, but a shocking lack of boy-friendly buttons. I did find a great piece of boy fabric for my little giveaway.

So if you have a blog post or flickr picture, leave a link in the comments for a chance to win!
Hopefully I will be back with a finished jacket to show soon!

Sew-along Day 4: almost finished! + a giveaway!

I really like this type of project (actually I like whenever in life this type of thing happens) where you finish the difficult part first and then everything else just is smooth sailing. That's how I have been feeling ever since finishing that first darn pocket. 

Okay back to sewing, we now have our main jacket piece and a lining/reverse piece. 

 Fit them into each other with the RIGHT Sides together. It's kind of hard to tell on mine because the pattern on the lining looks the same on both sides, but I promise I do have my right sides together and the wrong sides facing out.

Pin, pin, pin.. matching up the all the sides and the collar.

 Then stick together the entire perimeter of the jacket, leaving a gap at the bottom for turning.

Before you turn out your jacket make sure to go through and clip all the corners, and the area around the collar. 

Now the best part, turn out your jacket...and...there you have it a very cute boys jacket! Now just go around and edge stitch the whole thing and hem the sleeves. Now I wish I could just blink and buttons would magically appear on this cute little booger. Since that's not going to happen come back tomorrow to see the finishing touches.

I can't wait to see more 2-in-1 jackets! Also, I wanted to have a little giveaway to celebrate the end of my first sew-along!  I will send one lucky winner a yard of boy-friendly fabric and some boy-centric notions. 

**I don't have one of those "link-up" things set up yet, so please just put a link in the comments to either a blog post you have for this project or to a picture of your handiwork on flickr. You can put them in the comments section of today's post or Friday's. I will pick a winner next Monday! 

sew-along day 3: it's beginning to look a lot like a jacket!

* Yikes! Sorry for the delay, I messed somehow with the schedule/publish part

Hello again, it's now day three and with that pocket behind us now we get to focus on the actual jacket we are making. I was so happy to see my little guy's jacket take form! This part of the garment construction was fairly simple. The instructions are wonderful, but if you go in a slightly different order than the authors it won't make a difference. I made the front of the jacket first then did the lining, instead of switching back and forth between the two at each step as written in the book. Here's a basic rundown of how I put it together.

Attach the front and back pieces, right sides together, then press open the seams 

attach the collar, be careful lining up the curve of the collar with the neckline

match up the sleeves with the notches

pin the sleeves like crazy

sew, then press (I used a tailor's ham to press the curve of the shoulder seam)

line up the sleeve and side, pin

press the seams open

turn everything out and ta-da it's starting to looks like a jacket!

repeat the steps again with the lining pieces

Tomorrow we get to the 2-in-1 part of this nifty jacket!

Sew-along Day 2: the welt that almost wasn't

Before we get going I must tell you of the epic struggle I had with these pockets. My first attempt was a miss and I ended up having to re-cut my front pieces and start over. The lovely author gave hint saying that if you have never made a welt pocket you should make a practice one first. Silly, over-confident Tara did not think I needed to heed this warning and I dove right in. Hopefully my mistakes will be helpful to you. Actually I am really glad I started over because I made a couple changes that I am very happy about.  The first change is the welt pocket placement.

1st attempt

2nd time around

I moved mine in towards the middle of the jacket by a little bit. If you are making the jacket in a larger size the pockets might be in a great place, but for the size 2/3 jacket I am making they seemed a little too close to the side seams. Change number two was in the color of my welt pocket.

During my first try I used the same khaki as the main part of the jacket, but for my second try I decided to go with the plaid. Since the jacket is kind of plain I wanted to "cute" it up a bit.
 Okay, onto the actual sewing of the pocket! It actually isn't that difficult, I just wasn't paying enough attention to the directions the first time around. The illustrations in the book are very helpful. Remember we are working on the right side of the front of the jacket. For some reason it felt very strange to be doing all of this on the right side, but maybe that's just me.

I used a fabric marking pen to trace the area of the welt to stitch over. After sewing you cut open a slit in the middle of the stitched rectangle and push the pocket pieces through to the wrong side. 

 After pulling the pocket pieces through sew them together to make, well, a pocket.

Now back to the welt on the right side of our fabric. During this part my iron was my best friend. Keep pressing your fabric and it will really help.

Almost there!(Please ignore the unpainted thumb) Now we just turn under the extra fabric on each side and then edgestitch the short sides of the welt.

Ta-da! We have welt pockets! 

I hope this was helpful. Do you know any hints for this technique? Or have an idea for another type of pocket? I would love to see them!

2-in-1 jacket sew-along: Day 1

 I am so excited to begin the sew-along for this cute little boys jacket! Let's first start with the most time consuming part of the project, picking the fabric. I bought some really great velveteen fabric last week in Chicago that I planned on using, but then I thought about it and it was a little to fancy for the day-to-day wear that I want for this jacket. So I started looking through my stash (which is definitely lacking in boy fabric) and found a great combination for my little guy.

The main fabric is a thicker camel/khaki color that is very similar to the jacket that my husband wears out to work every morning. I love when my little George looks like his handsome dad. The reverse is a happy plaid that I found in the clearance section at JoAnn's forever ago. I am not going to line this jacket with flannel(an option in the book) because our weather is very mild and the fabric I am using seems very spring-ish to me. I have decided to go for the optional welt pockets.

 I like to trace my patterns on to freezer-paper. It is nice and sturdy, not as likely to tear in the hands of toddlers as tissue paper. Also you can iron it on to your fabric so that you do not have to use pins when cutting out your pattern. I still went with pins, but that is mostly because my iron is not in a convenient place for cutting.

 So now everything is cut and marked with all the markings from the patterns. I know it's important, but I really hate the markings part.  Just in case you were wondering I am making my jacket in a size 2/3.

Well nothing too earth-shattering today, so I thought I would give some resources that might be helpful in this preparation phase.

Selecting Boy Fabric by Dana@Made

Using Freezer Paper for patterns from Colletterie

Now we are ready to sew!...tomorrow!!

Sewing Book Spotlight

  On my recent flight across the country I had some time to listen to a wonderful (free!) podcast a called, CraftyPod.  The episodes I listened to focused on how to improve your craft blog.  They gave me quite a bit of inspiration. I was really challenged to approach this blog with a little more planning and organization.

   So here's the plan...each month I will spotlight a different sewing book.  I love looking through sewing books but I often stop there and don't move on to the next step of actually making something. I will try to do as many of the projects from each book as I can and give you a little of my own impression of the book. Then throughout the month I'll post links to tips, interviews, erratas, sew-alongs, and reviews from other blogs that might be helpful. And finally, I'll be scouring flickr and pinterest for inspiration and adaptions of the projects found in each book.  All the books are from my own little library, some are fairly new while others that been around a while.

Here's a look at my plan right now:

FebruarySo pretty, just seemed to say "Valentine's" to me

March

I'm so ready for spring

April

Tax time, my attempt at being budget-minded

May 

Gear-up for summer with great kids activities

June

Summertime style

July

longer days= more time to sew (I hope!)

August

Back-to-Sewing School

September

build that boy's wardrobe

October

mom needs new clothes too!

November

so many cute cold weather ideas!

I hope you enjoy this series and that it is helpful to you! I will still be doing other posts outside of this series, I just felt like this would keep me motivated to try new things and might be fun for you to read. Each month if you have sewn items from any of these books, send me a link to show us what you've made, and please share anything that you think would be helpful for others!