A Little Tougher Than I Thought But I Did It

So I finally finished the "Corinne" costume for Lori...so I am not a big fan of working with slippery material...or super stretchy material either...But here are the results...Its not perfect and the skirt/cape is a little shorter on one side...but all in all its definitely better made than the ones at the store and  it will definitely last much longer than a few months...I sent some prelim pics to Angie to check them out and she loved it...Now the real test will be when Loris sees it ... I hope she loves it...

The first picture is of the dress as a ball gown...I definitely need to fix the difference in length...and I need to add a gem in the middle of the tulle gathers on the bust and some gold detailing to the sleeves....

The second picture is with the skirt of the ball gown off...in transition

The third picture is of the Three Musketeers outfit...the skirt is now the cape...

I reiterate it is in no way perfect...Had I put a little bit more thinking into it, instead of winging it, I think I could have done a much better job.

Birthday Gift for The Twins!

Claudia and I have been best friends since the 2nd grade...not just best friends but Best Best BEST Friends...our familys are also very close friends...we each have 3 siblings and apparently our parents had children "together"...my bro Joey is the same age as her oldest sister, Ana...my sister, Alicia, is a few months older than her 2nd older sister Michelle... then we were born a week apart... and my little brother was born the same year as her little sister. Each pair of us went to school together and except for our oldest siblings we were all great friends.

I'd like to think that Claudia and I brought our families together.

Fast forward to now...Claudia's oldest sister had twin girls last October...OMG these girls are soooooo cute...I had the time of my life putting together the gift basket for the baby shower...now these Beautiful Babies are turning the big ONE!!!

So I am send in these two dresses to Ana and Juan for Sophia Lily and Rosa Maria...I hope they love them as much as I do...

My Niece Knows What She Wants!!

My Niece, Lorena, is quite the assertive little lady...and I say this with all the love in my heart!! Everyone knows that the women in my family speak quite freely and want what they want...and Lori is no exception... Today my older brother, Joey, called me and told me that he hopes I haven't started making Lori's Diamond Castle Costume because at dinner she would not stop talking about her Barbie & the Three Musketeer's Birthday Party and Halloween Costume.

I personally thought this was hilarious because it is such the Preschooler thing to do....Her parents thought "oh she loves Diamond Castle Barbie she should be that for Halloween" and little do they know that she has her own completely different plan going on...Thankfully most of the material that I have purchased can be used for this outfit as well...Today I was able to purchase the Fuchsia satin I need for the skirt of the ball gown.  Now all I need for this outfit is a gold fabric for the inside of the cape. I actually think this outfit will be much more fun to work with, as the skirt of this ball gown turns into the cape she wears...so I am excited about this!!

My Inspiration for the Next Few Weeks

Not that I have amazing sewing skills, but I can definitely sew a better quality garment than the Halloween costumes you buy at party city or the dress up outfits they sell just about anywhere... My family realized this when Emma got a Barbie & Diamond Castle Princess dress up set...the skirts and tops were sooo cheaply put together...

So this past Saturday Angie called asking for a favor...Could I look up the Diamond Castle Princess-Liana, and if I thought I might be able to make her dress for my niece, Lori... my summer consisted of weekly Barbie playing with Lori and her "Connected Barbie"  she calls it that because the actual Barbie sings the song from the movie, "I feel...Connected... Protected..It's like your sitting right with me all the time"...I looked up the Halloween costume version of the dress and sure enough I found a really badly made costume for $25 and the better (but still badly) made one for around $50.... Uh yea I can definitely do better than that.

So far I have purchased:
a shimmery purplish fabric for the bodice fabric------------------------------$6 for 1 yard
cute orange satin for the hanging sashes instead of a shiny plastic or tulle -----$4 for 1 yard
some gold cording for the top of the bodice---------------------------------$3 for 1 yard

I already have some pink and white tulle to make it poofy and I still need to find about 3-4 yards of a nice fuchsia satin and then figure out how I'm gonna replicate  the glitter and gem look of the center panel.

I plan on making the dress floor length and I want the skirt to be very full like a ball gown...this makes me want a child dressform for things like this...but I want all sorts of stuff I don't really need....I will keep you posted on the progress of the dress..wish me luck!

Some Clothes for Aurora

These are a few things I made for a wonderful little girl named Aurora. Her father is a classmate of mine and her mother is a fellow crafter.  Kelly makes the prettiest hair accessories which you can find here.  She also has a cute blog about her beautiful family called This Is Us.

I made these a while ago, but waited to post them until after Aurora and Kelly had seen them. Sorry some of the pictures look terrible, I don't have an awesome camera...but you get the general idea.

I had fun making all of these skirts, I got to try a bunch of different things...and play around with different fabrics...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Happy Birthday Emma-Sofia!!

So today my Niece/God Daughter, Emma-Sofia Turns the BIG 2!!!! She had a joint Birthday Party with her Big Brother J about 2 weeks about. J turned 4 at the end of August. This is Emma eating Ice and wearing the Birthday Shirt I made her...took me like 5 minutes...I also made her a tutu to match the shirt, which took FOREVER, but being a toddler she refused to wear it. So yesterday I finally made her a market skirt with the fabric from the shirt so she can wear them together.

I just love this pic of me and my little Sofie taken this past Easter...she is so loving...for a while she gave out kisses to anyone who asked ...now she's much more selective. I really miss her... I have made her a handful of other clothes for her birthday, but as I would like for them to remain a suprise I won't post until she receives them...Sorry Alice!!

-amy t.-

Birthday Outfits

Before I came back for school Louie's sister asked me if I could make an outfit for Lauren's 4th birthday party. It was a carnival/circus themed party so I chose to use a red striped fabric like a circus tent . Since Louie's other niece Ava turns 1 in October I decided to make her an outfit as well. Dana from MADE has an awesome tutorial for the cutest skirt ever, "The Market Skirt." I have been dying to use it and this was the prefect opportunity.

These are the results!! I love the way they turned out. I added length to Lauren's and subtracted for Ava's...
For the middle portion and the bottom ruffle of both I added extra inches because I wanted a fuller skirt.
Then I appliqued a circle with their inital on it...also an idea I got from Dana.

As for the rest of the outfit I bought them white shirts that I appliqued with a circle and their age, opposite to the one on the skirt... I used Heat and Bond Lite to make it much easier and it was a huge help...

Lauren looked so cute that day... and well Ava's birthday is still a month away...
Here is Lauren in her outfit after a long hot day at her Party...

-amy t.-

National Sewing Month

So I started school three weeks ago, and as I predicted I have been doing a lot more sewing than during the summer (pics to definitely follow). And what a coincidence...my friend Gabe pointed out to me that September is National Sewing Month and has been since the 80's....

I love it!!! Tomorrow after I take my car to get looked at, I plan on sewing the day away making lots of things for the numerous little girls in my life... I hope everyone has a great Sewing Month!

-amy t.-

Sewing from Early in the Summer

Early on in the Summer I was able to do a little bit of sewing, but as you know I eventually did little to no sewing the rest of the summer.

I made these two dresses for Louie's nieces. I hadn't sewn anything for them since I started so I wanted to have something for them for my first visit of the summer. The little dress was for his 8 month old neice Ava (now almost a year old) and the other was for his 3yr old niece Lauren. I really love the fabric I used for these...I got it at Hobby Lobby so it wasn't very pricey at all and the colors are so pretty.



This dress I made for my Emma... I actually made an identical one for my other niece Lori but I have yet to put straps on it and actually give it to her...I'm not quite sure why I still havent done it seeing as how I made the dress at least two months ago...

-amy t.-