November Sewing Class Week 3

This week our November Sewing Class made the Kitschy Kitchen Apron from One-Yard Wonders and I just love how the ladies apron's turned out. Kara made a pretty one with black fabric with cherries all over it and Lindsay made an adorable Christmas themed apron! These ladies are becoming more confident in their sewing skills and it shows! I love to watch them grow and expand their knowledge and I hope that this is a hobby that takes off for them. Sewing is a very rewarding skill to have because you can see your progress until you have a completed project and really the sky's the limit on what you can create!

Can't wait for next week's class, we will be making pj pants and sadly it will be our last class of the session. I will be adding some more sewing classes after the first of the year and thinking about adding a class that would continue these new found sewing skills!

November Sewing Class Part 2

For our second class in the session we made Reversible Tote Bags, using the wonderful tutorial from MADE. I do love these bags, they are simple to construct and a great size. The ladies tonight were awesome as usual, we stayed a little later so they could finish their bags before they left. The best thing about this pattern is that you can change it up in so many ways, you can have multiple fabrics or you can add the pieces together to have one larger same colored bag. The possibilities are endless and they make great gifts for teachers, just add this TOTEally awesome printable from Just Another Day in Paradise.

I just love the proud look on these faces when they finish a project that actually comes out great! I think that is one of the keys to learning to sew, pick projects that aren't so complicated that you can get a wonderful end project and have pride in that item. I love the feeling when people ask where I bought something and I can tell them that I made it!

November Craft Weekend

Our November Make and Take Craft Weekend was a complete blast from the moment the ladies arrived on Friday evening until Sunday morning when they left. So sad it had to come to an end so soon! Our weekend in pictures (a lot of pictures!)...

Name tags for the lovely ladies.

Elena cutting her material for ruffles.

Jill killing the sewing machine as a newbie! She even hemmed some of her pants!

Maggie and Erin starting their mason jars.

Ruth sewing her ruffles on her tote bag.

Ruth, Rita and Bev working on their tote bags.

Elena hemming her ruffles, she discovered there's something to this "crafting" thing!

Jill, Elena, Maggie and Erin working on their bags Friday.

Maggie and Erin pinning their ruffles onto bags.

Rita got creative and added a pocket to the back of the bag! Love!

Bev's

Erin's

Jill's

Maggie's

Elena's

Rita's

Ruth's

All the pretty bags! Such personality in every single one of them!

Jill "posing" while shopping at The Vintage Farmhouse.

Checking out the goods at The Painted Home.

Lunch at The Old Dutch Tavern.

Wanting everything in this vintage sewing window display at Four Seasons Florist.

Thinking about those signs from The Painted Home.

Bev with the adorable hoop art she made for her awesome grandson!

Erin working on such a beautiful hoop art project!

Erin and her finished infinity scarf, loving the pop of yellow from her flower pin.

Picking out and cutting knit materials for infinity scarfs and flower buttons.

Rita and Debbie figuring out Rita's scarf.

Rita sewing on some pearl beads to her hoop art. I'm a little jealous of her mad skills!

Love how Ruth added the burlap behind her ribbons!

And this my friends is what creativity looks like plus snacks on mug rugs!

Burlap runners just in time for Christmas decorating!

A few finished projects from Saturday night crafting!

Rita's bag and scarf, cute!

Wire words.

A table full of completed goodies!

Another table full of completed goodies!

Our awesome, amazing, funny, kind, full of laughs November Craft Weekend ladies!

This weekend was phenomenal, amazing, magnificent and way too short! We had some veteran crafters and newbies and they all killed the crafts we had for them! Everyone was so willing to help each other out and I believe we all left with new found friends. We had many first this weekend: sewing through the flat head of a pin without breaking a needle, sewing plastic on the inside of the bag, sewing the bag shut, and hot gluing a button to a behind! The memories and laughs we shared will forever have a place in my heart and the best thing is, these ladies are all so close I see some get together's in the near future, I hope! Thank you ladies.

If interested in coming to a Craft Weekend, we would love be your host and pamper you, check out Make and Take Craft Weekend. We will be adding more dates soon and we just added the April Craft Weekend which will coordinate with St. Louis Vintage Market Days! We are also offering a few Scrapbooking Weekends, we provide lodging, meals and snacks and you bring your supplies to have a whole weekend dedicated to scrapbooking!

Holiday Wear for the Girls...

I have managed to get 2 outfits finished for my 6 and 1 year old girls for this upcoming Holiday season. I love the look of over the top Christmas wear but seriously who wants to work so hard on something their kids can wear for a day or 2 at the most? I tried to pick out prints and colors that will work for before and after the holiday season, I think I succeeded!

First up is the dress I made for them, this is a modified version of Create Kids Couture Elena's. The pattern calls for 2 skirts but I just added both ruffles to the end of one skirt. Next time I will shorten one of the ruffles a little more since it hides the bottom ruffle too much. For the smaller size I will also use only 3 strips for the ruffles, I think using all 4 make the dress very heavy for such a small size kid. The blue fabric is a snowflake swirl, the black has red dots with little snowmen and snowflakes in the white and blue dots and the red is a small print white dot. I wish I would have switched the bottom ruffle to the red on top for my 6 year old like I did for my 1 year old. I think it just makes the dress pop a little more.

For my 6 year old.

For my 1 year old.

The next holiday outfit is the Create Kids Couture Amanda and I'm in love with this pattern. You can showcase off so many fabrics with the 3 different ruffles or make them all the same. It was a very easy pattern to follow, just lots of ruffling! I'm planning on making a bib onesie for my youngest daughter to go with the skirt and my oldest might be wearing a green sweater that my great grandmother knitted for me when I was a little kid. I'm hoping it will fit and I think the green with look great with the skirt and bring out the green in the leaves. I love the look of the poinsettia's on the 2nd and last ruffles and the red and black ruffles both have white dots on them.

Size 8

Size 12-18 month

I picked all of this fabric up from R & R, which is actually an Ace Hardware store about 20 minutes from us, they have a huge table of flat fold cottons at great prices. Some pieces have the name or designer on the side and some don't, so I don't always know what to tell people to look for when searching for the fabric. It's always like a treasure hunt there!