Secret Sister Christmas Swap

I'm  friends with a great group of girls and we're doing a christmas swap this year.  My partner was Brittany.  (she blogs here: Yesterday's Echo, and sells her cool stuff here: in her Etsy Store)  She's really girly and I was at a loss as to what to make since I'm NOT girly in any way!  So... looking for inspiration, I dug into my bead box.  In it, I found a lone B double strand sterling piece.  It was screaming to be loved, so I had to use it.  An idea was born.  THEN, looking thru my beads, I found a few packs of green, blue, and pink czech glass beads.  My swap item was coming together.  I looked in my clasps and found the sterling heart clasp for the bracelet.  Random, why did I have a 2 strand clasp just hanging out?  So, that got taken out and added to my pile of supplies.  Then I decided to use wire wrapping.  I love doing it.  The end result is so elegant.  Not being able to stop at the bracelet since I still had beads left over, I also made a necklace.  Oh, and THAT clasp was in my stash.  Yep, I'm a hoarder.  LOL

Brittany's Bracelet

Brittany's Necklace

All my supplies are from Artbeads.com.  

Sterling heart clasp

Sterling heart double strand clasp

Two Hole Letter Beads

Czech Beads Mix

Ally at the Hogan Park

We had a great time playing at the park near our house.

AND we found out that there are several more nearby! Sweet!

A Year of Ally :)

Ally's Pillow Case Birthday Dress

I wanted to make a special dress for Ally to wear for her 1st birthday party this Saturday.  I've heard pillowcase dresses are easy.  She needed a butt cover as well and I found a very easy cover pattern.  You can't try to be perfect on the cover.  It just won't work for the legs because they're round and round stuff doesn't sew or iron around neatly.  The dress started out with just the fish fabric but I figured that if I was sewing I might as well make it reversible.  You know, kids have spills and such, so that if it got dirty I could flip it around and have a clean dress.  :)  I found a pattern that I liked and used it to draft my own for Ally's size.  I used bias tape for the hem because I HATE hemming things and I really suck at it.  The fabric is from my stash (I'm on a no spending craft budget these days) and I found the ribbon in my stash too.  Who knew I had 7/8" yellow ribbon?  Random.  All it in all, I think it urned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!  

Take a look below and see what Ally's going to wear for her special birthday party!  

 

 One side is fish.  LOVE this fabric!

The other side is a fun tie dye.  I've been looking for a reason to use this.  I think it's PERFECT!

Ally's Quiet Book

This quiet book has been bouncing around in the back of my head for quiet some time.  Ally's still a bit young to play with it but I figured I had time this summer, so why not make it.  Right?  After I made her bedroom stuff, I finally had time to work on it but knew I didn't want to do it out of felt.  100% wool felt is pretty pricey and I can't get it anywhere locally, only online.  So, I turned to vinyl.  I found some GREAT bright colors of the fun stuff at Joann's.  Most of this book is from things in my stash.  The only stuff I had to buy to make this book was the vinyl and the grommets for the binding.  I even had the rings!  Everything is machine sewn too.  I've linked tutorials and ideas that I used.  If I didn't give proper credit and you know who it belongs to, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it!  Thanks!  :)

The cover of Ally's quiet book.  I used white vinyl that I cut on my cricut for her name.

The barn came from here, I used some GREAT wood grain fabric I had in my stash that a friend sent me last year.

The braiding page came from here, I used some poly rope type stuff I had in my stash.

This idea is from here, I got the beads at Joann's and cut the vinyl with SCAL and my Cricut.
(anyone know how to turn an image?)

The pocket idea is from here, I used a pocket off a pair of old jeans and appliqued a turtle from the background fabric to the front.  I like to put a little stuffed bunny in the pocket for Ally to find.

The zipper page is loosely based on a page found here, I picked these up for 50 cents each on clearance at Joann's years ago.  More stuff from my stash!  :)

These 2 pages are my own design (yes, I know, I'm BRILLIANT, right?  LOL.)  There are lots of ideas out there for these. 

Of course, I had to have a tic tac toe page and a button the flower page!  The tic tac toe pieces can also be used for matching practice.  There are 2 of each and they store neatly in the cool orange envelope.

The flower page has 9 flowers and the extras store in the "grass" pocket.

The dryer page idea came from here, I used vinyl and velcro instead of felt.  

The weaving page idea came from here, I used ribbon instead of felt.

The back cover is just like the front but no writing.

I used this tutorial for the binding.  The pages started out on an 11x12 piece of osnaburg.  The backgrounds are all cut 9 1/2 x 12.  I folded over 1/2" on the edge that wasn't going to get stitched and used fusible webbing to iron it down well all around the edges and in the middle.  I sewed everything thru the background and osnaburg.  I stitched the front and back of pages together with a 1/2" seam allowance.  Then I top stitched it all together too.  The binding part is done measuring 1/4" from the bound edge and stitching, go another 1/4" in and do another line, go in 5/8" and do another line, and a final line another 1/4" from there.  I used my crop a dile to punch the holes and set 1/4" grommets.  Easy peasy!  Then found some binder rings in my craft cave to hold it all together.

Mason's Cowboy Quilt

My friend Leslie had a little boy, Mason, on Dec.27. As soon as I found out she was pregnant, I started on this quilt. I asked what her dream nursery was and she said cowboy/cowgirl. Then when she found out she was having a boy I was able to get it all pulled together. It's been done for quite a while but I didn't want to share it just in case she wandered here and saw it before she got it. I'm so excited to FINALLY get to share this quilt I made for him. Here's Mason's "cowboy quilt". All the squares were hand done by me. The shapes were cut on my (and a friends) cricut to make a template and then I hand cut everything after ironing steam a seam to the back. All the sewing was done with my Emerald 118 machine.

"Howdy" block

Cowboy Hat block

Spur block

Bucking bronco block

Howling coyote block

Brown boot block

Roping glove block

Lucky horse shoe block

Stage coach block

Saddle block

Ladies boot block

Cow block

Rail fence block

Cowboy hat block

Horse block

Red barn block

A sheriff star in each corner

Mason's Cowboy Quilt

The back is done with the boot flannel that is in the coyote square. I tied it at the corners with brown pearlized thread. I hope she loves it as much as I do. I had a GREAT time making this quilt!