More projects...

Every night this week I have been staying up literally until the next day (12-1 am) working on Christmas gifts and other little projects I just want to get done. I am telling you... sewing for me has become a serious stress reliever. Even when I am not stressed, it just makes me feel relaxed and have that feeling that I have accomplished something outside of my daily tasks. So, everyday at 5pm, I stop working (I had to set a schedule for myself so I am not working all night... easy to do when you work from home.) and start on a project for about an hour. Then I stop and fix dinner and spend some time with the family. When they go to bed around 9ish, then I start working on my projects again until I am at a good stopping point or finished. I am actually really enjoying this new schedule I set for myself. Something about the humm of the sewing machine just calms me. Believe it or not, I have even had a more restful sleep lately going to bed at 12 and waking up around 7... strange.

Anyway... here are a couple of the projects I accomplished this week in my night hours.

You know in school they teach you how to "follow the directions". Apparently I never followed the directions very well because for some reason I am always trying to alter the directions. Not on purpose, just happens... it's like a sickness I have. Why can't I just make something exactly like it shows? Well, I bought this skirt pattern, the Girly Stripwork Skirt by Pink Fig. I think it is sooo cute with all the stripwork.

I decided to make a Christmas-y skirt for Paige with this pattern and wanted to use a Jelly Roll of the "mother" colorway of Cotton Blossoms by Bonnie and Camille for Moda Fabrics. I thought it would be perfect to use on this skirt since it had the colors that remind me of Christmas. As you know the Jelly Rolls are 2.5" wide strips. This particular pattern called for 5 1/2" strips.... so here goes the start of my altering. I did the math and figured up the total finished length with the 5 1/2" strips, then divided that by 2 since that would be the finished width of each strip once sewn. At least my math skills paid off from school, because this skirt turned out ADORABLE!

I used a coordinating brown silk for the waist band and skirt hem and added a little bit of crochet trim just along the bottom seam.

If you look really close at Paige's legs, you can see a faint red color... yep... that would be a sharpie marker once again. She had the marker all up her legs... luckily the skirt covers most of it. She has taken 3 baths scrubbing her legs and you can still see how much fun she had.

After several pictures, she started to get a bit silly on me. Gotta love her.

This one is just for fun... had to squeeze my little man in here.
Tonight, I finished up a Bistro Wrap from the pattern Hip Wraps by Vanilla House. Very cute pattern. This wrap I made as a Birthday present for a good friend of mine. She is working on starting up her own business and thought this might help out when she is working her booth. I used a dark denim and an ivory damask print called Lost Horizon from the Shangri La fabric collection by 3 Sisters. I also decided to personalize it a bit by adding her first initial on the attached pocket. The letter applique is just a flocked iron-on by s-e-i I got at Hobby Lobby.

I will be giving her this apron on Sunday and sure hope she likes it.