Ruthie's Romper, and other things

I'm so excited to have a baby girl! Not only are all the clothes at the store cute, but I can make pretty things for her to wear as well!

I went through my stash of patterns, mostly from Izzy & Ivy Designs, and I only had 1 pattern that was sized for 3 months.  Everything else starts around 12, 18, or 24 months.  Oh well, she will be darling when she turns 1! :)

The pattern I had was Ruthie's Romper.  Oh my gosh, it is so cute!!  It took me a few days to make.  See, I'm a quilter, not a garment/bag maker, so taking a 2 dimensional image and turning it into a 3 dimensional object doesn't click as easily in my brain.  Aside from that little hiccup, the pattern was really well illustrated and written.

Have you been to their blog?  It's so cute and they have some awesome tutorials.  The Ruthie's Romper pattern has you do some shirring at the top of the romper, and I had never done that before.  Their blog had some great tips, links, and info about shirring.  I am now totally addicted.  I'm going to make a couple more things just so I can do it! (dresses, skirts, more rompers....I'll do it if it has shirring!)

Anyway, the romper turned out really great and she looks so dang adorable in it!  Sorry the picture is kind of crappy, but the lighting in her bedroom isn't the best in the morning.  I'm sad you can't really see them, but her socks match the contrasting ruffle of the romper perfectly!

Making this little romper lit the fire under me and I went out and bought 4 different baby clothes patterns.  I love that you can buy separate pieces of baby clothing at the store (Walmart's Garanimals are my favorites).  B has tons of onesies, pants, a few shirts and skirts, etc.  But what she really needs are jackets.  I haven't been able to find any cute baby jackets in my price range (sorry, but I am NOT going to pay $50 for a jacket she'll be able to wear for a month or two), and the jackets that I could find that I kind of liked only came in a set with a onesie and pants to match.  She has tons of pants and onesies.  Literally.  We had to expand her half of the dresser into the drawers in the hall so that all of her clothes had a place to be put away.  (I am not kidding).

So anyway, I went to Joann's and bought some patterns: a couple New Look, a Simplicity, and I think a Butterick (or was it McCall's?).

Correction: I purchased 3 Simplicity patterns and 1 New Look pattern.

 At any rate, I bought some dang cute ones.  I've purchased my fabric, cut out my patterns, and am currently working on making a darling little dress and a pair of pants.  I'll post pictures when they're done.  I'm pretty excited.  :)

What are some of your favorite patterns for kids? I'd love to build up my pattern stash.

Happy Mother's Day!

OMG I had the best Mother's Day ever! My fabulous husband took me shopping this weekend for my Mother's Day present. He got me a great outfit (I bought the shoes).
I got these shoes, only in black, from Forever 21.

I got this fabulous Miss Me Unplugged t-shirt from Dillard's.

And these fabulous Miss Me cropped jeans from Dillards.

We also went to Buckle, and I fell in love with a lot of the Miss Me jeans they had. The best part about the whole trip, besides the new outfit? The jeans are size 29! I have NEVER worn a 29 in my life! WOOHOO

Sunday afternoon we had dinner at the park with the family. It was a really great weekend. What did you do for Mother's Day?

Sad Yet Glad

A sad thing happened to these pants today. I was at the shop, cutting up the fabric I bought last year to make my curtains for our apartment, and I got stuck on a screw that was jutting out from the counter. Now I have a huge hole in the side of my pants.

The good news though? The really awesome discount is still going on Amazon, so I got another set for $11.65 + free shipping with Amazon prime. So, since I'm still losing some weight, and plan on losing more, and my current size is falling off of me, I bought the next size smaller. I'm sure the jacket won't fit, but the jacket I have is fine still! :)

My new set is coming on Tuesday. WOOHOO! So excited! Now that I'm thinking about it, I should have gone back and ordered the blue set too while I was at it. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow!

My favorite new outfit(s)

I realize that this picture is a little dark, but it shows a small glimpse of my no-longer fat chin. :) No full on face/body shots yet....Have to get my hair done first!

Mike found these track suits on Amazon for $11!! We all got a pair (some of us got 2!) The Team Edward suits weren't very cute. While I am totally on Team Edward, as far as the books are concerned, I can't help but be on Team Jacob for the movie versions!

The right pant leg has paw prints! I love it!

And of course, I had to get the set in pink! I wish I had ordered the navy blue ones as well! They are really comfortable. And for $11 a set, you can't beat that!

Wootoff at Shirt.Woot = Lots of shirts

It was a 1 hour woot off! at Woot! today. Mike has been eyeing several of these shirts for a while, and snapped up some of the following because they were only $12 with free shipping.


I love Cookie Monster. Mike didn't as much, so we didn't get it, but I thought I'd share. This shirt just makes me laugh.
"Join us. Or don't. Whatever." Classic!

This is totally Mike. He loves origami. It's also totally me. I hate origami.

This is so true. I'm sure that if there were still T-rexes on the Earth, we'd have to buy one and use it to get him (or me) to exercise!

"The best thing since bread....." heh heh heh

This is the #1 favorite shirt of all time for him. It was the first one he bought.

Images from woot.com

It might actually happen!

I might actually have Marshy's costume finished by Halloween!!


WAHOO!!


Today I finished the jumpsuit and got half of the back of the turtle shell done (the front of the turtle shell is already finished). Marshy even put up with a couple of fittings when I made the jumpsuit, which really surprised me. He stood still and held his arms out and everything. I think it's cuz he is so excited to be a turtle.

All I have to do now is finish the turtle shell and make the hood and the booties.

This is looking like it will be VERY do-able over the next few days. :D

Wish me luck! Photos to come later.

Getting Closer

A few months ago I ordered these jeans from Ruelala.com (email me for an invite if you want to join).

When I got them I tried them on. They are a size 31. I couldn't get them over my thighs. Yeah, I know, I was totally upset and almost cried.

Tried them on this morning, and can now almost get them up to my waist. YAY!!!! I've only been working out for 2 weeks (on the 2nd day of week 3). I haven't really been dieting. I still eat whatever I want. I have Skinny Cow ice cream instead of Ben and Jerry's, but it's still ice cream. I eat cheese and cereal, we had tacos for lunch yesterday. I am thinking that this will be easier to maintain than the diet I did earlier this year.

If you'll notice in my sidebar I added the weight loss tracker...again.... I'm hoping this will help me stay motivated. That, and the fact that if I beat Mike then he owes me a trip to Cancun. Yeah, I think that is motivation enough, right? haha Well, so far I've lost 7 pounds. Only 50 more to go! :)

Quilting Catch-up, Keeping Busy, & Monthly Challenge Progress.

I have been keeping busy lately. Besides quilting (I just updated my work blog. Please go check it out! There are some really cute quilts clients have made!), I have been sewing at home (FINALLY!) I'm working on making/designing wallhangings, 1 for each month of the year. They are really cute so far!! I can't wait to post pictures of what I have done so far.


I also bought this really cute new pair of shoes. Well, Mike's money bought them I guess, so I guess that means he bought them for me?


I also sewed the button on April's block for the Tisket a Tasket BOM.

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Also finished January's block......

And February's block.

I feel like I got a head start on this month's challenge pieces. I usually put off working on my own projects until the month is over, and then I feel like I have nothing to show for it. This month I thought I'd get a jump on things and show some progress early on. Yay for me!

Also, last Thursday we had sewing night, and I accomplished quite a lot. Remember the Cars quilt I made forever ago for Marshy? Well I finally seamed the backing for it! YAY! Now I can quilt it!! I also quilted this Christmas wallhanging..... on my domestic machine.

Yes, that's right!

I, the longarm-er, can quilt on a domestic. Boy was it tough though! It is a totally different feeling. On the Gammill you move your arms and the machine. On the domestic (my lovely green Singer HD-110) it is totally different: You move the fabric. Doing a squiggle was the hardest part. On the longarm I would move front to back. On the domestic it is a side to side motion.

Also, I attached the binding to the Christmas wallhanging. And, remember this quilt from last summer?? Well I quilted it last year and it's been sitting around for a while waiting for binding. My cousin had a baby girl a week or so ago and it's been the perfect excuse I've needed for finishing this quilt. It is pink and purple, perfect for a little girl! I made and attached the binding to the quilt on Thursday, so now I'm hoping to be able to hurry and get it all the way bound so that I can get it up to my cousin and her precious new baby girl.

I'm hoping that we'll have another sewing night this week so I can get even more stuff done! I have a couple of bags I'd like to finish, and of course my wallhangings I've been designing.

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 1

So I am doing a t-shirt quilt for my cousin's roommate. He brought by the t-shirts this morning. There were 22 t-shirts, 2 button ups, and 2 polos. I am doing a 5 x 5 quilt (this means, 5 rows, 5 columns, for those of you who don't speak "quilter"). He wants minkee on the back, and a solid navy blue for the sashing.

I went to Joann's Fabrics after work today, and bought 9 yards of lightweight Pellon fusible interfacing, 3 yards of a solid navy blue "Quilter's Solids" fabric, and a Full size (because that's all they had) polyfill batting about 1/4 inch loft. It was only $34. Not too shabby. This took about 1 hour, because the Orem Joann's is always busy and you always have to wait for at least 20 minutes to get your stuff cut.

I got home, ate dinner, and proceeded to cut apart the t-shirts. Up one side, across the sleeve, through the neck, across the other sleeve, and down the other side. It took about an hour. Since I am only using 25 blocks, I had to pick which shirts to use. The polos were a little thick, so they were immediately disqualified. Fortunately, one of the t-shirts had enough of a pattern on the back that I could use it as well as the front. I ended up using 22 t-shirts (with 1 back) and the 2 button ups.

After the shirts were cut apart, I proceeded to cut out large sized pieces of the interfacing, place them on the t-shirts, with the stretch going opposite the stretch of the tees, and iron them on securely. I didn't buy enough interfacing! The 9 yards only lasted for 16 of the shirts! I have 8 shirts left. Fortunately, it is only $0.99 per yard, so I figure another 5 or 6 yards should do the trick, and not be too pricey. Ironing on to the 16 shirts took about 2 hours.

Then I centered and cut out the 12 1/2 inch squares from each of the 16 shirts with interfacing, which only took about 30 minutes. This is what I have to show for my work on this project:

Sorry the picture is a little dark and blurry. I left my good camera at work by accident, so I had to use my phone.

I feel pretty good about todays progress. He doesn't need it until the 27th, but because we are closed the 25-28 I have to have it done before Christmas. No big deal, right? Throw it on the stack of 50 bazillion other things I'm working on! :)

Stay tuned for more Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt! I will be working on it every night, hopefully, so I'll definitely keep ya'all posted on my progress. This is so fun, because I have always wanted to do one, but not had the time, and now I have to do one for a client, so it works out! :)

Successful Shopping

This post is mostly for my mom, who I told about our awesome shopping deals. So! If you decide you want to read all about our fun shopping expedition, then go ahead. Otherwise, just skip on down to the next post. Thanks for stopping by!
I bought 3 pairs of really nice pants at G.H. Bass, and I got them for like 50% off. Wow! What a great deal! I really needed pants, too.
This is the cutest shirt ever! I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy it, but Angel talked me into it. It was kind of pricey, at Dress Barn, but it is definitely worth it.
I also found this really cute pair of earrings that match perfectly with the shirt. And they were 60% off! Wahoo!
And some cute shirts for me from Geoffery Beane. 4, to be exact. Two short sleeve, and 2 3/4 sleeve shirts.
I love the neckline on these shirts! It's so cute, and it looks so good on. The green one even matches a skirt I have, that I wasn't even thinking about when I bought it. I just liked the color. How good am I?!

Now on to Mike's great deals. He needed some new clothes for work. The dress code at his office, which he rarely has to go in to, is "business casual" but they really don't care. Usually he wears in shorts or nice jeans, and a t-shirt, but he has decided to dress it up a bit now. He told me I could re-design him, so I had a lot of fun with it.
We got the basics, some short sleeve button up shirts that he can wear buttoned, or open with a t-shirt underneath.
Two really great sweaters. White and orange. The orange one is really soft and cuddly. I might have to borrow it from him! Just kidding! He won't let me, since I've shrunk both of his soft, cuddly orange hoodies in the past few years. Don't ask me how, but I managed to shrink them from his size down to mine. I think my sub-conscious was sabotaging the laundry or something! Honestly!
I got him this great plaid long sleeve shirt and a nice flannel lined shirt coat for when it gets colder. He isn't out of his car much during the winter, so he doesn't really need a lot of heavy warm clothing.
And finally, 3 more button up short sleeve shirts, and 5 tshirts to go underneath. I also made him try on some polos, and we bought one that is a light blue with navy blue stripes. It looks so good on him!

We didn't get anything for Marshy, because he is growing so fast, it seems stupid to spend a lot of money on clothes that will only fit him for a few months, so we will be doing his shopping at Wal-mart this fall. Besides, they have really cute clothes. That's where we bought all of his summer clothes, and they have held up really well, so we are looking forward to their cute fall and winter lines.