Princess Elsa Dress

I went to Hancock Fabrics one day and the specialty fabrics were $3.77 a yard.  I wanted to make a Princess Elsa dress for my granddaughter.  She wasn't too happy about the fabric colors when I first came home with them.  I kept telling her that it was a Princess Elsa "STYLE" dress then and that was better.  I finally finished the dress yesterday and took it to her today and she loves it.

Here is the pattern.

 

Here she is with her dress.  Now she calls it her Princess Elsa dress.  It is long, but she is happy to know that it will fit her for a long time and wants high-heals for now.  

Princess Amber Dress

My niece wanted to be Princess Sophia for Halloween and her sister to be Princess Amber.  Well Amber dresses are nowhere to be found, so I made one.  Here it is.

I used these patterns to create the dress.  The Snow White dress was the pattern I used without the sleeves.  I used the sleeves from the Princess Elsa dress.

Summertime Quilt

My newest completed quilt is called Summertime.  It is from The Quilter magazine July 2005 page 20.
This quilt is about 92" by 107"  That is what the pattern says.  I haven't actually measured mine.

Here is the finished quilt.  It is a log cabin style with one half of the strips narrower than the other half.  In my case it is the blue.  I didn't want the blue to overpower the quilt.

Here is a sample of the binding.  I used strips from all of the fabric on the front of the quilt to make the binding.  I also cut the binding strips different lengths.  That made it easier to use scraps and make the strips at the end piece together nicely.

Here is a picture of what each square looks like.

Here you can see how each square is turned a different direction, which makes the overall zig-zag design.

Can you see the seam halfway between the binding and the bottom of the picture.  If not then I am glad.  That seam caused me to name the quilt Sunflowers from Hell while I was quilting it.
I quilted this quilt on my mom's quilting machine.  I carefully quilted the sunflower border to make it look like a border if you looked closely.  I got to the end of the quilt and found that I was 8 inches short for what I need on the quilting machine.  About 6 inches short of the quilt front.
I had one small piece of fabric left.  I cut it into 4 pieces each about 8 inches long and 27 inches wide. That was all the fabric I had.  I sewed the strips together on the sewing machine and got a piece then that was 8 inches by 108 inches.
I then had to sew the 108 inch long strip onto the backing that was on the quilting machine by hand.
I sewed the tiniest stitches I could.  Knotted it every couple of feet. And had very sore fingers by the time I was done.  Thus the name Sunflowers from Hell.  Thankfully there was enough fabric to finish the backing.
So much for my nice design of making the sunflower border having it's quilting look like it was making a border.  I quilted as close to the edge as I could and was ready to chop most of the border off, but mom talked me out of it.  I'm glad she did.
I actually love this quilt and should give it a nice name. LOL.

Dress for Granddaughter - Anna and Elsa Fabric

My mom and I were shopping and found this cute dress made of pale blue prints.  We asked for the pattern and this is what it was.

I would never have bought this pattern for the dress that is pictured on it.

Well with the blue dress in mind, I took my granddaughter shopping for fabric.  This is what I made for her out of the above pattern.

It is hard to see from the picture, but the printed fabrics have swirls or snowflakes.  The white has white swirls.

Here she is wearing it so I could take a picture.

The Scrap Happy Quilt is finished.

I was given a bunch of scraps from a friend and here is the finished quilt I made from some of them.

Here it is finally finished.  It is backed with pale yellow flannel and mom quilted it for me.

Here is a closeup of the quilting.

Shopping bags

I used the last of my striped canvas material that I have had for years to make shopping bags.

The striped ones were made first.

I looked at a paper shopping bag to get the size.  I measured the height and around the entire top of the open bag and the rectangle bottom.  The fabric I had wasn't going to make the same size bags, so I had to make my own size.

I wanted to make the best use of my fabric so I cut it into four equal pieces. The fabric in the picture is two layers thick.  It was a little longer than the paper bag and a little wider.  I had to cut off a section of the bottom of the fabric in the picture above to make the bottom of the bag.  I decided to cut off 5 inches.  I then measured what was left and came up with 32 1/2 inches.  Take away 1/2 inch for the seam allowance and I now had 32 inches for make a bag with.  Since the 5 inch strip was going to be used for the bottom of the bag I now needed to figure out the bag width.  Two bottom widths equals ten inches.  2 x 5 = 10.  32 - 10 = 22.  22 divided by 2 = 11.  Thus my bag bottom had to be 5 by 11.  Confusing I know.  I should have taken pictures.

I just turned the bag inside out and took this picture. The bottom of the bag is two layers thick.

I folded the top down one inch then down another inch and top stitched near the bottom fold. Then I cut straps 24 inches long and placed them where I thought they looked good and would be easy for carrying.  Hubby wanted them long, so the straps are longer than I was originally going to make them.  I folded the raw edges of the straps under before sewing and sewed them to the bag using a box shape with an X in the middle to secure it. I sewed the straps on and hemmed the top of the bag from the inside of the bag.  I used dark blue on top and off white in the bobbin when sewing, so I took the picture from the outside so it would show better.

The solid blue bags I made the same way as The Kid Tote bags which you can find here. I just made a wider bottom, cut off the extra fabric and did extra stitching to secure the corner edge.  This bag is 5 inches wide across the bottom. The straps are 27 inches long.

I wondered into Savers on Veteran's Day and found that most everything was half price.  There I found this 1 1/2 yard piece of fabric on sale for $1.50 and knew I had to get it for some wide bags to go with my newly made tall skinny bags.
 
I have enough fabric for one more bag, but not enough strapping for the handles.  I took what was left of the strapping and divided into 4 pieces for the handles.  Six pieces made the handles too short.

As soon as I go buy some more strapping I will have 7 shopping bags.  And I have used up sewing materials that have been sitting around for years.

Here are two other things I have made in the past from the striped fabric.  I am guessing they were both made at least 5 years ago.

This is a bag that hold the car DVD players.  The original was vinyl  and didn't last long.  I made a pattern off of it.

Here is the inside of the bag with the compartments.  I saved the cardboard in the old bag to put inside the dividers of the new bag.

Here is the front view.

Another item is my clothespin bag.  The hanger inside has broken on one side, but it still works.  There are pockets on both sides.  I made this bag from what I remembered my grandmothers bag looking like.
If anyone really wants to make one I can write out instructions.

This is the standard batting size.  I make my quilts as close to the size of the batting as possible.

Crib Quilt	45" x 60"
Twin Quilt	72" x 90"
Double Quilt	81" x 96"
Queen Quilt	90" x 108"
King Quilt	120" x 120"

This is the standard mattress size.  I use these measurements to determine how large I want my bedspreads to be.

Start with the mattress size and decide how much you want to tuck under the pillow (double that measurement).  Remember it is going under the pillow and back out again.  Then decide if it is going to go to the floor or where you want it to stop at on the sides and end of the bed.

Crib Quilt	27" x 50"
Twin Quilt	39" x 75"
Double Quilt	54" x 75"
Queen Quilt	60" x 80"
King Quilt	72" x 84"