Ruffled

Have you seen this fabric?? I've seen it around the world wide web and have wanted to play with it for so long! When I was working for Adornit I was able to go to the International Quilt Market with them and picked some of this fabric up for myself. Well I FINALLY got around to making some skirts with it and I am so happy with how they turned out.

Here's how it all went down:

Step 1: Measure! First I took my elastic and pulled it a little bit snug around my waist. I took that measurement and cut my elastic. Remember to account for your seam allowance! Next thing I did was measure the widest part of my butt. That is the width that I cut my fabric.

Step 2: I don't have a picture for this step either but it is fairly simple. You need to sew your elastic together so it makes a circle. So fold it and put the ends together. I also opened my seam and sewed the seam down so it wasn't so bulky.

Step 3: Cutting! This part was a little bit harder than measuring. Now is when you take that butt measurement and cut your fabric. When you are cutting make sure that your ruffles are all facing the same way! My cutting board was pretty small so I also measured how long I wanted my skirt and cut the length so I had a little less fabric to work with.

Step 4: Pinning! Pin the right sides of your fabric together. Once again, make sure that you pin all of the ruffles so they are going the same direction! Do you see how some of the ruffles are sticking out? Not a problem because you can just cut them off later.

Step 5: Sewing! This was the most difficult part of the whole skirt for me. I went really slow and tried my best to keep all of the ruffles going the same direction.....

 

But unfortunately some of them got caught up in the thread and I had to unpick. Lesson learned: use more pins! And I also learned that you can unpick on this fabric and it doesn't damage it-just unpick carefully :) 

Step 6: The Elastic. Once you have your ruffly tube skirt sewn together, you can pin your elastic on. Make sure you are pinning the right side of the fabric to the right side of the elastic. That way you wont be able to see your seams on your elastic when you're done. Now sew sew sew!   

Step 7: If you haven't done so already, now is when you can cut your skirt to the right length. I measured how long I wanted it and then added one more ruffle so I made sure it wasn't too short. The skirt was so simple to make because after you cut off your length, you don't need to hem! For a more detailed and picture filled tutorial, check out Vannessa Christensen's tutorial here. 

Happy Sewing!

Christmas Spirit

It's snowing outside, my new wallflower is blooming with scent, and my tree is lit so I figured it was about time I did a post about Christmas! Christmas is my favorite time of year and it has been ever since I can remember. I am so excited for this Christmas especially because we get to spend it in our own home. I have had a lot of fun decorating for the holiday season-I don't want to take any of it down! Here is little tour of our Holiday Home:

The first decoration I made was this "joy" picture. I was inspired by something I saw at the Novemberfest and knew it would be pretty easy and inexpensive to make. It took me about 3 seconds to cut out the word joy on my silhouette. Then I added a red piece of paper and a nice white frame and this is what I got. I really like it because it is very simple which seams to bring more meaning to the word. 

Next is my ornament collection. I ran down the street to Dollar Tree and purchased some fancy ornaments for my tree and then realized I already had some in storage. I took some of my extra ornaments and bundled them up inside my glass cake stand lid. I really like how this turned out.

I have to thank my amazing mother-in-law for this decoration. It is a beautiful metal tree with fancy red and green ornaments to hang on it. I love what it adds to my homemade decorations.

Here is a shot of my entry table with the cute decorations. The cake stand is on the bottom so you can't really see it. I love that blue is now a Christmas color-it makes decorating a lot more interesting.

I also made/designed some Christmas pillows! If you like these, you're in luck. You can buy all of the fabric, rick-rack, and the patterns for these pillows at http://www.etsy.com/listing/87698206/christmas-pillow-kit so you can make some for your own house! These pillows are really easy to make. I am a beginner sewer so I made sure the instructions are easy-to-follow and the pillows wont take long to make. Let me know if you buy them and have any questions. 

Next I covered some Styrofoam balls in cute scrapbook paper using Mod Podge. This was the messiest thing to make out of all of the decorations. My original idea was to use them in a wreath but instead I ended up putting them in a little box on my dining table.

Last but not  least, I got this beauty in the mail! Have you seen all of the fun advent calendars that have been made with this? I was so excited when it arrived.

After looking deeper in to how many little boxes I was going to have to cut out my enthusiasm took a plunge. This was going to be a lot of work. I started out by making a list of what box/drawer I wanted to use in each slot.

Then I started cutting. I used post-it notes to mark each box and lid so that I didn't get them confused. My floor looked like this for a few days because I needed a break from the project for a little while. 

Finally I made time to put the boxes together. It didn't take as long as I thought it would! And I'm really happy with how it is turning out. I still need to put the numbers on the boxes (and figure out how to fold the ones that are missing) and then it will be done!

I'm just not quite sure where to put it...

Well there you have it. Our Holiday Home is complete and we are loving every part of it. What has been your favorite thing to make this season?