The Simple Red Dress

I did it... I helped someone sew. Gee. I didn't think I could do it... especially since that person was my sister!
This dress was a nice and easy 5 pieces. Very managable especially since there were really only 3 pattern pieces. My sister did the main parts of the construction... I did the more detailed and harder parts like the hems, darts, and sleeves.

We added in an elastic band in the middle. Here the top is too poofy but you get the point.

 It's still a bit long but it does work. The dogs approved of it. We want to hem it a bit shorter so it can be used in the fall with leggings or tights and boots.

There was a bit of a bulge in the back since I didn't stretch the elastic enough in the beginning.

All in all, it's a pretty darn good dress! And better yet, it will fit both of us!

Pillow Sham Tutorial

        As soon as school got out, we jumped on all our DIY projects for the summer. The list is long and just keeps growing! Our first task was to conquer our basement. 

      Besides a few gallons of paint, we decided that some of the pillows needed some freshening up. My  and I went to Jo Anns and found this gorgeous durable fabric on sale. We even got a few yards of it. My task was to make pillow cases for all of the pillows.

I found another pillow sham we had to base mine off of. I wanted to do the whole cross over removeable thing.

You'll need probably less than a yard of fabric and a pillow.

I probably could have used a tape measure for this but it was better to see exactly how it was going to fit. Lay the pillow on one side of the fabric and fold the bottom up so that it's a little more than half way covering the pillow.

Lay the other side over and find the point where they overlap about 2 inches. This is going to be the length of the pillow. For the width just kind of gather up how much fabric will be required on either side of the pillow.

Cut out and iron the fabric. I left the selvage on the end since it's going to be hemmed.

Fold over, iron, pin, and sew the short ends.

Fold the prettier edge over around half way. This will be the edge that is exposed.

Fold the other edge overtop, making sure they overlap about 2 inches or so. Pin the sides and sew. 

Make sure to do a bit of backstiching over the flap since this will be tugged on a lot when the pillow is put in and taken out. 

Flip the pillow case inside out. It should look like this. Iron it if it's needed.

The pillowcase should be slightly bigger than the pillow to accomodate for some poof.

Insert the pillow. Here's the front:

Here's the back:

Here's the pillow in it's new home. Don't mind the fact that the moldning still needs to be put back on and that the table still needs to be redone and that the picture needs to be hung higher.

My pillow case turned out a bit big. I think that it makes the pillow look bigger. Right? After a recent outbreak of lice that somehow found it's way into our house, all the pillows had to be washed. I can't find the other pillows that actually go with the couch. This guy will be alone until then.

My First Dress from a Pattern

I finally did it. I seriously HATE patterns. They're so confusing and the directions are SO bad. I was at Jo Ann's last week and saw they were having 5 for $5 sales on patterns. I looked at the patterns that were on sale and they were Simplicity ones. I decided "why not?" I found 5 great patterns that would usually be around $18 each.  

I have plans for most of these. 

  I found some fabric in the sale section and knew it was perfect for this dress!

I did hit a few snags when making this. I measured myself and it looked like I'd be a size 12 pattern size. NO. I'm not. I was totally swimming in the dress. I had to take it in a bunch and it still doesn't fit that well since it's pretty big. And I put the skirt on wrong so I had to totally take it off and re do it. It was supposed to be gathered but the gathering was just not good so I went for pleated. I warn the dress doens't look great in the below pictures and neither do I!

 I put in my first invisible zipper too!

It's a bit wrinkled from being worn all day. I paired it with a navy blue sweater and it looked really good. It does have pockets though which is great!

 The back and bodice normally lay flat but not for the pictures I guess.

The top was quite complicated and pretty big.

So know that this one was a success, I'm ready to conquer the others.... including the knit dress. *shutter* I'll just have to face my fears with sewing with knits! First I have to find some cute knit fabric, though.

Square Makeup Bag Tutorial

I found the idea for this over at Skip To My Lou. 

To make a pretty, boxy cosmetic bag, you will need:

• 1 Zipper (I recommend one around 13-16 inches)
• 2 pieces of Fabric (the length of your zipper by the length minus 2... i.e. for a 14 inch zipper, the fabric would be 14 x 12 inches)
• 2 pieces of oil cloth of the same size as the fabric

I picked up an 1/8 of a yard of oil cloth at Jo Ann's for under $2, found an old 13 inch zipper, and then had some left over fabric that I had found at a garage sale.

Anyway, since my zipper was 13 inches, I cut my fabric and oil cloth into 2 13 x 11 inch of each.

So, start off with your zipper foot. You'll want to switch back later though.

I had to piece together my oil cloth since an 1/8 of a yard is only 9 inches wide and not 11. You can't even tell. So don't worry if you have to do this.

Lay your fabric face up. Lay your zipper face down with the zipper head on the left.

Lay your oil cloth face down on top.

 Make sure the far side of the zipper is lined up with the edges of the oil cloth and fabric.

Sew it up and flip it so that the zipper is exposed and the oil cloth is face down and the fabric is face up. Sorry I didn't take a picture of this next step.
Lay your other piece of fabric right side up. Lay the zippered piece face down with  the zipper on the right. Lay the final piece of oil cloth face down with the edges all lined up and then sew.

 Lay the pieces out with the zipper up. Lightly iron it if it is poofing up. Be careful of the oil cloth. I ironed mine a bit and it didn't seem to damage anything.

Flip it over and again iron if necessary.

Fold it in half like below with the oil cloth side outside and sew the bottom.

Cut off any extra fabric. Not all layers will end up the same length so be aware and make sure to sew through all of them.

Move the bottom seam until it lines up with the zipper like below.

Unzip it at least half way. Sew a seam down both sides like how my hand is pointing. Go over the zipper ends a few times to reinforce it.

The other side should look similar to this:

The top should look like this:

Poof it up. Mine was kind of heavy so it wouldn't stay up too well.

Pinch the edges in a vertical way. Choose a height for your bag. I picked 3 inches. Sew a seam that is that long.

Repeat on all four corners. It should look like this:

Clip off the corners.

Flip it inside out... and wallah!

My bottom seam was a bit off center from the zipper but it still looks pretty good.

Perfect for holding a bunch of random junk!

I wish I had cut the inside seam on the bottom a bit short but oh well.

The bottom looks nice though. I was worried about the oil cloth pattern showing through since the top fabric was really thin and see through but it didn't turn out too bad.

I still have no idea what to do with this! I don't know if I want to give it to a friend or keep it. We'll see.

linking up here