Turns Out I Can Sew!

I bought myself a sewing machine shortly after Christmas and have hardly given it a rest.  I bought for the express purpose of keeping my baby clothes.  This may come as a shock to you, but I've known for months:  we are done having babies, by choice, and I am kind of excited about it, haha!  This meant, however, that when Aurelia outgrew the newborn clothes, my husband wanted me to sell them.  These are clothes all three of my girls have worn at their tiniest and I didn't really want to part with them.  So I devised a plan.

I would cut the most adorable squares out of every item and sew them together to creat a quilt-like blanket.  I say quilt-like, because I'm pretty sure a real quilt has to actually be quilted.

So that's what I did :)

Then I wanted it to be a little bigger so I created a border with some adorable butterfly fleece.  I then cut a rectangle the same size as the whole blanket to cover the back.

Gorgeous blanket all by myself!!

I also made this fort-like tablecloth.

These were my first two projects, so they are "what I learned on," essentially.  There is A LOT to learning a sewing machine.  I thought I would just plug it in and start sewing.  No such luck.  You have to wind the bobbin, thread the needle through 6 tension points, draw up bobbin thread, and then test it out to see if your tension is at the right setting, which it most definitely is NOT, and you spend a few DAYS watching YouTube and experimenting with tension and bobbin orientations before you finally have it down.

Once I figured out HOW to use the machine, I was ready to attempt what I had been assured was an easy first clothing project:

Pillowcase dresses!

I love dressing my girls alike so I was excited at the prospect of choosing the fabric and making matching outfits all by myself!!  I read several tutorials on pillowcase dresses but this one from Crafty Gemini was the one I liked best.  While we've never met, Vanessa and I have a lot of mutual friends so I checked her out first.

Here they are :)

They are a little snug.  Sizing seems to be my biggest problem; everything I make is either too big or too small.

I have come across a lot of amazing sewing projects on pinterest.  This one from Sweet Verbena is awesome:

And so is this one from Make it and Love it:

Those sleep sacks are 20 bucks in the stores, and I made mine with LEFTOVERS!  Amazing.

In short, a while new world of crafting has opened up for me and I am up to my eyeballs in bobbin thread :D

I don't have to tell you I'm usually better than this at posting on time, but clearly, I've been a little busy :)

Happy crafting.