Sewing

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I've been spending some quality time with some of the fabric I showed you on Sunday. The Girl's birthday party is in 11 days, so this morning I set out to finish up her top. If push comes to shove, I'll pair it with leggings or something, though I intend to make some coordinating pants.

It was my first time using a Brownie-Goose pattern. The Lazy Susan pattern is versatile with a number of different options. I decided on a top with flutter sleeves. My biggest challenge was the very short seam on the side of the bodice (since I'm making size 18 months of the top version). I think next time for a top this small I'd just use the dress bodice with the top skirt. It would be 3/4" longer, but less picky than working with those teeny seams.

So without further ado, a few pictures of my morning progress with a sneak peek of the finished top. (Stay tuned for full pictures after her party.) The process pictures can be summed up with: use LOTS of pins when sewing ruffles!

Pinning on the flutter sleeves.

attaching the flutter sleeves

 

And attaching the "skirt" to the bodice.

attaching the skirt

 

 

sneak previewWish I'd noticed those couple threads before now. :-/ Anyway, I love the flutter sleeves. (Oh, if you look closely, you can see the tiny little 3/16" (if that) vertical seam on the side of the bodice under her arm.)

I'm linking up on Lee's WIP Wednesday post over on Freshly Pieced.

Update: The Ladybug ensemble is now complete.

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Quiet books are usually made of fabric (often felt) and filled with quiet activities for kids. They are easily transportable and can be used for kids when they need to be entertained quietly (like at church or the waiting room at the doctor's office) or just around the house. To see a million example, just search "quiet book" on Pinterest or Etsy. :-)

quiet book swimming fishCompleted project! I'm participating in a quiet book page swap with some other crafty moms in my area. I've always been intrigued by the idea of a quiet book, but with the endless number of projects in my queue, I hadn't started one myself yet. I'm glad I joined the swap as a way to force me to dive in. I've made 13 of these fishy pages for the exchange. The fish slide across the page on the ribbon. Once I get back my set of pages from the swap I'll share them with you.

pages for the swapJust a couple of the process pics to follow, though I didn't capture the entire process. The background page is 12" wide and 9" tall, then the waves were cut from the 9" direction of two other blues. I freehand cut them using my rotary trimmer.

ocean wavesYou could pin them down, but honestly, I only pinned them like this on the first one, then I found it was just easy enough to hold it in place. I sewed from the top wave down, sewing the top and side edges of each piece before adding the next, and only sewing along the bottom edge on the last/lowest wave, along the bottom of the page.

fish detailAs for the fish, I cut two of each color (using the awesome felt cutting tips by Patty), then I sewed along the top half, then slipped the 9" piece of 1/8" ribbon between the layers before carefully sewing the second half of the border. Then I attached the ribbon at the ends with some three-step zig zag stitching.

I'd say they took me about an hour a page.

Thanks for swimming by!