Placemat Handbags

Something that I learned how to make a few years ago, and which I've really enjoyed making ever since is placemat handbags. They are a really fun project for beginners, and make for some really fun gifts. You can make them into themes, for example a "Spa bag" filled with lotions, bath salts, facial masks, etc., or a "keep in touch" bag with stationary, pens, markers, stickers, envelopes...the possibilities go on and on. They are really fun.

You start out by watching the sales in local department and discount stores like WalMart, Target, Kohls, etc....and by them when they're cheap! As I'm typing right now, I have a stack of them in my craft room just ready to be made. I also watch for sales on ribbon and silk flowers...because that's what I like to use to make them cute.

So, you lay out your placemat, and decide if you're going to add anything to the front as embellishment, and add it on before you start any sewing. Then, you fold it in half so that the outside fabric is turned to the inside. Sew along each side edge, leaving the top open.

Sometimes, I sew the ribbon handles on before I sew the side seams, it just depends on what style I'm going to do. Once you have the side seams finished, you lay them out so that the bottom corner lies flat and sew straight across the bottom. This makes it so that the bag will have a definite "bottom," it will sit upright all by itself and you can easily place books, or other items into it. It just gives it a more finished look on the sides.

On this particular bag, I added a little ribbon bow just for an added accent.

And this one I made a little more bright with a silk flower accent.

Rachel's Baptism Dress

I decided even before we were blessed with our first baby girl, that I wanted to make their blessing dresses and their baptism dresses. These are such significant events in their lives, I wanted to make it a little more special by making them something with my own hands, rather than going and buying something from the store. So, although I'm sure I could have found dresses that were more elaborately and more professionally made, I hope that my girls will look at their dresses and know that their mother made them with her own hands out of her great love for them.

For Rachey's dress, I wanted to make it "girly cute," meaning that I wanted it fancy and a little more formal than a regular church dress, but I also didn't want it to look like a little white prom dress. I still wanted to capture her cute little 8 year old personality and let her stay a little girl. So that was my objective with this one, make it beautiful, and white, and special, but keep it simple and little-girly cute.

On the bodice, I added little ribbon embellishments and flowers to dress up the simple design. The fabric I chose, was a nice simple white that has a little sheen to it, but not a lot. The fabric is machine washable, which I had to look very hard to find, but I wanted her to be able to wear it to church afterwards, and not just on her baptism day!

I dressed up the waistband by adding two rows of ribbon, and a satin rose which is simply pinned on so that it can be taken off when laundering. Here she is wearing her baptism necklace and beaming on her special day.
The back was just a simple ribbon bow. To add to the fullness of the skirt, I added two layers of gathered tulle. Then, to dress up the skirt a little, and to add that playfulness of a little girl, I added a slightly gathered ruffle. She loved it...that night she spinned around and around to watch the full skirt ruffle around her. Too cute. Here she is trying it on for the first time! She was so excited, because it was the night before, and she had no idea that I had made it. I did all my sewing in the middle of the night in order to surprise her. It was worth all of those hours of lost sleep.

Lainah's Blessing Dress--A Personal Masterpiece

I have so much to learn when it comes to sewing. Sometimes, I get so frustrated because what I envision and what actually gets made are usually two different things. My knowledge and skills don't match up to my expectations I suppose. But, this time, with Lainah's blessing dress, it all just sort of clicked. It isn't perfect, but I think it's as close as I've ever come to designing something beautiful in my mind and then making it come to life in my hands.

Lainah is our third daughter, and each of their blessing dresses have been different. Different patterns, different fabrics, and just different designs. With each, I tried to make something that I felt would reflect a little bit of their sweet, fresh from heaven personality. With Lainah's I really wanted something to show how special our 5th baby was to us. I wanted her to know that mommy spent just as much time and effort on her dress as I did the first. I wanted it to be intricate, but also delicate.

I couldn't possibly go through the directions here on the blog, it was too complicated, but basically, I found a dress pattern that fit as closely to what I had envisioned in my mind as possible and that's where I started. Then I had to add layers, or improvise in order to stick to my own design for her.

These little flowers and ribbon made the front so cute, and they also went really well with the skirt fabric, which was an organza with flower embroidery. So beautiful.
On the back, I put the little white satin buttons, and brought the ribbon around her waist to tie in the back, leaving long ribbon tails going down the length of the dress. I also kept the sleeves unlined, so that you could see her cute little baby arms underneath. I didn't want the dress to overpower the baby, I wanted it to be delicate like she was. Here is the back view of the dress. I added a strip of ribbon around the bottom of the skirt to match the ribbon on her waistband. And the front view. And here is our beautiful little girl modeling the dress herself. So perfect.

Privacy Nursing Blanket

How many of us nursing mothers have ever tried to use a blanket to cover ourselves and the baby while trying to nurse! My biggest frustrations were always that the baby would wiggle, and I would always be adjusting the blanket to keep it in place, or that the poor little one would be too hot under there with no ventilation, or simply that I couldn't see my baby when I needed to.

I have a great friend who showed me a nursing blanket that she had been given as a gift. It was a fabulous idea, with a little boning in it to create a nice curve, with a little strap that goes around mom's neck and then snaps into place and wa-lah! A nursing blanket that provides privacy, but that also allows mommy and baby to be in comfort. And the best part, it only takes 1 yard of fabric.

So, I actually had this fabric scrap in my sewing room so this is what I used rather than going and buying more fabric. I believe that I started with about 1 1/4 yards. I trimmed the fabric so that it was a nice even rectangle.

The fabric that I cut off in order to make the actual blanket the dimensions I wanted I set aside to be made into the strap and also a burp cloth.

After I had the fabric trimmed, I hemmed it around three sides with a simple fold-over straight-stitched hem. I left the top side of the blanket untouched.After hemming the sides, I folded the top over and marked with pins where I wanted the boning to set. As you can see from the picture, it only took a small piece, just enough to create a little curve in the blanket. After marking with pins, I made a straight-stitch hem, securing the boning in as I went. Then to be sure the boning wouldn't slip, I went back and made just some small stitches on either end of the boning.I had some fabric left over, so I made this little burp cloth to match the blanket. I just made two rectangles the same size, and stitched them together, leaving one end open for turning. Finish stitched the end after turning, and then added some ribbon to embellish it a little bit. From this picture, you can see how the blanket will just naturally create a little "window" for mom and babe to peek through, while not compromising privacy at all. The strap I really liked, because my babies are wiggly, and I never had to worry about blanket flying off suddenly with a kick or wiggle. I wish I would have discovered these great blankets on the first baby!

Fleece Blanket for Baby Girl

Our baby is coming in just a few more weeks! I can't believe it! And since it is so cold here in the winters, I decided to make her an extra warm and snuggly fleece blanket. It was such a fun project, I can hardly wait to snuggle her up in it!

First, I chose two coordinating pieces of fleece. One yard of each was plenty. I actually have enough fabric left over to make her a cute jacket or something for next spring.

Then I just measured and cut the two pieces to my desired size, plus about 4 inches for fringing the edges.

After pinning the two pieces together with wrong sides together, I machine stitched around the edges, about 4 inches in from the outer edge. I used this cute decorative stitch.

Then I cute about 3/4 inch fringes all around the outside edge. I was going to knot the fringes, but decided that I liked it better without knots...and I also didn't want anything hard or stiff on this blanket for the baby...I wanted everything to be soft.

The last thing I did was to tie in random hearts and flowers with satin ribbonand I also tied each kitty's tail just to be sure that the blanket would wash well and not separate or shift.

And here is the finished product! Like I said, I can hardly wait to snuggle her up in it!

Handbag, Tote, Scripture Bag

This year, one of the things that my little girl asked for for Christmas was some new scriptures and a scripture bag. I learned how to make these little bags a few years ago, and decided to make her one because they fit a set of scriptures perfectly.

First, I started out with a placemat. I chose one that was out of heavy fabric so that it would be durable, since it was for a little girl.

Then I chose some grosgrain ribbon for the handles, and also to use for decorating the front of the bag.

I also bought some silk flowers to use on the front, so I sewed the piece of ribbon on the front that would complete the ribbon/flower decoration on the front of the bag when it was complete.

Then I placed and pinned the ribbons for handles and sewed them on, right along the seamline of the placemat. Then I sewed the side seams, with right sides together.

Before opening out the bag, I folded down a corner on each bottom and sewed a straight strip along the triangle so that the bag would have a nice flat bottom.

I trimmed off the excess fabric and then zig-zag stitched so that it wouldn't be bulky on the inside.

Then I turned it right-side-out and attached the silk flower using my hot glue gun.

We've made these before with our young women groups, and they are a fun, easy project for them to do, everything is so simple and straightforward, that it is a good "first sewing project" for them to work on.

A New Dress for Christmas

I spent a lot of late nights working on this dress, but it was worth it on Christmas morning when my little girl opened up the box and pulled this dress out.

I used McCalls pattern #M5742 , and really liked it. It was more complicated than other patterns that I've used, but I really liked it. The dress bodice is fully lined, which I like because then children who don't like itchy tags, seams, etc. don't have a hard time wearing the dress!

The dress also has an underskirt with a tulle ruffle added for fullness.

The sleeves are elbow length, which I really like for the winter months...and I found some crocheted lace to put along the neckline, waist and hemline of the skirt.

I really think that my favorite thing about this dress is the color. I again went away from her traditional favorite colors of pastel pinks and purples and instead went with a color that would compliment her hair color and complexion. She looks gorgeous in this dress. The olive green color just looks so beautiful with her honey-blond hair and brown eyes.

Christmas Pillowcases

This year I made each of the kids a special Christmas pillowcase to go along with a little poem I wrote. It was a fun gift for them to open on Christmas Eve. They were so excited to put their new pillowcases on their pillows!

I chose a different print of fabric for each of them...just trying to match up personalities with fabric.

Taylor's...

Rachel's...
Brooklynn's... and Matthew's...

Then, with each one I added a decorative strip of ribbon...and used my machine's alphabet stitches to sew their names onto the pillowcase. I think they were most excited to see that their pillowcase had their name on it. For the girls, I was a bit more fancy and added little ribbon bows and rosettes. Here is the little poem I wrote to go along with their pillowcases. I thought it would make them more excited for Santa to come...is that possible?

I've actually made some of these in the past as Christmas gifts for some of my nieces and nephews. They are really fun to make...like I said it's fun to try and match up fabric prints with personalities.