Finally Feliz!

I'll admit... the title of the post made me giggle a bit. Becuase not only have I finally completed that darn Feliz dress (by Farbenmix), I'm finally happy as well!
I was hoping for some nice outdoor shots with it, but the wind is terrible and cold and there's a chance of thunderstorms.
Outdoor pictures will just have to wait. For now, my MILs living room will have to do!

But of course it wouldn't be complete without details. The dress was not nearly as hard as I made it out to be. There was one part I simply couldn't wrap my head around for some reason, but I'm much more of a visual person. Simply reading instructions doesn't always get me very far. But, I figured it out finally and it all worked out. Quite easily really, even though it's a bit time-consuming (ruffles are! But I'm not very familiar with making ruffles!).. and oh my -- what a fabric hog! I had originally planned for the underdress to be all of the orange/red fabric (Heather Bailey), but I didn't order enough... so I had to improvise and the green pindots just fit. I'm actually quite pleased with the color combination.

I had toyed with using some pale blue, pulling from the overdress/overapron fabric, but I just didn't have the right shade.

I'm still completely head-over-heels in love with the fabric from Heather Bailey's Pop Garden line!!! I want to get some in every colorway possible. Maybe next month. Or whenever I find a budget.

Until then, I'm very pleased with this dress and now I just have to trace out the pattern for my younger two also!

churning along

I finally had to just cut out the darn pieces of the dress and Just. Start. Sewing. on it. It was completely blocking my sewing mojo. I couldn't get any other projects done because of this one looming above my head.
I don't even have preview pictures.
I hope to be done today. Wish me luck. While I'm quite close to being done, I'm trying to decide on the bottom of the underskirt and whether it needs ruffles or not.
(The dress, is the Feliz.. beautiful! just tricky for me for some reason... and the fabric? A lot of Heather Bailey's Pop Garden line!)

Projectless, but happy

I've been stuck.
I was in such a rush to finish the quilt for dh and did so in just over a week. Then one week later I did another entire quilt in a week for my mom.
I've been living from adrenaline high to adrenaline high.
And now there's nothing immediate and pressing to sew for. I could do some orange and black for games we attend for the local high school.. but I can't even bring myself to do that.
But we've been fishing with my mom some more.
I could almost count this as crafty. I did make her hat and hoodie...
I couldn't resist this. While I think my youngest is adorable up close, I couldn't resist getting it all in the bigger picture.
But this shot? It sums it all up. It was gorgeous. The weather was perfect, the lake was still, the clouds were dancing across the sky. We watched the sun come up that morning, as we were on the road by 6 a.m. Watching the sun creep over the mountains, bathing the landscape with illumination. The fishing wasn't so great, but the view was worth it all.

completed quilt and more fish...

I'm at my parents' house and my mom was kind enough to let me take some pictures of the completed quilt... though I realized I just got *half* of the quilt since it's folded in half over the back of her couch.

But really, I've already posted the full top, so half will just have to do. And really, you should be glad I forgot to take pictures with my own camera. Hers is MUCH more lovely anyway. A new, fancy camera is absolutely on my to-purchase list... (okay, I'll admit, I probably have a list a mile long... but this is certainly in the top three... fabric *might* have it beaten out... though looking at these pictures, I'm not so sure).


And more fishing...
The youngest actually LOVED playing with the fish head for a long time... it was when she suddenly looked at it and said, "Mom, I think it's dead..." that she got that look on her face.


This has to be one of my all-time favorite pictures ever. It's the perspective of it all that just has me tooting my own horn on my photography skills (see?! get me a good camera and life is amazing! It doesn't hurt that in my past life -- aka, pre-staying-at-home-with-the-kids days -- my job did involve taking pictures for my paycheck).
Don't your children play with fish heads?
(... are you like me and keep singing this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn73Wtem0No ? I can't help myself!)

Fishing hat at Sunshine

We went fishing yesterday (Sunday). My mom, my husband, me, and our three girls. We caught nine lovely cutthroat trout -- three of which were caught by me!
I knew on Saturday that we would be fishing with my mom on Sunday... which of course is not without some sort of sewing challenge. Yes! *Fishing* can even present sewing challenges!
The older two have been fishing with my mom many times, but the youngest really hasn't and she didn't have a fishing hat! I *know* there are bound to be about a million little girl wide-brimmed hats somewhere in this house, but they all seem to turn up missing the minute I actually need them.
So, my 2.5 year-old needed a hat.
And while this might not be something everybody else would think of as lucky, I happen to think she's quite lucky that her head circumfrence is equal to that of a paint can! Lucky girl! That made it very easy for me to make up this hat.
And sew I did. I made it up as I went along, but I figured a wide-brimmed hat couldn't be too tricky... and it wasn't really. I used two pieces of half-yard remnants from other projects I had worked on with Heather Ross' Mendocino line, which lent itself perfectly to a sewing-for-fishing project. The hat really isn't so floppy. When I went to take the pictures, the wind was picking up, so it just looks more floppy than it really is.

The lining on the underside of the brim is lovely seahorses... and while we don't have seahorses here, nor in Sunshine Reservoir, I thought they added a nice aqautic touch.

And the scenery? Isn't it just lovely? It really was a perfect day for fishing.

distractions..

The quilt for my mom is done. I just need to wash it now.
I'm so pleased with how it all went (other than not paying attention while I was quilting and getting terrible fold-overs)...

The proof that I've been too busy with binding and not tending to my artistic children...

Note that there are glasses here... (and be thankful I spared you the leg shots... if there were red spaghetti noodles... and one could swim in them and have them stick... that's what the middle child's legs looked like)

And not so distracting, except maybe for the cheesey-cute factor...

I'll get the finished quilt in a bit. I really have to catch up on laundry first (that's a problem when I get immersed in projects... like making a quilt in four days... the rest of the house goes to shambles... and the amount of laundry that three little girls can generate is mind-boggling)...

Pureed flowers

My mom's birthday is this coming Monday (Aug.25) and I figured I better do something for her, since she is my mother and I love her DEARLY!

What better way to show love than a quilt? At least that was my way of thinking... so into the stash I dove. I came up with a stack of 20 fat quarters that I got at the most amazing discount from my local quilt shop. They aren't all prints I would normally put together (and really, only about half really appeal to me on any level), but I'm always up for a challenge and decided I would try it anyway.

Because time is of the essence, I figured I'd go simple in the technical construction of the piecing of the top. And so it's together. One day for cutting and sewing the strips. All while homeschooling too (yesterday was the first day of school).

I even pinned it to the batting/backing and got just a few lines quilted thus far.

It was hard to work on for a while because I wasn't loving it. At all. I don't know if it was the simplicity (and that it's not quite what I had in my head) or if I just didn't like the prints at all... but it was challenging.

So now I need to finish the quilting and move on to the binding ... and we'll see if I can get it completed in less than a week.

edited to add: I'll sneak in the dimensions here... it's 62" x 72" ... all the strips are cut 4" wide and at varying lengths....

And then... oh, I can't WAIT to move on to other projects. I have a Feliz I've been just dying to cut into but I'm a bit nervous and worried it might take some time... after this is done, I just need to dive in. I can't let it just sit because I'm nervous I might mess it up.