Pillowcases

I finished one of the pillowcases for Ellie's bedroom. It has a cuff and a little runner down the side so it looks all fancy shmancy. I followed instructions from my sewing class and it's very easy and doesn't take much time at all and it looks so cute!



This is the closeup of the fabric. It's little moons and stars, which goes very nicely with the curtains Nana made when Ellie was just a wee one. Thanks Nana! Nana also gave me the rest of the fabric she used to make the curtains for our dining room and now they are the cuff of this pillowcase! There's such symmetry to life.

Twirly skirt

Here's a skirt I made in my sewing class. It still needs a drawstring and it needs to be hemmed, but the general shape is there. It's very cute but doesn't look quite right on me so I don't think I'll ever wear it. The skirt is made from a Simplicity pattern that was very easy to follow, so I recommend it if you are a beginner and get easily overwhelmed by patterns, like I do. My next class project is a handbag, but I won't be able to start on that for a week. So I'm going to do a pillowcase for Ellie's bedroom next.




Thank you to Nana for the pretty fabric!

More elephants!

And to go along with my elephant bracelet, I have an elephant tote bag. It's made with a corduroy outer fabric that is very sturdy and holds up well without interfacing. And I lined it with a brown shimmery fabric that creates a very eastern look like I could have bought it at a market in India or something.



Here's a closeup of the elephant!

Sewing projects

Here's a purse I made. It was my first attempt at a zipper and it didn't turn out too well, but I learned a lot about how to put in zippers from it. I am now taking a formal class and it's fun to learn the right way to do all the things I taught myself to do the wrong way. I lined it with a plain mauve fabric and used a thicker felt material as interfacing. I even added three little pockets inside to keep my cell phone and keys from getting lost at the bottom of the bag. All in all, it turned out well. I love the outer fabric. It's starting to rip along the base of the handles, which I'm not sure how to fix.

There's a great website to check out if you are into sewing or any kind of craft. It's www.craftster.org and it's a community of crafty folks who post pictures of the things they've made and often tell you exactly how they made it, step by step. They are so encouraging and creative and helpful and if you are a newbie to something, like I am to sewing, it is a fantastic site. I highly recommend it.


Here's a shirt I made pretty much on my own. I loosely copied the form of another shirt I have and I did a lot of measuring and remeasuring to make sure it fit me where it should. The sleeves took the longest because I had never done them before. I followed instructions from a website and it took me hours to get it done but the good thing is that I cut it out on muslin first so now I have a nice template that I can use over and over. This shirt is made from a very stretchy material, so it's very forgiving. If I use the sleeves again on a material that doesn't give so much, it will probably require readjusting. But I was excited to finish it and have the sleeves turn out nicely.

I'll add a picture of the handbag I made as soon as I can get it uploaded. It was one of the first things I made, so it's very simple with no pockets or zippers or anything. But it has held up very well and I think the fabric is cool.

Bracelet

Here's a mother's bracelet I made with Ellie's name. It's a fairly classic design for mother's bracelets. I think it looks very nice and elegant, but when I originally bought the materials the letter beads were silver plated. Over time, the silver color has worn off and now the beads are white. It still looks nice, but it's not as elegant as it was. Next time I'll splurge and try to find letter beads that are made of a silver material. I made this a long time ago and it's lasted through a lot of wearing so I'm pretty happy with its construction.


I like the clasp the best though it was, of course, the most expensive item in the bracelet. It's an elephant and you move its trunk to unclasp the bracelet. Here's a closeup!