Emily Guerra

Tomorrow night I will be adding bound buttonholes and fabric covered buttons. I will do the buttonholes in the purple bias trim and the buttonholes in either the bias trim or the purple of the coat.

I don’t know if I like it or not. Ok. let me be honest. The jacket looks really good on my girl here. I don’t think it looks so well on me. Maybe that was because when I tried it on I just had my pj’s on. I wasn’t dressed up or anything.  But I am bound and determined to finish it. No more UFO’s. If I decide not to keep it I will find a good home for it.

What do you think?

Here is what I have so far.

I really like it so far. I am working on the binding around the edges at the moment. I have it half on. I have sewn by machine the bias tape on and am tacking by hand to the inside so that you can't see any stitching.

Once I have finished the tacking to the inside I will bind around the sleeve edge and tack that. Then it is buttons of some sort. I am still thinking of making a bound button holes with fabric covered buttons or I found these 1″ snaps which look pretty interesting.  I kind of like the look without the buttons showing.

What do you think?

I finished the burp cloths and bibs for my sister. She is having a little girl next month and I wanted to give her something made from the heart.

I really like these. The blue with the pink roses is my favorite.

I found the flannel in a Hobby Lobby in Alabama.  I bought it without any idea of what to do with it and then found out that my sister is having a girl which brought to mind this.  The back of the bibs is diaper cloth. I love diaper cloth for everything other than being a diaper because it is so absorbent. Love the stuff.

I am working on now the jacket. It is coming along quite nicely. I don’t know if it will fit over my flabby belly.  Since I still have baby belly that hasn’t disappeared yet it is affecting the fit of the garment around my hips.

Front

It isn’t finished, but made good progress for today. Because it is a prequilted fabric I am using french seams. A lot bulkier than planned but at least the batting isn’t showing.  It is very warm whenever I try it on.

Back

The pictures don’t show the color of the purple as well as the actual color.  It is way to gray in the pictures. I can’t wait to finish it. Next is attaching the sleeves, adding the collar, buttons or closure of some sort, then binding around the edges. And maybe a pocket.  I haven’t decided yet.

Is the pillow. Even though I just posted the list I have had a running list on scraps everywhere in my sewing room. Which is why I decided to post my lists here and then just have a running list of materials needed in my room.

The next project that I am working on is for the Jacket.

This is the Simplicity 0571.

Here is the fabric that I have chosen. It is prequilted. Silky on one side and like a faux suede on the other. I am sure that it is all polyester.

And this is the fabric I plan to use for binding. Since I want to make this reversible I am going to do french seams for the main areas and use this fabric to bind around the collar, cuffs, around the edges of the jacket and possibly bound buttonholes.

This will be the first time in making a real jacket of any kind so wish me luck. And I hope it fits.

I always seem to have an ongoing list of projects  that I want to do and what need to be done. Most I don’t have a deadline on but on some I do have deadlines.

I have created on the right hand side of my posts two lists that I hope will help me complete my projects but also improve my sewing skills.  I have 12 sewing projects to work on through out the year just to start out with. I could do one once a month but more than likely I will be working on a couple at a time. Also more than likely the list will change as I, hopefully, complete projects and get new ideas to work on.

Then I have a short lists of skills that I want to learn or improve on. I have the books but need to take the time to actually work on them. After making the pillow with the piping I realized how much I miss when I become intimated by something so simple. I am hoping that that list will grow to include more advanced skills than what I have now.

We will see how it goes, wish me luck.

When ever I have read about making pillows or adding piping as a decoration to clothes I was always intimidated. But no longer! These past few nights I have finally made the pillow that has been on my mind for a while and I finished it tonight.

Ta Da!!

It wasn't as hard as I was expecting.

My biggest problem was the stretchy velvet that I took from a tunic that I got from the thrift store for a few dollars.  Now I just have to make the matching one, plus get another pillow form…and all done. More pillows for my over pillowed couch.

If you follow this blog then you know that I am a big fan of Crafthope.

Crafthope is an charitable organization that lets people like me use their talents in order to make someone else’s life a little bit better than what it was by sewing, knitting, crocheting  and just creating things that the charity needs.

Project # 6 is working with Orphan Foundation of America’s Red Scarf Project.  All the information is at the Crafthope website here.

I will be crocheting at least one scarf and hopefully more than that. I also hope to get my family involved as well.

Wish us luck!!

How often does that happen? Hardly ever!!

We wouldn't let #2 out but brought her a snowball inside for her.

There wasn't much to play with but he tried, bless his heart.

This is our deck this morning. I am told that this is considered a dusting. But not to us Southerners.

The Man and #1 went for a walk in the neighborhood this morning because The Man couldn’t make it out of our street. We have to wait for the sun to melt everything.

I really thought that we were to far south for this….

your four year old comes and tells you that his ear is talking? And that his mouth and his ear look the same…? huh?

Well, he did just wake up from a nap not to long ago….

Let me say first that I love this pattern.

I decided that for my first project I would finish a Christmas gift that I ran out of time to do.  I figured it would be better to tie up loose ends before starting any new projects.

I just completed the Phoebe pattern by Rabeka Lambert aka Artsy Crafty Babe. This is an awesome pattern for the perfect bag. I have been looking a long time for something like this that I can tote around with just my wallet, phone, keys and Kindle.  I made two of them with the original intention of one being for me but found out that there is a birthday coming up soon for a cousin and I know that she would love this. So here it is.

The outer fabric is a crimson red corduroy with a creamy yellow with crimson flowers on the interior. I choose not to put any pockets in since I tend to find them useless and don’t use them anyways when I have them.

The picture doesn't quite do the crimson red justice.

I thought that this would be the perfect complement to this red corduroy.

Now I am going to have to make one for myself for certain this time around.

Also I wanted to post a horrific picture of a quilt that I made my brothers.  I am not a quilter but I am the only that sews in the family so by request I made two identical quilts for my brothers and got only one really bad picture of one side. The lighting just wasn’t right and my kids were trying to pull the quilt down and play with it while I was trying to take a good picture. So please forgive the  horribleness of the picture.

You can’t really tell but there are diamonds quilted into the blanket. I figured that guys wouldn’t want squiggles like more feminine quilts have. I also didn’t bind the quilt as done traditionally. I wanted to use the most of the fabric that I could and I didn’t get enough fabric for binding in the first place so that didn’t help any either. So I tucked the sides inside the middle and did a zig zag kind of stitch to close it all up. Not bad for a last minute request. Then to make it really special I took a small rectangle of white fabric and made a patch with their names on the patch and then sewed the patch on in a corner so that it isn’t really noticeable.  I cheated by printing their names out from Word and tracing it with a fabric marker. I chose Edwardian Script so that it would look much nicer than my funky chicken scratch.

This is the side that I wish I had more time to do.

This is what the back looked like. ( Courtsey of jandofabrics.com for the picture)

So this is just to start off my new year. I hope that I am able to accomplish just as much as I have since the beginning of the year.