Notebook Organizer / Writing Portfolio / Teacher Gift

This is my other End of The Year Teacher Gift.

I love it and want one for myself, 

which is usually a sign of a good gift.  :)

I practiced with a notebook organizer a few months ago and this one is a combination of that practice run and a few pictures off the internet (notably Gingercake's version).

The front is personalized with the teacher's name hand stitched in white perle cotton.

Adorable ruffle elastic holds it closed.

The elastic is sewn to the back cover and stretches around to keep the organizer shut.

The binding is machine stitched on the outside and hand stitched on the inside. 

Inside are a bunch of pockets.

You could obviously use them for whatever you wanted, but for this gift I filled them with a 5'' x 8'' writing tablet (jazzed up with scrapbook paper to cover the ugly top binding), writing paper (cut from coordinating scrapbook paper), envelopes, stamps, stickers, and a pen (that barely fits in its slot - not quite so snug next time Anne).

I love the modern clean colors and the fact that its made mostly from scraps of my other projects that I've been marathon sewing the last two months.

Construction notes-to-self in case I make it again:

Last time I did the turn-inside-out-through-a-hole-and-topstitch method.  

This time I bound it with a strip of double fold fabric.  

I think they're both fine - one isn't better than the other.  

I interfaced the teal pocket, the back of the grey lining piece, AND the back of the embroidered fabric/batting sandwich.  Then I sewed the layers together (wrong sides together) along the pen pocket and around three sides of the organizer.  Then I slid two rectangles of stiff bag interfacing in the 'pocket' made by each side.  Closed up the 4th side.  Then bound with straight grain double fold 2.5'' binding.  

Cooked up a Batch of Aprons - Housewarming and Teacher Gifts

I made a batch of aprons last week - two adult size and two child size.

One will be given as a housewarming gift later this week (I have no less than four friends/family members moving into new homes this month!) with some home baked goodies.

The other three will be given as a trio to one of our teachers as her end-of-the-year gift.  Not very 'teacher-y' but I've already made this particular teacher a gazillion tote bags (here and here) so I had to get a little creative.  She likes to bake so I thought aprons would work nicely - practical but still a little bit personal.  I can't resist sewing for her two kiddos as well and since aprons stitch up quickly it was an easy add-on to make the gift a bit bigger.

Here are the adult aprons - they're both grey and white chevron with yellow accents.  Only the buttons are different.   I used this pattern for the overall size and shape of the apron and then added my own details (the ruffle at the bottom, the faux placket with buttons, and using ribbon for the ties).

Two styles of buttons.  

   

The ruffle I made myself.  The costume shop has a ruffler foot for their machines and I really need to invest in one of those for my home machine - they work so slick!  This one was done with three rows of gathering stitches.  Comparing this one to other aprons I've made I think the ruffle could have been a bit bigger/longer but I think this is alright.   It adds a little fun to the bottom.  

All the aprons are fully lined so they are nice and sturdy and wash really well.  

I've been using mine weekly for years.  

These are the kid's aprons.  

The girl's gets a ruffle and a bow.  

Clearly no ruffle needed for the boy's, but a handy pocket will do nicely to stow away a matchbox car or rock or whatever it is boys stick in their pockets.  

So this is the trio.  It gives you a sense of their sizes as well.  

I've made aprons many times before. 

Check them out here, here, and here.  

They make great useful gifts. 

   

Teal Pretty Dresses for the Girls

The girls got new dresses for the wedding. 

Aren't they cute little blockheads?  (Sorry - couldn't resist!)  

These dresses were both fun and fast to make - the best kind.
The fabric is a teal and glittery damask-looking cotton from Hobby Lobby. 

Slightly sweetheart neckline: 

Large sparkly teal buttons up the back:

A shiny teal sash with 'diamond bling' that (in everyone's opinion) is the best part of the dress: 

They were super easy to draft and sew.  I drafted the bodice by tweaking their Christmas dress bodices.  I added a little more ease (so they'll fit for more than a blinking month), removed the darts so they are a bit less fitted, changed the neckline, and made them sleeveless so that we could do short sleeves, long sleeves, or no sleeves depending on the weather.   We ended up doing short sleeves for church and no sleeves once they hit the dance floor.  The skirt is a gathered rectangle.   They are both roughly the same size, one is just taller than the other.  

The girls love them, they had fun being twins, and here's hoping they get worn a lot!  

Blue Lace Dress for Me - my Kate Middleton Knock Off

One of my goals for 2015 has been to make myself more church clothes/dresses that fit and I can definitely say I accomplished my goal on this project.

I love pretty much everything Kate Middleton wears.  Her style is so clean, modest, and classic.   This is my Kate Knock Off Dress and I love love love it.

I made it specifically for a wedding we attended recently but it'll get worn to church often.


These are some of my Pinterest photos that I used for inspiration.  There were others as well but these captured the shape and the lace overlay look I was going for

      

  

The dress is self-drafted from scratch.  Well, not really from scratch because by now I have a standard block that seems to be working for me, but since that original block is from scratch with no commercial pattern help I still count this as a totally original pattern.  My first dress from this block has worn well so I kept the 'bones' of the block and tried to improve on a few of the finer points.

As for drafting and fit, I am pleased with this dress.   It fits well and I spent a lot of time improving the armhole and sleeves with good results.  I now feel like I have a really good armhole and sleeve draft that I can save as 'keepers' and use over and over again.  I love the elbow length sleeves that Kate wears and I think it looks nice on my rectangular body type (I'm not an apple or a pear shape - I'm a popsicle stick).  :)   Other than messing with the sleeves there wasn't anything too complicated in the drafting of this dress - regular side bust darts and back darts on the bodice.

I love the drape of the skirt - just enough body without being poofy.

The neckline is a bit of a high boatneck, nothing fancy.   I usually like a bit more going on around the neckline because I'm pretty small chested and its easy to look very blah up top.  For this dress, however, I really wanted the fabric and the silhouette to shine so I think the boatneck is okay.

There is an invisible zipper in the center back.  I'm pleased to say its actually invisible.  I've gotten much better at those lately.

The belt was made separately and then tacked to the dress at the side seams (mostly so I can't lose it!).  The folds/pleats on the belt are hand tacked in place so it always folds nicely.  It closes in the back with snaps.

The fabric for this dress is a somewhat custom made.  I really wanted a lace and a shiny fabric for underneath in the same color.  Unfortunately all I could find locally (that wasn't white) were really dark, rich, jewel tones and I wanted this dress to be a lighter pastel.  Enter costume shop expertise!  Not mine, mind you, but one of my bosses.  I bought the light dusty blue satin and white lace and he expertly dyed the lace to match the blue.  The color really 'makes' the dress so I am very thankful for his help.  Someday I'll maybe mess around with dying fabric but it wasn't in the cards for this project and I'm so glad he was willing to just do it for me.  :)  This picture shows both fabrics.

This dress is properly lined with the blue satin - here is an interior shot.  Properly lining clothes is another skill I've improved on in the last year or so.  The grey and pink dress is great looking on the outside but the inside is a bit of a mess so that is an obvious improvement - this one is far more comfortable in that regard!

The skirt pieces were treated separately and I hemmed (by machine) the satin a tad shorter than the lace so that you don't really see the satin layer.  This photo is looking from the inside. 

So... there you have it.  My Kate Knock Off that I'm very proud to wear!  

Grey and Teal Hexagon Quilt with Coordinating Throw Pillows

This one is a BIG finish that I am really happy to be able to share.  

My youngest sister got married last weekend and this was her wedding gift.  She asked for a couch-sized quilt with the caveat that her fiance is 6'3'' so it had to be long enough to cover his whole length.  Having made a quilt for my husband who is 6'2'' that was no problem.  :)  

The wedding colors were dark grey/black and a very pretty dark teal color.  I went with those colors and then expanded the teal to include other shades of teal and blue, plus added light grey and white.  

I made the pattern myself after browsing online for modern hexagon quilts.  My design is, I feel, a combination of this, this, and this.  I tried to incorporate the interesting use of 'negative space' between the hexagons - keeping them separated by about 1/4'' rather than right up next to each other.  It is random in the sense that it is an unplanned splash of colors, but organized in the sense that it looks like someone took a paintbrush and made a swish/stroke of color along the plain background.  I am usually a traditionalist when it comes to quilt patterns but I really really like this one!  Just modern enough, clean and simple, yet pretty.   The color palette has a lot to do with it and I have the bride to thank for that!

The background is a solid Kona dark grey (there is one long seam down the middle but its practically invisible underneath the hexagons).  The hexagons are a mixture of solids and small prints.  They are all appliqued on by hand.  I love hand applique and haven't done any major hand projects lately so I really enjoyed doing that part of it.  

The back of the quilt is a nice light grey and light teal print and the binding is a grey-on-grey small circle print. 

After much, much, much internal debate and gathering of opinions of family and friends I decided to have this quilt professionally quilted.  I have never done that before but I think it was the right choice for this quilt.  The interlocking swirly pattern looks fabulous and is way beyond my machine quilting skills.  The quilt will be really sturdy, it will hold up well to washings and cat hair, and having it quilted at our local quilt shop gave me the sewing time to make three dresses for the wedding (more on those later).  I will admit, though, that I'm itching for a hand quilting project this summer or fall...  

All my quilts get my initials and the year on them.  

(Not a bad mitered corner there as well, if I do say so myself...)  :)

Then, I added two throw pillows to the gift.  They are 18'' pillows and made mostly from scraps leftover from making the quilt itself (I ended up having to buy more yardage for the pillow backs).  Again, simple and clean, leaning-towards-modern in design.  Coordinating but not matchy-matchy.  I made these patterns up as well from the scrap sizes I had left.  

The newlywed's couch should be pretty snuggly!  

It will also work as a bed quilt if they want it to - it fit nicely on top of our queen mattress so it can do double duty.   Due to visiting the other side of the family I was not able to be there for the gift opening big reveal but I've heard they loved it.