Thursday, August 23, 2012

Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli

 

So I was having one of those days.  Nothing major, just a bunch of little things that kept adding up.

* Potty training accidents with both of my boys.

* I took 6 kids to the last free movie of the summer and it was a madhouse.

* I broke off half of one of my molars during the movie.

* It took me 3 hours to finally get through to my dentist and when I did they told me they couldn’t “squeeze” me in until next week!

* Had great plans for trying to get a bunch of laundry done and was getting nowhere.

Ya know all the typical mom stuff and I was feeling bleck!

Then… this arrived in the mail!

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Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli, creator of Sis Boom Fabrics.

I won it a couple of weeks ago in a giveaway on Living with Punks.

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Jennifer was even kind enough to sign it to me.  Bonus, she also sent along some of this lovely fabric!  Yippee!!!!

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My kids wanted to play in the yard so I sat right down in the grass and flipped through all of the gorgeous pages in this book.

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I want to live in this house and I think I need this quilt like right now!

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Now to decide what to make with the lovey fabric that Jennifer sent me.

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At first I thought maybe a cute ruffle pillow.

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Then I saw these great totes and I knew that I wanted to make one.  I’m a sucker for a new bag.

Go check out this lovely book and happy sewing!

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P.S. Then to lighten up my mood a little bit more, I looked up to see this!

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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Donut Dresses

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O.K. so I’m sure you’re wondering, “What the heck is a donut dress?”  Let me explain. 

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My mom lives on an island off the coast of Rhode Island and among other things, she owns a donut shop.  My grandmother started making the donuts 59 years ago and we’re still making them.  

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As they say in these parts… they are “WICKED”  good! 

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They’re called Payne’s Killer Donuts and the logo is this little scary looking donut guy.

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I grabbed a killer donut shirt and some knit fabric scraps and started planning a dress.

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I was inspired by Ashley’s lovely knit dresses over at Lil Blue Boo. Any of you that read her blog also now that she loves donuts so I figured that this was a good match.

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I love the exposed serger seams and now that I finally have a serger I was psyched to give it a go.

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I also lucked out because I found an old cover-up with a lettuce hem around the bottom and I was able to use that for the sleeves.  I know that I should be able to make this myself with my serger but I haven’t tried it yet.

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The girls love the dresses because they are colorful and the knit fabric makes them super comfy too. 

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Check out my other posts about sewing with knits HERE and HERE.

Happy Sewing!

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P.S. Here is my mom acting like a nut while I’m trying to take donuts pictures!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Boys’ Knit Tanks

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I found this real nice tank top pattern from Fish Sticks.  It is really simple and easy to follow and best of all, it’s FREE!  The tank pattern ranges in size from 12 months to 5t so you can get a lot of use out of it too.  Along with their blog, Fish Sticks has a nice pattern shop full of things I want to try.  Go check them out.

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Review: If you have never sewn with knits before, this would be a great pattern to start with.  It is very straightforward and not to “wordy”.  Since there are no sleeves it makes it very easy to sew up.

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I’m having a hard time judging the sizing on the pattern.  My boys are three but typically wear a size 5.  I printed out the pattern for the size 5 and could tell that it was going to be way too long so I just cut off a bit.  I think that next time I might make it a little wider too. 

Overall, I am very happy with the end results and my boys were happy that I made something for them as I sew things for their sisters more often.  They even ask me for their striped shirt.  It’s nice when they actually like what you make for them!

Thanks to Fish Sticks for the free pattern and I plan to try out some of their for purchase patterns soon.

 

If you would like to give knits a try here are a few project suggestions:

Free Tutorials:

Fish Sticks Blog

Made

I Am Momma Hear Me Roar

From An Igloo

Patterns for Sale:

Fish Sticks

Lil Blue Boo

Carla C

Mod Kid

Train to Crazy

Lille Skapet

Happy Sewing!

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P. S. You’ve got to love photo shoots with boys.

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Hey we’re pretty funny!

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Word!

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