Summer Skirt

This skirt is perfect for summer. It's light weight and pretty. It can be worn to work, out for dinner (not that that happens much here anymore), shopping, around town etc. The fabric was purchased last year (or maybe the year before). It was a little see through so I lined it with a light pink broadcloth. I made up a pattern based on a few tutorials over at Sew, Mama, Sew. This skirt was cut out, sewn together, hemmed and completed in under an hour. I love fast skirts!

I signed up for a Celebrate Summer Swap that was on Inspired Mama Musings blog. We had to send a summer decoration, a recipe and share how we celebrate summer.

I made this apron from the Bend-the-Rules Sewing book (Another project from that book!) The fabric is some fabric I won from Sew, Mama, Sew. I'd been holding on to it waiting for the perfect project and this was it.

I also made my swap partner these appliqued tea towels. I used my flip-flop template from for one tea towel. For the other one I had some fabric that had various sized flowers on it and I cut out a bunch of the flowers and figured out placement. Then I sewed a line on the towel for each stem and appliqued the flowers on the towel. I decided I needed leaves for some of the stems and found some green paisley scraps in my scrap stash. I just drew up a leaf shape and cut the shapes out of the fabric and appliqued on the towel. I love these how these towels turned out. Now I need to make some for myself!

My partner for this swap made me the most beautiful cards. They are so pretty I just want keep them to look at! She also sent me some gorgeous fabric and a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan. It sounds yummy - now to trick the family into thinking it's something else so they will at least try it!

I really enjoyed this swap and there will be an Autumn round of this swap too.

Quilted Table Runner

I've been wanting to try quilting for a long time. I finally decided to get my courage up and decided a small project would be best. I found a tutorial for this table runner on the Moda Bakeshop blog. I have a ton of scrap fabric and some fabric squares from a swap and decided to use it rather than buy a charm pack for this. It went together pretty easily. The tutorial tells you can stipple or stitch in the ditch to quilt. I really love the look of stippling and wanted to try it, but I knew I would be better off to stitch in the ditch for my first project. Since I tend to want perfection in my projects I told myself that unless something went really wonky, I was not going to be ripping it out. I stuck to that too, even though the corners of my binding aren't quite right. I really like this table runner and it is on my kitchen table now. My kids have made quite a few comments about how much they like it - which must be true, because we all know how honest kids are.

I found the thick ric-rack at Fabricland and it was on sale for $0.50/metre. I bought lots of it in four different colours. I can 't wait to find other projects to add the ric-rack to. I just love the way it finishes off this project.

Bags for Teachers

I made a bag this year for my daughter's teacher. She is young and stylish and very keen. She is a fabulous teacher and my daughter really learned a lot in her class - academically, socially and personally. The fabric for this bag is a screenprinted canvas. The lining fabric was from my stash. I stole 2 buttons from my daughter's button collection for this bag.

Our oldest son was in Junior Kindergarten this year and I made a bag for his teacher as well. She has a very structured classroom. Unfotunately he will not be in her class next school year. I am hoping that the new teacher will have a similar structure to her class. He loves school and can read quite a few words already. I never thought he would like school - he's never been interested in reading or sitting for very long to colour, but school made him interested in these things. He is quite shy and he has improved so much socially.

For his teacher's bag I used some fabric from my stash that I used for a handbag on a previous post. The yellow buttons are from my button bag. The pattern is the Buttercup Bag available on Made by Rae.