8 month catch-up - December to February

So my good friend Anne finally got inspired enough to buy a sewing machine for herself last week, and now she is going through the beginning sewer excitement and growing pains that I went through about 10 short months ago.  We have been on the phone quite a bit lately as I share her excitement and encourage her new endeavors.  It is so fun to have another friend interested in sewing!

Tonight I directed her here to see one of the projects that I worked on last year, and it made me realize that I have just done a terrible job of logging my projects here.  The whole purpose of this blog was to keep a record for myself, and now I will have to piece together the last, oh, 8 months or so.  Oh well.  I'll do my best! I think I'll try to split this into months to help break it up a bit.

After Christmas, I did indeed finish my mom's casserole carrier, and it was received with much excitement.  Of course, I did not take a photo. =)  Then I got excited about making a tiny toddler back-pack for Joseph.  This was actually a really fun and fulfilling project.  I poked around and found a lot of different patterns and tutorials, but none of them were exactly what I was looking for, so I used what I had found, and then pieced together my own pattern.  I amaze(d) myself!

It is really hard to take a picture of a toddler wearing a backpack.

Made December 30, 2011

I know it's a pretty simple design, but it was fun and I did learn how to do a gusset on a bag and I also had my first chance to install snaps. Snaps are awesome!  I ended up making another one of these in February for my co-workers daughter and that one turned out even better. Sarah loves "Cars" so the outside was brown corduroy and the inside was Cars flannel.  I also added a pocket on the front from the same Cars fabric and a velcro closure on the top. No picture of course.

In January, I sewed my mom a pouch to replace the original pouch I sewed her and then gave my Grandma for Christmas. =)  I'm actually really glad it went down that way, because the replacement pouch is about a thousand times cuter than the original.

Made January 23, 2012

This is the same fabric that I made my sister-in-law's purse and my step-mom's casserole carrier with (as well as the kitchen curtains, coming up). I used this tutorial from Noodle-head:

http://www.noodle-head.com/2010/04/gathered-clutch-tutorial.html

You can see the detail so well in my photos, but it looks pretty much like the pouches she made.  The gathers are really cute and just add a little extra something.  My mom loved it.



In February, I finally sewed the new curtains for my kitchen window.  Unfortunately, the lighting in my kitchen is REALLY awful, but you can at least get an idea and see the fabric.

They are very cheery.  I need to get a ribbon or make a tie to tie them back with, but having them down like this is nice to hide the mess in the window from the people in our house, and also to hide my amazing dishwashing dance moves from the neighbors.  I did not really use a tutorial or a pattern for these...just measured and sewed.