» sewing

Princess Merida Costume

Amy Parnell — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 01:30:13 +0000

This year Rory is going as Merida for halloween.

She’s the princess from Brave.

She’s going to be a very popular Halloween costume this year. And how could Rory not get in on all that hype?

But she couldn’t just show up in a store bought costume, not that there’s anything wrong with that. My mother was visiting last week for a few days. And I took full advantage of her sewing skills. I can sew a straight line, but this was going to take a professional to pull off this costume. So it was a joint effort, but without my mom it would look like a bag of trash. So we do owe this all to her. And Rory’s bow hunting skills…

What do you think? Do you think Disneyland would hire her as a junior Merida?

B-Fly Box

Amy Parnell — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:13:02 +0000

Yesterday, Rory and I got to hang out with some friends. We had a full day of boutique shopping and fun girl time. But while we were doing that, Joey and Delilah had some fun too.
Delilah loves bugs, she had a bug themed party for her 2nd birthday. We’ve talked about getting her a bug cage to catch bugs in so she could study them. But Joey did one better, he and Delilah built one. I’ve never been more prouder.

Delilah doesn’t say butterfly, but b-fly, hence the name B-Fly Box. We like it, so we say it too.

We have this plant that the butterflies love. I can’t remember the name of it, so if any gardener readers want to chime in…

The girls had a butterfly hunt and I took some pictures. A lot of pictures.

Of course there were about 100 more, but I’ll just stop right there.

I made the shirt Delilah is wearing for the butterfly hunt. I was going to do a blog post on it, but I think you’ve seen enough of that.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

Sparkly Circle Skirt

Amy Parnell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:36:35 +0000

I found some remnant fabric at Joanns of sparkly flowers. I didn’t have a plan for it, but I knew a little girl who would love to own something made with it. It sat around the house all week before it hit me that it needed to be made into a twirly fancy circle skirt. I’m a big fan of the circle skirt. This is my third. By now I don’t even need the pattern. I just wing it.

You can see the other two skirts here and here.
I added a blue ruffle on the bottom and a orange ribbon tie.

It’s hard to see the sparkles in the pictures, but they are there, and they are amazing. Ha! But you really do need to see it in person to witness all of its sparkling glory.

It passed the twirl test.

And that’s that!

Fox Masks

Amy Parnell — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:31:50 +0000

I know it’s Christmas season, and no one wants to hear about Halloween anymore, but I never shared what Joey and I went as.
We were a couple of foxes. I know what you are thinking, so you went as yourselves? Ha Ha! No, we were the animals, silly.

I made some masks out of felt, so we didn’t have to commit to full on costumes. Kinda of a cop-out, but let’s be realistic, Joey and I aren’t really the type that enjoy the full on attention that costumes bring. We are a wee bit shy.

Here’s a family picture from the night.

We didn’t even get a picture of us wearing them over our faces.

And here’s the obligatory offspring wearing what I made photos.

Halloween Prep

Amy Parnell — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:13:55 +0000

I’ve been thinking about Halloween for a couple weeks now. I know it seems early but if I was going to make the kid’s costumes this year, I need to get crackin’ as early as possible. This past weekend I was rambling through Hobby Lobby looking for a way to spend a gift card I got from the in-laws for my birthday. They were having a sale on all their McCalls patterns for $1. I always take advantage of that! I usually just buy whatever I think I might want to make cause normally these patterns run from $12-$18. I found a couple patterns that would work for costumes too. Rory’s costume is already done, just need to get the details of the whole look together. I’ve almost finished Delilah’s now too. I’m not going to share pictures of either just yet. Or tell you what they are going to be. But I will show a little bit.

This is the hat to Delilah’s costume.

It’s fleece lined to she can wear it for winter as just a hat too.I’m so excited to get them all finished and show you!

Pillowcase Dress

Amy Parnell — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:23:53 +0000

I’ve been wanting to make a pillowcase dress for awhile now. But I also wanted to practice some things in the process. So I added ruffles and pockets. This dress probably cost around $3 in supplies. I also made the hair flower.

Shirr Maddness

Amy Parnell — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:54:14 +0000

I shirred. And it was amazing. But it took me awhile to get to the amazing part.

I read many tutorials online before deciding it was something I was ready for. I got some elastic thread and a scrap piece of fabric and started practicing. It wasn’t working like they said it would. I tried every combination of thread tension and stitch length I could and it never worked. I went back to the internet (what did people do before the internet?) and started searching for reasons it wasn’t working. Everyone had different things to try to get it to work, but nothing new. I did see some people say that Brothers (my sewing machine brand) didn’t shirr.

I thought this would be the end of my shirring adventures. But then I ran across a video tutorial on how to take apart the machine and tighten a screw, then self feed the elastic. Yeah I would have never figured that one out on my own. Well I tried that and it worked!! So here’s the dress I made for Rory.

See the bunched up fabric? That part is stretchy due to the elastic thread. Very similar to the smocking I did last week. You might notice it’s also my go-to design. There’s not a lot of ways to mess this design up.

Also, notice Rory’s straight hair?

What about you guys, have you ever tried shirring? Isn’t it the funnest?

I Smocked!

Amy Parnell — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:12:02 +0000

Rory had a sleep over with her cousin last night and she stayed at their house most of the day. So Delilah and I headed to the fabric store to see what we could find to do with all this free time.

I love rummaging through the remnants rack and finding treasures. I found a few things and headed home. I looked through all my patterns and picked one to go with my new fabric. As I laid the pattern out, it didn’t look so fun anymore. So I just made up my own design. I wanted to try smocking so I just practiced a little and then went all in. It was super hard and I didn’t figure I would make it through. I was talking to my mother on the phone at the time and she thought I was a little crazy to even be trying it. A seasoned sewing pro like herself hasn’t even went there. So I knew it would be hard, but I was determined to figure it out.

And I did. But it wasn’t purdy. But I don’t care, I smocked. And I will smock again.

And if you are like my husband and had no clue what smocking was, it’s the stitching over the bunching of the fabric towards the top of the dress.

Kid’s Sling Chair

Amy Parnell — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:39:15 +0000

Pottery barn sells these sling chairs for around $50. So when ana-white.com came up with the knock-off plans I was pretty dang excited.

The wood itself cost me about $3. Hardware $1. The fabric I splurged a little on because it was so dang cute at $10. And I used stain I already had on hand. So these chairs cost me around $14 each. And they took about 2 hours to make, and that was building them with two little girls helping out.

The sling part is double sided so you can change the look. The fabric is held on with dowels that easily slip out to take the fabric off.

And they fold up nicely for storage.
This was totally easy project and I’ll probably be making more of these. They would make great gifts.

Detailed plans found here.

Embroidered Family Tree

Amy Parnell — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:10:09 +0000

I saw this idea featured on a couple crafty blogs. An etsy seller has a pdf pattern to buy here. I didn’t buy the pattern, I just eyeballed it. I’m sure it would have came out cuter if I had used a pattern though.

It’s a embroidered family tree. But it’s a slice of a trunk instead of the whole tree.

It now hangs in my little office area in the dining room.