A ruffle cape for Christmas

Here are some quick pictures of a cape I made before Christmas. I purchased the pattern from Seamingly Smitten Patterns on Etsy and I absolutely am in love. You can also check out the Seaminglysmitten blog which is pretty neat.

For this cute cape I chose a linen blend fabric in light pink along with a sheer polka dot lining. Here's hoping for an early spring!

It was a fairly easy pattern to follow especially for a beginner such as myself. 

The hardest part was creating the ruffle and then attaching it to the cape. I found a ruffler presser foot attachment my my sewing machine at Amazon for about $10. Once I figure out how to actually use it I think it will make gathering a little more easier. 
 

An early Christmas present to myself.

Inside of my cape has a sheer polka dot lining

My First Rag Quilt

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday and took time to rest and relax before ringing in the 2014.

Today I am sharing my rag quilt that I made in December. I read a bunch of online tutorials and jumped right in!

Up close

Front

Back

 

First order of business was to pick out colors and a pattern for the rag quilt. I chose four colors and decided on a solid back with a small center square of color. I cut my fabric into 9"x9" squares and played around with them until I found a pattern I liked. 

 

After I decided upon my my pattern  I sandwiched the front square, batting, and back square together like a sandwich. Then I stitched them together by sewing a large X through the middle.

I'm glad I had some many great tutorials to review for this project. I learned that the batting needs to be 1" smaller than the square to allow room for to to fray the ends. My math and cutting skills aren't great so my batting was closer to 1.5 - 2" smaller. The great thing about rag quilts are they don't have to be accurate (yay). The fraying ends allow for not so straight lines or not so even squares. It's a great first sewing project.

 

Once I had all my sandwiches I lined the quilt back up on the floor and pinned it together. I sewed them in strips (starting at the bottom so my pattern would stay in tact). Once I had all my rows sewed together I began attaching each row together. It was important to note that when sewing the squares together you must leave yourself at least an inch allowance to cut the ends for fraying. I tried to sew as close as I could to my batting to allow plenty of room for cutting the ends. 

 

Once my quilt was all attached I cut into the squares every 1/2" or so to create the frayed look. Once I went around the entire quilt I threw it in the wash on gentle. I wasn't 100% convenience that it would survive the washer. Surprisingly it did and it came out great.

I had enough squares left over at the end to whip up a quick little matching tote.

 

Here are some links to the great tutorials I found. 
http://www.imperfecthomemaking.com/2012/01/easy-thrifty-pretty-rag-quilt-tutorial.html
http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com/SimpleRagQuilt.pdf
http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com/SimpleRagQuilt.pdf

Dress-ed To Impress

Winter greetings everyone! 

Here in NY we've had quite a December to remember.  In the last two weeks we've had over 12"+ of snow fall. Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas! 

Back in October I signed up for an introduction to sewing class through the local adult eduction program. It was a really fun class and I met some truly awesome people. Over the course of six weeks I picked out a dress pattern from Jo-Ann Fabrics, purchased the materials, and began my journey of first time sewer. Below are some pictures taken along the way. I finished my dress on the last day of class. 

It was a lot of work but spend more time fixing my mistakes (using my ever handy seam ripper). 

If you're a first time sewer I would recommend an easier project to begin with. Since I had ZERO sewing experience I found myself watching youtube videos, reading sewer blogs, and calling my aunt for advice and how-to's. 

Overall it was a really fun class and I did learn a lot. Since finishing the dress I've made a rag quilt (soooo much easier!), a medium size tote bag, and a poncho. It's pretty addicting once you start and I'm so glad I did. 

One of the best parts of signing up was meeting the other great women in the class. Our class ended two weeks ago but still meet on Wednesday evenings at my house to sew together.

The Dress!

The process....

Here are some pictures of the class working on projects.