a lovely giveaway

Giveaways just don't get any more lovely than this one. You should add Lila to your favorite sites to check while surfing the internet after the kids go off to school as your coffee gets colder and colder sitting there on your computer desk.

reversible skirt

This is a skirt (recognize the cuboctahedron fabric?) I made as a mock-up to try and sell. The pattern is "Katie's Skirt" by Children's Corner. It is completely reversible. The black polka dotted side has two side pockets. The diamond side has no pockets, but I put a monogram on for added interest.

The pockets are even lined. Cute, huh?

purse

A friend of mine gave me a big stash of fabric scraps. I especially loved this heavy red canvas and black denim. Also included in the stash was red strapping. I got a vision for this purse, which is patterned after a designer purse my sister bought for me, but gave to my mom because she fell in love with it. (But I'm not bitter.)

cuboctahedron

My oldest had an extra credit math assignment: construct a cuboctahedron

It is created with 6 squares and 8 equilateral triangles, sides being the same length as the sides of the squares. Each square is surrounded by 4 triangles, each triangle is surrounded by three squares.

Have a headache yet?

I helped her cut out the squares and triangles, pinned them for her, and she sewed it. Then she stuffed it and I whip stitched the last opening. We also embroidered her name on the ribbon, which is not visible in the photo.

ps

Better than I had imagined.

collars & cats, with a side of crazy

Inspired by this genius, I went to one of our local thrift stores and took advantage of the 20 t-shirts for $2.00 deal. (No doubt you've already done the math in your head by now and figured that they cost 20 cents each.)

I picked 20 that I liked. Some are old. Some are tacky. Most have stains. But, with a pair of scissors, awesome inspiration, and kids who are asleep (because it is 2 in the morning... uh, how'd that happen?!?!) I had a blast making these:

This little tunic looks joyous because some dunce sewed the arms on wrong. Oh well, yay anyway!

Can't wait to see it on her. (I figure I'll tell folks that the shirt is saying "yay" because it only cost 20 cents!)

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And then I swore that I would not sew arms on wrong again and started another project (who needs sleep anyway, right?)

The same dunce who sewed the sleeves on the blue tunic wrong also forgot to take before pictures of the shirts, so she took after pictures of the scraps. Note the stain on the orange t-shirt. Also, the black and white stripe shirt was from Ann Taylor. It was a little hard to take the scissors to that one. There wasn't a thing wrong with it.

"Meow."

Kitty says I need to go to bed, but she is glad I rescued her from the thrift store. She says thanks for not sparing the Ann Taylor tee and sewing her to such a quality shirt.

ps- 60 cents total cost

my first applique

My friend, Tori, kept telling me that machine applique was as easy as pie. A recent project she did got me motivated to teach myself. I just needed a chunk of time to devote to the instruction.

I sat down yesterday for a couple of minutes and tried to do a fringed heart, but I quickly realized I should have waited to cut the fabric until after the embroidery was done, so I aborted that mission and thought I'd wait until today.

I didn't want to just make a mock-up that would not be usable, so I thought I'd put the applique on something that I could make into a pocket for a little girl's dress. Bingo Boingo and here it is.

The hardest thing of all was trying to decide what flavor I wanted the lollipop to be.

Also, attaching the bow makes it much cuter, don't you think?