Friday, April 5, 2013

Spring Easter Skirts

 
 
Over spring break, I decided that my sisters needed some new skirts. Then, when I had extra fabric left, I decided I needed a matching skirt too. I used the Simple Spring Skirts tutorial from Simple Simon and Company and some fabric from my stash. They are so easy to make! You only need two measurements - waist and length - and the tutorial is only 8 steps long! They don't take much time either - I made all three skirts in one afternoon.
 
The main fabric has Easter eggs on it! My mom and I bought it seven years ago when our local Ben Franklin store was having a huge going-out-of-business sale. I was just starting to sew and we thought it was so cute! It just took me seven years to finally use it.
 
 
The pink, contrast fabric is from fabric.com. I bought it two years ago, planning to use it in a skirt, but never got around to it. That's a good thing too, because it's the perfect contrast for the Easter egg fabric!
 
Spring hasn't made up its mind if it wants to come to Minnesota yet or not (it snowed in my hometown today!), but we braved the cold and went outside to take pictures. My 10 year old sister was being a goofball:
 
 This is one of the few good pictures of her from our photoshoot.
 
This is about the best one I have of the three of us.
 
Mostly, she just wanted to be silly!
 
 What's the longest you've kept fabric in your stash before using it?  
 
~Elizabeth

I will be linking to some of the link parties listed here.


Monday, April 1, 2013

The Covert Robin - What I Made

I had so much fun participating in the Covert Robin swap hosted by imagine gnats! Now that my package is mailed off I can share what I made for my partner. It was challenging at first, beause my partner does not have a blog, so I wasn't able to do any blog stalking. However, after a bit of googling I found her on pinterest and that gave me some ideas.
 

I decided to make my partner a patchwork dishcloth and matching potholders! She seems to like cooking and I thought it would be a useful gift that would brighten up her kitchen! I originally started with squares and darker colors for the towel, but decided to go with strips of fabric and more spring-like fabrics.

 
 
The front of the towel is strips of cotton fabric sewn together in rows. It measures about 9" x 15", if I remember correctly. The back is yellow terrycloth cut from a kitchen towel (it was a bamboo towel and it's sooo soft). I quilted the two layers together by stitching in the ditch so it won't move around too much.
 
 
The potholders are 8" squares using leftover fabric from the towel. I quilted these too and then sewed a binding on to finish the edges.
 
 
It's almost too pretty to use! I hope my partner likes her gift - it should be arriving at her house today!
 
~Elizabeth