Button It

Well, I got my daughter's Easter shoes exchanged. They had another pair just like them! :-) I guess someone was having a little fun.

Besides the shoe mishap on Easter, I also had the oven go out. Worked fine Saturday morning for breakfast but died around dinner time. Thank goodness we had our family get together the weekend before.

The oven got hit by lightning a few years ago , unfortunately it did not damage it enough to get a new one, but it did cook a little hot after that! :-)

You know what the worst thing about having your oven go out? You have to clean the darn thing before the repair people come out! Well, I guess it needed cleaning anyway. I found some wonderful homemade oven cleaner recipes on Pinterest......but that is another story.

So while I am waiting around for the repair people (they gave me a narrow window of somewhere between 1-5pm) I wanted to show you the way I finish button hole elastic.

For those who don't know what button hole elastic is, it is elastic that is made with little button holes down the center. Instead of securing the elastic inside of a waistband, you sew a button on either side. This allows you to adjust the waistband of children's clothes.

Button hole elastic comes in black or white and in 3/4" or 1" wide. I use a lot of this stuff so I buy it on line by the roll.

There are two purposes of finishing the ends of the elastic. One is you don't want the elastic to ravel. The other is the end finish treatment will help prevent the elastic from being sucked into the waistband if it gets unbuttoned.

Note: If your end treatment is extremely bulky you may find it better to run the elastic through the waistband first then finish the edges.

I like to use 1/4-3/8" ribbon or twill tape to finish the ends. You could also use a strip of matching fabric. The selvage edge would work great. The length of the ribbon/twill tape needs to be at least twice the width of the elastic. I am showing you 1 inch black button hole elastic for this tutorial. My orange ribbon is 3/8 inches wide.

The first step is to trim the end of the elastic. I want the length from the first button hole to the raw edge be at least twice the width of the ribbon. I center my ribbon and secure with straight pins.

With a narrow zig zag stitch I stitch on the edge of the ribbon.

I then trim the elastic to reduce the bulk. I don't want the trim too close that I have to worry about the elastic raveling.

With a piece of Wonder Tape I fold down one end and secure it in place.

I folded the other side down and trimmed it a little so that the ribbon overlapped. I remove the paper back and secure the other side down. The important step here is to try to line up the top edge neatly.

The end is then folded down and secured with pin.

I figured it was easier to show you my Bernina sewing machine settings.

• I have a Ball Needle in my machine (it helps prevent skipping).
• My needle is set all the way to the left so it lines up with my foot.
• I have set the stitch to a zig zag with the width of 1.5.
• It does not show here but I also set my needle into the down position.

I am going to start out with a zero length so I can tack my ends.

After about 3-4 stitches in place, I adjusted the length to 1.5 and stitched across. I ended the stitch by adjusting the length back to Zero to secure the stitch.

And it is done. I now just need to repeat the process on the other side.

Goody two shoes

Happy Easter!

I hope every got all their smocking and sewing finished and are having a great Easter!

LOL! I just had to show this picture of my daughter's Easter shoes. We are rushing around getting ready for church. I took her new shoes out of the shoe box and told her to hurry up.

Needless to say, she wore something else to church!

First Birthday

Today is my granddaughter's first birthday! Wow, time has flown by!

Instead of my desire to make a frothy 1st Birthday dress, I toned it down to something she would really wear more then once.

This is a size 1 Children's Corner Mary Dee. The fabric has been in my stash for years waiting for the perfect "Let's Party" dress. The dress is piped in royal blue. I love this pattern and have used it numerous times.

Here is the back view. I used slightly larger buttons ( This is based on my experience of getting this style of dress off my daughter when she was one). The yoke of the dress has been lengthened by 1/2 inch to accommodate a long torso granddaughter.

She wore her balloon dress to open presents and play. She then had a costume change before she got to eat/wear her cake! :-)

Happy Birthday Cupcake!

Baby Shower Gift

Sometime in March our family is going to be blessed with a great niece! This has been a long awaited bundle of joy.

Well, tomorrow is the first of many baby showers. I made this little dress from Jeannie Baumeister's The Old Fashion Baby Embroidered Raglan Daygown.

http://www.oldfashionedbaby.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=50

The fabric is Swiss Flannel from Martha Pullen and Company https://store.marthapullen.com/p-4943-cotton-swiss-flannel-white.aspx

I tweaked the embroidery design a little. Instead of lazy daisy I added bullion roses. It just fits the new mother's personality. The embroidery colors match the flower girl dresses I did for her wedding.

I still need to make a matching bonnet but that will have to wait till next week.

First Christmas

Once again I am apologizing for not posting on my blog. I will try and make it up to you by posting a free smocking plate.

I am getting ready to ship this in the morning. I hope it fits. I hope she wears it.

The bishop is a size 12 months Cherry Williams made from red corduroy. It is smocked with 4 strands of DMC #3866 and #321.

Happy Labor Day!

Between school starting, softball and minor knee surgery I have become a bad blogger. Hopefully I can correct the situation as everything starts moving in the right direction (this includes my knee!)

Before all our Labor day celebrations begin this weekend I wanted to share with you an outfit I made for my granddaughter.

The pattern from Wendy Schoen. It is made entirely from my stash. The front fabric is about 14 years old.

The pattern is VERY short in the stride. I had to lengthen the back pattern by 2 inches to fit my 6 month old.

Here is a close up of the inside. I used snaps from Snap Source for the diaper area and used buttons from Hillcreek on the side and the shoulders.

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Labor Day!

School of Art Fashion

Just got back from 5 days in Huntsville, Alabama. I had a wonderful time and was amazed at the organization and the logistics of the Martha Pullen Staff.

I took Wendy Schoen's Baby School. We only had 10 ladies in the class so it was almost like having a private lesson. Now to finish my projects before they become UFO's(Un-Finished Objects)

Every day at lunch they had a drawing for a free sewing machine. I am sorry to say I was not one of the lucky ones, but I did take home a boatload of free gifts.

We received 2 machine embroidery CDs, a small first aide kit, several patterns, a flip out seam ripper (thank goodness we got the first aide kit) a pocket tissue holder, a small notebook with 3 types of post it notes, several pen and pencils, a small zippered bag, a copy of 5 different magazines from Hoffman Media and a tote bag. I am sure I have left out several thing. The best of all was everyone received a framed picture of themselves with Martha Pullen.

If you have never been to one of her schools , the Martha Pullen store is set up at the Von Braun center so while you are sewing and you see a neat gadget that someone has you only have to walk a few feet over to the store and buy it. I had to make sure I still had plenty of money for the teacher's selling night, where I bought even more goodies.

What I really like was the support for all ladies attending. One lady had the light bulb burn out on her sewing machine. Not a problem. The staff notified the appropriate sewing machine dealer and they came in the class room and fixed it.

Another sweet thing about the school was the kids schools. There were so many girls there with their mothers and grandmother.

A really funny thing (besides Martha Pullen's story about buying Spanx) is the red carpet. Most of the ladies were staying at the Embassy Suite which is attached to the Von Braun center by a walkway with red carpet. So at least twice a day everyone walked through the walk way. I saw the hotel staff vacuuming up bits and pieces of dropped threads every day but I think they gave up after the 2nd day. By the end of the 5 days the carpet looked like my sewing room floor! :-)

Oh I almost forgot.....I had a guy in one of the elevators ask me if I was taking a knitting class.... I guess my hand free Wendy Schoen embroidery hoop that I was carrying gave me away (eye roll).

If you ever get a chance I highly recommend the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion