Swim Team Blog Hop

I am so excited to be participating in this blog hop with:

Wednesday, May 21st  Windham Fabrics

Thursday, May 22nd Dinara Mirtalipova

Friday, May 23rd, Erin Schlosser

Saturday, May 24th, Melissa's Missouri Mel

Sunday, May 25th, Terri Quilted Fox

Be sure to click over to their blogs and see what they made!

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Ever since I first saw the beginnings of this fabric several months ago, I have been dreaming about the fun summer cover-up I would make with these fabulous bathing beauties!  Designed by Dinara Mirtalipova for Windham Fabrics, you can read more about Dinara's design inspiration by clicking over to her blog above.

Though I generally don't make "Mommy and Me" outfits, these two  main patterns were different enough in scale that I felt like it was OK (as in not super-super-dorky even if we wore them on the same day).  Plus, my little swimmer girl who paddled around for hours in the lake yesterday despite chattering teeth, definitely "needed" this swimming-ladies pattern in something.

I ended up making a Washi dress by Rae Hoekstra, for me (which I have been meaning to do...forever...) and a quick pillow-case dress for her. There is a great pillow-case dress tutorial here. I just threw this together in a half-hour---I don't put a lot of time and effort into making things for her lately because she is 3 and FULL of opinions about her clothes.  See below.

So...she did not LOVE her dress.  In fact, she had a complete screaming temper tantrum about wearing it.  This is dad, bribing her with a promise of ice cream to get her to cooperate with photos---let's be honest about the other side of pretty blog pics.  

Looks bucolic, right??  Little do you know...

This Washi dress was a great one for me to make now...7 mos pregnant, because it has shirring on the back that gives it a little stretch and some small pleats in the front, so I can wear it now and in August after the baby comes. 

This is the face that we mostly saw.

These beautiful lupines finally provided some distraction.

I can't wait to make more of these dresses and tops---it was an easy one-day project and in this fabric makes a great swim day cover-up! 

What would you make?  Leave a comment here, I will be giving away two fat quarters bundles of this fantastic summery fabric to two lucky winners!

Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments!  I enjoyed reading what you would do with this fabric!  Sounds like the beach will be full of sun-bathing ladies this summer! ;)  The winners of the giveaway are Gill and Carla!  I sent you an email, ladies, so send me your address and I will send out your fabric. 

Deadlines.

Let me start this post with a little background.  1) I LOVE deadlines.  Pretty much if I don't have a deadline, nothing gets done.  2) I am also a terrible procrastinator. Always have been, always will be.  3) After having four kids in quick succession, I have very bad sleep habits.

So...when the invitation to the Garrison Children's Education Fund "Spring Thaw" fundraiser arrived last week, I thought: "Oh, what a great opportunity to do something with those quilt blocks from sewing class last winter!!" Six of my sewing class students that worked on these blocks go to the school the auction benefits, so I thought making a quilt from these scrappy green blocks they made would be a nice addition.  

*Note: Most likely this photo was taken at about 2 a.m.

The morning after that late night, I got right to pinning...

Pinning led to a great fort diversion...

And dove into quilting:

A quick machine binding last night and, voila, a finished quilt for tonight's auction! (I am still kind of in shock myself).  

 Hopefully, the parents will think this turned out as great as I do!  This is a wonderful cooperative effort and I am so proud of all of my students!  Thank you Anna, Fiona, Evelyn, Caroline, Emerson, Ava and Natalie for your contributions to this quilt!!

Spring Sewing Register Now!

We had a lot of fun in this winter's sewing class!

I am happy to report that we finished our snowflake pillows ahead of the last real snowflakes (as today's little flurry proved!)

My older girls made some fun messenger pouches.  Zippers and all!

For those interested in joining, sign-ups are going on now at Philipstown Recreation Department.

Beginner: a combo of hand and introductory machine sewing with assistance

Tuesdays, 3:45-5 p.m. beginning April 2

Advanced: Students with a familiarity with sewing basics.  Working primarily with machines. 

Tuesdays, 5-6:15 p.m. beginning April 2