Three New One Year Old Dresses

I have been busy making a king sized Dr. Seuss quilt for my younger stepson but I found time to make these three little dresses for the same baby I made this modern circle quilt for, Lily.

Click here for the free dress pattern online and here to see a few of my previous versions of the dress.

Lily is the miracle baby of my good friend Sarah, a two-time breast cancer survivor. You can read their amazing story here!

Fruits and veg:

Changed the top on this one to tie like bunny ears. I like it! The bottom, blue one is super soft corduroy.



Texas Quilt Block Contest!

Hi All,

I work for the Texas Department of Agriculture now and they have a great contest I wanted to alert you to. Click here to read about it. You make one block with materials they send you to reflect how agriculture is your culture. If you win, your block will get sewn into a quilt that is exhibited at the State Fair of Texas! I'm going to enter, thought you might want to also.

Get your application to enter and join me!

More Dresses and a Kimono

Hello again! I must be in holiday crafthorse mode because I can't stop making dresses! I made this little dress (above) for Gigi because she saw me making all the baby dresses and got jealous. I laid out 12 fabrics for her to pick from, and she chose Good Folks by Anna Maria Horner. Great taste!!! One of my all time favorite fabrics. You'd have to see it in person, it just GLOWS. I even remembered I had the pink and red version of the same pattern, but she stuck with her green/red choice. I think this one is the most favorite dress I've ever made.

I also made Gigi this little kimono from a free pattern by Habitual, using a print from the Sherbet Pips collection by Aneela Hoey. She loves it!

Lastly, I made one more 12 month old baby dress.

So now we have Strawberry, Lemonade and Orange Dreamsicle :)

Strawberry and Orange are Amy Butler fabrics, and again, the pattern was the free Oliver+S pattern.

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Enjoy!

I'm Back! With a Trio of Dresses

I've been making some little dresses lately for a friend of mine who wants them for her 1 year old. Click here for previous versions and a link to the free pattern of the dress from Oliver+S.

I made a strawberry dress....

And a lemonade dress!

Then for Gigi I made a size 4 version of the dress.

I made about every mistake on this dress that a person could ever make. I failed to realize my printer was printing the pattern at 3/4 size. Then when I realized it, I cut the back piece the right length and was going to add to the front, but in measuring them together I cut both the shorter length. Doh! Then I got them both the right length with the stripe, but sewed them together wrong side out. After taking that out and sewing them correctly, I tried to put it on her and realized it was doll sized through the chest. Because (duh) if it's too small one way, guess what? it's too short the other way. Sigh. So I took it all apart and added panels in the sides. And voila, a pretty dress. LOL.

So here you have it...strawberry lemonade dresses and a crazy mistake dress that's still pretty cute.

Lime Sherbet Baby Quilt

Updated 9/6/11: photo of Braelynn on the quilt!

I made this little sherbet baby quilt to take to a shower for my friend Cari. She wanted pastel yellows and greens and also forest animals. Well there are lots of forest animals, plus some other fun stuff, like cupcakes! Yum. I used my favorite piecing method: fussy cut the inside square and then add enough fabric around to make the right size. Oh, all hand piecing and quilting as usual, of course.

I happened to have the perfect backing fabric in my stash, this chandelier print by Tina Givens. It is just the right color of yellow-green. I used yellow satin for the binding and it's perfect too.

Here's a boy for scale.

And a closeup of one of my favorite blocks, some dancing frogs by Heather Ross via Kokka Japan. That's Cari, Clay and the baby in the meadow. I previously used the rabbit family from the same fabric in this modern baby quilt for another friend, Sarah.

These colors don't really match each other but I wanted to put the owls in some trees :)

And of course some old Heather Ross prints on top, because I love them, and a cute big doggie.

Enjoy!

News Flash: I Finally Used a Sewing Machine! (and I hated it)

As all of you loyal followers know, I don't own a sewing machine and have never learned to use one. Every quilt on this site, for the last 13 years, has been made entirely by hand. Well, a few weeks ago I made this little purple dress for Gigi and was frustrated with the way the middle joined. The free directions were extremely vague so I improvised, but the seam kept coming apart in the middle gathers and I resewed it like five times. I was getting mad so my husband suggested that I dig out the beginner sewing machine my mom had given my oldest daughter 8 years ago that no one had ever used. I thought maybe he was right and it would hold that seam better so I agreed.

Well I took one look at the directions and my brain froze! So I made Mr. Babyquilts stop painting the kitchen to set it up for me. He'd taken home ec in highschool and claimed to remember how to thread the beast. I found a spool of machine thread I'd bought by accident long ago and we were off. I wasn't very good at it but I challenged myself to make an entire new dress with only the machine.

Here's the little dress I made, a copy of the purple one. Summary? I hated every second of using the machine and kept wanting to throw it out the window and go back to hand. It kept unthreading itself every ten seconds and I really didn't know what I was doing. Plus, to add insult to injury, I couldn't get it to sew over the gathers in the middle and ended up sewing it by hand again anyway!!!! Grrrr..... So guess what, this one comes apart in the middle every time I wash it too. I realize it's probably not the machine's fault, but I genuinely disliked the entire experience and am extremely unlikely to repeat it. You ladies can keep the machines!

At any rate, Gigi loves it and that's what matters. If I have to sew the middle a hundred more times, it will be worth it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sew it again, it just came out of the wash. (I only wish I was saying that to be funny!)

Best New York Strip Steak Ever

To commemorate the start of grilling season, today I give you the best dry rub recipe for thick cut New York Strip Steak. Try it!

Set a stainless steel grill pan (with ridges on the bottom) on medium high heat for at least 15 minutes. Let the steaks sit out at room temperature for an hour - an even meat temperature will make for more even cooking. Make the dry rub: 2T kosher salt, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 2T black pepper, 1 clove garlic, minced. When pan or grill has heated for at least the 15 minutes, rub the steaks with oil, then the dry rub, and put in the preheated pan immediately. Do not spray the pan or grill with oil, just rub on the steaks. The pan will smoke as the sugar caramelizes, so have the fan ready, or better yet grill them outside! Grill 4 minutes per side and they will be perfectly caramelized and medium rare.