Goodnight stars, Goodnight Air, Goodnight Noises Everywhere....

[Another edition of WIWOW...thanks to Cute2Carry!]

People will often ask me where I learned to sew. That's an easy one...my mother. She is the Sewing Queen. A lot of my memories of my mother involve her sitting at a sewing machine creating.


When we were young, she sewed almost all of our clothes....even our swimsuits. One of her favorite things to make for us was nightgowns. My sister and I always had drawers full of cute, girly nightgowns. In fact, one of my favorite family traditions is new pajamas on Christmas Eve. We always got to open one gift when we got home from church, and it was always some cute nightgown or pajamas that she had made....and of course, they were all matching. For example:




I think my mom was channeling "Little House on the Prairie." Love the sleeping caps. Just call us Mary and Laura.

I've written before about my daughter's love of dresses and how that preference even carries over to bedtime. Well, I've began to notice that a lot of the nightgowns I made for her last year are getting too small. Those darn kids...they just won't stop growing!

So my project for this week is to make that girl some nightgowns. I'm using my favorite nightgown pattern, New Look 6641, and some cute cotton fabrics I picked up for $2 a yard. The pattern calls for knits, but I just use regular cotton quilting fabrics or flannel and it works just fine. I do use a stretch tubular knit to make the collar.



I love this pattern. It's just so cute and easy. I can whip one of these out in about 45 minutes, from cutting to finishing. My favorite detail about this nightgown? The adorable flutter sleeves:





I only managed to get one finished and one partially done yesterday.



But I'm hoping to get the rest of them done today.



I think five new nightgowns will do for now!

Getting Back In The Swing of Things

[Another WIWOW! Thanks Cute2Carry!]

What can I say? I'm a slacker. I didn't update my blog last week. I've had company for a couple of weeks, so my sewing productivity has been at a minimum. My sewing room (mom cave) doubles as our guest room, so getting in there and getting stuff done is a little difficult.

So what HAVE I been up to? Well, my sister and niece came in from TX and my mom and dad came in from NM. My sis and dad stayed for about 4 days, but my mom stayed on so that my husband and I could escape to Vegas last weekend while she watched our kids. We had a good time...stayed at MGM, ate way too much, and saw Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" (which I highly recommend).

Saturday night before the show, we had a nice Italian dinner. We went with another couple, and the other wife and I decided that we were going to "clean up" a little. No "Arizona uniforms" of t-shirts and flip-flops allowed. This called for a dress for us and button down shirts and slacks for the husbands.

So what did I wear? Something I made, of course! And what's better than that? It was something I made for less than $5!!! My Momma would be so proud!

A while back I wrote about this super cute, super easy dress that I made for myself. Well, I liked that pattern so much that I ended up making four of those dresses. One of them was a black satin-y fabric with a cute paisley print in reds and purples.

[As usual, picture taken by my 5 yr old in the backyard]

Here's a picture of us on Saturday night, all "gussied" up:

And to make it all better? I wore some cute, black strappy sandals that I picked up on clearance at Payless. Yes, my entire ensemble cost under $20. And I'm very proud of that fact! :)

Switching gears completely....

What's next on my plate? Well, yesterday my mom and I (she's still here) ventured over to the Hobby Lobby about 20 minutes from my house. It's been open for over a year now (I think), and this is the first time I've gone in there. And what do you know....they have fabric! Not a very big fabric dept, but they had some really cute stuff, with some of my favorite fabric designers: Michael Miller, Alexander Henry, Robert Kauffman.

I came out of there with some cute stuff like this:

And this:

All this fabric cuteness calls for a super fun project. So next week, when my mom is gone and my "guest room" is transformed back into my "sewing room," I'm going to use these for one of my most favorite projects: TWIRL SKIRTS!!!

Be sure to check back and see how they turn out!

Happy Sewing!