Dress Redesign

m I really getting good enough at this sewing thing to start making my own clothes? Maybe not from scratch, but RE-making? Dare I be bold enough to say it?... yes!
I don't have a good before, because I hardly ever take a before picture, because I never think it's really going to turn out good enough to post. Guess I need to start taking before pic...
I'll just tell you it was an empire waist spaghetti strap maxi dress and I cut the top off from the seam of the waist up and used the length of the skirt fabric to make

This

I was inspired by this tutorial.  She used a skirt and I just had a tube of material after I cut the top of the dress off.  I essentially made a skirt by putting elastic on the top end and then I pretty much followed her tutorial from there.  I just made my neck ruffly.

I'm really embarassed about these pictures... not the best quality taken in a dimly lit room at night with my laptop...

Since it's fall, I wouldn't really wear this dress alone like this.  Here's an example of how I might really wear it, paired with some skinny jeans or leggings and a jacket.  Or I could throw a long-sleeved tee underneath.

Here's a close up of the ruffled neck.  I haven't seen anything like this on the racks at stores I shop at.  Either that makes it awesome and unique or it makes it funny looking.  I like it and I guess that's what counts.  I've always liked that ruffle neck blouse/dress Audrey Hepburn wore in the scene in My Fair Lady where she's over at Henry Higgins' mother's house.  I guess this is homage to that.

We're all moved in to our new house!  Today was moving day, so it looks like a wreck right now, but they'll be more decorating snapshots coming your way soon now that everything's here!

I linked up!

Sugar Pie Chic

ooray! My creations have been featured!

I bought a pattern from Leslie of Sugar Pie Chic (click to go to her Etsy shop) and have begun to use it.  It's a PDF file with explanation and plenty of pictures, She has made it very easy to use and get beautiful results.  Her patterns are great for a beginner with a little experience and I highly recommend them if you don't want to spend $30 on a cute apron or if you need a gift idea that can be completed in an hour and uses only a yard of fabric total.  My first apron cost me $5 in fabric.

Ok!  Go check me out!!

The Hall Bath

hen we first took a look at the new house (before it was even on the market), it was covered in tan paint, beige carpet, antique furnishings and generally dark, or drab colors. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. But not my taste. I prefer more color. Dark color doesn't bother me, but you've gotta mix it up. "Mixing it up" would not be a description I would have used for the previous owner's decorating choices.
So when we got to the hall bath, I was a little stunned to see a black and white tiled bathroom with TOMATO red paint on the walls. It looked so out of place to me! But I thought it was great.
Now that we're here and I'm in decorating mode, I get to make even that color-filled space a little more my own. The previous owner.... I'm getting tired of typing that, so I'm just going to say Mr. C, ok? Mr. C left all the curtains, including the bathroom ones. Here is what he had chosen.


Black and Cream Toile. Not black and white, black and cream. I like when folks mix different shades and tints of white, but this bugged the crud outa me.  (It's looking pink in the picture... probably from the red walls reflecting off of it.)

That was first on my list to change. I had some trouble finding something I liked.  Target and Dwell Studio to the rescue!

I bought some red hand towels while I was there, but ended up deciding that there was still opportunity for more color.

I loved the combination of black and white and turquoise in the nursery in our first house so much.... and I have really enjoyed turquoise and red together whenever I see them paired...  So turquoise it is with some black and white fabric for an applique on each. (and I do NOT understand the stupidness of the spacing on Blogger... the tabs in this paragraph and the fact that this pic is so far below.  ahhhh!)

Here's the finished product.  Not as blue looking... I need to learn to edit my pics better...

And, in context...

Another purchase. A necessary bathroom addition, so why not also aesthetically pleasing?

And perhaps my favorite change - red knobs instead of silver.  This gets top honors in my book because it's one of those things I never EVER thought to do, but can be relatively inexpensive, bring in the unexpected and make a space truly unique.  Not to exclude the fact that this could be a VERY expensive change.  Anthropologie knobs can be $10 a piece and that would add up super quick.  These are from Hobby Lobby.

The lights say 'Old Hollywood Dressing Room' ish... don't you think?  Oh, yeah, and there's the window treatment with the stripe you saw next to the toile in the first picture up top.  That's on the list for changes, don't worry.  I've got a long list of sewing machine projects and it's on there somewhere... more towards the bottom.

Pillow Covers...

an be pretty difficult to make without any kind of measuring and cutting mat to help you make square fabric pieces. I did ok, but they're not perfect. As you'll see.

I think I got lucky with my first one. I'm glad I got lucky with it because this was my very precious, impossible to find fabric.

Here are the others I've done for the couch in the sunroom. I chose 5 fabrics to mix and match. CRAZY. I know. I'm not yet sure if they all were the right choices, but we're going to live with them for a while.

These two pillows are the two red ones in the picture in the last post. See anything strange? Maybe that one is square and one is rectangular? Yeah, that wasn't intentional. I was obviously not so lucky on my measurements when I made the floral slipcover. I took the red slipcover off of one of the pillows and stuffed the stuffing into this one. Right now he's Mr. Lumpy. I'm going to wait a bit and see if the filling relaxes and spreads out a bit before I go in and do surgery.

Here's how I tried to tie all the fabrics together...

And here's one last pillow I made for the chair in the sunroom.  It's my own random design.  One-sided ruffle with bow closure.

last thing:

Sewing is now a little more joyful than it used to be... not that I ever didn't like it.  This pincushion just makes it an even happier experience.  Look at how happy it is.  Doesn't it make you happy?

Bits and Pieces

don't know what to call all these posts. They are going to continue to be small parts and pieces of my home as it comes together. Hardly any room will be totally finished any time soon, so I'd rather just show you in bits.
Here, for example, is one of the built-ins in the living room. I'm not totally sure that all this will stay where it is or what else I will add, but I'm happy to have something pleasant looking in it for the moment.

This lamp was an $8 Goodwill find. I'm almost embarrased to say I paid $8 because I read so many other blog posts about finding entire bedroom suites for $2. Ok, maybe not, but there are folks that have found pretty cool tables for $2 or a couch for $10. That makes a lamp for $8 seem expensive. But I thought it was cool.

I finally decided on some curtains for the dining room. They are actually just transferred from the master bedroom. I decided that the dark brown curtains with the dark brown walls just made the whole feel too dark. I like the contrast here and they'll blend with every thing else going in the room. You'll see that soon.

This is a fabric swatch I'm considering for reupholstering the dining room chairs. It brings in the orange from the entry, the cream from the couch in the living room and sunroom and the whimsical design contrasts with the formal damask pattern on the curtains.

Speaking of the couch in the sunroom.... We didn't have one until a couple of days ago. And here it is!

Here's another view. No staging. Sorry. Dog, folded laundry, toys, and computer that I'm about to try to upload this post onto, it's all there in real life. And you may notice (by the tell-tale conspicuous white lump of a sewing machine) that the craft table is now hiding behind the sofa. I dislike that the beautiful pink legs can not be seen and admired by all, but I do like the freedom that gives me to put some craft storage under the table unseen.

And that's all for now!  I will be covering those two red pillows and some other pillows with recent fabric purchases and will show and tell when I'm done.

More Sneaks

ere's a sneek of the new mantle color. Well, not mantle color, whatever the wall around the mantle is called. The olive green is from my inspiration fabric. Someday, I'll have a pillow cover made out of it.... when I can discipline myself to sit down and finish it.

See the wall color in the background? We're still in the living room and that's as close as I could get to "Abercrombie Gray"...
They use an elusive perfect gray in their stores that I've admired for some time. You may recall that I took some paint chips into an Abercrombie a few months ago. Well, there it is, the closest I could get. My hubby says we need to turn the lights down, spray his Fierce cologne everywhere and play music really, really loudly and then look at the paint color for the full effect.

This is a sneak of the kitchen. There's not really anything that needs to be done as far as painting or decorating to show you the whole thing, but it's just a disorganized mess right now.
I'm liking this simple fall trio. Of course, the pumpkin is the only fall aspect. I like the idea of the neutral scheme year round. Keep the candles and switch out the third object for a neutral season or holiday themed item. Good plan! I like it!

This is how many of the curtain rods in the house look right now... empty. Curtains are not my strong point. And they happen to be very expensive, so I'm at a halt right now and these rings will be naked for a little while longer.

My Craft Table

he craft table is finished and in the sunroom. As you can see, I need to figure out where that lovely brown box full of fabrics is going to go. I am having no inspiration whatsoever for an organaizational solution that's easy on the eyes.

I experimented with the table top finish. I had just about 1/5 of the sample size paint jar left after two coats. Not enough for another coat, but enough to feel like it would be wasted if I didn't use it. I bought some discontinued pearlized color samples from Benjamin Moore for 99 cents a while back and decided to mix one of those with the rest of the paint. Then I used a big bristly old brush and dry-brushed the mixture over the whole table top. It looks like the striations on a seashell to me. I like how the pearlized paint just catches the light as if the paint is still wet. I'll be experimenting with pearlized paint more in the future.

Sneaks

Before (a little armoire for my 2-year-old's "Vintage Cupcake" themed room):

After the Before, but not done yet:

My craft table (YES CRAFT TABLE!!! I've never had a dedicated craft space, so I'm pretty pee-in-my-pants excited...) mid-paint job, but you can imagine the before by just imagining that awesome pine color all over:

My hubby agreed that I could use pink as an accent color in the sunroom and I am really happy about that.  I was concerned it would be too girly for him, but he just said, "I'm not afraid of pink."  Awesome.

This pink paint is Martha Stewart's Sugared Pink Pansy and it sure is yummy looking.  I was just plain happy the whole time I was painting this afternoon.

More to come!