Sewing projects--frugal dresses and gifts :)

Ok, I just wanted to do this quick post to show pictures of what I've been doing the past 2 days. Bailey came up yesterday and since we really want to do a t-shirt quilt (or 4), but neither of us have ever done one, we decided to start small. While we were up in Dallas this weekend (more on that to come in a future post), my friend Jen had made and sent our friends Justin and Ashley this adorable baby doll quilt. So on our way home on Sunday, I text/emailed/harassed her and said, TELL ME HOW YOU DID THAT! :) Besides it being a great gift idea for little girls, it's a teeny tiny way to try all the quilting steps!! So she sent me this link for a sew-along! Great, another blog to read....oh well! So I sat and looked at it Monday evening while the kids were in bed. And I linked off it to other things and other things and now my mind is racing with all the things I want to try to sew!! I mean, why did I put my sewing machine up after I made the cute superman/batman capes??? Making them reminded me how much I like sewing, and how much better at it I am now than a couple years ago! :)

Ok, so we went to a few stores (with a few coupons) :) and got some essentials. Rotary cutter and mat, some fat quarters for each of our baby doll quilts (which, hers is going to be a puppy blanket for her 3.5 pound toy yorkie!). Let me start by saying, Bailey has never sewn!! :) She tried once...it wasn't pretty :). So, we started by ironing. I started, then got bored and she finished. I started cutting the squares, then got bored and she finished (see a trend) :). Anyways, she did however bring up this brown bag that she wanted to add ribbon to. So I did that while she finished cutting, and of course I took a picture, because I was so stinking proud of myself! I've never done anything like that, on my machine, that turned out that well!!

Anyways, since Bailey doesn't have a machine at her house, we started on her quilt. We layed out both of ours, then she started piecing hers together. I went over the VERY basics on how to use the machine, and later she said, "this is the day your taught your sister how to sew." Haha, I didn't really think I did much, but she was doing great!! Here's Bailey hard at work:

Here's her top part pieced together.

I started once she left, and it was so much fun!! Here's my top part pieced together. As you can see in the picture from my last post, I hand embroidered a name on it. It was my first time doing that. And it's not so great, but if you don't look close it's ok :). I've got it all ready to do the machine quilting part, which I'm petrified of!! I've been looking at tutorials online, but I'm just not ready to jump in.

But I wanted to keep sewing, so what did I do?? I went to Katy Christian Ministries resale shop tonight and found two cute pillow cases for $.50 each. I came home and made this:

I used this and this and this tutorial. Eric helped pick out the fabric for the ties. He wanted me to tell you that on the blog...haha. I thought it turned out pretty good for my first time. Not a bad little dress for $.50. I had everything else already at home (the ribbon was scrapbook supplies, the ties were leftover scraps of fabric from the quilt, and I already had the elastic!).

I promise to post pictures of Cara'a party, the Dallas weekend, and other things asap! And I will post a separate post in just a few minutes about Micah Man!! :)