Stop staring and start sewing!

I'm done in the bathroom (it's a remodel silly!)

Finally!  The bathroom is 100% finished and it is a beautiful sight to behold.  Here are the before and after pictures so you can appreciate the difference with me!

This was taken after Joey ripped up the nasty, godawful wood floors that we had in there.  The wood was better than the original carpet (in a KID'S bathroom, ack!) but just marginally.  Joey has become quite adept at tile laying and he had a lot of "help" this time.  Oh, and that is not a naked child there (he's only 1/2 naked).

In my fantasy bathroom I'd have removed the closet on the left and installed a vanity with 2 sinks but that's a huge project and this was enough to tackle.  Check out the beautiful white cabinet now!

It was like a cave in there.  I didn't take into consideration the fact that there is no window to bring some light in when I picked that brown paint.  I was trying to please my, then 4 year old, oldest son who complained about it being like a "girls room".  Hence the dark colors and denim-ish shower curtain.  Now he can just learn how to live in a woman's world because I'm not painting anything dark again.

I removed the door for this shot but I love this wall and wanted to show the whole thing.

Here's a view from the other direction.  I painted the doors and trim a fresh pure white to match everything else.  They were off white before (and quite grubby).

I had a heck of a time finding something for the wall above the toilet until I saw this clock at Target and said "Duh!". 

The whole process took just about one month from start to finish.

So, here's the cost run down:

Tile - 0.00 (we bought it years ago and so I'm not counting it)

Mortar, Sealant, floor boards - 25.00

Spray paint for chandelier - 0.00  (already had it)

Wainscoting - 40.00 (with lots left for another project)

Pear colored paint - 34.00

White paint - 30.00 (with lots left over)

White primer - 5.00 (on "oops paint" shelf, score!)

Knobs for vanity - 6.00

Clock - 4.00

Towels - 10.00

Towel hooks - 13.00

 

Total - 167.00

 

Joy, relief, happines - Priceless.

 

Towel Tab Tutorial (Truly!)

I took the towel bars out of my house the first week we lived here.  I hate them.  The moment I brought my first baby home my towels ceased to hang evenly so, rather than continually harping at my kids about one more thing, I stopped fighting it and found a great alternate.  Hooks.  Or knobs.  Or hooks with knobs!

The one drawback is the fact that a towel can easily slip off hooks or knobs so I started sewing hanging tabs on them a few years back and now my life is near perfect.  I usually sew this with a decorative twill tape but couldn't find any that I liked this time so I just used the shower curtain fabric and now everything matches and looks cute to boot.

 

So here's another tutorial but this one is super quick and requires just a tiny amount of fabric.  

For each towel cut a piece of fabric 6 inches by 2 inches.  Fold in half, lengthwise (and right sides together), and stitch the open side closed using a 1/4" seam allowance.  Turn your fabric tube right side out and press well, making sure your seam is right down the middle.

Sew an edge stitch down each side.  This will help it keep it's shape even after laundering.

Fold the towel in half on the long side and put a pin in marking the center.  Measure 2.75 inches away from the center and stitch one end of your tab down with the seam up.  Stitch forward and backward once and be sure to backstitch so it stays secure.

Now flip your tab over toward the center and stitch at the previously stitched end making sure you stitch out just far enough so your raw edge is completely hidden.

 

Now repeat these two steps on the opposite side of the center pin.  You'll have to scrunch your towel up for this part but just take your time and it'll be perfect.

 

Snip your threads and hang up your towel.  Now you have a pretty, practical solution to an age old problem (uneven towel hangage, ugh!) and you'll no longer be covering up your pretty new towel hooks!

Let me know if you try it!  Thanks for all the sweet comments regarding the progress on my bathroom.  I have one more thing to finish (the molding behind the toilet) and them I'm done.  Yippy!

Thank you Craft Gossip!

Going green (bright green!)

I'm so close to having my bathroom finished and I wanted to show off the piece de resistance.   This chandelier has changed everything in the room.  The lighting has always been lame even when all the bulbs were working (which was a rarity since the second I changed one bulb one of the others seemed to go out within a day).

We took this chandelier out of one of the kids room (she wants a ceiling fan so it was fine) so I didn't have to buy anything but the accessories and I already had the spray paint.  Joey made about 6 trips up into the crawl space to install the light box and then adjust and re-adjust until it was just right.

We were trying to find a way to make it look clean and finished when I happened upon this glorious medallion at Home Depot.  It looked perfect with the canopy kit we were already holding (which Joey loved because it had all the parts already in it so he could put it all together neatly and easily (we were already on our second try with the installation).  A couple quick coats of paint and we were good to go.

 

Beautiful twinkles.

 

I put a lot of effort into the prep work for painting it (little 4 year old hand just couldn't stay out of the picture).  I just cut up some napkins into strips and wrapped all the "chrystals" into the strips of paper.  I'm a sucker for good prep work since I've had to clean up too many messes after the fact (whether sewing or doing any other project).  It always pays to take your time up front.

Here's a picture with my new shower curtain.  A few more finishing touches and I'm ready for the big reveal (including some nasty before pictures).



Happy Monday!  Have a wonderful week!

A peek at my bath re-do (and a ruffled shower curtain tutorial!)

I'm almost done with the kid's bath re-do and it's so pretty that I won't let them poop in there.  Find another bathroom Bucko.  But I'm so crazy about the shower curtain I couldn't wait to share it.  I used my new Denyse Schmidt DS Quilt fabric and I'm madly in love.  I actually forgot to buy a little extra of the main fabric (ran into a friend and starting chatting when it was being cut) which necessitated adding a coordinating fabric at the top and, as usually happens when you have to improvise, it turned out better than my original idea.

 

I've wanted a ruffled shower curtain for a long time (ever since I first saw this one at Anthropologie) but I didn't want it to be too ruffly and heavy looking.  I made this over the course of 2 days and I love it!  Love it (I mean it)!

I thought some of you crafty seamsters might want to try this so I've put together a ruffled shower curtain tutorial in pdf format.  You can download it and save it and if you make one please be sure to add it to my flickr group.

Just click here to download the pdf file.



I hope you're having a great week and finding some time to sew.  I've got a couple more (awesome!) details to add to the bathroom and I'm crossing my fingers that Hobby Lobby has a sale on their drawer pulls really soon here (because I picked out some cute ones).  Back soon!

The age of enlightenment (I got new lights!)

We've been continuing with our little home spruce ups here and I wanted to share one of the most important improvements....lights over my sewing machines!  This has made such a huge difference in here and now I can sit down in the evening and get stuff done without squinting.  We picked these up at IKEA for around 20.00 each.  Joey climbed up in the crawlspace and installed them and I think he's awesome.  He also replaced my ceiling fan with a nice fixture.  The fan was silly because it just blew my pattern pieces everywhere and made me crazy.  Things are better now.

We're in the middle of a major rehaul of the kids bathroom (a most repugnant space) and I think this one's going to be nearly life changing.  I'll have a huge reveal soon but I'll share a picture of some of the fabrics I'm using for the shower curtain and my new wall color (it's Pear in the Behr Ultra, my favorite paint). 

I finally gave in and ran down to Joann for some of the new Denyse Schmidt fabric after mulling it over for 2 tormenting days.  As a fabric store owner it does not please me to see the major designers creating stuff for the big chain store but I completely understand and applaud it from the designers perspective (I think a lot of us would jump on the gravy train if it pulled up in front of our house right now).  When I reminded myself that I sell fabric because I love fabric I then abandoned my principles and made a mad dash to get some before everyone else realized they had it in stock.  No regrets here.

Great weekend here so far!  We had our Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild meeting here today and it was a nice, relaxing time to chat and stitch and share a few chuckles.  Such talented women!  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend too!

It's art!

I don't consider myself a "crafter" at all (I sew, and I'm okay with it) but I fell in love with this artwork on Pinterest (I'm trying to find where it originated, got it!) and was inspired.  I took an old bible (I don't mean "old" like Guttenberg old, I mean "old" like worn pages and sitting on the shelf gathering dust and never being used so don't judge me...) and we set to work with the x-acto knife.

I got some 11 x 17 canvases on sale at Michael's and some Mod Podge and we covered the canvases with the bible pages and slathered Mod Podge over the top.

 

Everybody got in on the action and it really was a lot of messy fun.

I had each of the kids paint their own design over the top of the canvas once it was dry.  I gave them each the same colors to work with so they would coordinate while still being different.

I put them up in my bedroom and I love my new wall (it's been bare forever)!  It's fun to see how each of the kids expressed their personalities and now I have motivation to keep from using this table as a place to stack my un-folded clothes.

It's Friday!  Have a great weekend!

I'm gonna get you Seersucka!

I found this super basic black and white seersucker print at Joann's (on sale for 3.99 yd) and couldn't pass on it.  It's nothing fancy and that's exactly why I love it.  I made the mistake of putting it in the wash with my white jersey sheet set and now I have a blue jersey sheet set (which I actually like better!).  It washed out the white in the fabic too so I'm going to try one of those color catchers when I wash it to see if it will brighten the white up.

I used Simplicity 2593, which I reviewed in a recent post.  It's a blouse pattern but I thought I would try it as a dress and I'm glad I did.  I added 22 inches to the length and flared it out starting just under the waistline.

I added two 6" casings just under the bust and stitched a tie in each side so I could cinch the front up.  I love the subtle diaganol bias design on the binding and casings (makes it just a little bit more interesting).

Here's a bit of a side view.  It's a little to poofy in the boob area so I'll try to work on that on my next try but all in all I'm very happy with it.  I try to move the gathers to the sides so that it doesn't look too much like a maternity dress in the front.  It's nice and breezy and will serve me well this summer.

I hope you're having a great week and getting some sewing done!  Let me know if you're working on anything new!

Dinner with cool people...and a pattern review to boot

Well it's been awhile since I promised I would share this dress review and tell you who I had dinner with and I'm finally coming clean with everything.  Joey and I were fortunate enough to be invited by the Bailey's to dinner with Jo Packham and boy was I thrilled.  She was so much fun and I was overjoyed when I got there and the chair next to her was empty (score!).  And if that wasn't enough, we were joined with Summer Bellessa from Eliza Magazine and Girls With Glasses and her husband Kerry.  I have to confess I finally impressed my oldest daughter with the whole Eliza Magazine name drop (my children do not appreciate my name dropping so it was great to get a reaction finally!).  And to make it even better, we were also joined by Diane and Wendy who own Melrose Vintage, a local store that specializes in Shabby Chic decor (they were the nicest and I need to pay them a visit!).

I knew I needed something new to wear and I'd been meaning to make this dress using Butterick 5130 for quite some time.  I first saw the dress here  and here (via Pattern Review) and instantly loved it.  She does a wonderful review so I'm not going to repeat it all here (it's worth looking at, as is the rest of her blog).  I was able to track down a pattern on ebay since it is, sadly, out of print. 

I made the size 12 dress (once again ignoring the pattern advice and dropping down a size) and it's a perfect, comfortable fit. I did take her advice on adding to the bottom of the bodice (for the more "mature" figure, yes) but I added 1" instead of the 5/8" she recommends because I was feeling very mature after looking at her picture.  It worked out to be perfect.

She altered her dress by adding another row of elastic which was such a nice improvement.  But then I saw this version here where the cute, little, skinny (and not "mature") gal added two extra rows and I liked that even better so I did that (using the alteration tutorial from the Very Prairie blog).  My rows aren't evenly spaced but I don't care.  I still love it.  The pattern calls for 3 3/4" yards of 1/4" elastic but because of the two extra rows I ended up using 5 1/2 yards of it for the whole dress (oodles of elastic all over the place in this dress, but not complicated really).

 

I took care to make sure the sleeves weren't tight because that drives me nuts.

It took about 4.5 hours to make the dress (basically in one sitting) and I tried to be as careful as possible because the knit fabric curls if you stretch it and then it's such a pain to sew with it.  I was keeping my fingers crossed (figurativley speaking since it would've been tricky to sew that way) because you can't try this dress on as your sewing along.  All the elastic goes in near the end of the project and I didn't have a back-up outfit planned for our special dinner-out-with-cool-people.  I finished it with less than an hour to go before we left and it really looked big and saggy.  I steamed the elastic like crazy to get it to contract back after all that stretching and then put the dress on.  Perfect!

I really love this dress!  I love the charcoal grey color because it lets the details of the dress show nicely and I love how comfortable it is.  Next time I will make it a little bit longer (the version on the pattern is pretty short and I had already added around 4"), but all in all I give it a big thumbs up.

I'm definitely making it again and will try to add a built in lining to the skirt.  I'll also go easy on myself and do it in more than one sitting.  Have a great week!