It's Show & Tell Friday! Be sure to visit Mary's blog for more great Show & Tell's!
I actually have something to share today! Several days ago, I made the girls matching 4th of July jumpers. Well, except Julianna. I purchased a dress for her on Etsy. Since her birthday is on the 4th of July, I wanted something a little extra special. The Etsy seller did an awesome job and I am very pleased. But you'll have to wait till I get pictures of Julianna in it before you get to see her dress. :)
I don't have a sewing room or any kind of room that I can leave things like my sewing machine out and ready to go. It's a bit of a pain to start a sewing project since I have to drag everything out and set it up. And I usually have to get out my manual and figure out how things go since so much time elapses between projects. So Millie's dress took a LONG time to complete. I probably worked 12 hours on her dress. (argh!) I sewed Gracie's the next day and because I had left everything out and I was familiar with the pattern by that time, it only took 6 hours to sew Gracie's. I wish I was the type that could just whip something like this out in an hour or two. But nope.
I also crocheted some beads onto socks for Julianna. Those took about an hour to do.
Here are the girls' dresses. I just loved the fabric but it ended up being tricky to cut the pattern out since it can only go in one direction.
(they've been on my dresser! I should've ironed them before I took these pics!)
And here are Julianna's socks!
Thanks for stopping by!
(added for Mary :) How To Make Beaded Socks
This is the only thing I know how to crochet so my directions may not be super clear. If you don't know how to crochet at all, you don't need to know a whole lot to make these socks. They are super easy! Believe me, if I can make these, you can too! Here's a video on YouTube that explains how to make a chain: http://tinyurl.com/nynmkh Here's what you need:
a pair of socks with a ribbed cuff (obviously :)
crochet thread or a very thin yarn (thin enough to slide beads onto)
beads
crochet hook
hot glue gun (optional)
Here's what to do:
The first thing you need to do is pull a long piece of the yarn or thread from the skein (do not cut it!) and string your beads. You'll need at least 30 beads. I used 33 beads and these socks are size 18 months. You want to err on the side of having too many rather than too few, because you'll have to cut your yarn/thread to add some more if you run out.
Next, make a slip knot onto your crochet hook. (like she does at the beginning of the video above)
Leave your sock the way it would look if you were wearing it, right side out with the cuff folded down. Starting at the back of the sock, slip your crochet needle with the slip knot attached behind the cuff (so that you won't see the knot) & poke your needle through the cuff and away from the sock about 1/8 to 1/4" above the edge of the cuff.
Begin the basic chains from there. I did 2 chains down, slide up a bead, 2 more chains, slide up another bead, two more chains, slide up another bead, two more chains and then repeat the part where you poke the needle through the rib of the sock (from behind the cuff, away from the sock). I counted 3 ribs in between to make it even. You can vary the number of beads per loop, chains, etc.
When you get all the way around the sock, you have to knot it off. I cannot explain how I do this very well and I don't even know if I'm doing it right. But I cut the thread/yarn, poke it through the cuff so that the knot is not visible, slide the yarn through the slip knot and then knot it a couple more times with the tail end of the beginning stitch. Here you can hot glue the knots to make them more secure (we don't want babies pulling off the beads and putting them in their mouths!).
I can actually participate in a Show & Tell! Yay for me! Hee-hee! Although my contribution isn't anything fancy or exciting like the posts I've seen from a lot of you (Shani's beautiful crocheted afghans or Antoinette's beautiful horses...).
My Show & Tell? I made the girls' nightgowns- you will see them wearing them in the video below. This pattern was a size 5/6. Millie was preoccupied when I needed her to try hers on, so I had Gracie slip it over her head. I couldn't believe how well it fit Gracie! (she's 9!) So I decided not to bother making Gracie's in HER size and just let her have that one. I made another for Millie, but had to take in the sleeves and hem a bit. It's still HUGE on her. Oh well, here they are. And the girls have a special ballet performance for you. I don't think anyone has ever done a ballet to Shalom Aleicham in the history of this world. And I don't know who was more entertaining... the boys or the girls? You decide.
Argh! Video quality is poor. I think you can see them better here, another video I posted a few days ago. (aka Canadagirl
Our house is different. It's 3 levels but is not 3 stories. If you came to my front door, you'd enter what we call the "main level". On this level is my laundry room, living room, kitchen, dining room, shoe/game/coat/misc. closet and a half bathroom- the "guest" bathroom.
From the main level, you could go down half a flight of stairs to our basement, although it doesn't seem very basement-y to me. It has a huge picture window, a door that leads outside, a HUGE storage closet (big enough that we could almost turn it into a very small bedroom), our family room/toy room/computer room/school room. This is where we spend most of our time.
Now if you went upstairs from our main level, you'd find our bedrooms and two bathrooms, one of which is "our" bathroom in the master bedroom. The other bathroom is the "children's" bathroom. Company rarely uses that one so it's theirs.
The children's bathroom has been my least favorite room ever since we moved here. It had a grandma-ish floral print wallpaper on the lower half of the wall with an ugly, drab grayish blue blah paint on the top half of the wall. I've wanted to change that room forever.
Here are some pictures I took of that bathroom not too long after we moved in here.
A close-up of the wallpaper/wall color:
Blah. Doesn't look like a children's bathroom at all.
Here's one taken further back:
Notice the glass shelves? There isn't much on them in this photo, but that's where we've stored the hooded towels, washcloths and some of the children's smaller towels. It always looked so messy.
So my goal for the children's bathroom was to make it BRIGHT and CHEERY and to make it LOOK like a CHILD'S bathroom. However, I will admit, that once Kenton got the first coat of paint on the walls I began to wonder about my choice in colors. But once he put on 2 or 3 coats and then started getting some things put back in place- like the toilet, the baseboard, the chair railing and the cabinet that replaced those glass shelves, it started to look SO much better! In fact, I LOVE how their bathroom turned out! It's exactly what I wanted it to be- bright and cheery and child-friendly!
Here's the bathroom now, with the new cabinet, towels, paint, etc:
The sink area:
Another angle:
Bathtub area:
Okay, and I'll sneak one of me and my BIG ol' 25 week along (at the time) preggo belly. Please ignore my hair- I had just gotten out of the shower prior to taking these (I did blow dry my bangs anyway):
Accessories:
One more view:
Do you like it? I like it SOOOO much better!
And that concludes my Home Makeover series.... for now.
