Pop-up Shop in NE Minneapolis

If you are in the Twin Cities area, be sure to stop in at the pop-up shop.  We'll have aprons, ironing board covers, oven mitts and towels, as well as a few other items not available in the shop.  I stopped in yesterday and Tara from A Day in Provence is transforming the wonderful studio space into a beautiful shop, I couldn't believe all the colors and fun things. I have my eye on a pink high chair from Amanda, I think little Lucy would approve =)

There will be lots of things to do with Art-A-Whirl going on, check it out!

Color in the Sewing Room

It is April 11th and it is snowing.  It's just not fair. 

So instead of looking outside, let's look at the colors in the sewing room.  

Hopefully that will cheer you up if Spring isn't outside your door yet.

Let there be cake!

We enjoyed a beautiful (and delicious!) cake that Country Mouse brought for Easter.  Lucy's first Easter! I didn't get a great picture of her showing her whole outfit (regretting that!), but she looked like the cutest little Easter egg (it had pretty stripes on the bottom).  I don't normally have her in dresses, but she was so darn cute in this I think she might be wearing more during summer. 

Guess we should put that on our sewing to-do list! Anyone have suggestions for some cute patterns or tutorials for girls? We'd appreciate your suggestions!

This week we are working on putting together something special for the shop for your Mother''s Day shopping.  We hope to have things in the shop before the end of the week. We'll announce it on our Facebook page, so if you want to be the first to know be sure to check out our page.  

Warmest Spring wishes to you! xoxo

Maggie Rabbit

Just had to share this sweet little rabbit with you. When Alicia from Posie Gets Cozy announced she would have a kit for this sweet little rabbit, we knew we had to order one for Miss Lucy. It arrived just in time for Country Mouse's weekend visit and we couldn't wait to start!

And here is Missy Lucy meeting Maggie Rabbit for the first time....we think they'll be great friends!

Can you believe she is almost 8 months old?! 

Valentine Bib Tutorial

One of our goals for the new year is to sew something for ourselves (ahem...baby Lucy) at least once a month. The girl is constantly drooling and quite a messy eater so we go through lots of bibs! And of course we take lots of pictures of her eating because is there really anything cuter than a baby with food on her face? So we need lots of bibs and want them to be extra cute for all of the pictures. It only makes sense that we would try to make some!

We kept it pretty simple because the little girl still sometimes only naps for a half hour and it's a bit difficult to focus on anything complicated in that short time frame.  If you want to get fancy you could embroider the front or do an appliqué.  

Materials you'll need:

• 12 x 12 fabric (front)
• 12 x 12 fabric (back - we used chenille for ours)
• 2 - 15 inch long ribbons
• bib template - you can download ours here: Bib Pattern (let me know if this doesn't work - this is the first time I've used a pdf on the blog).

Optional:

• lightweight double sided interfacing (if appliquéing)
• embroidery floss and needle (if embroidering)
• disappearing ink marker (to draw your embroidery design)

Step one: to cut a heart shape out of your front fabric.  If you are using ours, just fold your fabric in half and cut out the heart shape. This would be the time to embroider or appliqué something on the front if you choose to do so.

Step two: pin your ribbons for the ties on the right side of your front fabric.  Stitch in place.

Step three: Lay your backing fabric (ours is chenille) right side up. Lay your front fabric right side down and pin the ribbons to the side so they don't get caught when your stitch around the perimeter of the heart. Pin in place and leave about a three inch opening for turning (where your pinned the ribbon ends).

Step four: Stitch around the perimeter using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Trim, turn (you can carefully pull the ribbons to help turn), press and then top stitch around the entire bib to close the opening.

Once you start, it's hard to stop, they are so quick to make and very forgiving if you have a lot of interruptions - such as a baby that will only take short naps!

And you can't see it in these pictures, but guess who got her first tooth?!

Sewing for the New Year!

It's been quite some time since our last post! Time really does go by so much faster when a baby comes along. It's been six months since baby Lucy arrived and our lives changed (for the better!).  

I'm not going to lie and pretend everything was rosy and wonderful....the first three months were much harder than I could have imagined - anyone else experience a colicky baby?  Our "unhappy" hour was from about 4pm - 7pm every evening (lots of crying!).  Our coping method was to go outside for long walks, because being outside with a screaming baby is much better than being inside.  And thank goodness for grandma (Country Mouse) - lots of help with cooking, cleaning and holding a crying baby.

Luckily, Lucy has grown into a happy (and most importantly healthy) 6 month old. She is growing and changing every day. At the moment she loves to practice her newest noise - screeching! It's a lovely thing to have her practice when we go out to eat :) Oh and her laugh, it's the cutest....really nothing compares to a baby laughing, such a sweet sound.

One of our goals for the new year is to sew a few things for ourselves (well, let's be honest - mostly for baby Lucy!).  And we plan to share those projects here on our blog. Here's a little peek at something in progress on our messy craft table:

We'll be back with more soon, we promise it won't be so long in between posts! Happy New Year!