Lately I have been bitten by the crafting bug. I have a ton of project ideas in my head that I want to get done. Also my late night web searching of craft blogs have given me a crap load of bookmarked projects that are going to be perfect for Virginia. St. Patrick's Day was the perfect reason for me to do a few sewing projects.Like always I waited til the last minute to find a cute St. Patrick's Day shirt for Virginia. I guess Target doesn't believe in selling St. Patrick's Day shirts a week before the holiday. The shirts I saw at Walmart were just not what I wanted my little girl wearing. So I got a wild hair and decided to make my own. I knew I wanted work with felt and wanted a design of a pot of gold with a rainbow.So I searched the web for a picture to reference and made a trip to AC Moore for supplies. Once I had everything I got home and started to make my game plan. Of course I waited about two days before the St. Patrick's Day party to make the shirt. I used a pink shirt from AC Moore. I wanted a green shirt, but they were out. In the end the pink worked out better. I had never worked with felt or sewed with it either so I called my good sewing buddy Susan Roberts for advice. She told me the right way of doing things, but of course I went about things a little different. I didn't have any fabric glue so I knew I had to come up with a different solution.First I blew up my image to the size I needed. Next I cut out each shape from the felt. Once I had all my shapes cut out I laid them out on the shirt. This way I could see what I needed to sew first. I started with the rainbow. Since the rainbow was made up of different colored strips. I hand sewed the bottom part of each strip. That way they would stay still once I started to sew on the machine. At least I had hoped they would stay still. I found out quickly that felt moves alot. So next step was to hand sew the top part of the rainbow.A problem arose when I started to sew on the machine that the rainbow was starting to arch up. A quick fix come to mind and I grabbed the scotch tape from the kitchen and just taped down the strips after I ripped the top seams open. So I sewed on the machine and slowly took off the tape as I went up the rainbow. I decided to sew lines horizontal all the way up. It gave the shirt a quilted look.Next I did the pot and then the gold. Last I decided to hand sew on a four leaf clover. It looked more like a small green ink spot. I just had no luck in cutting out a nice four leaf clover. The whole shirt came out great and Virginia was in love with it.St. Patrick's Day came and I realized I didn't have anything green for Virginia to wear. She had a strip of green in her shirt, but I really wanted green pants for her. I searched the web and ended up on my favorite craft blog MADE. First I thought I would make a skirt for Virginia, but I just didn't like the fabric I had on hand. But I saw a tutorial on how to make pants and I thought this would be perfect since it was a little windy outside. Again I wasn't sure about the fabrics I had laying around.Then the light bulb went off in my head. I could use one of Reiggin's old shirts. I looked though his closet and found the perfect long sleeves cotton shirt. It was a little thick, but not to thick that it would make her hot. Crossing my fingers that it wasn't one of his favorite shirts. I am pretty sure it wasn't since I have not seen him wear it in like three years. Slowly I will get rid of the 300 shirts he has in our closet.I was nervous about sewing pants at first. This was my first attempt at pants and my past attempts at making Virginia clothes have not been the best. Luckily MADE had a pattern that was just Virginia's size. So I printed out the pattern and taped it together. I laid the pattern out on Reiggin's shirt and used my fabric pen and cut the front and back pieces out. Since I was using a shirt, when I cut I already had both the front two pieces and back two pieces cut at at once.The tutorial was simple and clear cut. I love tutorials that are like that and that have great photos to follow along with. I am a visual person and photos help me out alot. Also sense I am still learning my sewing terms. I was thrilled with the end product, the pants fit perfect. I did a little happy dance around the apartment and we were off to Chick Fil A to celebrate. This gives me hope that I will get better at making more clothes for Virginia this spring and summer. Who knows maybe I will even make something for myself.Side note I did make a sweet bowling shirt this week as well. My bowling team decided to all wear green. Well knowing me you all know I could just wear a simple green shirt. I had to do things the hard way and I knitted a design on the back of a green shirt of a strike scene. It was time consuming and I knocked it out in one day just in time to wear to bowling. It gave me good luck and we won 2 of the 3 games. And I was above average on all three games, I had a 140, 143, and a 148.Next on my crafting agenda is a easter skirt for Virginia and a fishing hole for her to play with. On the back burner is a super hero cape. I believe I will be keeping busy for a bit. But I love to see what I can create.Here are a few pictures from the St. Patrick's Day Party.
