Learning to Knit

My first "real" attempt; I'm not counting my  initial learning bits.

 Rebekah and I took a Beginning Knitting class this past month, and along with the other two ladies in that class, we've decided to take a knit-a-cowl class in August.  Knitting is one of the few skills my grandmother couldn't teach me as a child, so I'm kind of excited to be learning it now.  Even more exciting is that Brandon is staying home with the girls during these classes, so I'm getting the opportunity to get out of the house and spend some time with other adults.

Happy First Birthday, Cecelia!

I made another cute little smocked dress for my "niece" Cecelia, this time in yellow gingham. Now that she has it, I can post it!!

 
She's promised me pictures of her wearing the dress, I'll try to post them when I get them.

Pillow Re-Do

Before

 I didn't particularly care for the pillows that came with our couch set, especially since they matched nothing in my house.  I've been wanting to re-do them for as long as we've had them. I've been going through my crafts stores recently, and found the perfect  thing among the fabrics that Mommom gave me while we were in Alabama last year.  The only problem was that it was a sheer netted fabric, and I needed something to go with it.  I went with Rebekah and the girls to JoAnn's the other day, and scored some brown/beige lining fabric exactly the color of my couches on clearance for just $2 a yard.  Happy dance!  

After

The original pillows were only wonky on the front; they were backed with the same material as the couch, so all I had to do was to take the old ones apart, set aside the front piece, use the back piece as a pattern to cut out the new fabric, and sew it all back together.

Awesome, right?  I now have two professional-looking pillows which exactly match our couch set AND the other decor in the room.  Thank you, thank you Mommom, for the fabric!!

In my sewing frenzy, I've started on curtains for our back door, but the fabric is such a nightmare that I can only stand to work on them a little at a time.  I've now been ignoring them completely for 2 days.  Instead, I pulled out that big blue "mermaid" purse I made last spring and tweaked it.  I'd decided that I didn't like the zipper I put on it because it made the top awkwardly stiff, and I'd made the shoulder strap without any interfacing and it was entirely too floppy.

So I got rid of the zipper and replaced it with just a loop-and-button closure, and remade the shoulder strap with interfacing.  Then I made a matching pouch to go with it.

Now they will live in the spare room closet until Christmas time.