DIY handmade Christmas ornament: Christmas Tree!

For last week's Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we had a handmade Christmas ornament exchange.  I put mine together at the last minute in about 20 minutes the night before with scraps from my sewing stash.  It's a double sided scrappy Christmas tree! It was a super easy project, and I'm happy with the way it turned out... here are some basic steps (sorry, no photos - I was in a rush to get it finished!):

1. Cut out triangles for the tree.  I cut out 3 green triangles for the front, and 3 orange triangles for the back.  I just eyeballed the green set, and then made the orange set match in size.  I also cut out two little brown scraps for the tree trunk.

 2. Arrange the triangles and tree trunk of each side and fuse it all at the same time to fusible fleece.

3.  With the wrong sides together, zig zag around each triangle and the tree trunk.  I also inserted the ends of a bit of ribbon I had lying around into the top point of the tree.

Voila! 

Easy Kimono Dress from Pattern Runway

I just finished sewing up a new dress!  I chose the Easy Kimono Dress from Pattern Runway after searching around on Etsy, and I love that I'm supporting another independent pattern designer. 

Overall, I love this dress! I found a fun, silky print to sew it with, and I'm super happy with how it turned out.   It will pretty much match everything, and I can dress it up or down. I chose to sew it in a size medium, and apparently I underestimated the girth of my hips... cause it's a bit more snug down there than I would have liked.  It definitely won't influence how much I think I'll be wearing this dress since I just love it! I already have some fabric lined up to sew another dress, and I'll probably make the skirt portion just a wee bit larger.  

This dress took me 3 evenings to create, and the hardest part by far was cutting out the pieces because the fabric kept wanting to shift around! I haven't sewn with silky fabric like this before, but I used a new microtex sharp needle (size 70/10), pinned liberally, and it went just swimmingly.  It was hard to press, since the fabric didn't really want to crease.  I suppose that's good news, so I won't have to deal with wrinkles when I wear it!

pleated tote photos

I thought I'd share some pictures of bags that I stumbled upon on Aimee's blog! The pattern featured is my Pleated Tote pattern.

She did such a great job mixing and matching fabrics, and I'm so impressed that she's already sewn 10 of this bag!  I think my favorite is the green one :)

my lovely pattern testers

Several weeks ago, I put a call out on the interweb for some pattern testers for my brand new sewing pattern - the Zippy Bag.  I was amazed by the enthusiastic responses!  They graced me with lovely photos and inspired me with their creativity.  Isn't it funny how different the same bag can look when everyone chooses their own unique fabrics?  Love it! Here's a few photos for your enjoyment, along with the names of the testers who sewed them....

Ashley's lovely black, white, and yellow purse

Juanita's "Fine Whiner" purse - ha!

Juanita was ambitious and made two purses!

Maria from miacreates.blogspot.com made this beautiful bag with a leather strap!

Nancy's bag makes me think of pink lemonade... mmm...

Shannon's bag reminds me that fall is just around the corner!

Judith's colorful purse - this would go with just about any outfit!

Judy made this gorgeous Asian inspired bag.

Kim's bag - love the fabric combination!