From an oversized Goodwill buy to an adorable Thanksgiving outfit!
It all began innocently enough. An e-mail saying “Such a cute costume that I think you could get away with as a Sunday outfit” with a link to a sweet little cape tutorial. I happened to show it to my girls. Before I knew it, they were digging through our cupboard looking for the perfect material.
Within a week, and very little help from me, each girl had a new cape. Each cape reflects their owner’s personality! Audrey used fleece because it is soft and snuggly. The reverse is bright and playful. Andrea’s cape is “satin” with long bow ties to show off the contrasting inside. Megan’s cape is made with pink denim and colorful hearts in easy to wash material.
Now the girls have capes that they use for church and for dressing up. Thank you Lilly for the idea!
In 2009, I started teaching Mark and Andrea how to sew 9 Patch squares. We planned to make a Memory Quilt using denim that we had salvaged from old jeans. They helped me sew about 12 squares. This week I finally was able to work on putting appliqués on the first square!
Everyone had their hand traced on a material that means something. Megan’s hand is the purple of last years Easter dresses. The orange is for Tigger, which Mark and Adrian both love. The pink hand is Andrea’s favorite color. Allan and Mark’s hands were traced on scraps from Great Grandma Reble’s shirts. My hand is done from a leftover piece from our wedding. It is intertwined with Allan’s hand, because we love to hold hands :) The green is because all the kids are growing so fast!
The squares are far from perfect, but the three oldest have made them all. I hope to be able to have them help me decorate the different squares, but I will do the appliqués. It will be a special quilt, because it is about our family!
The last few weeks, we have been having a sewing class. The girls learned how to sew their first outfit! Andrea has more sewing experience, but both made beautiful dresses. They did most of the work, though I did some of the more difficult things. The girls also did about half of Megan’s dress and pantaloons.
I am very impressed with how hard they worked. They learned how to lay out and cut a pattern, sew a dress according to the pattern, sew on buttons and how to measure it for the hem (we all hated that part!).They even finished their dresses a week before Easter!
They did a great job and I am very proud of their hard work!
