Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day: Tulip Tote

Hello there sewing fans!  Today is Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! I'm so excited to share with you a little handbag I designed called the Tulip Tote. 

Update: The Mini Tulip Tote is now available as a PDF Sewing Pattern. Click Here!

It is a small, stylish little thing that is just big enough to swing on your forearm and carry the essentials.

The dimensions are about 7'' tall x 14'' wide x 4'' deep.  It has lovely Soft and Stable interfacing and a great boxed bottom which makes it stand up all on it's own.  It also has 2 magnetic snaps that keep the top closed snugly. (okay, the yellow handled one is slightly smaller than the other)

Giveaway closed!

Today you get the chance to win ONE of these cute little handbags. Which one do you like best...yellow or navy? To enter the giveaway use the rafflecopter widget below and don't forget to tell me which bag you'd like to win. These are the prototypes for a pattern I'll be releasing and I am looking for some pattern testers to try it out.  So if you aren't a winner, perhaps you will consider being a pattern tester for me.   If you are interested please contact me at sarahmarkos(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know what kind of sewing experience you've had.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for joining me for giveaway day and Happy Sewing!

Spring Top Photoshoot

Made by Rae's SPRING TOP SEWALONG is just finishing up this week.  There is a lot of great inspiration over there if you are looking to sew something for yourself to wear.  Today I'm posting the top I made for our book headshot photoshoot. 

It was a little nerve racking to pose for a professional shoot.  I'm a pretty shy person, so it is a little embarrassing to even post these. But just look at my shirt okay? not me. :)  The top is self drafted for the most part. I altered the sleeve from the Shift Dress pattern to fit.  

I initially sewed this up as a muslin to see if it my idea would even work.  The neck was really gaping so to fix it I sewed a little channel in the neckline for a strip of elastic and I really like how it turned out.  

And listen to this crazy thing, when I washed my shirt after the photo shoot all those pretty little roses washed right off. Completely gone!  I can't remember where I got that fabric, clearly not high quality. Now I have just a plain gray top which is not quite as cute.

A big thank you to Nathaly Blalock who took such beautiful photos and made me look younger than I am, and to my SIL Liz who let me text her a dozen photos to figure out which necklace to buy. It worked out perfectly.

  Not sure which one of these I like best.

After I made this I realized that Rae made a pattern that is very similar to this but with no sleeves called the Ruby top.  I think I'll try it out next time, with a sleeve hack of course.

Happy Sewing!

A Ruffle Skirt

I made a quick ruffle skirt for Mer for this year's "Easter Dress" 

We came home from church and she requested that her brother come out and take pictures of her.  You know, so she can have a good instagram pic to post. 

 I wasn't there for the photo shoot but it looks like it was a ton of fun, don't you think?

 I was laughing out loud when I uploaded the photos today. :) There are about 20 that look like this...

 I'd say the skirt AND the photo shoot was a success! 

Sewing notes:

• This skirt is basically ruffle fabric with wide elastic sewn to the top of it.  It took about an hour to make...about 2 times as long as I had expected. It turns out those ruffles can be a little tricky to keep flat when your are laying the side seams together.  I recommend A LOT of pins if you make one of these. 
• I also recommend sewing the side seams with the regular machine first and then with the serger AFTER you make sure those ruffles are in the right place.  I learned that one the hard way.
•  I also had to change the differential feed on the serger to 1.5 to accomodate for the super stretchy-ness of the the fabric. 
• We tried to dye the elastic to match. It turned out perfectly until we sent it through the washing machine.  There wasn't time to dye it again so we settled for off white instead of pale pink. 
• I would also recommend stretching out the elastic a bit before you measure for the right size.  After Mer tried the skirt on 4 or 5 times the waistband was suddenly way too lose, and we had to do some last minute adjustments just 15 minutes before we walked out the door. That's how we roll. :)

Happy Sewing!

Little Bunny Embroidery Pattern

Hi sewing friends! Easter is on it's way and this year I thought I'd convert my bunny wall hanging to PDF pattern I could share with you all.

Maybe you are looking for some fun handwork to do over the long weekend, maybe you have some little stitchers that are looking for something fun to make for Easter. Well here it is...

It is a pretty simple little embroidery project. I've also included step by step instructions on how to sew a fabric sashing around the edges and frame it like I did.

  This is my first experiment with a PDF pattern, so I'd love it if you'd download it, take a look, and give me some feedback.  You can download the pattern HERE. If you stitch one up I'd love to see your finish!  Tag it #littlebunnyembroidery on Instagram or Facebook and I'll be sure to see it.

 Happy Stitching!

We Wrote a Book...Just For You :)

I'm buzzing with excitement over here. Today I get to officially tell you about a big project I've been working on over the last year.  I've been writing a book... a sewing book!

A Herringbone Finish!

A little more than a year ago I started on a quilting adventure to make a herringbone quilt using a tutorial by Bijou Lovely as part of the SewCanShe New Year Sewalong.  I finished the quilt top but never got around to quilting it because my machine skipped stitches so badly every time I attempted machine quilting.  Well I was lucky enough to get a new machine recently and am happy to report that I quilted my Herringbone quilt.  Yay!

 As crazy as the colors are on this quilt, I love it. I love color and I love random.

 I chose to quilt it with just straight lines. I tried out my walking foot as well with great success I think.  Here's the back...

My daughter has had her eye on this quilt for some time hoping she could use it for her bed.  So yesterday after it was freshly washed I gave her room a good cleaning and surprised her with her new bedspread. Luckily it even looks great with the pillows she already had.  She loved her surprise which made me happy mama.

More details...

Fabrics: there are too many to name. Mostly bold beautiful florals that I've collected over the years. I used ALL my favorites. 

What I learned:

• This tutorial produces A LOT of scraps. Not wanting to waste them I turned them into quite a few other projects you can see here and here, including some hotpads.  I even have a rather large pile left waiting to be used.  
• Sometimes it's okay to not push myself to finish a project. Originally I had a border on this quilt top.  I really thought it was a good idea at the time but it never really sat well with me when I looked at it.  My delay in quilting it turned out to be a good thing because it gave me time to come to my senses and remove the extra fabric which just added to the craziness, not in a good way. 

Sew happy to have crossed this one off the list!

For a little extra fun I'm linking this fun project up to SEWjo Saturday at My GoGo Life and Show Off Saturday at Sew Can She.

Big Star Baby Quilt Tutorial -15 Minutes of Play Quilt

I had a question about the dimensions of the blocks for my 15 minutes of Play quilt. I thought I’d just share my measurements today, so you could reproduce it if you like. I must say I used this quilt design that I pinned as my inspiration.  

The finished quilt measures about 40’’ X 40’’, a nice baby quilt size.

Here are the dimensions of the cuts I ended up using (for the quilt top only):

I started with the center block and then just added each section

I made my own fabric from scraps inspired by the work of Victoria Findlay Wolfe using techniques I learned in 15 minutes of Play

Center square

8 1/2’’ cut from scrappy fabric

Center sashing - Gray polka dot

2 strips 2 ½’’ X 12 1/2’’

2 strips 2 1/2’’ X 8 1/2’’

12 surrounding blocks that form the “Star”

4 - 6 1/2’’ squares of gray polka dot

4 - 7 inch squares of scrappy fabric cut into 8 Half Square Triangles (HSTs)

4 - 7 inch squares of Gray polkadot cut into 8 Half Square Triangles

Sew the HSTs together to form 8 star points.

Star Sashing

2 strips 2 1/2’’ X 24 1/2’’

2 strips 2 1/2’’ X 28 1/2’’

Scrappy Blocks

32 - 4 1/2’’ Squares cut of scrappy fabric

Outer Sashing

2 strips 2 1/2’’ X 36 1/2’’

2 strips 2 1/2’’ X 40 1/2’’

I think next time I make this I would enlarge the center square and decrease the width of the inside sashing to 1 1/2" ... to maximize scrappy-ness of course. Hope this helps!

Happy Sewing!