Get Well Banner

After looking on several websites for ideas, I began this fabric pennant banner. My sweet 6 year old niece Sadie recently had a liver transplant. Her liver failure came on very suddenly and randomly. We live a few states away, so we have been unable to visit her. Hopefully, this will brighten up her hospital room.



When I went to Joann Fabric to pick out fabrics I found a stack of 5 coordinating fat quarters for $9.99. Lucky for me they weren't on sale, so I was able to use my 50 percent off coupon and score them for five bucks. I'm not sure how well you can see the fabrics, but they have princesses, castles, frogs and flowers on them.

To cut the triangles I folded the quarters in half lengthwise so they measured 22x9. Then I used the rotary cutter and cut them to a width of 7 inches and length of 9 inches like this.

Image from http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com

This made 5 double sided pennants of each fabric. The only tricky part is that two of the fabrics have a definite right and wrong way up so I had to rearrange the triangles and only got 2 pennants that were right on both sides. I used the least number of pennants from these two fabrics.



To make the letters I used a tupperware type lid for as the template for the circles. Then I printed out letters from here. I printed them out at %125 to get them the appropriate size. Before I traced and cut letters I ironed on wonder-under to the letters so that I could iron them on instead of pinning. Then I traced, cut, and ironed, and then sewed the letters onto the circles and then ironed and sewed the circles onto the fabric. This is actually a double sided banner. The opposite side says, Welcome Home Sadie.



After I had stitched on all the letters and circles I serged them together so I wouldn't have to stitch and turn. Just be sure at this point that your front and back side letters are matched up correctly.



Finally, I pinned on extra wide double fold bias tape to attach the whole thing together. I pinned tons (about 3 pins per pennant or a pin every 2 inches) and then sewed it all together.

Sewing through the tears

I last posted over a year ago. It was about that time that I began having morning sickness with the pregnancy of my third daughter. Once that finally faded at about 18 weeks, I had a month or so to rush and do as much prep for the baby as I could before the third trimester fatigue.

I wish that the reasons I haven't written since her birth on May 6th were the late night feedings and endless diaper changes, but my reason instead is the exhaustion of grief. Our sweet, almost 7 pound, daughter died shortly before birth due to an unexpected umbilical cord injury. We endured a labor void of monitors and a birth void of cries from a babe. Our sobs were the only noises in the room. I know now why they call it a still birth or silent birth. It is eerily both.

We were able to take pictures of her in the dress made from my wedding gown that my two other daughters wore when they were blessed at three months by there father.


A kind friend made her her own dress from my wedding gown for her burial. She wore a pink cloth diaper to the grave that I had made especially for her, although it and and others were made with the intention of being soiled multiple times and not for a one-time-use.

These past several months have felt heavy with grief, but for the past month or so I have started to feel more energized. I have started several sewing projects and finished a few of them. I'll be posting more and look forward to meeting more sewing types as I do.

Through all this, I have learned many things. One is how precious life is and how important it is to relish in the joy that the people in your life bring.

The Ultimate in Refashion

Before I got married, I always said that I would just rent a wedding dress. Why spend upward of $1000 on a dress that you're only going to wear once? Well when the time came and my parents were actually paying for the dress, suddenly more than willing get one. I couldn't let it be worn just once, so when my daughter was born, a friend and I turned it into this:

I used a pattern (don 't know the number or designer off hand). I used the original hem from my dress and took some of the organza from the skirt and also used it on the sleeves. It closes with 4 buttons (from the original dress) in back

This is my older daughter wearing it. She is now 3 and a half. My younger daughter wore it as well. I'll try to post a pic as well. Funny story, when we were at church on the day she got blessed in it, two nine year old girls came to look at the baby. Then one of them gave me some advice, "I think next time you should make the dress after the baby is born so you'll know how long to make it." Gotta love kids!

Crocheted Dress

Many, many moons ago, before I had children or a man to make them with, I made this dress. My gage was off, so it turned out much bigger than anticipated. Also, I left it in my back window for too long and the part of it that was exposed faded in the sun. My husband thinks the faded part looks horrible, but I pretend its part of the artistic flair. She's only worn it once. . . to church when my husband was sick! She wasn't in the best of mood when I took this picture and wouldn't look at me!

Shirring

So I had seen clothes that had been shirred before and wanted to learn how to do it myself. Until the Sewing Dork posted this tutorial I had no idea how easy it was! So on a whim, I went out and bought a yard of fabric at 7pm and had 2 dresses ready for church the next day! My youngest turned 2 on the 8th and I wanted her to have a new dress. I didn't have quite enough fabric so I added some plain black on the sides. My younger daughter's dress has quite a bit more shirring lines than my older to make it tighter for the little lady who is still not on the growth chart!

Happy Birthday to my spunky Bug!

. . .who happens to have an equally goofy sister!