Summer Earrings

I've been busy the past few days making new jewellry for my Etsy shop, and thought I'd post a few of the earring  sets here on my blog.

 Pale Blue Beaded Teardrop Earrings.  I haven't used a lot of seed beads in my jewellry before, but I think these came out quite nice!

 Floral Pottery Earrings.   Pretty porcelain beads paired with a clear glass cobalt-coloured bead and antiqued bronze chain. 

 Cobalt Teardrop Earrings, made from some pretty clear cobalt blue glass beads and shell raindrops. 
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 Meadowsweet Glass Floral Earrings.  I love the colour of the glass floral beads!

 Grecian Chain Earrings.   These earrings take quite a bit of time to put together, but are so neat when they're done!

Golden Cobalt Earrings, a bit of a different look!  I have had these beads for quite a few years but haven't ever made anything out of them until now.

What do you think?

Hope

This is a dress I whipped up a couple of weeks ago for a baby whose gender wasn't going to be known until birth.   I figured I would make two different outfits just in case, one for a girl and one for a boy... and she ended up being a sweet little girl. 

A lot of times when I read blogs, I always wonder "Why don't people iron things before they take photos?!?!"   I was in a bit of a rush to get this in the mail and needed to be at the post office already when I realized I didn't have any photos taken yet.  

Here's a close-up of the hand crocheted trim I made for this dress.   Very simple, but really adds something extra special to the look of the dress.   I love the real mother of pearl buttons with the dark purple thread!   The buttons came from a bag of buttons my sister sent me that I believe she got at a garage sale.

I got this lovely eggplant purple polka dot fabric on sale at Fabricland when we were in Winnipeg at the beginning of May.   I ended up buying this shade, a lighter purple, and a pale grey.   As soon as I got home I wished I had purchased a few other colours as well!   It's a lovely lightweight cotton, great for baby clothes and all sorts of other projects.

I really love the way this dress turned out, I think it's one of my most favourite.   What do you think?

Field of Blossoms

 Another Abbey Dress with a Wal-Mart fat quarter.   I love this fabric; If it came in larger pieces I would buy enough to make myself a shirt!   I taught myself to crochet using YouTube videos earlier this year, and for this dress I crocheted a lovely cotton lace to trim the bottom edge.   

 A close-up of the back detail.   Regular old elastic, and a button from my inherited stash from my Gramma.

Here's a close-up of the interior.   I used a white lining fabric, some of it is trimmed in bias tape and the two sides of the skirt have princess seams.   The label was made with satin ribbon, rubber stamps, and a fabric marker for inking.  

The original designer states this should fit a newborn as a dress and up to a year old as a shirt.   I don't have any babies around to test it out, but I think it should be pretty versatile.

Quilt in Progress

A couple of weeks ago I started working on a new quilt.   I always think that projects like this will go much quickly than they actually end up going!

Autumn Dress

This is another dress I made recently for an expectant friend. I lengthened the original pattern, and added a hand-crocheted trim at the top front, along with some buttons I covered with the same fabric.

This fabric was some I had leftover from a shirt I made for myself.   There was just enough to make this cute little dress!

Green and Prim

I had been working on finishing up a few packages to mail for quite awhile, I think I finished this dress back in March but did not actually get it sent until yesterday!   This is another incarnation of the Abbey Dress that I had originally found on Pinterest.

I picked the green fabric up from my local Wal*Mart, which does have a very limited fabric selection.   This was a fat quarter, so there was just enough fabric for this pattern if I used a different colour of lining fabric. 

Close up of the back closure.   I am not a huge fan of this type of closure, but as I don't have a baby readily available to try one of these dresses on, I'm not sure I should mess with the closure and left as the pattern requests it to be.   The button is from a stash I got from my Gramma.   I like the neat topstitching detail. 

Here's a view of the interior.   The white fabric is from an old sheet, and the grey bias tape is from a garage sale or thrift store.  The pattern doesn't suggest bias tape, but I think it finishes the look and makes the inside of the dress pretty and neat.  I used princess seams for the sides of the skirt.  The lace trim is from a store in the middle of nowhere and was probably around 50 cents a metre.  The label I made with some regular old satin ribbon, a few letter rubber stamps, and a fabric marker.   Inking the stamps and them stamping them on, ironing afterwards.   I think  it turned out great and looks somewhat professional!

These dresses are a little bit finicky to make due to the style of the armholes.  I've been trying to think of an easy way to tweak the pattern to make it quicker to sew but am still working on my idea.