Ruffles and Wrinkles

Disclaimer: This shirt was in a pile that was going to go to the thrift store - please excuse the resulting wrinkles. Since my last attempt to size down/redo a t-shirt seemed to go okay, I decided to rescue this shirt and see if I could bring it back to life. The shirt seemed very boxy to me, which I think was exacerbated by the cap sleeves.

First order of business: remove the cap sleeves. Second order of business: make it fit. Third order of business: add some interest. I hand ruffled the ruffles first, then pinned them on the shirt, then sewed. Simple enough!

Before - frumpy:


After - not so frumpy!:

Adventures with Boston Terriers

My fiancé and I saw a Boston Terrier pillow in a shop while on vacation last year. It was not cheap. Today I made a much less expensive and much more personalized Boston pillow that is nothing like what we saw. The pillow is an 18 x 18 form. We have a fair amount of burnt orange stuff in the house, so the background fabric was just what I wanted! I wanted Bob's head to be very off center and tilted. The angle of the photo doesn't exactly show it, but the head is very much in the upper left of the pillow. I also wanted to combine a lot of different small patterns on the fabric for Bob's head.

Bob the Boston pillow:


Bob the Boston's head:


Click here to see the "real" Bob as a comparison.

Shooting from the Hip

First, I decided I wanted to make a bag of some sort. Next, I decided I wanted to combine this houndstooth pattern with the fun bright red floral fabric. Finally, I decided there would be no waiting to find a pattern. I'm not sure I would attempt this again without a little more forethought, but I think it turned out reasonably well for my first totally pattern-free adventure. I used a slightly stiff plain fabric for the lining to help the bag maintain some semblance of a shape. It is a little slouchy, but that is okay.

Here it is:


And again (I topstitched the floral flap):


Inside of the bag (I made the lining a little bigger so I could fold it over to finish the edge of the houndstooth fabric):