Fabric flowers

I made an organza flower to ornate an evening dress.
It's really fun and easy to do.

Here's a "how to" in pictures:

I cut six organza flower shape in two sizes for this final flower.

You can find explanations and pictures in this wonderful blog:
Organza Flowers by Reese Dixon
and on Jo-Ann website:
Classic Elegance Flower by Jo-Ann

Nightgown

I made this nightgown as a Christmas gift for KiKou (the other half of the [Kikuyu] "brand"). I used a brown organic cotton knit and an orange cotton bias.
I spent a long time trying to draw the home-made pattern, and end up changing everything on the muslin directly on KiKou.

I'm happy with the result but it was pretty difficult for me and I won't sew again without a pattern for a while !

Winter cushions

Still in the Christmas gifts, this is the present I made for my mother. It's a set of three covers for cushions. They are for the winter/Christmas season, because of the print on the fabric: a brown printed with white and blue trees ans Season greetings cotton from HobbyLobby.
The other fabric is a blue dupioni silk from fabric.com
The pictures colors are not the real ones because of the lack of light.

The front:

The back:

A close-up view:

And I made the buttons with some brown oven-bake clay (Bake shop). It was my first try with clay, but I'm happy with the result.

--------------------- Update August 11th, 2010 ---------------------

I'm not sure I will ever try to do my own buttons since those are finally kind of sticky.
Does anybody know a way to avoid that?

Reversible toiletry bag

I decided to make a reversible toiletry bag as Christmas gift for my youngest sister, because she needed to change hers but didn't manage to find one as nice as the old one.

Okay, you can find a lot of toiletry bags, but what about one big enough to put inside some big products, soft enough to gain space in a luggage, and with an opening big enough to find easily anything inside it?
She loves the old one for all these advantages, so I decide to copy it in a nice fabric.

I asked my parents and her boyfriend to measure the bag. I sent an email to her asking a lot of questions, and learned this way she loves fabrics with lines or modern drawings, but with a limited number of colors. And I knew her bathroom was blue.

After spending way too much time in the fabric store, I came back at home with two wonderful fabrics (the one with lines is an Amy Butler cotton). Since I wasn't able to decide which one will end up inside, I decide to make a reversible bag. This way, my sister would be able to choose her favorite one.

I had a hard time sewing the round parts, and the fabric parts between the two ends of the zipper. I was pleased with the result, even if I'm not sure I will make again a REVERSIBLE toiletry bag...

A few more pics to compensate all my pain! ;-)

Comfy fleece poncho

Since my youngest sister is spending her first winter in her own apartment, I wanted for Christmas a gift able to warm her up.

When you think about winter, cold, cloudy, wind... what are you dreaming of?
Me, I imagine myself in a log cabin, seating in front of the fireplace, rolled in a blanket, drinking a hot chocolate.

But we all live in apartments without fireplace, so I opted for a comfy fleece poncho.

It's super easy to make. you need:
- a piece of fleece (I used an IKEA throw)
- scissors
You make a hole for the head, and it's done!

Yes, you right, I add some things because I thought it wasn't fancy enough. So I 've underlined the collar with a heavy black thread, and add a black fleece pocket to keep her hands warm for lazy TV evenings.

On the picture, you can see it needs a good ironing because I wrap it before carrying it in my luggage...

Sewing Machine cover

My so cool vintage sewing machine was taking dust between two use.

So I made a sewing machine cover with a home decor cotton fabric from Ikea.

I bought cording to create my own piping.
It was really easy to make it with the zipper foot so I might become a piping addict.

More details:

Vogue 8527 Clutchbag

For this Vogue handbag 8527 model C, I chose a purple plaid fabric and a purplish grey rayon-polyester fabric for lining.

I used an old jean and a sheet to underline respectively externals and internals pieces of plaid fabric.
The jean allows the bag to stay straight but added some difficulties for sewing.

I'm really proud of my bag, even if the zipper is not really well sewn nor the internal pocket.
It wasn't so easy for me, but not so difficult either so I will do it again!

I made a longer review of this pattern on Pattern Review.