Halloween Pillowcase Dresses

I had seen a super cute tutorial for making Halloween pillowcase dresses and decided to make a couple for Gemma.  I hit up Goodwill and scored a few pillowcases for $0.99 each (who has orange pillowcases anyway?  Not being Clemson fans, we certainly didn't at our house!).  I decided to tackle a pumpkin dress first.  When I started the project, I didn't stop to consider that a full-sized pillowcase works pretty well on a 5 or 6 year old (and that's a normal sized kid, not a Shealy) so it would most likely be huge on Gemma.  I ended up cutting off about half of the pillowcase so it is fine lengthwise, but is pretty baggy on the sides.  The good news is that she will probably be able to wear it for a couple more years.  Even though the pillowcase ended up not being ideal, the dress still looked really cute, and she looked so cute in it.  She actually got very excited when I put it on her, and was running around the house smiling like crazy.  (Her daddy had to hold her by the arms for me to snap a picture.)

I wanted to make a ghost dress as well, and decided to tweak the project a bit so that it would be a better fit for her than the pumpkin dress.  I decided to combine this ghost dress tutorial with this fat quarter dress tutorial that I used for a dress I previously made.  This worked so much better!  I also wanted to spice it up and make it a little girlier than the pumpkin dress.  So I picked out two matching quarters in a very pretty white fabric with a faint gray floral pattern.  I wanted black ribbon with pink polka dots for the ties and the hem, but all I could find was this pink with black polka dots, which ended up looking really cute.  I know I may be a bit biased, but she's pretty much the cutest ghost ever.

Latest Sewing Projects

Even though I've been sick, I've still been sewing like a fiend.  I am so glad I decided to learn how to sew, because I am now addicted to all things sewing-related.

I love making pillowcases because they are super easy to make, and so cute and fun.  This past week, I made this Halloween pillowcase for Cy:

And this Halloween pillowcase for myself:

A few weeks ago, I made this purse out of the cute girly skull fabric I bought.  The purse didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, but now I know what to do differently next time to make it better.

But yesterday I completed the project that I am most proud of so far.  Using two fat quarters that I got for about $1 each and a great free tutorial I found here, I made Gemma this super-cute pillowcase-style dress.  I really liked the look of using contrasting fabric for the front and back.  It was very easy, cheap, and looks so cute!  I can't wait to make more!

Playing catch-up...yet again

A couple of weeks ago, we moved my sister in for her freshman year at Charleston Southern University.  There was a lot of craziness ensuing during move-in day, including a dude dressed up like a Sonic tater tot:

Despite such distractions, we eventually got Rachel all moved in.  Even Gemma helped:

Gemma also showed her school spirit:

We are already really enjoying having Rachel nearby.  We even got to break her in with a "hurricane party" her first weekend here.  When CSU canceled Friday afternoon classes for Irene, Rachel came to our house and we bunkered down for a weekend filled with board games and TV. 

And now for an update on Gemma.  We took her for her 15 month checkup on September 1 (although she is almost 16 months) and she did great.  She finally broke 17 pounds (!) - she was at 17 lbs. 5 oz., putting her in the whopping 3rd percentile for weight! (Again we were surprised she was still even on the chart.)  She was 29 inches tall (10th percentile) and her head was in the 46th-ish percentile.  She had to have 3 shots and cried very hard at first but did well the rest of the day.  She had met all of the developmental milestones and is just doing more and more stuff every day.  For example, stuff like this:

And since we have spent our Labor Day weekend with all three of us suffering from sore throats and our first Fall cold, there is nothing exciting to post about that.