Quick little blog

So that song I talked about a little while ago, I found a link to listen to the whole thing. If you have windows media player it'll go right to it, but if you don't, I don't know what will happen, lol. Here is the link -- Rock Your Soul

Sigh....it just makes me feel good, lol.

New fabric arrived today from my giant binge the other week. They are from Kumquat boutique childrenswear. So cute!! I'm headed off to cut them into shirts for Mr. E.

And the winners are.....

The winners who get the nursing shirts from my tutorial are:

hayarizu - Liz!!

Shan - Basylica!!

Congratulations ladies!! Now I just need you both to email me at tiptoefairy @ geusnet.com with your addresses and sizes, if you want to include bust and waist measurements that's great too.

I'm hoping to do the entire tutorial this weekend, but it might take me until the end of next week to finish it all up.

Thanks!!

Dance Dance Dance Costumes!

This is the costume I made Em for her jazz solo. She danced to High School Musical's What I've Been Looking For - the one Sharpay and Ryan sing.

I based it on Kwik Sew 3410. It has a tube top thing with the skirt. I thought it was great for a dance costume. I added straps to the tube top, because I was afraid it would fall with her dancing. I made a double layer skirt so that the points are staggered on the skirts. I made matching panties underneath to go over her tights because she does lots of back limbers in this routine, lol. She got lots of compliments on it when she wore it, it really catches the light good.

I was going for the look of a one piece which is does from the stage, but it's actually a skirt and top.

I had to sew the trim on by hand. The materials for this dress cost me about $100 because the trim was very expensive and is on both layers of the skirt. I originally was just going to use the trim on the top layer, but when I was experiementing wtih the little excess I had, it looked so good with the second layer too, so I went back for more. You can't see it, but in the front is a ruffle and hiding underneath and sticking out just a bit is the same trim.

And here are some of my favorite dance pictures this year. We had 8 different costumes for pictures this year.

This is the trophy picture with her rhinestone costume for twirling solos. She won State Champion All Around Twirler this year.


This is her Lyrical solo. I was pretty close to making one for this solo, but then I found this costume on ebay and it's gorgeous, especially when she spins. She danced to The Girl I Mean to Be from The Secret Garden. It's one of my favorite songs. I think we might keep it again to do this year too.


This is the team costume for gymnastics. I really liked her scorpion pose.

Hunt for the Mermaid Surf

I just love this fabric. I have been on a hunt to find it at a local Joann's store, and initially was driving to each store. But then I learned you can call this 888 number from joann.com and they can tell you how much a particular fabric a certain store has, if you have the SKU number. So my mermaid fabric was only at 3 stores in the entire Dallas/Ft Worth area. The first two stores, some lady grabbed the entire bolt up before I could get them to hold it. And finally way up in Ft Worth almost to Weatherford, they had 6 yds and were holding it for me. So...my mother lives halfway between Dallas and Ft Worth and I live way east of Dallas, so my sweet mother went to go get it for me at 8:30 last night and made it just before they closed. She thinks I'm crazy, but I needn't reminder her that she is the same woman that sent me and my newlywed husband through every McDonalds in East Texas for those stupid teeny beanie babies. I think I bought 100 happy meals that day, :D

Attn: Breastfeeding Mommies - Contest!!

So I want to create a tutorial for my nursing shirts designs and how easy you can make one from a basic t-shirt sewing pattern (and no it's not that hideous, stick a square of fabric on the front of a t-shirt thing I've seen in the past). But we're only nursing at night time, so I have no need for nursing wear anymore. I'm going to show you how to do two different nursing shirt syles. So...I thought I'd have a little contest.

I will draw 2 names this Friday. One winner will get one style, the other winner will get the second style in the tutorial. So post in the comments if you'd like to be entered. I'll cut the contest off at 10 A.M. CST on Friday 6/22.

I'm planning to use some gorgeous Baby Nay fabric, not sure which one yet. And I'll have one of my lovely assistants, ages 3 and 7, draw names, so check back on Friday afternoon for the winners, and then the winners will need to email me their sizes and mailing addys.

Fabraholics Anonymous

I'm Stephanie....and I'm addicted to fabric. (Hi Stephanie!) It started so innocently, I got an unexpected Paypal payment and....well...I couldn't help myself. I have been good for like a YEAR. An entire year, I have bought hardly anything, except dancewear fabrics that were immediately turned into dance costumes.

So I am here to confess my fabric sins, this is just some of the fabric I have bought last week. I know there are more coming, I just can't remember what they are. That is so bad, lol!
First off is the cute Tutti Fruity on black stretch twill for myself. I'm going to make capri pants. Then Mr. E has been asking for mommy to make him some t-shirts and my boy knits were just blah lately, so I decided to buy a few boy knits. And someone had this cute shark knit (I think it's Flap Happy) and then someone else had this cute little buggy knit and she was also selling one of my favorite Baby Nay prints too, Romance, oh I love that one, and it was a rib knit. And then...another person offered up overruns of the newest Baby Nay lines, and I went crazy....

Here is some of my new Baby Nay prints. This is Luau and the Puccini stripe that coordinate, both are rib knits. I'm debating on using them for myself or Em. And then the last one is Yoshi, I love that one, I think it might be my favorite. I think it will be a dress for Em. It's a rib knit too.
And here are the rest, the first two are Garage Tools and the coordinating stripe - so cute for my tool lovin' boy. And the last two are Tahiti stretch poplin and Canary bloom ribknit that coordinate - I think they are for me.

Well...holy crap, I just found out my little local fabric outlet (which is also a baby bedding outlet too) is a buyer for Baby Nay. Oh this is so exciting, I think I'm going to make a stop tomorrow morning to see if they have any fabric overruns.

Bun Making 101

Since Em is in dance competitions, I make a lot of hair buns for her, and I do it for other moms at recital who can't make buns. So I thought I'd offer my tips for bunmaking and how I do it. And a warning, these pictures are BIG, so you can see what I'm doing, so dial up modems might be very slow with this.
Materials:
Brush, ponytail holder, lots of hair pins like the ones in the pic, hairspray and a good gel.




Step#1 Make a ponytail - usually low, this looks better, especially for ballet buns.


Step#2 Twist the ponytail.


Step#3 Begin twisting the ponytail around the bun area.


Continuing wrapping the ponytail around.


These next images will show how I insert the hair pins. I insert hair pins initially about 1 inch apart as I wrap the hair. I insert them about 90 degrees perpendicular to the head, then push them down and up to the scalp by moving the pin in until it is flat against the scalp and hide behind the bun. This holds the bun securely and hides the pins.



Continue wrapping all the way around.


Step#5 Make sure all pins are fairly secure before finishing the tail. Inserting the tail of the bun can be tricky, it usually requires about 2-3 hairpins to keep it entirely hidden behind the bun.


Step#6 Finish tucking the tail with hair pins. This is the point when I have my daughter shake her head to make sure the bun is secure, if I find lose hairs, I put a few more pins in through the bun because I want to make sure it's danceable and won't fall out during a performance.


View of finished bun (we did not gel all the lose hairs on the side of her head). When I am finished with this part, I take a small amount of gel and rub it through both palms, then slick down the rest of the head of hair, as well as slick down the finished bun for any loose hairs. Then I shallack it with hairspray and finish with glitter spray.


Side view of finished bun

Mr. Brooks

I forgot to post earlier, but my wedding anniversary was last Friday, 6/8, we've been married 11 years. Wow, just looking at that number, I can't believe it's been that long, I still feel like I'm 15 yrs old and can't believe I'm a mother, but that's another post, lol. Anyway, my MIL came down from OK to have a fun weekend with the kids and let us go out. We went to see Mr. Brooks at the movies, then we took everyone out to IHOP, my MIL has never been to IHOP and has been dying to go. I got the stuffed vanilla custard french toast -- I was worried it would be yucky, but it was absolutely heavenly covered in strawberries. Yum!

Anyway, back to Mr. Brooks -- great movie!! I love movies that I can't figure out, and this was one of those. He's a serial killer who's tormented and addicted to killing. It seems like Hollywood is always making cookie cutter movies that you can figure out how it ends, but not this one. It was very good, very suspenseful, and the twists at the end were great and unexpected. But I usually like Kevin Costern movies. Dh and I really enjoyed The Postman years ago, and I still can't figure out why people hated that one -- it was very long, but it was one of those movies that I didn't want to end, I wanted more of the story, Mr. Brooks was like that too.

Sassy Skirts, part 2

So my sassy skirt is due on Friday for the Sassy Skirt contest - eek, I haven't even started yet! I've been so busy with my work, I haven't been able to work on it at all. But I'm not worried, it'll take a few hours at most. These are my fabrics for the skirt, plus a top, it will be for Em. They are from Sanctuary by 3 Sisters for Moda. They are gorgeous, my favorite is the paisley, I just love the colors. I just love Moda prints.

So it's nearly 3 AM and I haven't had a chance to hop on the elliptical today, so I'm gonna exercise and then work on my sassy skirt for a little while. I am a diehard nightowl. Sassy Skirts, part 3 will be coming soon with the completed skirt, stay tuned.

And to completely change the subject, do you ever get a song stuck in your head? Em and I were looking for good lyrical songs for her to dance to this coming year and I came across this beautiful song, Rock Your Soul by Elisa. I had never heard of her or this song, but it is now permanently stuck in my head. I just love it. You know those songs that you can listen to over and over, it just gives me goosebumps.

First Place!!

Em won first place in her category at the county fair. Her's is the one in the middle with the two layer skirt and the big purple 1st place ribbon on it. She was thrilled!!

I got blue ribbons on both of my outfits. But the "thing" that won was hideous in my category. I wished I had thought to take a picture so we could all ponder it, lol. My husband is convinced the same little 80 yr old ladies who could barely enter your items into the competition are the same ones voting and that was the only way he thought it could win. The stitching was terrible and it was made up of strips of checked home dec fabric and tweeds, then covered in buttons. The "thing", I think was an apron, whatever it was, it was just fugly, lol.

Fun at the Sprayground

We went to the sprayground last night and dh and I played with our new camera. This was one of my favorite pictures. This is dh's new toy. I got the elliptical (which I'm still totally in love with), and dh got the new Sony H7. We've had an Olympus camera forever, sadly it was only 2 megapixels, lol, so dh was dying to upgrade. I love this new camera, it can take lenses too, so it's "dslr-like". And my parents are hilarious, we bought this camera on Thursday night, and my parents came over and saw it on Friday, and my mother, ever the "mine has to be bigger than yours" goes to Costco last night and buys the Nikon D-40 DLSR, the woman never takes pictures, but she has now decided she going to quit her job as a medical transcriptionist and become a children's photographer with this camera (this is the same woman who says she doesn't like children (except for mine, wink, wink)). My mother the nut!

And to make this sewing related, I made a trip to Hancock's yesterday for some elastic and got the cutest stretch twill for ME! Isn't it adorable? I never buy myself stuff, lol. But I'm going to make capri pants with it. They had some other adorable summery stretch twills, I think I'm going to need very soon, I hope they go on sale soon, lol. Now I need to go back and get the hot pink interlock I was eyeing, I wished I'd bought it yesterday, but when am I not up for another trip to a fabric store, rofl!?