Evan, You will be so proud of me and dang it, I am proud of myself!

Can I be proud of myself?

Is that a perfectly sane thing to feel about ones self?

Well regardless I am so proud of myself. On Monday I was challenged to make this shirt from J Crew.

I took out the needle and thread and sewed my heart into a new shirt. Ok I didn't sew my actual heart into it, but I do not like to sew by hand but by golly I did it! And the next amazing fact….I actually like this shirt. I love how the flowers turned out!

What do you think Evan? Be honest!

To go with the cute shirt I have been challenged to make(but am not finished with) I decided to add some ruffles to an old sweater.

Making ruffles is super easy!

Instructions:

Take strips of fabric of desired thickness, sew a loose stitch all the way down the middle of the strip, remember – DO NOT BACK STITCH! Then take those strips and pull loosely on one of the threads to make a ruffle. Then take those ruffle strips and pin to your sweater or garment of choice. Sew down the middle and take out the loose stitch if possible with a seam ripper.

If you know me at all, you know that a challenge to me is not something to be ignored, in fact, its something I take very serious. Someone asked me once if I could shove this piece of cake in my mouth all at once, and as soon as I feel like there is a challenge on the table, well I will show you that I can. I did shove that cake in my mouth, unfortunately I did spit it out again, but I did shove it right back in(which made everyone sick) and chewed and swallowed the whole thing. That just tells you I have a big mouth and that I will do whatever it takes to prove to you that I can do it!

Well Evan from A Nerd Like Me challenged me to make a shirt like this one below from J Crew. Evan how did you know that J Crew was one of my favorite stores??

I take your challenge Evan! Now I have to find me a v-neck tee.

Check back!

I was looking through the Anthropologie catalogue, as I normally do for ideas, and saw a pin tuck tank. I didn't think it would be too tough and so I tried it on a shirt my daughter was getting rid of. The shirt was a cotton but it was a stretchy smooth feeling cotton and sewing pin tucks in it was not the easiest.

Now I will be trying this with an old guys tee, I think it would give me more to work with. Then maybe I could get flutter sleeves and a cowl neck like the from Anthro.

I joined the blog parade happening over at Rear Window. Head on over and check it out!

1. What's your favorite time of the day, and why? Night.

2. If health wasn't an issue, what food could you live off of? Definitely Hamburgers!

3. If you could have one wish granted (besides wishing for more wishes), what would it be? That my husband could be completely healthy and free of pain.

4. What's one thing that you get teased about a lot? Being skinny – but I don't mind (at least not much), because it affords me the right to eat whatever I want.

5. If you could choose one movie, book, or TV show to spend your life in, which would you pick? What type of character would you be? Seinfeld – because I love to laugh.

6. If you could have one talent that you don't already have, what would it be? Awesome guitar skills!

7.If money were no object, where would you go on vacation? Disneyland! All my best vacation memories were there.

8. If you were an awesome singer, which genre would you sing? Jazz

9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, what would it be? Williams Sonoma

10. If you could live in any point in time, when would it be? 1950's – they had great clothes!

11. If every outfit in your wardrobe had to be one color, what would it be? That is too easy….White, because that's what it consists mostly of now.

12. If you were one of the seven dwarves, which one would you be? I don't think I can choose just one, I am a mixture of all, except maybe Doc.

13. What's the last album you listened to? John Mayer's Room for Squares.

14. What's something we'd be surprised to know about you? I would wear dresses and heels every day if I could.

I found this cute checked fabric at the Goodwill bins about a month ago and I used it on this bolster pillow but still had a bunch left, so I found a tutorial online for Handmade Napkins here. I have a friends wedding coming up and thought some napkins and napkin rings would be a great gift. Still looking for the perfect napkin rings to make. Thanks to the Purl Bee for this napkin tutorial!

I didn't have the handy dandy bias tape maker(would love one though, hint hint) so I  had to iron my strips in half and then iron them in towards the middle. It wasn't too tough, just time consuming. For the binding I used a cotton shirt from Old Navy that I bought from a thrift store just for this purpose. I just cut strips and started ironing. I thought the colors contrasted the check fabric perfectly.

There are so many possibilities of colors and combinations. I will certainly be making more of these.

This is a quick post today. I saw this skirt made from tee's over at Beelieve and loved the way it looked. Of course mine is a bit different. T-shirts really are great material for a comfy skirt. I made this skirt in about an hour. I just started cutting shirts apart and piecing them together. Next time I will try overlapping more, like Karen from Beelieve did. I even used a long piece from a tee for the drawstring.

For directions on how to make your own upcycled t-shirt skirt click here.

I have this beautiful niece who gives me clothes that she no longer wears or doesn't like and this week she gave me this really cute strapless dress with a side zipper. I love it but for me I knew I would never be comfortable wearing it without some sort of strap. I had this scarf that I had found while thrifting a while back and decided to try some different ways of adding it to the dress for straps. I sewed and seam ripped and sewed some more before I decided to do plain old straps.

I love looking at the clothes in the J.Crew catalog and while I was looking I came across this silk tank top and I remembered this vintage silk slip that I had found a while back, dug it out and decided I would turn it into this.

Who knew silk was so hard to sew.

And the bonus is that I have some silk left over to use as roses for a head band or I could add a rose to this tank.

About a month ago I found this vintage lace slip that I fell in love with but wasn't sure how to make it fit me or how to wear it. I contemplated cutting the slip apart but some of you suggested I leave it as it is and wear a long sweater over it. Well today I found just the right sweater. I obviously had to sew in the bust of the slip a bit because I wasn't blessed with an overabundance in that area. I was a bit worried when I first started sewing but the slip turned out to fit very well and looks really cute under this sweater. And the bonus is that the sweater was also a thrift store find.