ModSew:: Knit Horse Maxi Dress for little girls

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Girl Charlee is an online fabric shop that sells knit fabrics and let me tell you how much I heart them. A LOT!!!! Like a WHOLE LOT! I first made my washi dress out of some of their knits and I actually have it on today. And I had it on yesterday. and the day before. You get the point. It is awesome and so comfortable to wear but still stylish.

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I knew that I wanted to make the girls dresses with this awesome horse knit they had. I didn’t know what exactly but I knew they would love it. So I asked them and well they had an idea of long princess dresses. I then asked the youngest a million questions because she has very specific ideas about what she wants and doesn’t want. HA! I asked if we could just use one of their shirts and add the skirt to it. They both agreed that was okay. I knew that was the only way I could make it work for the amount of fabric that I had on hand. So maxi, aka princess, dresses it was.

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I asked them to get a shirt they wanted to use. The youngest picked a shirt that was smocked at the top and had a gathered bottom so to make the dress I just took the gathered bottom off and attached the gathered skirt to it. Super simple and she has worn it pretty much every SINGLE day since I made it for her. She loves it so much.

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The oldest picked a long sleeve striped shirt. Yea. So I cut it off at the point where it would make her dress long with the fabric that I had left. It was a little big so I added some ties to the side with some leftover Girl Charlee father fabric I had. I also just cut off the sleeves where she wanted me to and left as it was because it is knit so it won’t ravel. She loves her and has worn it a lot since I made it as well.

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They dresses were washed after this picture and the length shrunk up a little bit making it the perfect length for both of them. They love that they now have long dresses like I wear and they are comfortable too.

I also love how my oldest is holding her little hands and my youngest is looking away in the picture above. I love those girls and I love when I can just be with them and not worry about other things. I think there are so many distractions in my life that it is sometimes so hard to just be, ya know. Pictures like these make me think this is a season in my life that will pass before I know it so I so need to enjoy each and every moment.

And go check out Girl Charlee and get yourself some knit fabric to make something amazing with!

 

Modern Sewciety instagram 2/23-2/28/14

Sharing a little snippit into our life here at the Modern Sewciety homestead. I share a lot of the little things we do daily on Instagram so I thought it would be fun to do a weekly roundup here on the blog.

 

I worked on a secret project that I still need to send out to the secret person!

The other strap needed something too!

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A secret project for someone secret! 🙊

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Our Washi Tape needed somewhere to live… our paper towels now have no home! It is driving my paper towel loving husband nuts but the girls and I are super loving this eye candy everyday! The washi needed a home more than the paper towels. I mean it is only logical people.

My girls wanted to sew this week with me. They each made a fat quarter bag. No cutting only sewing. Note to self… don’t let the older sew while she is tired. She couldn’t retain anything I was telling her but she did make a very cute bag.

Someone wants to sew a fat quarter bag too!

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And she is off! #proudmomma

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Valentine’s Day as a Modern Parent – it’s a little competitive

When I was growing up I remember going to Pic N Save (yea remember that?) and mom would let us pick out a box of Valentine’s cards that we took home and filled in with our friend’s names. Maybe we would add candy but not all of the time. My parents didn’t let us have a lot of candy growing up (I am now that way with my kids. lol). I wrote them out. I took them proudly to school and handed them out. Everyone had something like that… nothing was printed on a printer with a custom theme. No custom candy or treats. It was just something from you to them. The parents weren’t really a part of it. We were all OKAY WITH THAT! We were happy. Not these days. Thank you internet and pinterest. I am happy for both of these things and what technology has brought us.. heck I have a blog and podcast as part of who I am. But man so many options and so many people going over and beyond. I am guilty. I try to keep it to a minimum but I fail on that sometimes.

This year I have a child in half day preschool and one in kindergarten. The youngest has a big class and the oldest has a small class. One has three teachers and the other has a teacher and an aid.

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spontaneous family trip

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My husband was a marine. He is so structured and scheduled and I, well, am not at all. not one bit. We make it work. I think we balance one another out quite well. Recently we were suppose to go out of town and I wasn’t up for it. It was freezing cold and he had meetings all day which would have left me with these two littles in a hotel all day. I don’t think that would have been much fun. I like my bed and I love to have the washer going cleaning clothes. I am weird. I know. Me and laundry are friends.  So I said the day before we needed to leave that I didn’t want to go. I offered for him to go without us. He said no if you don’t go I won’t either. He was then mad for about an hour and then said you know what I am relieved like a weight has been lifted off of me. He was so backed up at work and this would give him the uninterrupted time he needed to get caught up. We had a great weekend that was way less stressful for everyone. I was so proud of him for not going. For canceling at the last minute because it wasn’t the right thing for us as a family at that moment.

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This past weekend we had SUPER nice weather. Like in the 70’s in February. We have season passes to the zoo that is about 45 minutes from our house. I suggested with such nice weather we take the girls that morning and have a fun day outside. My oldest LOVES animals so I knew she would be up for it. THEN…. THEN… I did it again. The kids were at a birthday party from 11-2 on Saturday. The weather was amazing. So I suggested we pack a bag and find a decently priced hotel and go stay the night in the town of the zoo. We could go out to eat and see the water, the river in this case I was hoping for the beach, and have a fun time. He thought about it and said he thought it would be fun. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? Have I inspired my husband to be a little less scheduled?!?!?!?! I was all smiles.

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I dropped off the girls at the party, it was an art party (another one), and the mom I trusted. I let her know what we were doing and that I needed to go pack real quick. She was so excited she said GO! We packed the bags and made a reservation and well the husband made a plan! He had to have some kind of plan. I laughed but took what I could get. He was being spontaneous which was awesome. We picked the girls up from the party and didn’t say a word. We got all of the way to the hotel, about an hour drive, before they even asked about what we were doing. We laughed the whole way there because they were clueless.

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When we told them we were at the hotel to stay the night they were so excited and surprised. We checked in and then started towards the river. The girls wanted to go on the water taxi. So we walked and then got on the water taxi. We made our way to a park and let them play, got a snow cone, and the museum of science and history had free admission so we did that too. After all of that adventure we got back on the water taxi and headed to an irish pub. We had the best time. THE BEST TIME. The girls played and played.

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We went to the zoo the next day and had a great time. We really smiled driving into the driveway. I think we were all proud of the adventure we had and that we are a team. With the youngest getting old enough to do things without a lot of stuff to take and she understands that she has to go with the flow a little more. It is nice to be in this season of life as parents. I really love our little family unit. The girls make me a proud momma.

 

2014 – my goals and dreams

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I wanted a place to air out my resolutions… really for me to put it all out there for my accountability. I am not good at routine and sticking to things. I get side tracked. I want to have something to look back on and see what I have crossed off and what I haven’t at the end of the year.

::the blog and podcast::

I really want to continue to do the interviews with me one week and a featured guest the other week

find more home, cooking, and non sewing related blogs to sprinkle in with the sewing blogs

so some tv series talks – like downtown abby for one (oh and let you know my other series I like on Amazon Prime), project runway is another (maybe get someone to do a weekly chat about them on the podcast)

projects that I tackle – I want to share some of my personal projects around the house and in the sewing room

some patterns and other products from me

::me::

to keep up with my MS planner – I need to share how I hacked my MS disk bound planner to fit me

do the couch to 5k plan on my phone (we walk daily but I want to try to enjoy running currently I don’t:)

stay off social media and blogs and focus on me and my family more – or find a happy balance (deleting social media apps off my phone was step one)

try to write more personal notes to mail to friends and family letting them know how much I love them (it is a joke with my friends that I am the only person that still sends snail mail and they all love it)

keep up with us more – I got a project life for Christmas and I really want to finish this one and not give up half way (I may have had that happen in 2013)

::Sewing::

to make at least 12 things – quilts, bags, clothes, whatever

to make some quilt as you go quilts like Maureen – I think it would help me not dread the quilting step

also to make more original stuff or patterns but with my own twist on them

finish my big heart quilt for the girls room

make something with my fresh cut stash to put on my bed

::house::

go through the before and afters of my house (we speed renovated our house in 2 weeks and did some amazing stuff)

to paint my china cabinet (that is huge) emerald green with some silver-ish accents

work on a solution for a upper kitchen cabinets

organize laundry room and perhaps get some cabinets above the washer and dyer

a new rug for the living room

paint the porch columns white

::family::

more awareness of the NOW

continue to do things in the church that involve the girls (vbs, family night, and christmas pageant)

volunteer at both girls schools to help when needed with their teachers

get our garden BOOMING this year

try to get some chickens (aka talk my husband into it or talk my dad into building me a coop and just surprising John:)

having some parties with our friends whether formal or informal (okay more likely the later!) but have friends over more

Okay… that is a lot but I know this will help me. I will like looking back on this at the end of the year. So do you make goals and plans for the New Year?