So Much Sewing!

I've been sewing up a storm lately.  It is relaxing (mostly) and makes me feel good about accomplishing something.  There have been lots of lessons learned and lots of success and lots of lows and wo's also.  Just today in fact I was ready to just rip a t-shirt to threads and throw it in the garbage.  I've learned that sometimes you need to put stuff to the side until your anger subsides.

It all started in the new year with friends' birthday presents.  This is the style of bag my brain makes.  Some of them are cuter than others and some of them are more well made than others but I really do feel like I'm finding my groove here.  These birds are from some really fun fabric from Ikea.  The others I just made up with my mad drawing skills.  ;-)

Then I decided to make some "Happy Birthday" signs.  I originally planned on just making one sign but I had too many girly fabrics for a gender neutral one so I just made two.

I was shopping and found some long sleeved shirts for cheaper than I could buy a short sleeved shirt for.  So I thought to myself, "How hard could it be to make these short sleeved?"  Turns out it was a little hard.  I couldn't find a stitch to do the hem nice and professional looking so I made the ruffle to cover it.  I also had to use my old machine because the sleeves were too small to fit on my new machine.  That was pretty annoying.  And seam ripping jersey knit is pretty disastrous too, BUT the girls loved the result.  Maybe with more practice I could do better.  In the end though with the time and effort spent, I certainly didn't save any money but nobody will have shirts like this.