All about me and an intro to the VPLL

 Welcome to my world. We welcome the insane, curious, interesting, travelers through, stayers-on, and just about everyone else that doesn't cover. And yes, we are all a little bit insane here, as I told someone the other day-you have to be a little bit insane to even consider being a parent, let alone a parent of 5-but it is so worth it.

I feel like I need to give an introduction to me for everyone knew to this blog. I am a mom. First and
foremost, that is the most important thing to me, that I am a mom and wife. I have one amazing husband and 5 kids-3 boys and 2 girls (the oldest is almost 8 years old and the youngest is 4 months old). I love to do
all sorts of crafty things during my free-time (what little there is of that), but it is also my reward and
relaxing time at the end of the day for doing certain chores/goals for that day. So if there is a picture of any project or idea you would like further instructions for, feel free to ask, it might take me a while to go back and take pictures of them or do them again, but I am almost always willing to try or have the camera handy to fully illustrate what I've done. You'll learn a lot more as we progress through this journey together and I will also be posting stuff about some of the other projects going on in my life here as well. Remind me
to post pics of tye-dieing with sharpies and snowman oreos and oreo turkeys and all of that other fun
stuff from the holidays and the kid involved teacher gifts for end of year and Christmas too.

I first found this project through a Facebook page, "Martha Pullen"'s I think, or was it
"Stitch, Craft, Create"? Anyway, I saw the link for it and was intrigued by the idea behind
sewing vintage patterns, let alone the challenge of sewing without instructions on some of them
and also having to do some alterations on them too. I am mostly a self-taught seamstress. I
started sewing 7 1/2 years ago when I quit working to give birth to my first son. I started
out with a "Sewing for Dummies" pattern my husband had picked out for me. I learned how to
do things by reading a bunch of different patterns and then started finding old sewing manuals.
When my second child was a girl, I knew I was definitely in for a lot of fun-there are so many more
patterns for gir's than boys.


So for everyone else curious about this project go to this webpage: 1912 VPLL and it will explain a little bit more about the project. But basically, they are releasing patterns from 1912 and a bunch of seamstresses from around the world are sewing these patterns either true to vintage or updating them and altering them.

Child's Apron #500

 So for my VPLL (more on what exactly that is later) first project, I accidentally ordered the child's apron project #0500, I meant to order the child's dress pattern, but a slip of the finger and I got the apron. But it worked out because one of my little boys has decided that puppies are all the rage right now and that he HAD to have a new apron. Well, Mommy found just the right fabric for this project. I decided to make it reversible and flipped the pockets on one side since I had a collection of puppy buttons for him. I also chose not to do the embroidery as this mommy doesn't get a whole lot of time to do hand work.

The first picture is of the pattern laid out and taped together ready to go.

 Here's the pattern pinned and ready to be cut out. You can see the feet of my little helper whom this apron is for.

 The fabrics ready to go after being cut out.

 Pockets pinned together.

 Sewn and corners trimmed.

 Pockets turned right side out and finger pressed seams.
Here's a secret about me-I hate ironing! I also have the great excuse of no room for an ironing board.

 Pockets were sewn to both sides and then the sides were pinned together and sewn with a small opening left for turning it right side out.

 Snipped small spaces in the curves so it would lay straight.

 All ready to be turned inside out.

 Proudly wearing his new apron. This side has the pockets the right way according to this pattern. Can you see the puppies on his pj's too?

 The back

 The fun buttons that mommy had just for him

 The other side of the apron.

 I flipped the pockets upside down and folded the point down and anchored it with another button

 The other pocket on this side

I doubled the buttons on the top part so they would always button right.

Here's the original pattern picture.










Pattern Review Checklist:

1.  Pattern Description: Child's Apron
2.  Pattern Sizing: ages 3-5 (my son I made it for is 4 yo)
3.  Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing  it? YES!
4. Were the instructions easy to follow? most assuredly yes, I didn't even really follow them, just read them once and then took off
5. What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I loved the simplicity of it
6. Fabric Used-quilter's cotton
7. Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: made it reversible and flipped the pockets
8. Would you recommend this pattern to others? yes
9. Conclusion: Great little project, can be made in a short time

VPLL Checklist

1.  Pattern Name:
   

   Child’s/Boys’ Apron – #0500

2. Sewer’s Skill Level: Advance, Intermediate, Beginner: Intermediate/Beginner-self taught so I know what I've had to look up or ask questions about
3. Pattern Rating: 1-Not a Fan, 2 – So-So, 3 – Good/Average, 4-Better than Average, 5-I LOVED IT! and why? 5-I have a similar pattern for adults-this would be fun to make mommy/miss aprons
4. What skill level would someone need to sew this pattern and why? Beginner-gives a great jump start for other projects
5. Were the instructions easy to follow? If not, what needs to be changed? Yes, I read through them once and then was able to make it.
6. How was the fit/sizing?  Did it correspond to what you thought? The sizing was just right
7. Did you make any pattern alterations? If so, what alterations did you make? Where they fit or design alterations? I made design alterations-reversible and flipped pockets
8. Other notes:

Music Journal

Another project for Imaginisce, my oldest son requested this one as soon as the paper came out. He has dreams of playing the drums and guitar and loves it when I craft to the Trans-Siberia Orchestra. This is an older collection called "Live Loud", and I forgot to take a picture of the back of the notebook, but it is covered with the back-side of this paper as well.

Camping Journal

Has it really been that long since my last post? Life sure has a way of getting away with you when everything happens all at once. I have been doing stuff still, and taking pictures of each project, but they don't always get put into a coherent post or even onto the computer from the sd card.

I have been keeping up with the crafty world and just had to participate in this months challenge over at Imaginisce. As soon as I started looking through my imaginisce papers, this project jumped out and yelled at me to be made. I used the "Happy Camper" papers and turned this composition notebook into a hiking/camping journal for our family with a smaller notebook to go with it and us on our trips.

Back to the Beach

I have found a few different companies that I absolutely love. This project is specifically for one of my new-found loves. Their challenge this month was "Back to the Beach." The company is "May Arts Ribbons." I submitted my project idea and got to pick some of their ribbons to work with. I was a little frustrated in the colors, my screen showed some of the blues to be blue, but they were more of a teal. Gorgeous and excellent feel to them, but not all of them made it into this project. They were also very generous with the lengths they sent, I asked for 6-8 inches and they sent me a yard of each one I requested.

Another company that I used for this project was Maya Road. I had received an alphabet of their plastic letters and it came in a really cool tin that worked perfectly for this idea.



Here's the tin with the alphabet taken out and ready to be painted.



Here are the ribbons that I ended up using. I used each one at least once and most of them twice.



Here's the front with the picture placed inside as I tried to figure out how I wanted to do this. I just painted the letters with acrylic paint and the edge of the top as well.



I used the ribbons to make a layered flowers, a giant ric rac base, then the velvet ribbon was folded and looped and then the blue was gathered with a shell button for the center. I also layered my stamp pads around the edge to soften the white and make it look more sand-ish.


I glued the blue around the upper edge for the sky, folded the satin/grossgrain ribbon for the bottom and framed all around it the brown velvet. Then I took a bunch of buttons and cut off the shanks and layered them around the bottom edge.



Just a close up of the bottom corner.



Here's the whole inside of the tin. This picture is actually of me and my hubby when we were dating.


You can see more of the layers of the flower here. (My hubby says the flower is too big, but somehow that's just how it turned out)



My finished project for the "Back to the Beach" contest.