The Annual Dress and Family Picture Craziness :)

I am trying to learn how to sew clothing.  It scares me, but I want to make some things really bad! That beats my fear.  Adding the fact that I am a hopeless perfectionist makes it even more of an adventure, but one that turns out cute, not matter what the odds!  I have made an awesome poncho every winter (velvet lined with fleece) for my littlest little.  Imagine fun cute colors with pompom edging, two big buttons at the neck, and a Little Red Riding Hood style hood.  So much easier than putting on a sleeved coat each time you exit the car :).  I have made crazy awesome Halloween costumes.  And once a year, I make a dress for her for family pictures.  It takes a long time to find the perfect pattern and this year I knew it when I saw it- Mod Kids Chloe (I LOVE Patti Young's designs)!  I threw in my 7 favorite prints from Julie (http://www.intrepidthread.com) at the time and was off and running!

I must admit, I get a tad bit psycho when planning our family pictures!  I go overboard, actually, but it is oh so fun and makes for tons of smiles and memories all year long.  I don't like stiff classic pictures.  I like fun, living, breathing photos- like the photographer just walked up and caught you right in the middle of the best day ever.  When hubby married me, my one condition was that we would take family pictures every. single. year.  Just one condition (besides all the unspoken ones), but I meant it, and he meant it too, 'cause we have had them taken each year, faithfully!  This year involved painting a darling bench deep aqua, making a bunting/pennant in the below fabrics (and another), making this dress, cowboy hats, cowboy boots, my Supernova quilt, searching for months to find different colors (happy bright colors- that of course match the dress colors!)/styles of plaid shirts for all the boys in my life, and getting wild fun colored undershirts for the afore-mentioned plaid shirts.  I wanted to make me a shirt as well, but something had to give, and that was that.  So, I dug through thrift stores until I found the perfect color shirt and topped it with a darling sunshine yellow cardi!  Voila- after months of prep, we were ready!   

Well, with one detour...  We were going to take photos in an open wheat-looking field in front of our Blue Zoo, but the day before pictures, it got plowed under.  Next field, plowed under too, next- plowed under too!!  Three fields, all plowed under- backup plan!!!  I had driven by the coolest yard a few days prior, so I headed there.  We're talking barns, old pickups and ancient school buses.  The most awesome paint cracked buildings and archways and wavy-glassed windows.  Such fun!!  I knocked on the door and wound up talking with the sweetest older couple- of course, we could use their yard!  I was beyond thrilled and they made my day!  So pictures continued without a glitch, and we got some of our best shots yet, I think!  I am so excited to see them!  So there is my long version of why I defeat my fear and make a dress each year for pictures- it makes it more a part of who we are and lets our personality shine through.  FUN!

Yellow and Green Bottled Rainbows :)

I have had all 16 of my Bottled Rainbow colors ready to go for quite a while. I have just been unsure of how I wanted to piece the ticker tape fabrics in the middles- the middles turned out bigger than I thought they would ;). So I have been thinking and thinking about this...

I am an "outside the box" person- way outside, usually ;). And this time I wanted to have a twist on it too, but just didn't know what that was. So it took a little time. All of a sudden, last week, it hit me :)!! I knew what I was going to do. I would ticker tape a "picture" into each color rectangle- things that mean a lot to me and my family. It would make it tricker, I knew, but I also knew that once it was done, it would be well worth it!

So I started with the corn yellow because I knew I wanted a sunshine in it. Oh man, did it prove WAY more tedious than I thought it would be! Wow-sers! I have never fussy cut so much before- but oh, how I love that glue stick man! Wonderful Rachel (http://www.stitchedincolor.blogspot.com/) was the first person I ever heard of using a glue stick before to keep your tiny crazy cut pieces in place, and let me tell you, it is sheer genius! I am hooked- good thing for Costco and bulk packages of glue sticks- I've already gone through 2 of them :) hehe! So I glued and then zig-zaged to my heart's content, and this is how it turned out (see the suinshine?!)---

I ADORE this block- I think it will wind up being my favorite- but I do have 15 more to make, so time will tell...

Then on to the grass green block. That one I decided to put a music note in, an eighth note, to be exact- cause they are my favorite to draw :). Good rationale, huh?! The fabrics I used seemed to have more pops os color once I got them in the positions I wanted. It didn't look that "busy" when I was setting it all out. But that's ok- I am a color person, and after all, it's a Rainbow quilt! I'm thinking I may try doing a few blocks with more color pops here and there to make it look intentional ;) I love the colors of green and how calming it is to me. Here it is once it's all tickered and squared up---

So today was a productive day- 2 of the Bottled Rainbow sections down, and a lot of other "life" things off my never-ending to do list too :) I should sleep well tonight. How was your day??