V and Co: how to: appliqué christmas apron

 it's sweltering hot out so lets talk about what else: christmas.
i'm sure you've heard of christmas in july. that's when most of the christmas fabric ships to stores, so of course that means it's time to get a cracking on christmas gifts! well that's if you are on top of it and are already planning your christmas for the year.

this apron is a super easy apron that would be a great teacher's, or neighbor's, or friends gift. whoever you decide is going to get the gift, will be loving the cuteness of this christmassy apron.

lets get started:

what you'll need for the apron and dots:

-one square of muslin fabric (or solid fabric) cut to 21" by 21"

-three different fabrics cut to 1/8 yard 

- a bell canning jar or anything will create a circle. (a cup would be a good idea as well)

-pellon 804 fusible light weight interfacing (it's dryer sheet weight) i found mine at hancocks, and i bought the bolt for this project you will only need like a yard of it. (if that)

for the tie:

-3/4 yard of fabric cut to three strips of 8" by WOF (width of fabric) 

first what you will do is trace your circle on the back side of each of the 1/8 yard of fabric, i made 6 of each fabric.

then you will place the interfacing on the right side of the fabric.

-sew on your drawn line.

-cut out leaving 1/8" around each of the circles you have sewn.

-pull out the interfacing so it's away from the fabric and make a small cut in the interfacing, so that you are able to pull the fabric inside out.

-push out gently all the edges.

-this is what your "dot" should look like.
-do this to all your dots.

apron:
-get your muslin fabric and fold down on three sides 1/4" and iron down. then fold over again, and iron down.
-top stitch around the three sides of your muslin.

-grab all the dots and place them on the apron, you can use my picture as a guide or you can do your own design for the dot placement.
-pin them in place.
-iron them down.

-once all the dots are ironed on, we are going to do a blind stitch around each of the dots. (this way it can be washed and the dots will stay on.
-to blind stitch come up from the wrong side of the apron and catch the edge of the dot, and then go back down into the apron fabric right next to where the needle and thread came out from when it caught the edge of the circle.
-move over about 1/4 -1/2" and repeat until you go around the full dot.
-repeat around each of the dots.

the tie:

-grab your three cut strips.
-sew them end to end to end so that you have a MEGA long strip of fabric.
remember we want it to go around our waists twice and have the bow end up in the front so we need it long!

-fold in half and make a crease with the iron.
-open it up and fold in one side towards the middle and iron down just like the picture above.

-do it again this time on the other side.

-okay now get the two short edges and fold a 1/4" edge, iron down.

-repeat, and iron.

-fold in half your tie and top stitch each of the two short ends. (don't top stitch the rest of it yet.)

-now we need to find the middle of the tie so grab the ends and fold in half length wise and where the middle lies place a pin.

-next i folded the apron in half and made a crease in the apron and placed my pin to line up with it.

-placing the raw edge of the apron inside the strip (that is folded in half) pin in place so it doesn't move.

-top stitch from one edge of the tie to the other side.

and you are done.
you have a very christmassy apron.

i want to thank fabric designer: kelle boyd of annkelle for letting me use her cute adorable christmas remix fabric. you can find these fabrics available now in quilt stores everywhere.
have a great day.
i think we're going to the pool.
:)

V and Co. still here

Source: via Vanessa on Pinterest

i'm still here. yup.
between being locked up in my bathroom thinking to myself as the two younger ones keep banging on my door as i do do-do..."they say that i'm going to miss this someday. i think they are full of poop."
cause i'm pretty sure that i will enjoy going to the bathroom without having to hear from the other side of the door "MOOOOOOMMMMM????!!!! where did mom go?! MOOOOOOOOMMMMM?! are you in there?! mom, MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM,MOM!!!!!"
me: sigh "what is it? i'm kind of busy here."
child: "oh she's in there. MOM...can you make cookie dough?"
me: "nope."
child has multiplied into two now: "WHAT WHY???!!!"
me: "well, one is i'm pooping. don't think i can do that right now while i'm on the toilet. and two, it's like 7:50 in the morning so pretty sure that would put me on the "bad mom" status."
silence....
child: "MOM! CAN I PLAY ON THE IPAD?!"
2nd child: "NO FAIR WHY CAN'T I PLAY ON THE IPAD?!"

me: "NO ONES PLAYING ON THE IPAD TILL WE DO THE CHORES AND READ FOR 20 MINUTES."
silence.
feet running away.
hmmm put that on my mental note pad on how to get some quiet while going to the bathroom.

and again being locked up in the car driving back from the pool with all four kids with me and again the two younger ones are bantering back and forth:
girl noise maker says: "well i'm going to be what mommy is when i grow up!"
and 3rd noise maker says: "a minion pooper?"
in his defense, i do call them "my minions" and apparently we need to at some point teach him that you don't necessarily poop out kids.

we only have about one more month of summer left. (WHAT?!) so we are in slow motion on the ol blog. but eh, i figured you are probably pooping in your bathroom with minions at your door too, so you don't care.
good news is that i did get a few minutes the other day and i sewed. so tomorrow i will have a "christmas in july" project to show. :)
we'll talk soon, and may you get a few minutes to yourself at some point today.
:)

V and Co: my new sewing space

 as i have mentioned before.
i went from not having a sewing room to having a sewing room to not having a sewing room all within years time. our first home didn't have an extra room for me to have so i sewed in my kitchen area. i also kept my fabric in my kitchen as well. it was cramped but it worked for what i needed at the time.
then we moved into a bigger house (when we decided we were going to stay in our little town for the long haul) and i got my own glorious little office sewing room, wrote a book in that room, and well i created a mess that was never really organized because after 6 months of living there we found out my husband's company closing it's doors. we moved...blah de be blah you know the story and we had to find a house in two days in our current state of iowa.
i love my neighborhood, i love my neighbors, and i love our schools. we got super lucky with all of our choices, except for the fact that most homes in our price range only have 4 bedrooms. sooooo we again find me not having a room to call my own as a sewing room.

BUT all that has changed. well not really. i still don't have an actual room, but i do have a corner in my basement where the kids' playroom/play video games/watch movies is located.
so now i can totally be in their faces whenever i need to be.
kidding but not really :)

it's still in it's beginning phase. i found that bookcase at a garage sale (WHOOT!) for $10 painted it white, and bought some cute storage bins from target. i still need to go through all of my fabric bins...and probably try to pare down some (so look for some fabric sales coming your way perhaps?)
i also found that white rolling shelf tray thing that holds "sergio" the serger at a garage sale. it reminds me of the one the husband's grandmother had in her kitchen.
anywho, it's not all that glamorous, or fancy, but come on, seriously would you expect that from me anyways? yeah didn't think so. i'm still in search of some more garage sale finds to place in my corner for storage. ah the hunt never ends.  :)
okay off to continue the cleaning and organizing.
we'll talk soon!

V and Co: so my husband needs a bail out

no no, i'm not setting up a fund like george zimmerman or anything...this is for a different kind of lock up.

my husband IS a Jailbird. but it's for a good cause:

He's taking part in the 2012 ELU Lock-Up benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association. As a Jailbird, he's working to raise his bail via donations that go to help the MDA.

this is where all of you come in. (if you're so incline...uh but seriously he kind of needs your help.)

MDA is dedicated to curing muscular dystrophy, ALS and other neuromuscular diseases. At the same time, the Association provides health care and support services for people living with these diseases in local communities.

We need your help in this fundraising effort with a tax-deductible donation (whoot!!!) cause who doesn't like that?!

 It’s easy — just click on the secure link below.

Click here to visit the donation page.

If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit this direct web address:

http://www2.mda.org/site/TR?px=1333987&pg=personal&fr_id=2970&et=kAaxmSNWvC3np1himu1EBQ&s_tafId=15279

Thanks in advance for joining the fight against muscle disease. Remember, every breakout means more breakthroughs for MDA. <----yup i stole that off the website. sounded important and better than i would have said it. :)
okay so crafters unite! do me proud so i can show the husband how awesome this whole blogging/crafting community really can be! 
ps i'm uploading pictures of my newly organized craft corner soon! can't wait to show you! :)
we'll talk soon.

V and Co: our weekend-ish

my family is in the shadows i'm the tiny little person in the reflection in middle of the bean taking a picture

stop the presses, i'm blogging. i KNOW. seriously i look at how much i'm blogging this year vs how much i was blogging in summers past...and well, the numbers don't lie, for some reason i've not been blogging and yet, we've been busy. not busy doing projects every minute, just busy being us. and while i used to blog about us being us...for some reason, i get nervous to do it.

why? well lets just say this: when you live in a small town in a remote area, all the people pretty much knew you knew your stories, and pretty much were family. i could write about everything we went through and they would laugh/cry with me...but they already knew it because they witnessed it or i had already told them. so when i wrote things the people that would come up to me and say "you're so hilarious!" or "oh my gosh could you BE any funnier?" (cue in chandler emphasis) or my favorite "we can take care of that goat problem of your yours." and of course "can i just tell you, i love your kid, he's going to be okay."

yeah. somehow living in a small town where i was just writing to a computer screen and all my "friend-family" were the only ones coming up to me and saying that they read what i wrote, it seemed okay.

now cue in living in a larger city, (not that large compared to most but still) and not knowing everyone in your town, and cue in the looking over your shoulder and wondering are you reading what i wrote? 

is this weird? i mean my readership has been in the general area in numbers for a few years (a slow incline but nothing too drastic), but all of a sudden because i don't have my hula hoop of wilderness around me, i feel like i'm more on display.

so yeah. thoughts? 

anywho. i'm working on writing about every day mundane things, because honestly, that's when the best things happen, at least when you are in a family. it's the stolen looks between the husband and i of a funny inside joke the kids don't even know anything about. or the HILARIOUS, or the things that our children do and say that drive you insane or teach you life lessons. 

those are the best memories, and the prettiest images around you that should be the threads of our creativity and the wind in our sails.

so here it is: 

we went on a little trip.

 i say little because chicago isn't that far away from where we live. well, compared to where we used to live. it's a mere 4 hours away and we decided we were going to try to see somethings we've never had gotten the opportunity to do before due to living on the other side of the united states all our lives.

 we went to cloud gate or "the bean" we've seen it in pictures, i'd seen it in movies, but never had i ever seen it in real life.
amazing.
it.
is.

 i tried to get good posed pictures of the kids (emphasis on the tried and you will see why later on in the next few pictures) but due to too many witnesses, i couldn't do my "take a picture and make it look good so i can use this picture to send it out to everyone this year blah de de BLAH iCAN STAND HERE ALL DAY PEOPLE TILL WE GET IT RIGHT...DON'T YOU TEST ME I CAN CALL SANTA, YEAH YOU HEARD ME!" routine i normally do when i try to get a staged all facing the same way smiling only once a year happening because we're using it for christmas pictures that year rant.

don't know what they were contemplating here in this picture...but it would have been cool if all four of them did the same thing, but of course one of them didn't. oh well.

i have to say the millennium park is pretty cool, we didn't look at everything, we were kind of pressed for time, but next time we will return and i'll take pictures (ahem possibly with a camera other than my phone camera because i forgot the real camera)

also this time around we got to go to the Shedd aquarium.
my kids are huge water/fish/turtles/dolphins/penguin/otter lovers, so this was a fun and exciting thing for them seeing that it's been over 5 years now that we lived in monterey and had the membership to the best after school time waster also known as going to the aquarium for a few hours so mommy didn't go cray cray till dad got home.
our kids loved the jelly fish, when we were living in monterey, and they loved it this time around too.


in the jelly fish area it was super pretty, with all the jelly fish flowing movements, and they had nice soothing music and the colors were cool. :) kind of felt like a "happy place" of some sort.

here's another attempt of me taking a posed picture...no go on the christmas card yet again.

 next we headed to the lego and american girl store. i wish i could have gotten the reaction of the girl noisemaker's face when we turned the corner and saw the american girl store.
she was so excited it was really fun to see.
she got a hand me down doll, she's been introduced to these dolls just recently, and well up till i went into the store i didn't get what was so cool.
i was like "a hospital? and hair salon? whaaaaat? thats just stupid." and honestly it is, but man, you walk into that store and all of a sudden you want to set up a hair appointment for your little doll, eat at the restaurant...with your little doll, and buy matching outfits...wait, no, still don't want to do that. because that is just too creepy weird and kind of stupid in my book. but yes, buy the little doll outfits and glasses, and shoes, and all the other stuff that you can buy but wait i have to eat next month so let just slow it down for a minute...
regroup. breathe. get out of the spinning of crazy...and make some rational choices

so this time around we got "calissa" a new outfit (i think the girl noisemaker  named her calista, but her "t's" aren't all that great. :))
a freaking $38 outfit. um. yeah. (but they came with cute little roller-skates!) anywho moving on.
while the girl and i were contemplating what outfit, the boys were building legos.

legos are the go to toy for my boys. they like them, i like that they like them, and the big husband boy likes them too. we dig legos.

um apparently noisemaker #3 was all over the map on emotions. :/ 

after a fun filled few days we came home. 

and we were super happy to see our new normal of the iowa fields and corn. we are getting used to our new surroundings, and it's exciting to see what memories we make here.

we'll talk soon. :)