more sewing than cookies these days

it's been pretty quiet on the cookie front lately.  i suppose that's not a terrible thing considering it's been so hot, but i kind of miss working with fun designs that people come up with.  like, i got to do this set for a bunco party:

and these for a superhero birthday party.

the bean's cheer coach managed to get us access to a local hall to use for extra practices for free, and so when she asked us to help put together a gift basket for the owner as a token of our appreciation, i threw a dozen of these together:

with all this time freed up from baking and decorating cookies, i've turned most of my attention to sewing.  i have an insanely large stash of fabric and a whole bunch of patterns to use on them, so i'm trying to crank out as many pieces as i can.  i should probably work on clearing out my closet of stuff i don't wear anymore so i have room for the new things, but that's not as fun.  heh.

i'm not a huge romper fan, mostly because i don't like having to practically get naked when i need to hit the potty.  but i decided to give it a shot with this fabric i got in a monthly subscription that gets me two "mystery" yards of material.  july's box contained this lovely liverpool fabric that has a nice stretch with a nice weight to it.  i used the made for mermaids mama lea romper pattern for this:''

for a visit to disneyland, i threw together this tank top using a star wars-inspired panel i'd forgotten that i'd ordered till it arrived in the mail.

and this is a dress i'd cut out probably a good month before i finally sewed it together.  as soon as it was done, i realized that using red for the neckline and arm holes pretty much cut down my shoe choices to like one pair in my closet.  d-oh!

i have a major shortage of comfortable shorts in my wardrobe.  i've seriously been wearing the same pair of denim cutoff shorts from the gap for probably four summers in a row, because i love them and they're comfy - and also because they seem to have discontinued them.  bah!  anyway, i decided to try my hand at making a drawstring-waisted pair using new horizons' "portlander" pattern in a fabric from sincerely rylee called "genevieve."  i love these:

also using sincerely rylee fabric, i busted out this dress that was a collaboration between them pattern maker george & ginger.  this is before i added the final tier to make it a mini-length dress, and although it took what seemed like forever because of all the pressing and strap making, i love it.

i've seen really cute knotted tees online from nordstrom and other places going for like $50.  i love the look, but i refuse to pay that much for what basically amounts to a t-shirt.  luckily, there's a pattern for that, and with this fabric i scored for $5 a yard i have my own version for under $10:

this dress was somewhat of a fail.  the construction of it is correct and follows the pattern exactly, but i don't love it on me.  the line drawing on the pattern description was super cute, but i think this one is going straight to the donation pile.  WOMP WOMP.

i replied to a call for testers for a new women's board shorts pattern, mostly because i'd mistakenly bought some fabulous board shorts fabric thinking it was actually swimwear material.  i found out over the weekend that i'd been chosen, and so i've been working on my tester shorts for the last couple of days using some crap fabric that's been stashed for a couple of years now.  i've cranked out three pairs of these things so far (because when an updated pattern with bug fixes comes out, you have to re-test it out), and the third pair came out almost perfectly.  it's really comfy, and now i'm ready to cut it out with my final fabric.

wish me luck.  if they turn out the way i'm hoping they will, they're going to be SUPER cute.  we'll see.

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