friendly projects are the most rewarding

My friend Kristy approached me a couple months ago about a project that she wanted to do.  She ordered some of the supplies, and amidst our busy schedules, we finally got together to do it.  She was the High Master of Scissors and I was the Sewing Machiner Extraordinaire.  We made a great team.  It was fun to have our girls play together, and we got to spend hours just talking and creating at the same time.  What could be more fun?

It was all starting out great, but I was starting to get a little annoyed that the kids kept asking for snacks - until I realized that it was already 1:30 and they had not had lunch yet.  Kids these days!  They just want to eat all the time.  You feed them in the morning and they want to eat again a few hours later.  We were all having so much fun playing that we'd forgotten to eat lunch, so we had to take a small break.  Project mode makes me a little crazed.

Our project was to make soft fabric fridge magnets.  We each made an alphabet set and then a set spelling each of our kids' names.  It was quite a lot of work sewing and cutting and tracing, but look what we ended up with using some scraps of fabric, magnets and cotton batting.  Kristy's turned out incredibly cute too.  She had the most amazing micro wale corduroy fabric from Treadle Yard Goods in St. Paul, so I was a little jealous of her, but she graciously gave me a large scrap of it to use on another project, so I couldn't hate her for long.

The instructions were found on the very cute Chez Beeper Bebe blog and the only thing we did differently was zig zag the the lines instead of sewing straight lines.  We also put the magnets between the two layers of batting because we didn't want to risk the fabric wearing thin where the magnet was.  The magnets we used were strong enough to hold through the fabric and batting. (magnets purchased here from http://www.craftparts.com/)

DOWNLOAD PLUSH ALPHABET TUTORIAL HERE

We came up with some more great ideas along the same lines.  I'm thinking I need to start an Etsy store soon, but I'm a little overwhelmed with the projects I'm drowning in right now.

One set for my purple girl...

And one for my orange girl...

My little shoe obsessed 2-year-old picked this out as the one fabric she wanted, along with all things orange.  I love this Alexander Henry print I bought about 8 years ago when I was in New York City fabric shopping.  I have just a tiny bit left and just when I think it's not enough for anything, I find that there is something I can use it for.  The company's designers will come up with something else just as cute, I'm sure.  They always do every year.  It's one of my favorite fabric companies for quality and cute prints.  I'm sorry, but Amy Butler doesn't hold a candle to this!

This is going to be little Gertrude's birthday gift in September, so away they go.  She'll have to just play with her name until then.

If I could decorate the world in Swiss dot, I think I would.  I love it.  Every woman and girl needs a dress made of it.  To me, it is happiness in the form of fabric.