Fabric love

Since November is the lovely month where we celebrate both thankfulness and indulgence, I thought I would share one of my loves that falls nicely into both of those categories: Fabric.

As I have moved from place to place over the years I have always had a small stash of fabric from my college days when we would make simple hair wraps.  There was never a real reason to keep it, but I felt extra crafty if I kept it. 

Every crafter should own fabric :)

 I slowly accumulated more cute fabric when I was pregnant to inspire me to make something for my child-to-be.  Well, I finally had to make sense of these purchases.  Honestly, I love making things, but I also love just seeing my bin of fabric.  As I have made small gifts this past year, each piece of fabric reminds me of the beautiful child who now wears it.  

I am incredibly intimidated by my sewing machine, though each project reaffirms that they often seem more difficult in a book than when I am actually doing it.  I look at projects like I look at recipes: if I've never heard of an ingredient, I move on.  If I don't know how do figure out a sewing technique, I usually choose to do something else.  Each piece reminds me of that and I am slowly expanding my horizons.  Here is my latest, VERY SIMPLE, elementary level, project.  It was inspired by a Saturday of digging through Julia's closet to put away her clothes and set out her current size (something that I feel like I do too often!)  In the midst of her newest clothes I found this sweatshirt.  I realized that she is currently at a great size where sweatshirts will now be very useful, but I was a bit disappointed that this sweatshirt promoted a college doesn't mean much to us (I will not name it so as not to offend any Big Ten college fans).  I decided to make it into a project...

Here is the result:

(I have a great model!)

For the hood I used long strips and folded them inch by ince and pinned them down then sewed to secure it.  It adds a bit of character.

A sweatshirt destined for the "never to be worn" pile is now one of my very favorites!  It helps that each time Julia wears it she insists on wearing her hood up as she marches through the house yelling "APPLE!"