I made stuff this weekend

I had declared that I was going to make stuff this weekend, and indeed I did. I sewed practically all weekend! It was so incredibly hot outside so it was the perfect time to hide away in my craft room and stitch, stitch, stitch. While I sew, the girls are kept busy playing with their Legos, or they do projects with me in my craft room - they each made necklaces and filled a pad of paper with illustrations. 

I made two totes for teacher gifts, finished a crocheted skirt and finished four quilted placemats. {I also had a craft fail when I attempted to carve a pumpkin-shaped stamp. I will be attempting that again soon. I hope. I have a great idea, in my head, but I'm not able to execute it exactly how I want to. It's incredibly frustrating.} 

I'll be sharing pics of the totes and the quilted placemats later this week. Today, I'm sharing a project that took forrrrrrreeeeeevvvvvvveeeeerrrrr to complete!  I'm so glad that it's done. A crocheted skirt!  

This purple crocheted skirt was originally supposed to be for Lydia, because she loves purple, and then I was going to make a green one for Arlene. But the purple skirt turned out a bit too snug on Lydia, so, Arlene got it, because she's a bit more petite that her sister {and Lydia was totally cool with that - I promised her I'd make her a skirt out of fabric in the near future - I won't be attempting another crocheted skirt because it took so long to make this one!}

I bought the pattern off Ravelry {available here} and got to work on the skirt waaaay back in February. I worked on it here and there and I liked the pattern - it has a shell stitch and what the pattern author called a V stitch. I'm just the type of person that likes to finish projects quickly; so, crocheting bigger items really isn't my forte. I'd work on the skirt every so often while watching TV in the evening. But then I got to the point where I just wanted to finish the darn thing, so I sat and worked on it Friday night for about two and a half hours and got it done! {And, the truth? I didn't even finish the skirt according to the pattern - I got about five rows away from being done with it per the pattern's instructions and I just finished it off with my own version of the ruffle! I just wanted it done!}

I think it came out quite darling! 

Incidentally, this is how Arlene poses now whenever I ask her to pose for a picture. Hip popped out, hand on hip and posed legs. Lord help us. 

As I said, I'm glad the skirt is done - I'm happy with the end result. I'm disappointed it didn't fit Lydia, because if it fit Lydia then we'd get double use out of it; when Lydia out-grew it then Arlene could have worn it. Ohhh well. Arlene promised me that she'll wear it lots this summer.

Aside from all of the sewing I did this weekend, we also saw Dark Shadows which we completely and thoroughly enjoyed! Another Tim Burton masterpiece! Johnny Depp was so great in his role of Barnabas Collins. 

Stay tuned - I'll share pics of the teacher totes and quilted placemats later this week!