There are only a few hours left to enter my 350+ followers and 400 Posts Giveaway. Entries will close at the bewitching hour....Midnight tonight.

Early morning light.

Kid's Art Apron

You'll need:

*(1) 1/2 yard of fabric for the front

*(1) 1/2 yard of fabric or muslin for the back

(1) 1/2 yard of fusible medium weight interfacing or a piece at least 18" x 23"

*(1) Dritz Extra Large Eyelet Kit (7/16"), the pack with the included tools, not the refill pack

*80" of twill tape (I used white)

*7" sew on velcro

Start by layering your 2 pieces of fabric on top of each other.

Place your pattern on top, pin in place and cut out both pieces at the same time.

My BFF traced her pattern for me to use but you can easily make one yourself. With a ruler and a large piece of craft paper, draw and cut out a rectangle 23" long x 18" wide.

Cut out your pattern and use it to cut your apron pieces.

Using the same pattern, cut out a piece of medium weight interfacing. I used Pellon 931td.

With right sides together, layer your front and back pieces and pin.

Starting at about 1/3 from the side edge of the bottom, start stitching the 2 pieces together using a 1/4" seam, making sure to back stitch at the beginning and end of each area.

Once you get back around to the bottom, stop your stitching 4-5 inches from where you began. You will use this opening to turn your apron right sides out.

Hand stitch closed the opening at the bottom.

Next open your pack of eyelets and take out 4 eyelets, 4 washers, the anvil and the setter.

Determine the placement of your eyelets.

Draw a circle on the inside of the eyelet shaft in each spot.

Cut out the fabric along the marked line. Using my embroidery scissors, I poked a hole through and then followed the line. Don't worry that the holes aren't big enough for the eyelets. You'll work the eyelet shaft in and the fabric will be nice and tight around it.

Following the instructions on the back of the package, secure the eyelets in place. Hint: at first I tried to do this on my cutting table with a block of wood under the anvil but that only worked partially. I then took everything to the basement and did it on the concrete floor and had much better success. The eyelets closed together perfectly. You'll have to pry the setter out each time but it isn't difficult.

Next cut (1) 3 1/2" piece of velcro. I used the snag free version to hopefully help keep hair from getting tangled and pulled.

Cut (2) 12" pieces of twill tape and sew one side of the velcro to each piece of twill tape.

Making sure you have the velcro sides lined up properly to attach together (one should be face up and one should be face down), thread the twill tape through the top eyelets and sew the ends to itself to secure.

Next cut a 56" piece of twill tape for the middle tie. Find the center of the twill tape and the center of the apron and pin in place.

Sew down the center only of the twill tape using whatever pattern you wish. I did an X inside a square.

Lastly sew down both end of the ties to keep them from unraveling and you are done.

Ta Da!

One cute kid's apron is all finished and ready to be covered with paint and markers (or flour and sugar if it will be used for a cooking assistant).

Here is my Sunshine modeling her new apron. With the way the wait tie attaches with this apron, I really like that it totally goes around her waist comfortably for her.

Jammer is modeling his apron, with a goofy smile of course.

I used the exact same pattern for both aprons so you can see here how they fit based on my kids' height. Jammer is 48" tall and Sunshine is a peanut at 38" tall. You can make your apron shorter or longer by adjusting the length of your pattern.

The kids love their aprons and couldn't wait to take them to school today. I'm glad that they actually want to use them during art class. Hopefully I'll have a lot less stains to remove from their clothes this year.

Linking up today!

As is usual every year, the kids' school supply lists included an old t-shirt to be used as an art smock. I honestly don't think they were really ever used by the evidence that came home on my kids' clothes plus when I was working in the classroom at various times, I never once saw the stack of shirts anywhere.

This year I wanted to provide them with something else, something that perhaps would be used for its intended purpose. While visiting my BFF during Labor Day weekend she showed me the apron she was going to make for her daughter and I though "Ah ha!". That would be perfect for my kidlets too.

This is her daughter's completed apron. I finally have gotten around to actually making them for my kidlets too.

I do wish I was able to get twill tape that matched Jammer's fabrics better but the white was all that my local Joann's had. Since I'm guessing that my kids aren't the only ones that need aprons to keep clothes clean during art class or helping in the kitchen with cooking tasks, I'm writing a tutorial to share with you how it was done.

I promised to have a giveaway when I reached 350 Google Friend Connect followers and that did happen during the Pin It Blog Hop but I've had to wait for that giveaway and the Daily Craft TV giveaway to finish before I could post this one. Keeping up with comment replies sometimes is hard enough with regular life stuf and 2 kidlets...I didn't want to have to try and do it for 2 giveaways at the same time.

Thanks to all of you I'm currently at 363 followers though I know that the number is probably much higher since so many are only following through another source and because of that I can't get an accurate count. At some point I'll have to figure out something else but for now I'll have to stick with using the Google Friend Connect total.

In addition I was happily surprised when I logged in to actually write this post I saw that this one is my 400th post.

Wow! Not bad for just under 2 years since starting this blog.
Plus having another reason to celebrate can't be a bad thing either.
It definitely calls for a Double Giveaway today!

 And the other winner will receive this book More Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.
 I love precuts and of course having great ideas as to what to do with them is a good thing.

Now to decide how you can enter to win one of these....Hmmmmm, lot of possibilities available.

Since it is Halloween season and the stores are overflowing with candy, how about you tell me:

1) your One favorite candy bar.
I'd have a tough time deciding, especially since I don't eat a lot of candy bars, but a Reese's Nutrageous or a Baby Ruth would be Yummy!
2) My followers get a 2nd entry, tell me how you follow.

Please, please, please leave me your email address in your comment if you are a No Reply Blogger. I still get NRB comments regularly and I'm not able to reply back to you.

Entries will close at Midnight, Thursday October 24th and the winners will be announced the next day.

This quilt is finally finished!

I can't believe it took me so long.

That is not normal at all.

This is my Dots in the Wind quilt.

The blocks were made during the Dots on Dots Blog Hop back in July 2012. Then the quilt sat for months and months before I got around to actually putting the blocks together, adding the sashing and the scrappy border.

Then it sat around again for many months before I handing it off to my long arm quilter (before I bought my own). I really love the way this quilt turned out, all the bright and fun colors.

It just makes me happy looking at it.

I don't know what my hang up was getting this completed. Oh well.

I used up a bunch of leftover bits for a pieced backing and I love that too. Pieced backings are definitely more work but it makes the finished quilt that much more interesting.

No instructions were given to my quilter so she chose to do a butterflies and loops pattern in a pale green thread.

More scrappy leftover strips were used for the binding and I think it was the only way to go for this one.

I'm actually linking up today with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday and October Quest 2, today hosted at Quilt Matters

and Richard and Tanya's Link-A-Finish Friday.