Yes, thats a tour bus – haven’t been on one since high school!  It was so much fun to get on a bus and be with 40 ladies who loved sewing and quilting.  Everyone became instant friends!

 We went to Pine Needles, Material Girls, and Quilters Haven.  I don’t have a quilt shop where I live, so this was a huge treat!  So many fun ideas to get inspired by!

The conference consisted of 2 days of classes, 4 classes each day.  Bernina sponsored the summit and we all got to sew on brand new Berninas!

 I also loved meeting Rachel from Family Ever After,

and Heather Bailey!  She is soooo amazing!

 In between classes I got to meet lots of new friends and talk about sewing!  If you are at all interested in sewing or quilting, you should totally go!  It’s for EVERYONE!!!

 I arrived at sewing summit with 1 bag and a small carry on and left with 2 check-ons and 3 carry-ons!  I was quite a sight walking through the airport!!

Of course we had to make a sign.  We do love Taylor’s cat Meredith – she is the cutest!

 Yes, we are cheesy!!

 Finally at the Staples Center!!!  I can’t tell you how excited we were!!!

 

 The concert was AMAZING!!!  In fact, it’s hard to put it into words.  I have been to a lot of concerts and this was the BEST CONCERT EVER!!!  We were so sad when it was over.

 Cut along the marked line.

 Press each side in 1/4″.  Do this for both pockets.

Pin your pocket piece to the pocket.  If things aren’t matching up how you want, you may need to make adjustments.

For the appliqué:
I like to add a little appliqué to the front.  I choose to do a strawberry since it matched the fabric.  I used Heat n Bond Lite from Therm o Web.  It’s my favorite fusible appliqué medium!!
Draw your image on the Heat n Bond:

Peel off the paper back and position on your sweatshirt.  Press, using a dry iron.

 Ta Da!!!

Here are a few other sweatshirts I have made:

How to Bleach Dye your shirt:

1) Purchase your shirts—-any color! For this process they really do need to be a color. I found a bunch at the dollar store {I know totally lucky, and they were Hanes brand too} that were this wierd kind of purple. Perfect for this project and the girls! 2) I didn’t prewash, but it took a lot longer for the bleach to work. Longer than I would have thought, so maybe you want to prewash to remove any kind of sizing and dye stuff they have going on when making them. 3) Fold, twist, scrunch, bundle– and then rubber band the shapes. Just like a typical tie dye method. Follow a few of the tutorials found in the Tie Dye Shirt Series. This is where the moms step in and finish it for them– the kids can go off and play. 4) Mix bleach and water, equal parts into a bucket {use gloves to protect your hands} 5) Stuff all banded shirts into bucket of bleach water
 6) Wait patiently. Keep an eye on those shirts. The color does take a bit to start changing from the origional to another color that is layered underneath when they are dying the fabric. We were thinking that this would take just a few minutes, but it ended up to take around 20 minutes or so and then we got real impatient and I sprinkled bleach on them. Yup, straight from the bottle. These weren’t cheap thin shirts so they totally handled it just fine. You do want to make sure that holes don’t appear. That is when you have let the bleach tie-dye stick around too long. 7) Remove the shirts, remove the rubber bands, throw into the washer for a wash and dry.
 The dark purple is the original color. The lighter purple/pink is what the bleach tie-dye revealed. Super fun! Each shirt was totally different. I would recommend writing initials on the collar or tag so you can find whose is whose. {we did luckily!} Hope your shirts turn out perfectly wonderful! I love the idea of having everyone ‘matchy, matchy’ but still letting them have their own style and personality. Thanks for letting me share today and hope you stop on by and say hello….there’s always something spec-tac happening!