Snail trail quilt for JOY circle...

I have always wanted to make a Snail Trail quilt - I love the block design, but making a whole quilt of those blocks intimidated me. But as a quilter for the JOY circle for Do Good Stitches, I get to decide on a quilt twice a year and have nine other ladies sew up a couple blocks of my choosing for it. The quilt is then donated to a local hospital or cancer center.

The quilt block tutorial we used can be found here. It is more simplified than some Snail Trail blocks out there. Everyone was asked to use two main colors per block in choices of purple, dark pink, turquoise, and white. I wanted a finished quilt that would be suitable for a girl or woman of any age. I'm loving the blocks that came back from everyone and am looking forward to quilting this one up.

If you are interested in joining one of the circles from Do Good Stitches, it's a small monthly commitment, and you can sign up here.

Princess dress sewing...

While in Disney, we did a dress-up Princess day. We split up from the boys, and used all our fast passes to meet some royalty and get signatures. It was a lot of fun, and even the older girls got right into it.

My oldest wanted to be Pocahontas, so we used a light cotton for the dress, added some white fringe, and a belt. We also darkened her hair and face a bit. The dress was just a pull-over the head style, so super simple to make. And since it was a hot day, she loved how cool it was.

My middle daughter has waist-length curly hair, so Merida was an easy choice for her. The dress was made from a light cotton, with some lace detail, and we added a belt and a pouch for her bow. We also dyed her blonde locks to orange (which was a hard color to find!).

For my youngest, I cheaped out and bought an Anna dress off of Ebay. Tonnes can be found there for about $10/each and she loved matching her cousin that dressed us as Elsa. Sometimes, convenience and price win over sewing.