Fall Clothes part 1

Pattern: Figgy's Banyan Tee and Tunic

Fabric: Girl Charlee Fox Family Cotton Jersey Blend Knit Fabric (bought last fall) and old recycled orange knit hoodie. Here it is the fox fabric in a different colorway.

The stretch on the fabric was not what the pattern required so I added a panel down the front with a pleat at the neck to make it roomy enough. I also lengthened the sleeves and recycled the orange binding at to neck. The hem threw me for a loop and it sat unfinished for a week.  As I finished it she declared her love for the hem.

She was tired but this shows the shape of the hem. Mike and I agreed this is the Dorothyiest shirt we could think of.

Also I wanted her to wear leggings instead of yoga pants while I took a picture.

"Why? You wear yoga pants a lot". Touche'

More clothes in the finish pile and a winter coat... See you soon!

Growing up in theater, I wanted to be a costume lady.

 

The fabric was bought months ago, near or after Christmas when everyone was in the early obsession stage and my girls assumed sweetly I would make them costumes.

I saved all of my coupons and stacked them and got what fabric I thought I needed for a major discount. No patterns had been published yet for the new princesses. School, summer, etc. and I never sewed it all up.

At some point in spring or summer McCalls came out with this pattern, M7000 and I snagged it.

On October 1st, I realized I had the adult size of pattern M7000 and not the kids size pattern. Ugh. I knew I had to buy trim and thread and I was not going to waste my money on another size of the pattern.  I had some other princess patterns and modge podged them together.

I lamented this all to my mom and my dear Carrie and they both basically said, "Well you never use the pattern. Remember how you always throw the rules away and stress out about it and love every minute of it."

Yes. No. Well yes.

Carrie, "Sarah, you did that last year. Remember Wendy?"

Also on October 1st I realized I had to convince them again they should be Anna and Elsa (they knew many many many others would be and had new costume ideas). I appealed to the money I already spent and glorified the future when I told them they will be a grown up and will say remember when we were ALL characters from Frozen and laugh and laugh.

Like how my people now say remember when we wore plastic masks that snapped our face, cut our tongues and slowly suffocated us, laughing and laughing.

SO I got out my fabric out of storage (the pile in my studio) and I was pretty mad and didn't know what I had been thinking. I had bought broadcloth for the Anna dress thinking, that will be sturdy and warm. Another part of my brain assumed I would hand embroider those flowers and vines. Those two parts never talked, because that very thick cloth + my RA + October chilly weather = painting the flowers with what ever acrylic paint I had instead of embroidery.

The Anna cape and bonnet are fleece so it cut easy and neat and just needed trim, pom poms, and a bit of faux fur. If you need to try this wait and get it when trims and ribbons are all half off. This week I got $40 worth of trim for $16 by using another extra 20% coupon at Joann.

The Anna shirt is a performance knit (think work out clothes or dance costumes) that I randomly had. I don't know where I got it.

The Elsa bodice was a lot of folding/pleating long strips of a few colors of teal and turquoise sewing them down to a bodice piece that I intended to be the top of the dress, but it would not hold to my white base fabric. I knew I was putting too much weight on the base fabric. I basically had to hand sew the panel of pleats to a new bodice that wasn't caving in and it made the original fabric it was sewn to more of and underlining which finally supported the weight of the pleats. Oh and the sparkly paint. It was the only part Elsa her self got to do, paint some sparkles.

I then made a stretchy long sleeve t shirt with pointed wrists out of a white knit that was actually the leftover swimsuit lining I used for her Superwoman costume and serged the satin skirt to it at the waist.

The above mentioned bodice became more of a sleeveless vest that had a zipper down the back and went over the stretchy white sleeves of the dress. Then hooks were sewn into place to hold the cape.

And that is a very vague and confusing explanation of how I made my gals Frozen costumes.

9 months later

That I could have bought at Target

For about the same amount of money that I bought trim.

Today.

Today. She lost her tooth.

It was the first one she got on the top, while we were on a long cross country trip in 2008.

Back then, we were overwhelmed with laughter when she smiled her gangly-toothed monster smile. That tooth became legend in our family after I held her in the air up against 4 famous presidents and she showed that toothy grin.

Today I think we both cried more about loosing the tooth than we did when she got it.

Today she carried my breakfast for me because she knew I had hurt my wrist.

Today I had to ice her mouth for almost an hour, tears in her curls it hurt so much.

Today she told a friend the difference between invasive and noninvasive and why her Grandpa had to protect the Bluebirds' nests by ridding it of invasive eggs.

Today I wiped chocolate off the sides of her mouth with the corner of my shirt as we ran errands. 

I remember saying last summer this age is the littlest big or the biggest little. I'm not sure.

After the tooth was out. It was all new.

She was thrilled.

I use to be so frustrated when our kids would change from hours of screaming or throwing a fit to ecstatic. It would make me crazy that they could change from bitter to thrilled so quickly without mind to what they'd put their parents through in the meantime.

But God makes all things new. She experienced that today. She is small and big and she truly felt suffering and Praise God she immediately forgot the pain and rejoiced in the new.

She said, "When the are in they seem so big, but when they are out they seem so small."

Yes.

Yes.

mom

She made this before I came along. It was on our family room wall for years. My brother has it now and when we were all visiting I told her I needed her to hold it up. It was her mom that taught her and I to sew. She listens and laughs when I ask about sewing clothes and quilts.

There are newer fads that I tell her I tried and she laughs saying that doesn't make sense, like ironing an invisible zipper before sewing it like very many suggest these days to sew closer to the teeth and then telling her my zipper gets stuck.

"What did you do"
 "I ironed it"
"You melted it!"
"The Internet told me to iron it before sewing it in!"
She laughed.

She bought me a sewing machine when I was first married. She loaned me hers when that one was in the shop. Because I sewed through my finger. Laughing, "You were rushing!"

Thankful this is a family tradition. Thankful my girls pretend to sew and are practicing and gearing up for the real thing more and more. Thankful.

Videos to show my kids.

Our kids LOVE videos. Here are a few recent favorites. Please help me add to the list by commenting...

This video of a Lion King Cast on an Airplane is totally making the rounds. And goodness does it make me miss musical theater (hello my FCHS theater friends!).

So many commercials/TV shows seem to use the chorus Sarah Barilles', Brave. No matter, when I finally heard and saw the whole thing I fell in love.

A new little friend recently met my little one and they immediately started talking Frozen. It is the universal language of little gals everywhere these days. Here is one of my favorite versions of Let it Go.

Snarky Puppy is a family favorite, thanks to my husband. We all four can be found humming, Thing of Gold, this instrumental New York funk jazz at any time.

And lastly, I don't think there is anything quite like hearing a book from the author's mouth. Eric Carle reads The Hungry Caterpillar. 

Oh and so I don't leave you without a picture and so I remember to document my sewing journey little and big, here is some improv patchwork from a few weeks ago. And my slippers, which always have thread stuck to them.

Kit's blanket

Shared a while ago on my instagram...when I saw this I always saw a pillow with only one side. The owner of Kit, locked eyes on it one day and saw a perfect blanket. Made in granny square style, inspired by this post. 

I sewed a few hours today for kids clothes week. A maxi sun dress for the little one, that is not so little, per her request. With the cutest fabric that has little Popsicles and ice cream cones. Trust me it's cute. Drafted/draped while I went and I thought it won't work out. I had a vision of a silhouette... I have already pulled a lot of stitches out... Tomorrow will bring fresh eyes. 

Baby things

A baby came to our family. I am an aunt again. And this baby was so prayed for and is here. And beautiful. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Above are some crocheted hats, quick change trousers from this book, and a onesie to match 

These were made in the last few months. More sewing this week for my gals! Spring clothes are a coming! It is Kids Clothes Week again! Sharing soon!

A recent quilt.

A recent quilt. Not that I started it recently. This was in the box with the crocs for a long time. But now it is with the little guy it was always intended for!

 Inspired by one of my favorite Denyse Schmidt quilts, the Lazy Gal quilt.

A Flock of Crocs

A flock of Crocs sounds catchier than "A Float of Crocodiles". I looked it up and here is a whole list of what various groups of animals are called. Go see. Pretty interesting!

These crocs or gators were made over a really long time period, for 5 awesome little guys we know and love. They were fun and when I got sick sat in a box unfinished for an embarrassing amount of time. The green fabric is terry cloth it ripped and frayed a lot which is probably prevented me from finishing them quickly, always setting them aside to repair them before they were even finished. I finally surged the last one which made it a whole different game. The first time I made this pattern I used green fleece. So note to self, serge the terry cloth or use fleece.

It makes me remember the first one of these I made for my buddy Elijah was only 3 when I made it for him. I have he privilege this year to carpool with his family. He is now so much older, even sitting next to me in the passenger seat talking to me about basketball, April Fools jokes, and music. The 5 crocs above were all made for friends that are 4 and younger, one of which just turned 1! I can't wait to see them all grow

Long winter

When they started, there was nothing green on the ground or in the trees. As we all know, this long winter wore most of us out. I needed color and yarn therapy.

I started doing math of what I would need to turn these into a full size blanket. I was getting ahead of my self again. I wasn't enjoying the process and it somehow made winter seem even more dreary. So I threw away my sketch with the math on it and just started making flowers again.

These flowers started on the night of the Oscars and the pile gets added to every now and then. Not sure where this project is going. The girls like to ohh and ahh over them, stacking them, rearranging them.  They snag a few here and there, making them into medals or rugs for their doll house. Just like exposing them to good books or music, it is fun to expose them to yarn and fabric and all that comes with making with those things.

Getting Ahead of Myself

I am really good at getting ahead of myself. Starting yarn and sewing projects before my skills are developed for them, heavy books that aren't a good match for this season of life I am in,  pinterest parenting ideas that don't even go with the personalities in my family, and many other things I daydream of and start before I was actually ready to do them.

These English paper pieced flowers are a great example of me getting in my own way. Started in 2011, I read and read about it. Inspired by the quilts my grandma had on the twin beds in her guest room. I hand cut about hundreds of tiny hexagons and the papers. And I wasn't ready for it. I couldn't get in the rhythm needed to baste the fabric around each paper, couldn't get the stitches fine enough to piece them together and not show on the other side. I picked up these tiny hexagons last week and they are coming together now.

It's similar to watching my 4 year old try to make a rainbow loom bracelet over and over again, but just not quite ready for it. She loved the process of trying as much as the final product.

Around the start of the year, my resolution was to- slow down, be more careful, think things through. Don't get ahead of myself.

Slow Stitching, something I am very thankful for these days.  Slowing down and enjoying the process in making, I keep reading slow stitching compared to the slow food movement.

Slowing down. I think it is something a lot of us are craving.