City Mouse Big Cheese

We has a little tug of war this year with costumes. T was set out from the get go to be a ghost but Mommy had other plans. I had 1/2 started this mouse costume a while back and had planned to give it as a birthday present but never got it completed. The week before and the week of Halloween I was not feeling well (just found out I have bronchitis) and so I decided to revisit this little mouse and use stuff I had around the house to put together something simple for Theo. I whipped this up in two hazy congested miserable nights, but it was so worth it.

The mouse costume consisted of a tail and ears made from stretch velour and a grey tulle tutu. Theo's cheese head was a piece of latex foam that I cut with scissors and sprayed with yellow spray paint. We used an on hand onsie that I dyed and printed out an iron on decal that said aged one year (yes he just turned one the week before). We got to use the costume several times once for a party and then again at Halloween and my guess is that she will want to wear this a dozen or so times before we re purpose the parts for something else. Halloween was so magical this year. T had such a great time, we created a bunch of creepy crafts and she became completely obsessed with all things slightly spooky. Theo, well he wasn't so sure about it all and even though he looks miserable in the photo he warmed up to his costume and was our perfect stinky lil cheese. Oh and I went as a black cat...with a few grey whiskers.

Boy Toy

I'm trying to get a few more Theo posts up - but that little guy is hard to get a picture of. He's a fast one and always on the move, moreover any time he sees the camera or any other electronic device he beelines right for it. Anyway I managed to capture him with his newest little softie friend. It's really the first dolly I've made for him but I promise that he won't go without for much longer. Tess starts school and he is just starting to nap for longer stretches. When school starts you can bet I will have that sewing machine out and working double time. Here's a quick little guy I made for Theo. I used the pattern from the book "Softies Only a Mother Could Love". I modified the design to include an all felt face with machine sew details and a second side. The original is a single sided cosmonaut and I thought how lonely to be a space man without a buddy. So on the second side I added a one eyed spotted alien and now the two are best friends.

Cave Girl

The costume theme this week was time travel. If you know my husband you would assume that we would be making a techie costume for Tess since Dad is a big sci-fi nerd. Momma was super tired this week and baby Theo teething again so I opted for a quick & easy pre-historic getup. We watched a few clips from the Flintstones to get her excited and she quickly picked up the all important cave girl mantra, Yabba Dabba do. The only fabric we purchased was a 1/4 yard of the animal print the rest was left over from other projects so the total cost on the costume was less than six dollars. Cheap, quick and priceless. If you follow our costume adventures you might be wondering what happened to "princess" week. Well we ended up skipping that week because we were headed to Galveston for some family fun time at the beach. Whew escaped the princess theme...for now.

Materials
1 yard Utrasuede
1/4 furry animal print fabric
various wood beads for necklace

Rogue Pirate

Here's the next installment of the summer of costumes. Just now posting this project from two weeks back.Tomorrow is castles, prince & princess day and I've yet to start sewing or have any clue of what I will throw together. I think I am procrastinating on this one because I have always sworn to try and steer T away from the whole "princess" thing and encourage her to indulge in more "girl" esteem rewarding role play. But I am finding that this issue is alot like me trying to steer her away from junk food, sugar and bad nutritional influences I can't help to to feel like... the girl needs an occasional brownie and just maybe an occasional princess.

All princess talk aside, here is T as my rogue...not so rogue pirate. She really loved this one and has worn it several times since I made it. We have a hand me down ship play set in the backyard which is perfect for her to act our her pirate daydreams. I even managed to drag Dad into this one - I had him stencil the skull and cross bones on to the vest. So pleased that this was my first attempt at a pair of pants, simple yes they were but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment at tackling something that I had a bit of new sewist fear of. No patterns just used a old pair of pants and an old vest as a go by. Again, not a lot of finishing on this costume. The pant bottoms and felt on the jacket left rough making for a quick 2.5 hour total project. I had all the material except the red striped fabric for the hat on hand so it was almost entirely made up of scraps.

Still missing some pirate accompaniments, I still need to make up a treasure map,some kind of soft sword for swashbuckling(very important according to T)and decorate a paper towel tube for locating other pirate ships in the distance.

Materials:
1.5 yards cotton for pants
1 yard of felt for vest
black bias tape
black felt & elastic for eye patch

Easter Dress

I have been wanting to try to sew one of those pillowcase style dresses for some time but just haven't gotten around to doing it. I've was actually worried that once I made one of these dresses I would get pillowcase dress crazy and then every photo of Tess from now until she went to college would be of her in one these. But with Easter right around the corner I thought it would be the perfect quick sew dress project. After searching for a tutorial I found one that looked pretty simple at Prudent Baby and thought I would give it a go. The dress is linen and cotton and even though it's not the most festive of dresses I am still referring to it as the Easter Dress. Last years Easter dress was black with small white dots so by my standards this ended up being practically a carnival of color. The whole dress from cutting fabric to completion look less than 2 hours and just as I feared I can't wait to make another one. They make the perfect summer dress and when the weather starts to turn you can layer t-shirts under them and wear them as tunics.

Materials:
Fabric
Bias Tape
Twill Tape for the tie

Bath Towel

Long time no post. Sorry we have just been busy around here and finding time to craft is a luxury that mommy is going without these days. So here is a quick one I was able to pull off before the kiddos even woke up on Sunday am. T was in need of a new towel and when I looked online at the prices I was amazed at what companies charge for toddler towels - highway robbery if you ask me. After looking at some of her old baby towels it didn't seem like it would be all that difficult to sew one up, basically the towel construction is only three long seams plus a little extra work to add on some fun details. I purchased a 100% cotton standard bath towel for $3.99 and a hand towel for $1.99 from Target on sale. Sorry I didn't have time to completely document the process for a tutorial but here is a link to the basic sew online http://www.makeandtakes.com/easy-hooded-bath-towel. I promise this is a super easy project well worth the time and small investment. Since I've made another one in orange that was a little chicken as a gift for my nephew Zade and plan to make one for baby Theo. This just might be my go to gift project for all of T's friends.

Simple Baby Quilt

It's been a crazy few months. Getting ready for baby #2 who arrives in just 4 weeks while managing a toddler has made for a busy busy summer. I've been battling with mommy guilt over the fact that I have been so involved with T that I haven't spent the same attention on preparations for baby 2. By the luck of the draw (coming second) baby #2 is going to be getting left overs and hand me downs from his big sis but there are a few things that I wanted to make just for him. I was set on making a baby quilt and a (not yet tackled) room mobile. I have never quilted before and so for my first attempt I wanted something simple yet stylish. I found inspiration & great how to techniques online at Purl & on You Tube. The only thing special I had to buy was a quilting foot that enables you to sew multiple layers together without the fabric slipping. I started with batting or pinning the three layers of fabric together with safety pins then proceeded in sewing zigzag lines of different threads across the short length of the pinned material. I did this repeated and changed colors with each pass until I "felt" the quilt was "done". The last step was to trim the edges and attach binding material around the edges. My total budget for this project including the new sewing foot was $22.00 and total time was about about 3 1/2 hours.

Materials:
Cotton batting
2 contrasting colors of cotton material
Several thread colors
Safety pins
Quilting foot

Welcome Bear

This past week a very dear friend of mine welcomed her second child - a daughter named Georgia into the world. I can attest that if she is anything like her mom the overall population of amazing people just increased by one. We wanted to make something special for her so Tess and I decided on sewing this sweet little mama bear. This was my first attempt at this little stuffie and although somewhat harder to construct than our previous monsters she came out pretty cute. Here is a pic of the final outcome and of us wrestling the bear away from Tess so we could pack her up for her trip out to San Francisco. Welcome Georgia. We can't wait to meet you.

Materials:
Linen
Felt

Dressing Tess

Growing up I can remember my mother bemoaning the fact that when she was my age she was forced to wear clothes sewn by my grandmother. I heard countless stories about how she would swap clothes with her friends on the way to school and inevitably get caught wearing the "wrong thing" when school photos came out. Needless to say I grew up never wearing a stitch of handmade and by the time I was in the 9th grade I was shunning department store duds and hitting the racks in at local vintage shops. I loved finding one of a kind dresses. I cherished garments made with exquisite tailoring and details, clothes that were created with care and in many cases homemade.

I have said in the past that one of my parental missions is to bring homemade into the lives of my children. I want them to value the process of making and also the rewards that come from creating something from scratch that is uniquely their own. Hopefully they will grasp the notion that something made with love and care is infinitely better than anything you can buy at a department store.

Here is my first attempt at making a dress for Tess. I have to say I find sewing difficult and making a dress this small was a huge challenge for me. Admittedly my sewing skills are very limited and anything beyond sewing a straight line is way beyond me but I managed to sew, rip out and re-sew enough to finally finish my first garment. Despite the struggles I am still determined to keep practicing and hope that by the time Tess goes off for her first day at school she will proudly be wearing something Mommy made.

Red Hot & Pinky

With a little extra time over the Thanksgiving holiday I was able to get out the sewing machine and finally attempt to make some softies. I made three in all and we christened them with the names Pinky, Red Hot and Bobo. Little Bobo was my first attempt and admittedly I made some mistakes but in the end his quirky charms won Tess over and he was her favorite of the three little monsters. I timed the last of the dolls to get an idea of how long each was taking and it came in at about an hour and 12 minutes from start to completion. I had a lot of fun and plan on making a few more softies for the holidays as gifts. Each doll comes out a little different and you can play with hundreds of fabric combinations and facial details. The best part was watching T covet her new dollies knowing that I made them and they came out better than I had hoped.

Material:
Wool Felt - 4 colors (face, body, eyes, mouth)
Yarn- 2 colors (eyes & whip stitches)
Thread - 3 colors (eyes, mouth, face)
Doll Stuffing

Itty Baby Beanie

I have been on the lookout for the perfect hat for T. There are plenty of great options out there to chose from but since I have just discovered that sewing is actually fun I thought I would give making one a try. The process was pretty simple and from start to finish it only took 45 minutes. I found the basic ski cap directions online at http://www.p2designs.com/ShipSkiCap.htm and used left over wool felt scraps I had on hand. I cut small butterflies out of the felt and hand sewed them to the cap last night while I was watching Project Runway. Spoiler alert... I think everyone on my holiday list is getting a beanie for the holidays.

Halloween 2009

I have always loved Halloween. It's not just the dressing up and getting your neighbors to shell out free candy it's everything about the "spirited" holiday. The crispness of the weather, costume making, mingling with neighbors and the unmistakable feeling of something special in the air make Halloween magical. This year did not disappoint and was extra special for our new family. It was our daughter Tess' first real dress up Halloween and she went as a baby owl. I was ecstatic to finally have an excuse to try out my never used Singer despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. I popped open a bottle of wine and got to cutting, pinning and sewing hoping for the best. The entire project took about 4 hours to complete and with the left over materials I even had enough wool felt to sew up this sweet treat bag.

Materials:
Wool felt - grey, white, black ,gold
Faux fur
Grey hem tape
Fabric glue

Time:
4 hours start to finish