Orange Dress with Dinosaur(s)

My daughter might only be two, but she has some pretty strong opinions about some things.  A while back I asked her, "Dorothy, would you like me to make you a dress?"  There are a couple of patterns I have been wanting to test out, but I wasn't really expecting much of a reaction either way from her.  She answered me with an enthusiastic, "Yes!  Orange dress with dinosaurs!"   How could I say no to such a fantastic request?  Every few days she would remind me, "Orange dress with dinosaurs?"  like she wondered where it was and why I had not come up with it yet.  One day while Malcolm was at school, she and I went to the fabric store to pick out some orange fabric for her dress.  If I dared to stop and look at anything that was not orange or had dinosaurs on it, she would get very irritated and would remind me of our mission.  We found some cute orange fabric that was fairly plain, but that would look nice with a dinosaur appliqued on it.

I have been wanting to make a pillowcase dress for a while and decided that this would be a good project for it.  I looked at a bunch of patterns, then decided to wing it.  My first attempt was cute, but way too big.  When I tried it on her, Malcolm looked at her and asked, "Dorothy, why are you wearing an apron?"  Since the bottom had all the detailing and would be nearly impossible to change, I cut the top off to make it shorter and tried again.  It isn't my favorite style of dress, but it does seem like it will be very cool and comfy for hot summer days.

I love a lot of things about this dress, but my favorite is how it so ultimately girly while not having a speck of pink anywhere and having a ferocious dinosaur right on the front.  It is such a contradiction, and yet, so very Dorothy.  I love the bright colors and how the over sized ric-rac resembles the dinosaur's teeth. 

The pattern I used for the dinosaur is a bit more aggressive than I would normally choose for a two year old, but it was the only dinosaur I already had in my collection.  I thought about buying one of the more baby looking ones, but instead, I just made this one out of polka dot fabric.  It's hard to be too terrifying when one is covered in polka dots.  The polka dot fabric was left over from a set I made last year for a one year old's birthday.

Overall, I am happy with how this one came out, and I never would have picked these particular fabrics to go together if Dorothy hadn't insisted on an orange dress with dinosaurs.  Thanks for the creative push kiddo.

Birthday Gifts

Malcolm had two more birthdays recently, so I made two more beach towels with the kids' names on them. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the first one I did. I realized I hadn't taken a picture as I was curling the ribbon on the package. You will just have to believe me when I say that it was cute. It has the little boy's name and two pelicans on it. It was the first one I had done with pelicans and now I want o do more. I did remember to take pictures of the second one I did. I ran out of my stockpile of beach towels, except for two bright pink ones and I didn't think those would go over well with a five year old boy. Dorothy and I went to Target to see what we could find. They did have a couple of beach towels out, but they would not have worked well to be embroidered. We ended up choosing a regular bath towel, and they can choose if they want to use it at he pool or at home. Dorothy pick out a green towel for the birthday boy, and while she was a it, also picked out a yellow towel for herself and a red one for her brother. Malcolm wanted me to appliqué clown fish on the towel and they look great on the green. Hopefully it will get a lot of use this summer.

This was the best I could do for a spread out photo indoors.

I think the fish look uneven because of the bump in the couch.  They looked even when I held it up.

Now to see if I actually get the ones for my kids done before swimming lessons start in June.

Shirred Dress for School Raffle

Malcolm's school had a raffle fund raiser in March and I donated two custom made items as prizes.  One was a shirred dress for a girl in any size from 12 months to 6.  I asked the winner for color and theme ideas to find some fabric that they would love.  The little girl who won is very girly and like monkeys, rainbows, and blue, green, and purple.  I found lots of very cute fabric, but many of them were serious, and didn't seem quite right.  They would have been pretty, but would also have looked a lot like something that could have been bought at any store.  Once I saw this polka dot monkey fabric, I knew that it was the one.  I don't know the little girl very well, but it really seemed to "fit" her and I very much hope she likes it.

Since she prefers greens and blues, I used that as the main ribbon color.

Close up of one of the sassy, silly monkeys on the fabric.

More monkeys.  I tried to get an aqua ribbon for the trim, but couldn't find any that matched.

I think that it turned out really cute, and love that it is a casual, every day sort of dress.

Purdue Hoodie

I appliqued a block P on a grey zip sweatshirt for Malcolm to go with his Purdue shirt and pants.  It's cute, but not quite what I was hoping for.  I had some Purdue fabric left over from some long-alls I made him back when he was a toddler, so I used that for the P.  I wish that the print on the fabric was a little smaller so that it would have shown up better on the P.  The stitching around the P is a little wonky where it started and finished, and I think it has to do with how I hooped it.  The zipper and the sleeve made it difficult to get properly hooped, and I think it wasn't tight enough, then slipped at the start and finish, leaving the stitching not quite finished looking.  If I want to do more sweatshirts, I'm going to have to find a way to get them more stable for stitching.  Oh well, it is still great for layering in this Spring weather.

Close-up of the P

Yes, he's wearing his Purdue t-shirt under the sweatshirt.

Etsy Shop is Open!

I have toyed with the idea of an Etsy shop for a long while.  I crunched the numbers, and it really isn't worth it for me to offer any of the clothes I sew because I would have to change such ridiculously high prices to make it worth my while and not loose money.  However, I can do embroidery and applique on shirts for a reasonable amount, and I like how relatively quickly those go from an idea to a finished product.

I've been working on building my stock, while also doing some other side projects, and today I just bit the bullet and listed my first 10 items.  I need to do a lot of tweaking to make things look more professional, and I want more examples of finished products for people to browse through, but it is a start.

Just a few hours after opening up the shop, I had my first request for a custom item.  Hopefully, it will go through and I will have my first official sale very soon.  *fingers crossed*

Check out my shop to see what I have in stock, and "like" my facebook page to keep up with new additions, info, and promotions.  Hint:  I have a stack of samples and seconds that I plan to offer for half price sometime in the future, and I will announce that on the facebook page.  Don't miss out!

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Etsy

Pay it Forward Craft: Kermit

I completed another of my Pay it Forward Craft 2012 projects.  Three down, two more to go! Since the person I was making it for really liked the other Kermit shirts I did, I did one for her daughter too. This was my first time putting Kermit on a feminine style shirt, but girls need Kermit stuff too.

The shirt turned out great, but I ran into a few problems trying to get it set up. I sized up a little on the shirt, and used a 3T, hoping that I could make it work, and in the end it did; but just barely. I learned that girls' shirts are cut a little more narrow, so it was much harder to get the back of the shirt up and around the hoop so that I didn't stitch the shirt closed. I have a smaller version of Kermit that I have never used, so I cut out a template, only to discover that it was much too small. That one is more suited toward a pocket patch or as a crest or something. I had to hoop it a little high, then edit the design to get it lowered enough, and it just fit. I hope the little girl likes it.

Dresses for Sisters

Last year, Kevin's cousin has a baby girl and I thought it would be fun to make matching dresses for the new baby and her big sister.  I had been experimenting with shirring, and decided to make a couple of shirred sundresses.  I bought the fabric, then procrastinated past the time where sundresses would be worn.  This Spring, I finally tackled the dresses and was so excited for them to finally be done, that I forgot to take any pictures before packing them up and mailing them.  Luckily, the family took a picture of the girls and their mom before church.

          

I didn't have the girls' measurements, so I took a best guess. Luckily, they fit!

Dinosaur Eggs

I made some dinosaur eggs for the kids' Easter baskets and they turned out really cute.  I used this basic recipe:

1 cup used coffee grounds
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sand
3/4 cup water

Then, because I had more dinosaurs to hide than this batch would make, I added about the same amounts of everything, but omitted the coffee grounds because I was out.  Once I shaped the "egg" around the little plastic dinosaur (purchased at the dollar store) I placed them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven on 175 for about an hour.  It dried out the tops nicely, then I flipped them over and tried to get the bottoms to dry.  When we opened them, we discovered that the insides were still a little soft, but they were still plenty difficult for the kids (ages almost 5 and 2) to break into.

The dinosaur eggs in the Easter basket.

First, we tried banging them on the driveway.

Then we discovered that standing on them worked better to crack them.

Dorothy tries the brute strength method.

Malcolm shows off his first discovery.  He was pretty unimpressed with having dinosaur eggs in his Easter basket (where are the toys?) until he discovered there were things inside.

Dorothy finally broke one of hers apart.

Once he figured out how to get them open, he had no trouble.

One of my favorite things was when the kids were shouting out, "Parasaurolophus!" when they would uncover that kind of dinosaur. Please excuse how silly I sound, but here is a video.

Daisy Shirt

On my other blog, I mentioned that I bought a pair of striped pants for $1 at a consignment sale and had plans to make a shirt to go with them. Well, as I tend to do, I made it, then did not take any photos. I accidentally got a decent picture of the shirt today, so here it is!



It isn't the best picture ever, but you can see the daisy I appliqued on the yellow shirt to go with the crazy pants. I have a skirt I bought to go with the shirt when it warms up, but I want to embellish it in some way with yellow and/or daisies to make it compliment the shirt a bit. Hopefully, I will take a picture when I get it done.

In other finished project news, I finally finished two dresses for Kevin's cousin's girls. I was so happy they were both done, I promptly packed them up and mailed them. About two days later, I remembered that I had not taken any photos (smacks head). Once they get there, maybe I can get his cousin to take a picture or two for me. They turned out really cute, and hope they fit the girls.