Car Shirts

A friend asked if I could make her twin boys shirts with cars on them with the cars being different colors. I didn't have any car patterns, but I found a cute woody applique that we both liked. The shirts turned out really cute, but the woven fabric I used for the cars is not holding like I would like it to. I have never had that problem before and feel badly that, while very cute, they aren't quite working out like we had hoped. I found two brick red shirts in her boys size at Target last night and I'm going to experiment with an idea and see if I can get it to work better.

Green car.

Close up view.  The "wood" part is tan corduroy.

Light blue car.  Yes, I took the photo before washing off my marking lines.  If I wait, it doesn't happen.

Close up of the light blue.  Sorry it is hard to see the color well, but it looks nice.

Birthday Gifts

I have not blogged in well over a month, but I promise that I have been very busy.  I'm a bit behind on showing my new projects, but I have also been doing a lot of mending which isn't very exciting and I don't take photos of the mended stuff.  I'll try to do a post a day (I hope) until I catch up.

Word of warning, if you might be inviting one of my kids to a birthday party this year and you want to be surprised by the gift, quit reading now. If you don't care, read on.





My son started preschool last year and the number of birthday parties we went to exploded. What I learned last year is that I am terrible at selecting a birthday gift for 4-6 year olds that I don't know very well and my son is no help at all. We enjoyed having a party with his school friends for his birthday, but were a bit overwhelmed at the volume of toys that resulted. So, I got to thinking, and while it may not be the most exciting gift a young child has ever opened, I decided to make personalized gifts this year. So that I won't get confused, I decided that everyone would be getting the same thing and this year it will be a beach towel with their name on it. I know I have done towels in the past, but I had only done them for family or friends where I thought it might be something they would like. I have no idea how these will go over, but I know that lots of the kids in his school do swimming lessons and I always loved stuff with my name on it when I was a kid.

We have already had two parties and here are the towels.

I love the color combo of the royal blue towel with the lime green turtles and orange letters for the name.  It's so bright and cheery.

My spacing could have been better, but it is a little hard to hoop it three times and get the spacing right each time.  I should have planned to have the turtles about an inch or so farther out.

I'm not as crazy about the turquoise color towel, but since I'm doing these out of season, I have to use what I have or can find.  I'm happier with my spacing on this one though.

I probably won't do turtles on all of the towels I make this year, but these little guys are quick to sew and were ready to go from the last time I did them.  I had planned on some cute little clown fish, but was running short on time and they take forever to stitch out.

I hope the kids (or at least the parents) liked them.

Toy Storage

I wasn't sure if this was more kid stuff or craft stuff, but since it involved me being at least a little creative, I put it here.  The kids' toy area has been bugging me for a long time.  I didn't have enough boxes and we had too many toys.  I pulled out lots of things that they never play with and made a list of all the things that still needed boxes.  I hit The Container Store and bought 6 more small boxes, one medium shoe box, 4 hooks, and a plate rack.  Here is the finished product:

Yike! We have a lot of stuff. Believe it or not, there is still room for at least 3 more small boxes and one shoe box is empty.

A slightly better look at more of the play area.

Where I used the hooks.  I'm thinking about adding one more between the hat and the dustpan.

For the labels, I found some stock images, sized them, then added the words.  I printed them on regular paper and attached them to the boxes by putting packing tape over the top of them.

Here are the puppets on their wood plate stand.  The stand is nearly impossible to see, but it keeps the puppets together and from spilling all over the place.

My other cleaver storage solution: the puzzles are in stacked paper trays.  It makes them much easier to get to and most of the puzzles fit well.  Some of the baby puzzles are too chunky, so they sit on top.

We'll see how long this stays nice and organized, but for now (just a few hours in) the kids are doing a great job of putting things back.  Part of the reorganization included moving some things that they were tired of up high and bringing some new things down low where they can reach them.

Aprons

Last Spring, Malcolm had been asking that I go to school with him so that he could show me some of his favorite things to do.  I put it off until nearly the end of the year so that grandma and grandpa could watch Dorothy at home rather than bring her to school.  The school doesn't mind if I bring her, but she wants to get into everything and the kindergarten girls all want to play mommy to her.  At best, taking her is a distraction and a nuisance.  Anyway, while I was at school with Malcolm, he wanted to paint and the apron they had for the kids to use was "well loved" at best and he couldn't work it by himself. I sent an email to the head teacher in his class and offered to make some new aprons for the kids to use the next year and she enthusiastically took me up on the offer.

These would probably not have been my first choice of fabric if I had gone to the store to buy fabric to make aprons for a preschool and kindergarten class, but my goal was to use up some of my stash and not spend any money. I made three aprons, spent zero money, and they turned out really cute. When I gave them to his teacher today, I thought she was going to cry she was so happy.

Here is the pattern I used. It is the same one I blogged about back in March. These were very quick to put together once I found the fabric I was going to use. I didn't have quite enough of a couple of pieces I pulled out of my stash and I had to dig a little to find enough. I made one tiny change to the pattern and made the aprons a little bit longer than in the original. The first time I made one, I thought it looked a little short on my four year old who is average height. Also, instead of having a velcro closure on all three, I did one velcro, one button, and one snap. I asked the teacher which she would prefer and she liked the idea of one of each so the kids could practice their snapping and buttoning.

I appologize for the photos.  I would have preferred to take them outside in better lighting, but it is raining here, and I wanted to get them to the teacher when I picked up Malcolm from camp.  I finished the last one this morning while Dorothy played.  I don't let her in my sewing room because there are too many dangerous things for her to get into (pins, scissors, hot irons, etc.), but I got out our box of musical instruments and she happily banged away for a long time.  I chose the music box so I could keep an ear on what she was doing and could investigate when it got quiet.

All three hanging and ready to go.  I love the elastic neckbands; such a good idea.

I tried to get Dorothy to model one for me, but she was mad at me and wouldn't face me because she liked the kitty apron better than the one I put on her.

Plaid apron.  I cheated a little bit on this one to make my goal of not spending any money.  I used a brown thread that was close, but not quite the rust orange color of the fabric.  I also pieced together two pieces of elastic to get the length I needed.  You can't see it very well, but there is a snap closure on the left, just below the curve.

Kitty apron.  This was Dorothy's favorite, and I think maybe the teacher's favorite too.  I used the biggest button I had (on the left) to make it easy on the little fingers.

The colors look a little washed out in this photo, but it is bright and vibrant in real life.  It has a velcro closure.  I wasn't sure I would like this one, and I think it ended up being my favorite.

Shirred Romper

I never did get around to making the shirred romper with long pants that I had planned, so I made it as a shorts/bubble style.  I used this tutorial, but made a few changes.  I didn't want straps that had to button, and could picture in my head some elastic straps with a little flutter sleeve.  I tried it, and they turned out awful, so I switched to just some plain cased elastic straps and they were much better.  I had read through the tutorial a few times, but I had not realized that the crotch was designed to meet face to face instead of overlapping, and I didn't care for that, but I had already cut the fabric before I noticed.

I thought I had measured carefully, but it ended up just a little short and she was showing much more chest than I like.






Since it was too short for her to wear again (after squeezing her into it once), I had to come up with a solution. I didn't have enough fabric to cut off the bottom and turn it into a top and bloomers, so I added a small panel to the crotch that is sort of hour glass shaped. I cut out two pieces and sewed them together, flipped them right side out, then top stitched them, and sewed one end to the inside back of the romper. The panel is about 3 inches, so added about 1.5 inches to the length and it now fits so much better.  With the addition of the panel, I was able to change the snaps to overlap, and I like it much better.

I didn't get a great picture of the crotch, but you can see the better fit.





I really love this color on her. I chose the fabric based on some colored snaps I already had and wanted to use up.

Criss-Cross Pinafore

About a year ago, I saw some beautiful fabric in the remnants bin at the fabric store.  It was just shy of a yard marked down quite a bit from the original price.  I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to make with it, but I was pretty sure that Dorothy needed a dress of some type from it.  In the pile of clothes that my mom had saved from when I was a baby was a criss-cross pinafore, made from some truly hideous fabric.  I loved the style of it though and tried it on Dorothy last year.  The cut was a little funny, so I used the ugly fabric one as a pattern, then made some changes to make it fit better. 

I love how this turned out! I might regret dressing her in all white, but it is just so sweet and summer-y on her. I'm getting better at some basic sewing techniques and things are starting to look a little less like I made them. I had two big compliments on this piece today. First, someone commented on how cute her outfit was within 15 minutes of me putting it on her. Second, my husband said that he hadn't realized that I had made it until he was putting the bloomers back on her after a diaper change and noticed there was no tag. Yay!

I had a hard time getting photos of the pinafore, but I bribed Dorothy with a little Pirate Booty snack and she held still for a bit.


The fabric is white with white embroidered and crochet flowers on it. It is pretty thin, so I lined it with a solid white, and trimmed it with white eyelet. The eyelet is a slightly different shade of white and I wish it was closer in color, but I'm not sure I could have found anything better.



I saved so much time using the eyelet instead of making my own ruffles and it sewed on beautifully. I might plan my next project around whatever fancy trim I can find. Not gathering ribbon or fabric was wonderful.



Ruffle butt.



It has been blistering hot here and the lightweight fabric, open back, and light color are helping keep her nice and cool.



The arm holes are a little big, but I don't think there is much I can do about that with this style. They are just extra ventilation and this outfit will be perfect when we head down to Florida in August.

Super Malcolm!

Malcolm was invited to a Super Hero party at a karate studio and was instructed to dress up as his favorite super hero.  I tried my best to explain to him what a super hero was, but he was wasn't really understanding.  It didn't matter.  He had a blast and was so sweaty when I picked him up.  When I walked in, they were having a marshmallow fight; adults vs kids.

Rather than be a specific super hero, I decided that I would just make him a cape to wear. I asked him what color he would like and he told me, "Light red." Great. In my head "light red" equals pink and I was trying to decide if I should just make him a pink cape or try to talk him out of it. Since it was a friend from school who invited him, I was afraid that there might be some of the older kids from his class there who might say something that would hurt his feelings.

My mental stress was for nothing. I took him to the fabric store and told him to pick a color from the rainbow of broadcloth. He again said, "Light red," and I had him show me which one he meant. As far as I can tell, it is red, red. Maybe a little on the orange red side instead of a blue red, but no where near pink. I offered that he could choose two colors, but he only wanted red. Did I mention that this was the day before the party? Nothing like starting a project early.

I looked at several online tutorials on sewing a cape, but none were really what I was looking for. I took a little bit from a couple I read and added my own ideas. I didn't want it to tie around his neck, so I used velcro so that it will come loose if he gets caught on something or someone pulls on the cape. I wanted the neck to have a little give, so there is hidden elastic cased inside the fabric. Then I sewed ribbon on to the elastic and put the velcro on the ribbon. I rounded the corners of the velcro so that it won't poke him in the neck. I also used a longer piece of the soft side of the velcro and a small piece of the sticky velcro so that it is more adjustable.

Lastly, I wanted to put an emblem on the back of the cape. I didn't want anything too violent or aggressive, so I settled on a lightening bolt (partly because the pattern was really cheap).


The finished product.



From the front. He said that it didn't pull on his neck during the party and that he wore it the entire time. I saw him do plenty of running around and it seemed to mostly stay in place.



The back.



From the side. I didn't want it so long that he would trip on it, but I'm glad I went a little longer than the suggestions I saw to have it stop at the lower back.