Mother's Day Musings

Generally, Iestyn and the girls make something for me for Mother's Day. One year they made a beautiful giant heart that's on the wall in my dining room. This year, A had a whole plan, apparently, and it turned out very cool. It's got something of a StoryPeople vibe, which is perfect for me. (Now what exactly it's supposed to be is a question I can't really answer, but it's cool.) I think I might hang necklaces from it, although it may just be artwork.
There's also a poem on the back, which is sadly pretty much illegible because A wouldn't wait for the sharpie. She knows it by heart, though, so I think I might print it out and attach it to the back. It goes like this:
Roy G Biv
Roy G Biv is an odd name for a fellow
But what its name means is red, orange, yellow
The G stands for green, which as you may know
Comes in the middle of every rainbow.
Next: blue and indigo, more pale than dark
Then V is for violet, and that completes the arc.

I just love how incredibly creative my kids are (even if it means that I can never find printer paper... I finally started buying them their own packages so I'd be able to print!) They're constantly drawing and writing things. A made herself a paper TV at school recently, and then she made paper DS's for herself and her sister. Which they "play" - "Move up. Now right. Now punch!" You can tell we restrict their electronics access, lol. I felt bad that they didn't have a DS for about three seconds, and then I realized that I much preferred their ability to entertain themselves with a piece of paper!

Then there's this card that M made me, which totally cracks me up. One side is decorated with hearts and flowers, and this is the other side:
"Yes M
Dear Mommy
Your the best mom! I'm sorry I didn't come when you called. I could not tell you the thing"

What thing couldn't she tell me? I have absolutely no idea, lol. She tends to say that what they did at school is a secret, so maybe that's it, but really, I'm not sure.

Anyway, it was a lovely Mother's Day - I had a soccer game, then after I had brunch with Iestyn and the girls, I went over to my mom's for some fun crafty time. And in the evening we had a lovely picnic with my family, my mom, and my sister and her family. I finally got pictures of the owl dresses - sort of. M was in nutjob mode, so she was running away from the camera. Notice A dutifully smiling, and M running:
Then A tried to restrain her sister for me:
I love these girls so much!

M.I.C.K.E.Y.

M.O.U.S.E.

We're going to Disney World this summer, and I've been busily planning some cute outfits for the girls. I got a wee bit carried away and bought some Mickey Mouse fabric from Hobby Lobby, and it turns out that I really didn't need it. So I decided to make the girls some Mickey jammies:
I tried to get a better picture, but honestly they were total nutjobs by this point in the evening, so I gave up after a while. I should have made the shirts a little longer, but oh well. (I just extended the pattern from the top of a dress, and I didn't add quite enough length.) The girls like them, anyway, and I used up some of my fabric!

Actually, I've been busily sewing this past week. Soccer's FINALLY over for the girls, thankfully, so I'm a little less tired. I also made them each a round neck dress using Robert Kaufman On a Whim owls in aqua. The girls claim that the dresses are "beautiful", but I don't think M has even tried hers on yet. Harumph. :) I also made some shorts to match - Burda 9615, which is a great pattern. The shorts are very reminiscent of the Hanna Andersson bike shorts, and I used a super soft knit from Gail K's. I'll definitely be making more of these. Plus they were extremely easy to make, which is a definite bonus!

It's getting harder and harder to tell apart the girls' matching clothes, so I'm working on a new system so that I can figure it out. In the new jammies, I used scraps of knit to make tags - A's are blue, and M's are yellow to go with their favorite colors. For the bike shorts I used different buttons, which is probably the system I'll continue with. Plus it helps them identify the front of the shorts. I have to get some more shaped buttons, though - apparently they have to have the same shape. (If I could roll my eyes in print, I'd do it now!)

I also tried to make myself a tank top from a New Look pattern, which was a gigantic fail. The straps got really stretched out when I was trying to sew them together, so that part was my fault, but also the pattern itself apparently didn't fit right. Oh well. I guess I'll be doing some alterations if I try that again!

Dancing Queen

I have no idea why she wanted to pose all disco :), but here's a view of M's version of the colorblock dress. I'm so pleased! It makes me kind of want one myself....

Soccer

We're a soccer family in my house. Which is generally fun. However, this spring, I'm coaching both girls in soccer and playing on a team myself. That kind of moves things beyond fun and into the realm of insanity. Last weekend we had 5 games between the three of us. Someone has some kind of soccer 4 days a week. It's a little nuts. Oh, and I'm also training for a sprint triathlon at the end of May. All of this is to say, I've been tired lately, and so there's not been so much crafting going on. Actually, I have been doing things, but I haven't been photographing them. I'm SO looking forward to the first weekend of May, when the girls are done. My season doesn't finish for a while, but it's fine if it's just me! But all the games were canceled this weekend due to rain, so I have a little catch up time!

So, here's a sampling of (some of) my recent craftiness...
I finally finished a skort for myself - I started it before Hawaii, but it required some reworking:
I like it, although the skort part rides up a bit. Considering I pretty much made it up, though, I'm certainly happy with it!

I also made the girls a colorblock dress similar to this Hanna Anderson dress. Mine are much simpler, though. A's was really too big (I should have used a different size on the bodice pattern), but she likes the length, so I just fixed the bodice yesterday. This picture is pre-fixing:
She looked SO sweet in the big mass of azaleas in our front yard... I also just finished a yellow/orange/red version for M today. I love it, but she hasn't had it on yet.

And then, I also made two sets of matching girl/dolly "puffy sleeve" dresses. The girls put theirs on yesterday, then promptly went out into the rain to play, so I have no pictures before they got soaking wet. I did set up a photo shoot with the dollies, though:
So, imagine similar knee-length child versions of these... :)

I have about a million other things planned to make. We'll see how the progress is, though - the triathlon training is taking up a lot of my usual sewing time when M's in school. And once that's done, they'll both be out of school for the summer, so I guess I'll just have to see how it goes. Annoying when life intervenes in the craftiness! ;)

Long arm quilting

Here's a picture of the cute dress on vacation:

Hawaii was fantastic. It's taken me a bit to get back into the sewing groove, but I'm finally there. The big project I've been working on (since before Hawaii, actually) is a baby quilt for some friends. I finally got it all pieced, and my friend with the long arm machine offered to let me try it out. So this is my quilted almost final product:

Pieced back (because I didn't realize how much wider the backing needed to be to go onto the machine. I like it, though.):

The long arm machine was SO COOL! It takes quite a while to load, which I didn't realize - the top, batting and backing are all on separate rollers, and it's some work to load it all on - but the actual quilting was really fast. I just stippled it - very meandering, but I'm really pleased with how it came out. And it's way better than doing it on my machine. Not that I've even tried anything but stitching in the ditch on my machine, but I really don't like that at all. Shoving all that fabric around on my machine isn't at all fun for me. This was fun! I even put a little heart (more or less) at the bottom. And the best part is that my friend told me I could use it again if I have more to quilt. I'm definitely doing that! It's much better. I'm thinking next time I'll try spirals or something. I still have to square this up and do the binding (soon, since the new baby girl came this past week), but I'm super happy with it!

And now it's time to start back into the little girl clothing factory. I actually made a dress/matching dolly dress for a birthday present this week, so I'm kind of in the mood. I have a bunch of fabric calling out for spring outfits for my girls - gotta get on that!

By George, I think she's got it!

I actually managed to make a dress! A cute dress! Which I will wear! Ta-da:


It's a Burda pattern (which I altered. Of course. Why do I feel the need to do that every time??) And it's made from a super cute knit that I got at my beloved Gail K Fabrics. I completed it in time for my trip to Hawaii next week, and I'm quite excited about it! Plus it's super comfy. So yay! I'm inspired to make more dresses, but we'll see... ;)

I also completed another hooded shirt from the Burda WOF pattern from a few weeks ago:
The original version of this picture had a head, with an admittedly slightly goofy smile. However, my six year old started laughing like crazy when she saw it, so I decided it would be better to just show the shirt!

I have a bunch of other projects I'd like to do in the next little while, but we'll see what I get done in the next (busy) week!

Productive

Well, after my horribly distressing day of sewing on Friday, I decided I needed to stick to more basic projects for a bit. Plus I'm feeling a need to finish up things I've been meaning to do. And I've done a fair bit of that so far this weekend, so I'm feeling a bit better! :)

After my Project Linus experience a while back, I decided that I should do more crafting for charity. I'd also read about the One Million Pillowcase challenge, so I decided to make a stash pillowcase. I cut it out a while ago, using some cute birdies and hearts, but I finally sewed it yesterday. Here it is, neatly folded:
I still had some leftover bad sewing karma, apparently, since I had to use my seam ripper while sewing a pillowcase, of all things, but it seems to be working itself out. (I did French seams, and I messed up on the band the first time around. It could've been worse.) I'm planning to make some more pillowcases; I have plenty of stash fabrics that would be fun. And I found out that Intown Quilters, my favorite local quilt store, is accepting the pillowcases for the challenge, so that's easy enough.

The next quick, easy, lately postponed project was a baby gift. One of M's friends has a brand new baby sister, and I've been meaning to make her something. I've thought of a number of different plans, but in the end I made a simple little taggie toy from some fun Japanese jungle canvas:


I have absolutely no idea why these pictures are sideways, because on my computer, they aren't. Anyway, very simple little circle - maybe 4ish inches diameter - but I like it. Although the next one I make will probably be a square or triangle - I wasn't able to make the circular stitching very neat.

Since Christmas, I've been meaning to applique a little birdie on a t-shirt for myself, and I finally just now got around to it:
I'm a little photographically challenged today, so the colors are off, but I like him. Although wow, I'm about the worst embroiderer in the world - I'm apparently completely unable to make my stitches even! Good thing it's only his legs!

And lastly, I completed the skort I mentioned the other day, and I LOVE it.


Here's a closeup of the flowers.It's pretty much exactly me, and I'm so happy!

I have other projects sitting on my table, but this was pretty good progress for one weekend!