birthday present crafting

We bought some clementines in a little wooden crate a few weeks ago.  I happen to think those are completely adorable and struggle to throw them away.  We have a little girl's birthday party coming up, so Hazel and I decided to make another Princess and the Pea playset with it.  I made one about 3 years ago, and it's been one of my all-time favorite craft projects.  This time, Hazel selected the fabrics from my fabric stash and helped me plan out the project.  

Seven 1/2" thick mattresses, stuffed with craft foam, pillow, knit pink blanket, crocheted green pea and a little patch pocket on the blanket to store it in, plus a story book to finish the set. Came out so cute!

AG bunk beds

Homebound with sick kids this weekend, I decided to tackle a project I've been planning for a while.  I cutsied up (yes, that's a real verb) the two Ikea duktig doll beds we have for our American Girl dolls. They come very practical and plain, but I had seen some Etsy sellers with cute bedding for them and a few ideas on Pinterest for painting them and bunking them to take up less floor space, so that was the plan.  Hazel and I picked out fabric at Hobby Lobby on Friday while we were in Baton Rouge.  We chose four coordinating prints in yellows and grays to match the TV room, since dolls live in that room.  Here are the various tutorials and ideas that I mushed together for our beds:

• mattresses: Ana White's doll mattress sewing tutorial. I stuffed ours with 2" foam cut to size.  I did not tuft ours.
• bunking: this post on Ikea Hackers was the goal, and I found exactly those brackets at Home Depot.  They were a giant pain to hammer in, and my pinky finger still hurts from where I missed, but they worked. If you go looking for them in Home Depot and have as limited a knowledge of hardware as I do, this is what you can look for:

• bedding: I used some of the ideas from this blog for bedding, but rectangle blankets, pillows, and pillow cases are pretty straightforward

Now, pics of ours!

I really am the world's worst spray painter. I will not be giving you close-up pictures of my paint job. From a distance, they look relatively uniform and white.  Good enough. 

Mattresses fit perfectly! 

blanket and pillows

It's official--these dolls have nicer bedding than I do!

Emily sleeps up top with Gracie.  Jack and Jess share the bottom bunk.  They're brother and sister, so that's totally above board. ;) 

Cozy!

and just for your entertainment, Hazel makes Penny the horse play the part of pack mule librarian.  She's wearing a purse stuffed with the books that came with mini-Isabelle and mini-Marie-Grace.  Poor Penny. I should  make her some saddle bags.  Surely that would be more comfortable! 

Thanks for looking!

Halloween 2013

Again this year, the boys just wanted a new superhero costume from Target so they could amp up their dress up games.  Hazel is the only one who still wants me to sew for her, which frankly, is fine by me.

This year, she was dead set on Princess Celestia from the My Little Pony cartoon.  She is obsessed with MLP.  I tried my best to talk her into one of the ponies that did not have a horn or a crown or jewelry or any of the extra junk that the princesses have.  Nothing doing.  She was only interested in Princess Celestia.

We did our best, and I think we did OK!

I started with these two tutorials: one and two, and used them as a base for wings, mane, tail, ears, horn, and cutie mark. I used a purchased white sweat suit, though.  No sewing a hoodie for me, thankyouverymuch.   The necklace and crown I totally winged, using sparkly craft foam with velcro dots and "jewels" hot glued on.  She's pleased, therefore so am I!

with her protectors, Iron Man and Wolverine

crafty catch up

My available craft time is still minuscule, as home and homeschool commitments are pretty intense right now, but I have been working on a couple of small things.

First is an order for a friend's daughter. Whenever little Sarah is over at our house, she wears baby dolls in my kids' mini mei tai carriers.  Her mama commissioned one for her upcoming birthday.  Such a cute, fun, little project!

The next one will be an ongoing project, so I'll post update pictures occasionally. I got a sky scarf kit for my birthday from my in-laws, and it's really fun! The concept is that you take note of the sky and knit 2 rows on your scarf.  Every day.  For a year.  In reality, I'm finding that I remember to knit about 5 installments a week.  It's knit in lace weight (really tiny) yarn, double stranded, so you can choose 2 different colors to represent the sky for the day, if need be.  This is roughly 3 weeks worth of NOLA sky.  The most frequent combination so far is light blue and white, although we've had some gray in there, and some darker brighter blues as well.

What about you? Been working on anything fun?

Jack's summer wardrobe

The kids have been telling me that Jack didn't have enough clothes.  He needed some shorts and shirts and some pajamas, specifically.  I added a bunch to his wardrobe today, and thought I'd post some pics.

Robot pajamas, form a smidge of purchased robot flannel and a recycled tshirt.

Robot long sleeved shirt and gray shorts.  Shirt was made from an outgrown shirt of the boys' and the gray fabric was leftover from Hazel's Easter dress.  

Camouflage shorts and gray tshirt with fire truck appliqué.  Camo shorts and gray tshirt fabric were recycled from some outgrown clothes, plus one of those nifty iron-on appliqués from Joanns.  I threw his sweatshirt on over this because the length of the tshirt sleeves are funny.  Ha! 

Seer sucker shorts and orange tshirt.  Orange tshirt was another outgrown clothes upcycle.  I bought a smidge of seer sucker fabric for the shorts.  He's wearing Jess's flip flops here, which I'm not sure is a good look.  Poor Jack needs some non-soccer cleat shoes.  I'll have to look into that for him. 

I enjoy using outgrown clothes in my dolly sewing!  They're cheap, readily available, and the kids are always happy to see their old stuff made into something new!

Memorial Day sewing

The kids have been bugging me about making some more clothes for Jack, the American Boy.   Particularly, they thought he needed pjs, shorts and shirts, and underwear.  I set out to make all 3 this weekend, and only got as far as shorts and a shirt, and undies.  I was going to do pajama pants and a red t-shirt with an appliqué to match the pants, but underestimated the amount of red t-shirt fabric I had and didn't have enough left to cut out the sleeves.  I made a muscle shirt instead, and painted it patriotically to go with my kids 4th of July shirts.  I'll do a different colored t-shirt for the pajama pants at some point in the future.  I made some gray shorts with patch pockets.  They came out super cute.  The shorts pattern was this one, lengthened about 3/4" (and I'd lengthen them even a bit more next time) and I winged it with the pockets after reading through a tutorial for pockets on (full-sized) little boy's shorts.

Then the undies.  Oy.  I'd so rather buy underwear for tiny dolls than make them. Small fiddly things with elastic make my head hurt.  But as there is really not much market for 18" boy doll clothes, I got to  figure out underwear on my own.  I started with this pattern, which says it fits 11" waisted dolls (ballpark for AG).  I cut and sewed one pair straight from the pattern and found that they fit around beautifully, but were FAR too short in the rise.  That little bum was not covered!  I did a second pair, adding about 3/4" to the top all the way around.  Better.  I put 1" elastic to make up the rest of the rise, which was still a bit lacking.  I'd like to do another pair, add even more height particularly in the rear, and instead use a 3/4" wide elastic, which would look less disproportionate.  My kids are pleased though, so that's what matters.  

And yes, poor Jack had to suffer the indignity of standing outside in his skivvies.  

chair pockets

I love a quick (less than two hours, start to finish), easy (followed this tutorial, more or less), and cute craft project that addresses a storage and organization need!  The coloring table is always junked up since it's not that big and my children apparently own more coloring and activity books than any ten kids need. Chair pockets get the coloring books off the table, but keep them accessible for use.  

Notice that there are nice tidy slots in the table that they could conceivably store some coloring books in.  Despite my best attempts, this solution has been repeatedly rejected.  Go figure.  I think it's because you have to turn the coloring books just right to get them to fit in the slots.  Maybe the chair pockets will be better used?  One can hope. 

dolly knitting

I've mentioned before, I'm sure, about my need for quick, easy, instant gratification type knitting projects?  This usually translates into endless hats and baby booties, as I'm you've surely noticed.  Turns out that apparel knitting can be quick and easy, too, when it's done for the American Girl!  

I found this cute little free skirt pattern on Ravelry, and worked it up with some leftover green yarn with flecks of pink, purple, yellow, and white.  The colorway name is Tiptoe Through the Tulips (yarn dyer named it, not me) and it's really the perfect description for it.  I had maybe half a ball left, and couldn't figure out what I'd ever use it for, but this is perfect!  I made the little pink shirt to go with it.  Perfect spring outfit for Jess!

I was itching to work up another skirt or two, but let's be honest--our one little AG doll doesn't need more than one knit skirt, no matter how cute it is.  So I volunteered to make some outfits for my best girlfriend from Houston's little girl.  Her daughter is Jono's age, and is CRAZY about cupcakes.  She has two 18" dolls living at her house, so these outfits are for Hannah's dollies.  

The cute little cupcake appliqué is also from Ravelry, but it's a paid (but cheap!) pattern. I need to make some more of those cupcakes to put on hair clips and use as bows on little girl birthday presents! 

The shirts are both Liberty Jane patterns.  The cupcake shirts are (slightly modified) from their free trendy tshirt pattern.  I lengthened the sleeves, took out some of the fitted-ness of the body, and shortened the length.  Their t-shirt is a bit too trendy, in my opinion, with it's tiny cap sleeves, fitted body, and looong length.  I love a shirt that fits me like that, but it looks silly on a doll that is supposed to be ~10 years old.  The pink shirt is their Magic Number top, worked as written.  That pattern was fun.  I'm planning to make the dress version soon! 

Easter sewing

I took the plunge and sewed a real garment!  I fell in love with this pattern when I went on my 18" doll pattern buying spree at Joanns during their 5 for $5 pattern sale.  I thought I should try to make an outfit for Hazel for Easter and a matching one for our American Girl, Jess.  We don't go to a dressy church (most Sundays I wear jeans or a casual skirt), so we have no need of frilly Easter dresses.  I wanted something fun that Hazel could wear to play in through the summer instead of a one-time wear sort of deal.  I talked to her about it and she was excited.  She requested "pink and purple stripes".   Yikes.  I had no intention of sewing ANYthing with pink and purple stripes.  I had a bold floral or damask with a coordinating geometric print or polka-dot in mind.  I set in out in search of fabric, hoping we could strike a compromise.  I think we did!  Pink and purple, bold floral, no stripes, coordinating geometric print.

I appliquéd neckties onto tshirts for the boys to match, and then rounded out the set with a dress for Jess.

They're all going to looks so adorable! 

American Girls

So, I've been bitten by the American Girl bug.  I was just a little bit too old to have experienced American Girl dolls as a child.  Their first dolls came out in 1986, which was the year I got my last baby doll for Christmas.  I've known about the dolls for some time, but never had any experience with them until last December (3 months ago).  In December, a friend whose daughters have AG dolls, and who herself buys Ebay and Craigslist AG lots to fix up and resell (at quite a profit!) tipped me off that there was a sale going on, for one day, on the two historical American Girls whose stories are set in mid-19th century New Orleans.  I have always loved dolls, I love our city, and I figured that if I could get one of the NOLA girls for half of the regular $110 price, that was an offer I couldn't refuse.  I already had my Christmas shopping complete, but I bought Marie-Grace and figured I'd stash her for Hazel's 5th birthday coming up in June.  She arrived, I ooohed and aaahed over her, pulled out her book and read it, but kept her hidden away.

Two weeks later, we went on our Christmas trip to see my family in Texas.  I had been to my step-brother Mike and his wife Anne's house several times, but had never paid any attention to their daughters' collection of American Girls before now.  My nieces have six dolls between them and I spent one whole day "watching the little kids in the playroom", but really playing with dolls.  They are so fantastic!  I started to see the differences in their little faces, and enjoyed dressing them and styling their hair.  Marie-Grace had not grabbed me, but some of Corinne and Colleen's dolls did.  I loved Kanani and Emily.  Nellie was cute.  Ivy, Julie, and Elizabeth didn't do much for me.  They all seemed to have their own little personalities.  I was still thrilled about giving Hazel Marie-Grace, but I wanted one of my own so that I could play, too. Ha!

So I did it. At 35 years old, I bought myself a doll.  I spent some of my Christmas money on Jess, the retired Girl of the Year from 2006.  Of all the dolls I had seen pictures of, Jess was the one I found the sweetest. So, there you go.  I have an American Girl.  Hazel and Charlie play with her all the time.  She's well loved by the whole family, but I'm the only one who gets to do her hair. LOL

Of course, half the fun of having 18" dolls around is all of the sewing and yarn crafting opportunity!  I immediately started pinning some tutorials and ideas on pinterest.  I picked up some patterns at Joanns.  And here are the outfits I've sewn so far:

The first was upcycled from an outgrown outfit of Hazel's.  This tank showed me really fast that I needed to work on my sewing-with-knits skills.  After reading a thousand online tutorials and gathering some better supplies, my next attempt was much, much better.

This little skirt and tshirt came out well, I thought!  The tshirt let me practice my new knit strategies, with my better results.  

Here's Marie-Grace, out of her box briefly, to try on some pajamas that will be hers.  My Jess came with pjs, so naturally, all of our dolls will need them. ;) I stashed these pjs to come back down when she makes her appearance.  The other clothes we've made are in the basket with Jess's clothes, and will be shared when Hazel gets her doll.

I'm in quite the hurry for Marie-Grace to come play, too.  During Mardi Gras, I started reading aloud the book series for Marie-Grace and Cecile with Hazel.  We are thoroughly enjoying their stories, being that they're set here in New Orleans.  Even in the mid-1850s, the girls go to familiar places (Jackson Square, the French Market) and do familiar things (eat pralines, celebrate Mardi Gras).  I am toying with the idea of giving Hazel her dolly when we get to the end of the book series instead of waiting for her birthday.  That would free up her birthday to give an accessory that would be well loved, like Marie-Grace's dog, Argos.  Hazel does always love animals more than dolls anyway.  We'll see how fast we get them read!  

So yeah, totally bitten by the AG bug.  Make fun of me all you want.  I'll just go sit in the corner and sew a new dress for my doll.  

pregnancy: a great time for craft projects!

I made some do-it-yourself maternity pants! I had a two pair of "fat" khakis pre-pregnancy. They were roomy, baggy, and comfy. They now fit well (my heiny is growing faster than my belly!), but are too tight in the waist. But this craftster tutorial saved the day! Why not just buy maternity pants? Oh, I will. But the crafty side of me had to try this. The advantage that these have over my "real" maternity pants that I currently own is that they were already hemmed to a good length for my not-so-tall self. I haven't had a chance to have my maternity pants hemmed and I look a bit goofy with big cuffs on the legs. In time, in time.

Ok, enough. Time for pictures.

With the belly up (belly fabric is recycled out of an old t-shirt)...

and scrunched down (how I currently prefer to wear them)...

And yes, I'm already huge. And this is just the beginning. In case you've lost count, I'm 11 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. We'll just chalk the overgrowth up to having twins! :D

fleece soaker!

I'm so proud! This came out better than I had even hoped...



Pull-on soakers with yoga-style waist bands (usually sewn from wool interlock fabric) are very popular among cloth diapering mamas right now. I found a pattern to make such items, and gave it a try using the last bit of a yard of Malden Mills lightweight windpro fleece that I bought a year or so ago. Windpro is the sort of fleece that outdoor stores' fleece jackets and vests are made from. It's highly water resistant, but is easy to care for (wash and dry) unlike wool. I "borrowed" someone else's idea of an hourglass shaped double layer in the wet zone, and I think I'll be very pleased with the performance of this little soaker!

now to find some good quality wool interlock fabric! nah--I'll wait for summmer...

knitting, and babylegs, and prefolds! oh, my!

Look! I've found a little more time for some crafting! Woo hoo! Here are the recent projects...

First, an update on the knitting...

I have finished swatches in garter, stockinette, 2x2 ribbing, and seed stitch. I feel fairly comfortable with the knit and purl stitches, and am excited to move onto a "real" project.



I am hopeful that I will find my perfect first project in the book Mason Dixon Knitting, which I have heard wonderful things about, and am now next in line at the library to read. Scroll through some of the pictures that people have posted of their projects from the book on Amazon. Inspiring and simple-looking ideas abound!

Second, I have been making some faux-Babylegs. What are Babylegs, you ask? Basically, they are baby leg warmers. No, they aren't necessary, and yes, some may find them strange, but I think they're cute. They are especially popular in cloth diapering and babywearing circles for some (almost) practical reasons. For the cloth diaperers, you can keep those legs warm on a chilly fall morning without covering up the cute diaper with actual pants. Yes, that will be my ghetto baby in a diaper, t-shirt, and babylegs this fall. Around the house only, I promise. Babywearers like them to cover the gap made when you put a baby wearing pants in a sling and the pants ride up and expose the lower leg and ankles to the cold. How necessary will this be in Houston? Not very. But hey--I can surely come up with more reasons why these are a necessary accessory for the modern baby.

The "real" ones are sold for $12 and up in baby boutiques and on-line baby stores, but you can make them in 10 minutes for the cost of a pair of knee-high socks. Here's the tutorial I've been using, and a picture of the pairs I have made this week is below.



You may notice some color groups. Target is selling knee socks in pairs right now, so the greens, blues, and brown/orange came together. Don't mind the solid olive green pair that looks like it got into a fight with the rotary cutter. It did. But we won't talk about that. Baby man is keeping all the solid pairs, the green striped pair, and *maybe* the brown argyle. See the burnt orange? Hook 'em! The blue argyle is on its way to cousin Lucy, since there is a color a little too kin to pink in there for baby man.

and for his adoring fans, the olive striped pair modeled...



and finally, this afternoon's project--trimming prefolds. I love the fancy diapers that make cloth diapering in 2007 so different that it was when my mom did it in the 1977. You can't really beat a pocket diaper or an all-in-one for convenience. But there's something about the old-fashioned prefold that speaks to me. Around the house, baby man wears prefolds and covers most of the time. I am finding, though, that prefold sizing does not match real-life baby sizing. He grows out of the width of the prefold long before he grows out of the length. A little research has told me that this is a common problem easily fixed by taking the next size up prefold for width, and trimming down the length for a custom fit. Baby man wears infant sized prefolds. The length is perfect on him. The width is getting snug. I have premium prefolds (the next size) in the waiting, so yesterday and today I took the rotary cutter and sewing machine to them. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here is what I did...



On the bottom left, you can see an infant (yellow) and a premium prefold (pre-trimming). You can see that the premium is just about an inch wider (perfect!) but a LOT longer. Bottom right, you can see a trimmed premium. I cut them down to the length of the infants and used the overlocking foot on my sewing machine to finish the raw edge. Someday I *will* own a real serger! I kept the leftover prefold parts to use as doublers to add absorbency when laid down the middle of the diaper prior to folding (shown bottom right). Top left is the pile of doublers and top right is the pile of trimmed prefolds. They fit well, so I'm excited!

There is an on-line cloth diapering store that has wizened up and is having prefolds made for them in custom sizes that fit babies more practically. I think I'll do my prefold buying from there from now on to save myself the trouble of trimming.

to my dissappointed blog readers...

Yes, I know it has been TWO MONTHS since I updated my blog. The reason is very simple--baby man is in the house. Just a few days after my last post, we got our first foster placement--a darling 3.5 week old baby boy. We love him to pieces and are thoroughly enjoying him, but he seriously limits my craft time. I have managed to do a few things anyway, which follow...

another pouch sling (baby inside!)


It's reversible--red on one side and the same black and white print that I used on Courtney's MT on the other. I have long-term plans to add a pocket to the red side in the black and white fabric. Wouldn't that be cute? Oh, and I also have long-term plans to give it to my friend Iris when God gives them a sweet baby. She tried it on with baby man when she came over last week and it fits her far better than it fits me.

and two baby sweaters...

I love this pattern! I've had it on my to-do list for a while now, but got around to it over Labor Day weekend when David was home to help with baby man. I did the 6 month size at first, hoping it would fit baby man when it got cooler outside, but it was too small. I don't know if my gauge was off or it the pattern runs small, but I had try again! I had some trouble with the 2nd one, as you can tell if you look at the pattern pictures closely, but I improvised, and am pleased nonetheless. Oh, and the 12 month size is perfect for baby man (who is nearly 3 months old--ha!) to wear this winter.

first try...


made from some self-striping yarn I bought at my local yarn shop last winter with a hat in mind (that never got done). I did do buttons for this one in the same purple as the trim, but I took the pictures first.

second try...


worked in Paton's Shetland Chunky Tweeds, which is a mostly acrylic with a little bit of wool blend, with brown acrylic trim.

and from here on, be warned that my craft posts may be few and far between. Or I might decide to broaden the purpose of my blog and just share more about life in general.

We'll see...

What can you make with $3 worth of fabric?

a water-worthy mei tai! I bought 3 yards of 60" wide quick-dry athletic type fabric from Wal-Mart for $1 a yard, and am getting TWO water mei tais out of it! It's not UV protective like those cool solarwearve or solarveil MTs and slings, but hey--it'll do for $3. And the fabric was not difficult to work with like I thought it would be. It actually has inspired me to buy some solarweave to do a "real" one for next year!

Here's one of them (the other is cut, but not yet sewn)...



and if you promise not to make fun of me for trying on my slings/carriers with my doll, here's an "action" shot. tee hee! I finished it last as my husband was tapping his foot impatiently waiting to go to a cook-out at a friend's house for the 4th. So this pic was taken this morning, still in pjs, a ponytail, and glasses (hence the close cropping!)...



I'm keeping one, and giving the other to Katy, since she has a pool loving toddler and a new baby on the way.

babies' room curtain is *finally* complete!

You may remember the crib skirt I did for the foster babies room. Today I finally got around to working on the matching curtain. I'm not sure if it looks like it did in my head (no pattern!) but I like it anyway. It's a stagecoach curtain with the top 2/3 brown, and the bottom 1/3 the same stripe as the crib skirt. I decided that stripe was too much to put in the entire window, so the brown is my attempt to tone it down. I may have gone overboard with that since you can't see the stripe much at all when it's tied up, but that will just have to do!

close up


And a room shot from the doorway, where you get to see my nifty Charlotte's Web art, as well. I sacrificed the dust jacket off of my large "read aloud" edition of Charlotte's Web (my all-time favorite children's book) and framed it. I also scanned and printed my three favorite illustrations, which are hanging in a collage frame above the changing table (not visible in this picture--sorry!).



It's all coming together! The only thing I still want to do in the babies' room is to get those fun letters that hang on the wall and spell out a word above the crib. I'm leaning toward "blessing" in chocolate brown letters, but that project will wait until I make up my mind! Word suggestions welcome...

one final trade...

I'm through with trades for a bit--too much to do with foster babies due any day now, but I had to show off this last one...

Again, I made a knitting needle roll for a 'pin friend who did some knitting in return for me. Lea was so kind and generous through all of our talks about what I was looking for. I wanted a green soaker, knit in a specific pattern that I had seen and loved (Little Turtle Knits Hybrid Rib). But that's not all. I was even pickier. I wanted kelly and lime greens--no teal. And I wanted a rolled cuff on the legs instead of the one the pattern calls for. Now, who in their right mind would agree to do that for me in exchange for a measly knitting needle roll? Sweet Lea. And get this--she hand-dyed the yarn. Now, she does this all the time and even has an Etsy store for her yarn, so it wasn't that unexpected of her to offer, but enormously generous all the same. And then she sent me a surprise 2nd soaker. Stinker. When I told her she shouldn't have sent me two, she replied, "Well, what else was I supposed to do with 2 oz of hand-spun wool?" That's right--she spun the yarn for the blue one herself. I'm in awe. They're both breathtaking. I absolutely love them.



And what did I do for her? Well, it was one of my favorite needle roll assignments yet. Lea sent me a picture of her knitting bag and asked that it match, or at least not clash. So, how'd I do?





and yes--I did an extra one, too! travel sized, for the knitting bag.

Thanks, Lea! It was fun!