Halloween Then and Now

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year and though I love to sew, for some reason, I'm not a huge fan of sewing Halloween costumes. So, 2 years ago when my daughter was 2 and my son was only a few weeks old, I looked into his Halloween future and planned a costume for my daughter I could reuse....

She was a Chef-cook! (she asked what a chef was...I said someone who cooks....the 2 year old brain decided she's a chef-cook, and the name stuck)

Here she is in action at my good friend Jane of All Trade's annual Halloween bash.




Aren't they cute!

And here's the boy, 2 years later at the same Halloween bash. The costume is a little less ironed and a little more stained, but it works.


This time around, the girl wanted to be as girly as can be and was one of a handful of princesses at the party. Her costume came out okay....but she likes it and that's all that really matters. I think I'll be finding glitter on my sewing room floor for years to come! You can't tell from the photo, but that pink fabric is covered in glitter.
Happy Halloween.....and happy costume sewing!

A Vest for the Boy

The fall weather is in full swing and the kids and I have been decked out in our vests. My son has been wearing this old vest that is a hand-me-down from his sister and really starting to be too small......but I LOVE it!


So, since the vest I made for my daughter was such a success, I decided to try my hand at a boy's vest. This posed a challenge since the one thing I avoid like the plague is sewing zippers.

I had this old blanket I'd found when cleaning out a closet. Yes, we had a Patriots blanket for our babies.....yes, we love football.....


And here's what it became....


I don't love the way this came out, it's okay. It's been worn and it's functional, but not exactly what I was going for. Oh well....sewing for boys is sometimes harder than it should be.

A Vest with Sleeves.....aka A Jacket!

As part of the KCWC hosted by Elsie Marley, I made this fleece vest, inspired (ie copied) by one posted by Dana at MADE. It was so easy to make and so cute, that I decided to make one with sleeves.....I guess that makes it a jacket!


I pretty much did everything the same except this time I let my daughter pick the color, hence the raspberry fleece, and I added 2 pockets per her request. This one ended up a bit shorter because I goofed and attached the bottom pieces wrong...oh well, it still works.

Since it has been very rainy here, and a couple of my favorite bloggers have been posting about taking photographs recently (here and here), I used this as an opportunity to experiment.

I used Rae's tip and took pictures using a white board as the background. I tried doing it inside near a window as she suggests, but it's been so dreary that even near the window, the flash came on and I got the photo on the left. I then took my board outside on my deck and got the picture on the right with no flash. It's amazing the difference!




Just to see what how it would look, I took a picture how I normally do, with the jacket laid out on my deck. The lighting is the same, so no flash, but it's amazing how the dark background changes the color! Anyway, it's fun to play around and see what you get.

Overnight Undies

My little girl turned 4 this past week....where does the time go! Hard to believe she went from being the tiny little 5.5lb, 4.5 weeks preterm baby to a big strong preschooler! Alas....

She had her yearly physical this week and one issue we discussed with the doctor was the fact that though she always wakes up dry, she still wears a diaper to bed. There's no particular rush to not have her wear a diaper, except that if she doesn't need them, I'd rather not buy them. So, we made a deal, she could wear her diaper every other night for a little while and I would make her some special overnight undies to wear for the non-diaper night. I have to admit, these were so fun to make, that I may never buy kids underwear again!



These were so simple and were very satisfying since they take very little time to make. I simply cut up a pair of undies that fit (Miss M. has about a million pairs!) and traced the pieces. I cut one front piece, one back piece, and 2 crotch pieces to make it double layered.



I love the set all in pink with different colored borders. So fun! And, so far so good. Miss M. wore a pair last night, and tonight is in her diaper, per our deal. We'll see how it goes!

Kids Clothes Week Challenge continued...

Kids clothing week came to and end, and I ran out of energy to both sew and blog. I don't know how people do it! So, here's what I made in the last few days and what I've learned in the process.

Day 3 - Pants for my son. I was inspired by these pants by Trula Kids, but hers came out much better than mine. I love the hoodie she did....made up her own pattern, so I'll have to add it to my list of things to figure out.




Mr N. (that's what we actually call him, sometimes :) really liked them. I think he appreciated the soft waistband, and it's a very easy way to finish a pair of pants. Will definitely use this technique again.

Day 4 - Peasant top and capris for my daughter. This was a huge success, she loved the outfit as did I. I was being adventuresome mixing flowers and stripes.


This outfit was such a success that for Days 5 and 6, I made more peasant tops!

This is my new favorite top to sew. It's perfect for my non-dress wearing little girl. It's pretty and girly, but not a dress!

I ended up ruffling the sleeves on this top after this photo was taken. When I actually put it on Miss M., she looked like she had wings, and she didn't like it.


The second top I made with some very light dotted swiss. Instead of making a casing elastic, I just folded over the neck edge and shirred it with elastic thread. This was very easy and worked really well on this fabric. The trouble with shirring is that you can't predict how much the fabric will bunch up. Worked well here....

And my last project was a total copy-cat project. I LOVE vests and I LOVED this vest over at MADE, so I just plain old copied it. I added a pocket to mine and used n old fleece top my sister gave me for the fabric.






The weather is just starting to cool down so it's the perfect outer layer and goes really well with the fleece hat I made her. I'm working on a tutorial for the hat....I'll probably finish just in time for spring ;)