for the relatives

If you've stopped by today looking for a sewing project or some sort of craft, I apologize. Since several relatives who live in other states visit me here on a regular basis, I've decided to take advantage of the space I have here. On the weekends I'll be posting pictures of the kids to keep them up-to-date. Please stop back on a weekday when regular programming will resume.

Ellie asks me on a daily basis when spring will be here. Not soon enough for either of us. In the meantime, she's been drawing her heart out with sidewalk chalk. This work of art was dubbed "Mama and baby chickie". Yesterday she drew a race course for her remote control jeep. At first it just looks like a picture of Trixie playing in her kitchen. Check out the footwear. She rolled over to me during the week yelling "I skating, I skating!" There's more than one way to play with fisher price buses.
Glenn starts lacrosse next Saturday. He's pretty geared up - literally. I never wanted any child of mine to play football or hockey because of how rough it was. I obviously had no idea how much protection was required for this sport before I agreed to it. I may need to use meditation during the games. If that doesn't work - medication.

twin robot tees

These were an overdue gift for my hair stylist's twin boys.

I love the fabric in the appliques. They were sold as a fat quater bundle and I bought three of them. They've been great for applique, bibs and softies.

I wish Glenn was still young enough to wear stuff like this.

ellie's tote

Look who's been sewing. Santa brought her a Learn to Sew kit* from Moda. In it were an apron that needed pockets and a tote bag that needed side seams and pockets.

We lined the pockets before putting them on the bag. A great deal of thought went into which pocket would go on each side.

She's ripped out her first seam. (And she didn't like it one bit.) Next week we'll work on squaring the bottom of the tote and adding a lining so it lasts a little bit longer.

*It's a really cute kit that requires just a bit of sewing to finish the projects because they do a lot of it for you. The handles and top edges of the tote were already finished. The apron in the kit is completely finished except for the addition of the pockets. The amount of sewing needed pretty much matches her attention span right now.

woof

Trixie loves dogs as much as Ellie loves cats. so this pattern was a perfect fit for her. It's from Indygo Junction's Scrapworks applique pattern book.

I used a lot of the same fabrics as I did for Ellie's jacket, but changed the technique slightly on this one to save time. On Ellie's I turned under 1/4" allowances on all of the pieces(it was not a fun process). This time I used fusible web to just iron them into place and secure the edges, then did a running stitch with buttonhole thread.

The jean jacket used to be Glenn's. Looks cute on the new owner too.

decoupage eggs

Inspireco has a wonderful tutorial on making these paper covered eggs.

Instead of old books, I tore up bits up old pattern instruction sheets. (I tried the pattern tissue too, but it looked awful over brightly colored plastic eggs - even yellow.) A few have some vintage millinery flowers.

I dipped into the vintage button stash for others.

They look darling in the china cabinet. I'd love to make more to have a whole bowl of these for next year. So far, I have eight.

easter dresses

The girls' dresses were finished in time.

I used a basic jumper pattern by New Look that's about 10 years old. The petticoats were purchased when I worked for April Cornell. The fabric used to be a Shabby Chic duvet cover that I thrifted a year ago.

My challenge with these was to try a scalloped hem. It wasn't really hard, just time consuming to clip the curves on all 30+ of them. A stencil from my scrapbooking supplies came in handy for determining the size. In the future I'll make the scallops more shallow and a bit wider when used on a hem.

The pattern is extremely loose, but has side ties to adjust the fit. Perfect for my skinny girls - an easy detail to add to future dresses.

Hope you had a lovely Easter.

testing

Edited to add: I should have put an explanation after that title - I'm trying to figure out if I can delete photos I've saved to my desktop to publish here without losing them on the blog. It appears that I can. I had meant to take this down after testing it out and forgot. Now I feel bad removing it with a comment on it.

As much fun as Trixie had in the snow - the photo was taken in MARCH! I'm so done with winter.