Mushroom Villagers

I’ve been so busy lately that I did not notice I used the last of my Amy Butler Forest line fabric. It’s the heavier home dec fabric and I’ve used it for so many things. I *love* this fabric and really wish more will be printed. Does anyone know if it will or is it long gone?

I did finish the last of Fini’s birthday presents and the package arrived so I am free to post these pictures.

At her request, I made her another CD Poket and a lunch bag. The lunch bag had to be big enough to hold a frozen meal and a can of soda. I hope this one fit the bill.

It’s large measuring 10″ across the top, 12″ high and 15″ across the bottom with 2½” gussets. (I love gussets! I put them in everything.) I added a magnetic closure because it seemed to need it. I wanted to do a roll-up one something like this pattern, but with the interfacing, heavy fabric and lining, I thought it was just too thick to try to roll and velcro closed.

Anyhoo, it’s done and I even found my new favorite song downloading some tunes she requested. I could seriously listen to this song all day long, but I can’t because some little people in my house insist on listening to this at least 20 times a day as well. I guess it could be worse… (Yep, this one’s Daddy’s favorite.)

So I started this lovely dress a month ago. After this success, I thought I could conquer Simplicity 9784 with ease. NOT. In reality, it had nothing to do with the pattern. It was entirely me.
I was trying too many new things: piping inserted on the collar, working with corduroy, adjusting the size since the pattern only went up to 18 mos and I was going for a 2T. Also, I’ve said this before, but I can’t read. After ripping out the same step at least 5 times, I asked Chris what he thought the step was instructing. Duh! I was missing a whole pattern piece and didn’t realize it.
Anyway, I finally finished the dress today and it’s a little short, but it works.

I found this material at Mill End here in Beaverton and had to have it. I love polka dots!

The collar was a little tough to sew because I was trying to sew two pieces of thick corduroy with piping inserted along a curve. Curves alone throw me off and adding the other two issues really took some patience. I love the look of piping though and will be trying this again.

(Sorry to insist, but you gotta see what my little princess wears under such a dress.)

Also, after reading this article, I *really* want to try pleats. Something straight, cotton, tank, square-neck with nice crisp pleats is on my must do list.
But first, I still have to finish Fini’s April b-day presents- yikes. Sorry Fini!

Feeling spring-y, I made this dress last night:

It took me almost 4 straight hours of sewing, but it was fun. I used Simplicity 3511 and actually understood most of the pattern’s directions.  The best part of the pattern are the buttons on the back. Although they aren’t really necessary since I can get the dress on and off Ms O without using them, the buttons are too cute to leave out.

I haven’t made a square neck in a while and wanted to make a “practice” dress before sewing the dress which Ms O will be wearing to a family wedding in a couple weeks. I thought about making the practice dress out of muslin as most people do, but I knew that if I put all this effort into making something I wanted it to be wearable even if it may be a little off.

I am so picky about my fabric. For this dress, I used fabric from Denyse Schmidt’s Katie Jump Rope line. I had made myself a skirt out of this stuff last year and really like it because it’s light-weight and super soft.

Overall, easy pattern, straight forward and cute finished product. I’ll be making the actual wedding dress today out of this fabric and can’t wait.

And on a different note, have you noticed my new Sew, Mama, Sew! button in the sidebar? I was introduced today as one of the four Editorial Board Members. When Kristin asked if I would be a part of a new planning team, I about fell out of my chair. ME? Of course I would! Since then, we’ve started brainstorming great ideas for next month’s theme and I can’t wait for it to start. I’m always going to SMS blog for their great tutorials, links, and of course, fabric! I hope you will swing by and take a look as well.

Hey Fini-

These are for you!

Sorry they’re like *weeks* late, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Yes, I still have more presents to sew, but I’ve been lazy.

For the rest of you, these are cloth grocery bags but really they could be used for anything. I’ve used mine for zoo & beach trips, for clothes & toys, and for just about anything that I would normally grab a plastic bag for. The best use is for groceries. It’s nice to have something sturdy, totally stuff-able, and has easy carry handles. I have five of these myself, but only made Fini four. I didn’t buy enough fabric so could only make four plus this little cutie for me. The fabric is Alexander Henry and is the heavier home decor cotton. Fini likes the bright stuff so I thought this would be perfect for her.

Here’s a little on the bag’s specifications:

- They are cut from a 20 x 40 inch panel.
- The straps are 1.5 x 26 inches.
- There are 2.5 inch guessets.
- I used french seams for the sides of the bag for a neat and clean finish. (Still no serger!)
- There’s a 1.5 inch hem at the top where the straps are tucked into.

That’s it. Really simple to sew-up and totally worth it. Yes, you need to make some and be stylin’ at the grocery store with us!

OR- you can buy some…

We’re better, but I must still feel a little down because everything I made this weekend was blue.

The first project was matching pj bottoms for one of my daycare families who just had a baby boy. I used this “Britches & Bloomers” pattern for the baby and 4 year old brother, but since the pattern only goes up to a size 4, I used Simplicity 3669 for the 6 year old girl. ( I still added the ruffle from the Britches and Bloomers pattern to the girl’s pants instead of the plain hem from the Simplicity pattern.)

Yeah, these are way too big. I knew that she’s a “tall” size 8 so I figured I would make the next size up on the pattern, a 10. When she held them up, the waist was at her shoulders! I brought them back home with me so I could “adjust” them, but who are we kidding- I will probably have to resew the whole dang thing.

For her brothers, I used the “Britches & Bloomers” pattern which was reviewed here. I have a hard time with clothing patterns. I think there should be real photos included. You can’t tell a darn thing from the drawings! Since I’ve sewn some, I was able to figure things out, but I would really love photos. The pattern was very simple, but almost too simple. If I hadn’t done gathers before or pants for that matter, I would have had to do some guessing.

I used this wonderful Woolies flannel by Maywood Studio. I love this fabric and would buy the whole line if I could. It’s thick, soft and comes in beautiful colors.

The next project was a lunch sack for my sister-in-law. Elizabeth has this great tutorial which I should have followed better, but I was in a hurry. She calls for a lining and interfacing which I didn’t want to do. My bag doesn’t stand up as nicely because of it.

The fabric is the heavier decorator fabric of Amy Butler’s Forest line. It was expensive, but well worth it. I even embroidered her initials to try and add more details to my projects like I promised.

The last project was another try at heat sacks. Remember my last fiasco with these?

This time, I decided not to take any chances so I didn’t add any fragrance. Instead, I went with straight-up flax seed from my grocery store’s bulk section into a white cotton bag divided into three sections. I remembered from last time that for the size of my heat sacks, 10″ x 10″, I wanted to add some seams so that the seeds wouldn’t all fall to one side while in use.

Basically, I folded a 11 x 21 panel in half and sewed up the sides. I turned the bag right-side out and added the middle seams. Working with only one section at a time, I added the seed and sewed each section closed before moving on to the next. I pinked the top seam and then made the outside bag to fit with a couple of velcro strips for the closure. This way, the outside of the bag can easily be thrown in the wash as needed and the heat sack is more durable.

Whew- that was a long post! All in all, it was a good sewing weekend even if it was all blue.

Have you seen Craftzine lately? Yahoo!

I know that this is mainly a sewing blog, but really I haven’t been doing much of it lately due to my typing work. (The book is almost done. I only have 3 more chapters to type. Woohoo!)

I made my sister Mary 6 cloth grocery bags out of some more IKEA fabric. (You can’t beat their price or durability.) Yes, she now owes me big time, but I’m happy knowing that she’ll be using (and reusing!) my bags instead of adding more plastic to places like this.

I did more sewing yesterday trying to make cloth easter eggs and tried this wonderful idea, but stuffed eggs require hand stitching. I can’t do that to save my soul so that project didn’t make it far. I even tried to enlarge an egg pattern to see if a bigger egg would be easier to stitch. I wanted to make my kids and all the cousins one large egg with their name hand embroidered on them, but the first one I made turned into a mushy, squished, lopsided ball. UGLY. I gave it to Eleni anyway and she’s declared that it’s a ball for her doll. Great.

Did you know that you can’t just keep enlarging a pattern to the size you want even if it’s a simple pattern like an egg? Chris warned me about this when I was making all the kids’ slippers for Christmas, but I figured that it’s just an egg and what could go wrong. It turns out that you can’t simply enlarge and if you do, everything must be to proportion or else it turns out wacky.

So I’ve got another idea for Easter, but since it’s only a couple days away and I’ve still got 57 pages to type before Saturday, it’ll be a simple one. I’ll post it soon…

In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been eating:

Starting at the top, we have some chocolate shortbread mushrooms, a favorite Uwajimaya treat around here. (Ms O is sticking just to the chocolate and leaves the nubs for me.)

Next, whole wheat waffles with Daddy’s homemade blackberry syrup. This was last night’s dinner- Yummy!

Thirdly, we have the whole wheat artisan bread I promised to report about. What can I say? It was good, nutty and filling, but man, that white bread still rocks!

And lastly, tonight’s bedtime snack- steamed artichokes with your choice of butter or mayo for dipping. These were meant to go with dinner, of course, but since they take forever to steam, they weren’t done until 8pm. Bedtime snack it was and it was GOOD. (Yes, my kids really love these. Augie saw them while grocery shopping today and begged me to get them. I know I was a bad mom at first not allowing him to buy something that was $2 each, but we’re on a budget. So yes, he did have to beg for them! But really I think it’s the fun of scrapping the flesh from the leaves with your teeth. Even though Ms O and Eddie have trouble, they eat up what Daddy can get off for them.)

There you go, our eats so far this week. Tomorrow I’ll be on my own since I can’t stand duck!

I don’t have much to share because my kids are sick throwing up, diarrhea and fevers. It seems to be non-stop with something these days. Poor kids. We were supposed to make our trek up to Mt Hood for our annual Christmas tree hunt, but it looks like we may have to delay it. The kids will be bummed as they were looking forward to lots of snow balls, forts and hot coco. But I’m going to give them lots of TLC and hopefully we’ll all be back to *normal* by Monday.

I did want to thank SewMamaSew and all you ladies for stopping by the last couple days. They’ve not only highlighted my CD Poket, but also my Eddie Cap AND baby slippers! I’ve had a wonderful time reading all your comments. Wow- thanks for all the kindness! It’s kept me sane with all the handmade gift making going on. I ordered some fabric from the store the other day and couldn’t be more pleased. It came quickly, nicely packed to keep out any rain (we’ve been dunked with it recently) and I love my little button! I ordered this, this and this. I LOVE them all and are saving them for some very special projects after the holidays are over. (I just saw that the gnomes are out of stock again! I’m glad I got my order in so if you want some and you see it in stock, buy it. And buy ALOT. It’s simply the softest, most luscious fabric out there.)

So back to my kiddos I go and hopefully I’ll be back with some crafty goodness in a couple days.

Have a great weekend!

Since we’re in the middle of a little heat wave, we stopped yesterday to cool off in the River:

Augie and Eddie just loved it, but Ms O took a little while to warm up to it. Soon enough, she was scooting into the water just like her brothers.

Also, I made my first shirt:

I used seersucker since I got it cheap and I had a lot of it. I had to ignore the fashion taboo of horizontal strips- oh well! I adjusted the sleeves and took it in a little more after I took this picture. It wasn’t too hard to sew and I really like the fit of it. I have some Denyse Schmidt fabric that I’ve been wanting to use for something so I think I”ll make another shirt using it. Then I will have to buy moooore!

I love Fridays. In this house, it’s dubbed “Star Wars Friday” or “Couch Cushion Friday”. It’s a great day for everyone. The boys get to pick out a Star Wars movie to watch while they jump on all our couch cushions which have been pulled off and thrown around the room. And so today while all that was going on, I got some free time to make these:

I had intended to make seersucker pants, but I started them late last night… and ummm, they were a little lot off. Let’s just say that instead of 3T, I ended up with something Ms O can wear… maybe.

Instead I decided on shorts because I didn’t have enough material to start over with the pants. The pair on the left are the ones made out of seersucker which were supposed to be a birthday present for a special Hawaiian boy who turned three earlier this month. Better late than never I guess. Happy Birthday K-K!

The other pair are made out of a cotton/linen blend that is machine washable. I wanted Linen for the boys, but then I saw the cost of 100% Linen ($19/yrd!) and that it should be dry cleaned- NOT. This linen blend was only $9.99/yrd and I can throw it in the washer and dryer- perfect. The pockets are made out of a cotton print with brown Koi on a red background. I picked up it as a Fat Quarter at Bolt thanks to a gift certificate from my sisters- thank you! Augie’s favorite color is red so the choice was easy. (By the way, it’s HARD to find boy prints that aren’t too kiddish, don’t you think?) Eddie has already picked out his- cranes on a black background, and yes, I got it at Bolt as well. His are in the works so I should have some pictures up tomorrow.

All in all, shorts are easy to make especially these due to the elastic waste and baggy fit. I love the style of these which started out from a pattern for girl’s Capri pants. I used freezer paper to trace the general shape of the original pattern, then adjusted the length and width of each panel to better fit my boys. I now have my own pattern for Augie and Eddie AND I can iron it on- no pinning! There was some trial and error while trying to follow the pattern instructions as to how to put the pants together. After ripping out several seams that I had no idea how the !@#$ they were supposed to all come together, I figured it out on my own and it worked. Hooray for summer shorts!

(And for Fini, maybe I’ll post my own tutorial for these because I know you can sew some too!)

Like it says, I haven’t been doing much crafting. I’ve neglected my house and kids long enough so I took a break to clean and organize. It feels so calming to have a clean house. I HAD to get my sewing area under control so I bought a cabinet ($40 on CL!) and took several days to fold and clean my area. Big improvement, eh?

We’ve been on long walks and to the park several times since the weather has been so nice. It hit 80 today so we even hand washed our green monstrosity in the driveway.

With my new organized work space, I wanted to work on something. Last night I got some more shirt’s done and started a couple more today. I hope to finish this dress sometime soon as well.

We are having Easter at our house this year and are combining it with Edster’s birthday. It should be fun hiding the eggs and watching these kids get so excited over the hunt. (In our house, Easter comes several times a year since the boys love it so much.)

Both Eddie and Augie died 18 eggs each with the help of Chris and Joe. I wasn’t too involved this time around since I was madly cleaning the house still. Did I say that I love my clean house already? Well, it’s just so peaceful, it’s wonderful! If you know this family at all, you will understand that a clean house is a rarity for us. I keep saying that we need a bigger house, but then I think about the house my dad grew up in… there were 11 of them in a tiny house probably not more than 1000 sqft. I have no idea how they did it. I just hope that I can keep mine clean until Sunday… yeah right!