Hedgehog Parade

I have a true fascination with hedgehogs. I love looking at them. I love everything about their pointy little faces, and pudgy wrinkly feet. I almost bought one once. Thank goodness I held on to him first because that little guy was prickly. I also adore those big red mushrooms with the white spots. I want to live where those mushroom grow. They make me happy inside just knowing they exist somewhere. Mrs. Ella is modeling Ottobre 1/2009 Babushka Pinny number 2. No babushka yet though :) I used aqua 12 wale corduroy, cotton gingham, red cotton velveteen, wool felt for the hedgie's, grass and mushroom stem. I used the red velveteen to cover the buttons and some of my Textile Garage Sale trim stash for around the bottom.
I think I am going to make a couple more. They will be perfect layered over a t-shirt and leggings for preschool this fall. Not so much dress to manage at potty break time and simple enough for her to dress herself. How many of these would be too many I wonder?

This pattern is a great blank canvas for my imagination.


Applique is addictive......

Acorns for Squirrels

I have come to the realization that sewing with the fabric in my stash needs to happen quickly. I purchased the acorn print corduroy last fall meaning to sew pants from Ottobre with it for Soren. When I pulled it out this year Soren looked at it and said "too babyish mom". Ugh! When I looked through my stacks of fabric I became slightly panicked knowing she was suddenly going to say that about most of the prints I was hoping to use this fall. Now I am on an Ella sewing binge in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Ella is happy when I sew for her. She doesn't make demands about cut and color. She doesn't have an opinion about whether I make a dress or a skirt or even pants. She just beams at me with her big blue eye's and says "For me mama ? Tank you Mama, Tank you!". Then she gives big bear hugs and wet noisy kisses and holds her new clothes tight to her chest. Awe shucks, she is nice.
"You dress me up mama?"
You bet darling! Can I take your picture too?
"Uh huh mama, I show you my squirrel mama."

Ella, Momma loves you baby!

"Luvs you too mama. Miss you too mama. I get down now mama?"

Jumper: Babushka Pinafore Ottobre 1/2009

Fabric from Joann Fabrics fall 2008

I used the Squirrel applique pattern from the same Ottobre issue. I layered two

colored buttons over each other and sewed them on with embroidery floss knotting

the floss on top of the button instead of on the inside of the garment.

Pants: Portabello Pixie Ruffle Pants

Giraffe Food

At the Minnesota Zoo a few days ago the kids had the opportunity to feed the Giraffes. Rye crackers is apparently what giraffes eat. Two rye crackers for $5 which I had to borrow from my friend Karen because there are no ATM's in the African bush.

Soren followed up the day with a horrific long black tongue licking her nightmare in the middle of the night. She was so freaked out by the way the giraffe's long tongue was hand like in it's ability to grab on to stuff that's all she talked about for at least 24 hours.

Ella didn't say a word......just stared at the sweet spotted head in amazement

Soren even though she kept screaming and dropping the cracker every time the giraffe tried to take it from her, thought she should comfort her little brother just in case he was scared too. He wasn't but how thoughtful of her to transfer her fear to him so that she could get a little distance from it.

Birds of a feather & skirts stick together

Erin McMorris Park slope fabric is really amazing stuff. I love the patterns and color ways. I just don't seem to get sick of it :) This is the other skirt I made made last weekend. My sweet heart is not in a picture taking mood so there were slim picking to choose from on the photograph front. I used the Farbenmix Summer Love Skirt ebook pattern (SommerLiebe ebook). It is a four panel skirt with two options for the waistband (stretch knit or woven fabric). If you google it you will find lot's of creative examples of folks sewing with the pattern. Also search Flickr. Amazing! The pattern is a snap to sew with and I love how small each panel is. You can use up a bunch of small pieces of fabric in one skirt. It's so hard to find good printed knits with enough stretch around here. Banberryplace has loads of the stuff in great Euro prints if you go on the hunt and they have a sale going on this weekend. So for this skirt I used my skirt fabric and a third print. I got to use some of my crochet cotton lace trim for around the bottom! Just a note on sizing. I sewed a 136/140 for Soren who is wearing a size 6/7 US. She is tall and thin so I opted for a size bigger than what I would buy in Euro sizes to get a little more length on the skirt.

More Park Slope! I sewed this last fall but never took pictures of it. This skirt is so tea with grandma. It has a sweet girly vintage style to it with a modern pop of color.
The apron is attached. I make apron strings to insert at the side seams of the waistband.
The skirt still has an elastic waistband. And the apron strings are functional. So convenient to not have your apron fall off when the strings come untied.
And here's one more from winter.
This time I took a vintage sheer nylon apron apart and pieced it back together while assembling the skirt. I used the same method of inserting the apron strings at the waistband side seams. The apron even had a pocket with a hole in it that I was able to remove.
I am really looking forward to hitting the sewing machine again in a few weeks. Yea for back to school!

Back to school sewing!

I loved back to school time when I was a kid. I took Soren shopping over the weekend to pick up school supplies and it brought back all kinds of good memories. School supply shopping was one of the few times each year where my parents let my brother and I get whatever we wanted. It's not the same anymore with a class supply list. Soren doesn't get to label any of the things we purchased as her own. And she didn't get to pick out favorite pictures or characters for school folders. Though I understand the premise behind buying supplies for the class versus the child it does take a little of excitement and build up out of back to school. I think I can make up for it with sewing school outfits that are unique to her! The sewing bug hit hard this weekend and I have several things to share. I'll post today about her first day of KINDERGARTEN outfit and share the rest latter on this week :) I know what your thinking......the apple motif is totally over used. And I agree completely...sorta. I had planned on doing a letter S with flowers but this little lady said she wanted an apple. So an apple I gave her. I had been looking at the Alabama Stitch Book and was struck with hand stitching the applique on instead of using my machine. I love the way it turned out. I used embroidery floss and the hand stitches really added some depth and interest to what is a very simple image. Really it was faster than doing it on my machine just because I didn't have to change thread colors 3 times.
For the skirt I used this fabric from equilter.com
They have lots of fun prints appropriate for back to school. Just type "script" into equilters search box and look through all the prints. Be patient and look at all the pages or you will miss some good stuff!!! Another note about this fabric is the print runs parallel to the selvage. I missed this little detail when I ordered but fortunately I had enough to do what I wanted. The red and white polka dot is vintage from my moms fabric stash.

For the basic skirt I did 2 inch box pleats instead of gathering. I also put a really big 5 inch hem on this one. The combination of the box pleat and the wide hem is really lovely. The fabric lays nicely at the waist and balloons out to the hem. The wide hem gives the bottom of the skirt so much more body. I love the combo and will do it again. By the way I didn't iron this! This fabric washed up very well and came out of the dryer nicely.