Bath Time Fun

Quick and easy fun for the bath: glow sticks! 

Look what I have Mama!

We've actually done this once before and discovered you can mix colours with water and light! It was pretty neat. All you need are 2-3 primary coloured glow sticks and an empty yogurt container made of white plastic. We skipped that this time though since I'm pretty sure that orange and purple make yuck.

I'll spare you any more of my attempts to photograph glowing things in the dark and will instead answer the question that's really on your minds right now. Yes, I am actually washing my kids in two baby bathtubs crammed in a shower stall. No this was not part of the activity. This house does have a bathtub in the second bathroom but for some reason they've disconnected the drain. My kids both scream bloody murder in the shower and 4 months of that seemed like a bad plan. Good thing I didn't succeed in getting rid of these before I moved ;)

An Abundance of Pants

So as I was planning those birthday pants I also cut out two pairs of leggings for Deacon since he had a serious pants shortage. Then within two weeks he was given six or seven more pairs of pants. Almost all of which were dark blue, like the ones I'd cut out. Guess I wished too hard for more pants ;)

Okay, worst picture of the bunch but the only one he's sitting still in!

I used the Fancy Pants Leggings Pattern ( You can find it at http://www.titchythreads.com/patterns but I got mine in the Sew Fab pattern bundle.) I really, really loved this pattern! I was nervous after my last pants fiasco but these were super easy. Also probably the best fitting pants he has.

My attempts at trying to show you what the back panel looks like. I think watching me chase Deacon around trying to get a picture of his bum was the highlight of Sophie's day!

I added cuffs to this pair but there's also the option of hemming them. They also come with a shorts option so you'll probably be seeing these again! 

Pair number two started out looking like this:

And ended up like this:

This time I used the existing hem of the sweater instead of cuffs. They look much less wonky on but we weren't playing chase the baby with the camera twice in one day.

Duct Tape Swords: A Non-Tutorial

My baby has a thing for sticks. Brooms, canes, knitting needles, hockey sticks, fishing rods, wrapping paper... if he comes across it and it's stick shaped, watch out! We wanted to give him something that would fulfill his deep desire to carry a stick without us all risking decapitation. A foam sword from the dollar store seemed like the perfect solution, until he bit a chunk out of the foam. Awesome. So back to the dollar store we went for some duct tape. You can't do better than duct tape. Unless they happen to have it in a rainbow of colours!

Just wrap the tape around the squishy foam part. Still soft, but much more bite resistant! I called it a non-tutorial because it's not exactly rocket science. Also this will probably be of no use to anyone else out there, unless they happen to have a foam eating baby and a desperate need for toy swords in their house. But who knows, someone may just want to copy the look ;)

Yay! Problem solved!

Birthday Pants

So the littlest munchkin had his first birthday recently :)
It was right in the middle of our catastrophe of a move so we kept the celebration pretty simple. Baked some cupcakes, put up a bunting (that I made my party guests make, good thing only family came lol) and made the birthday boy some pants. Mostly in time.

Mostly in time because, while my accommodating guests were making the bunting, I was still sewing the leg seams and waistband to get it to the point where we could just roll up the unfinished hem and put them on him as is. This is what I get for starting a project with a lot of pieces the night before. I really wanted to make him something special though because a first birthday is a big deal and his was kind of getting lost in the fray. And so a pair of Treasure Pocket Pants were in order. The pattern is from the book Sewing for Boys, you can take a look at it here:  http://www.amazon.ca/Sewing-Boys-Projects-Handmade-Wardrobe/dp/0470949554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392822927&sr=8-1&keywords=sewing+for+boys

Here's a closer look at the pockets and waistband. My pockets ruffle out more than they should. I had to improvise with the wrong size bias tape, part of the whole starting the project the night before thing. I'll start by saying that I love these pants and will definitely be making them again at some point. Giant pockets for the kids and a way to add cute fabric for me equals a win all around! They do seem to run a bit big, but that wasn't a surprise since the size range is pretty wide. (I made an 18m and the next size is a 2/3.)

 I do have to admit that I had a hard time understanding some of the directions. The instructions are mostly text with only a few pictures, so it you visualize something wrong the next steps make no sense. Most of what I've sewn has been from online tutorials or downloadable patterns which are usually very visual, so I was having a hard time picturing what they wanted me to do. It was pretty frustrating at times but worth working through since this is the only decent pattern book for boys I've seen so far. (If you know of any more, please leave a note in the comments. You'll be my new favorite person. Seriously. lol)

Secret Valentine Exchange

I got something lovely in the mail the other day :)

  

And that was before I even opened it!

I was part of a Secret Valentine Exchange, hosted by http://sanaeishida.com/ and I can't wait to tell you all about what my partner sent me! We filled out short questionnaires about our interests and one of the hobbies I mentioned was of course belly dancing. You can't imagine how thrilled I was to open up a box full of dance scarves! This one's my favorite:

Look at all the detail! It's all lace and vintage linens, just beautiful!

Can you believe there were three more in there too? I dug out my other hip scarfs and tried everything on together to see what combinations I liked. Not as pretty of pictures but you'll humor me I hope.

The funny thing is the day before in dance class we'd all admired how another student had layered a scarf under her hip scarf. Now I've got the look too!

Most of these are longer than they look. The hip scarf wouldn't cover so much of it but I folded them up to match the skirt I was wearing.

Know what's really crazy? This isn't all she sent me! We got a cute little bunting and gifts for the kids too!

I'd love to tell you about what I made for my partner but since as far as I know it hasn't made it to Singapore yet you'll have to be content with the teaser photo:

A New Direction, A Few New Faces. Nice Ones Though :)

Hello lovely people! (cough cough Jess and possibly my mother)

This is Kathryn the one-time guest poster and sister to Jess, here to give a brief explanation of what on earth I've convinced her to do to her blog. On the off chance that you aren't her or my mother and are wondering. Jess and I are both crafty in a general sort of way. We also made similar resolutions in the new year about sewing for our kids, the gist of which is not buy them clothes but try to make them if we can while being amazingly thrifty, making things that are fun and stylish, and of course comfortable and kid approved. Because we totally have the time and skills for that. ;)

I wanted to start putting these projects up on a blog because Jess is the first person I want to show everything I make to and the webcam just wasn't cutting it. I'm also really bad at remembering to take pictures of things I make and I always regret that later. This will hopefully keep me accountable about documenting my little creations.

Fair warning; despite my explanation about the kids clothes being the intended theme we're probably just going to post about whatever we end up making, regardless of the type of craft. There will be a lot of kid projects but sticking to a narrow theme isn't really where we're going with this.

So as a reward for making it through my rambling I'd like to bring you my first project post: Rainbow Wrist Warmers!

Not super complicated but the snow was getting in the gap between her mitts and her sleeves and stopping her from having fun outside. I basically just grabbed some yarn from my stash (a 30% wool, 70% acrylic blend so it was warm but not itchy) and knit some rectangles more than twice the width of her palm and as long as I wanted them to be. Then I sewed up the side seams and put a stitch or two where I wanted the thumb divided. I like how they curl up at the bottom but if you wanted to try some that lay flat just do a few rows of ribbing at the end instead.

Doesn't that little bit of rainbow make you happy? :) The yarn was a thrift store find. I have some of this ball left and a whole other one. What do you think the rest should be?

Kathryn