Doily Curtains

Since we will be moving this week my hands have been itching to make things for our new apartment :)

It's freshly painted in perfectly livable (but unexciting) neutral colours, which means that painting would be a waste of time and money at this point. Especially when I can add some personality the diy/cheap way.

I've seen different versions of these floating around pintrest, this being my favorite. So off to the thrift store I go only to discover that their doilies are 1$ a piece. Not ridiculous unless you want a stack of them. Thankfully we had an epic garage sale-ing trip the next day where a nice lady gave me a bag stuffed with 23 of them for 4$. Because really, 23$ curtains were not happening. Especially considering that the windows already have brand new blinds on them and these are just for decoration.

So these are obviously not rocket science; acquire doilies, lay them flat and arrange them until you're happy, pin with safety pins, then sew. 

They do make me happy though. I can't help but wonder how many of them were handmade? I have a few vintage lace books and some of them have patterns for entire tablecloths worth of dainty lace. I have serious respect for people who can do things like that. I'm more a quick and easy project type of girl. My head is full of too many ideas and if I don't finish something soon I run out of steam and drop it for the next project. (My UFO basket is starting to overflow again, if you're wondering where that train of thought came from!)

A Totoro Birthday Party!

So the Little Miss turned 4 recently and picked her favorite movie as her party theme :)

I am pretty sure that she was the only kid there who understood any of the movie references, but everyone had fun. I of course took this opportunity to make as many impractical Totoro themed things as time would allow. (The soot sprites were made by holding 3 strands of yarn, an eyelash yarn, a feather-y yarn and some regular black worsted, together and crocheting a ball.)

Sophie asking for a Totoro dress was probably the high lite for me though. I had a sketch book page full of adorable options for her to choose from, and she picked the simplest one on the page, which is so her. "Green, Mommy." was the other condition.

So the applique is just jersey knit and some fabric markers. (Not loving the Crayola ones. May have to invest in another type.) It's all (badly) hand stitched but cute from wearing distance.

I modified the dress pattern from the donut shirt, mostly just making it thinner since this was obviously made from a t-shirt and using the existing neck opening. The original drawing was sleeveless but this dress needed something to save it from being deathly boring. It's actually too big for her and if I could just cut it at chest level, take a chunk out of the middle, gather it and re-sew it to the bodice it would be cute and fit. I don't think cutting her birthday dress in half would go over well though...

For our final performance, allow me to introduce you to the Catbus! There are hypothetically nice pictures of this out in the sunlight on party day, minus the sidewalk chalk makeover but none of them are on my camera seeing as I was busy actually hosting the party. So you get the post-party Catbus.

I was actually planning on painting a refrigerator box and cutting out a few windows but it turns out those things are tricky to find! This was the result of last-minute, night before the party improvisation. I cut the shapes out of that thick styrofoam in the middle poster board from the dollar store and stuck the whole thing together with about a roll and a half of packing tape.

I also threw a few movie inspired props like Mei's hat and flowers and some giant leaves (that they planted in the garden lol!) and drew a slightly creepy looking Totoro on her cake. (No regrets that I don't have a picture of that yet!) She was so excited to have a Totoro party and the other kids just had fun playing, the reason certain things were out doesn't really concern the under 5 set.

P.S. Why it's a miracle that I manage to take photos at all, even mediocre ones:

Deacon likes to stomp or sit on anything I lay out on the floor. This time he also stole it, then ran away and hid. Good thing he's so cute! (And a bad hider! lol)

Awesome shorts to wear under a dress

My daughter is a very rough and tough little girl. When i get her to wear a dress, it's usually accompanied by leggings so that her undies don't show. Now that the weather is getting warmer, I started looking for short leggings for her to wear under them. I was having a hard time finding little girl bicycle shorts, and since I had fabric left over from making DJ's toddler boxer briefs, i decided to make my own...

 

I started by drafting a pattern. I turned a pair of Katie's leggings inside out and traces one half. I added a half inch for a seam allowance, because I like to use french seams on just about everything.

 

Blogger is being dumb and has decided to turn my pictures...

 They ended up being a little loose, because I was being dumb when I drafted my pattern, and added my seam allowance on top of the original one. They're also a little longer than I would have liked.

Despite them being a little baggy, Katie adores them. I have four more pairs to make, which will be a little tighter and shorter. Since the fabric was from my stash, all I had to buy was elastic. Total cost for five pairs of fantastic hide-Katie's-underwear-while-she-wears-dresses shorts : 2.50$ 

Post Script: My apologies for not posting very often, but in my defense, Since Hunter's arrival two months ago, we have sold our house in Alberta and bought a house a Ontario. It's been busy and will continue to be busy for the rest of the summer, but I do have a few ongoing projects to post about in the future.

Fancy Bellydance Top

Take a look at that! Does that look like something you'd be proud to wear or what?

So here's the deal with this beauty. We ordered a ready made 2 piece costume off of e-bay for our June recital. E-bay is a wonderful place to order cheap costumes, they just happen to come in one size. A size that fits the beautiful, slim, vertically challenged models (who are presumably Chinese given the locations the costumes are shipped from). I won't even attempt to claim that I've been too tall for anything, ever. Nursing babies and some leftover baby weight however have left me with a bra size that in no way resembles that of a tiny Asian model. I pulled this top out of the parcel and couldn't even hold it to me well enough to guess what it would look like! Add to that the fact that this costume has more sequins than I've voluntarily gone near in my entire life and it made for a fairly bleak picture ;)

Take a good look at this photo. Notice three different parts; the pleats along the top, the sequined cup and the beaded embellishment along the side. Now look again with this in mind: the edges of the sequined cup were the original edges of the bra. Almost everything I added to this was actually done to cover the larger bra I sewed this to!

So this is how that works. You take your too small decorative bra and take out the under wire. You get a properly fitting bra (hypothetically in the same colour, unless you plan on making unnecessary work for yourself like me). Line the cups up on the bottom front and sew on. Fill in the extra space. Some lace or fancy trim all around usually does just fine, but in this case I had huge gaps to fill and had to get creative.  Careful sewing the band though, it still needs to stretch when you're done!

You can actually see pretty clearly on this side where the original bra ends if you're up close like this. The sleeves drape down quite far when it's on and cover most of this though, so the main thing was to make sure that it all sparkles. Flat, not shiny pieces on the costume would be far more obvious from the audience than differently shaped sequins.

What beautiful flowers... Oh, you didn't notice that was covering the fact that the original bra didn't make it around my torso? Bet you didn't notice that you haven't seen a clasp yet either. I wouldn't recommend asking me about the wisdom of sewing a bra with a back clasp onto one that does up in the front. I don't find it to be amusing while I'm trying to wiggle into it. (Life lesson: sequins are sharp!)

I also added some extra rows of beading hanging down and sewed some cute little flowers on top. I swear it lies flatter when the top is on but there was no way that sort of photo was going to be floating around the internet!

Lets take a look at it all together again. Doesn't it look sweet and pretty? I try to add some beauty and personality to a costume I'm altering. Otherwise it's easy to fall into bad mindsets, especially when you order every single costume with the knowledge that you are going to be too big for it. I can't imagine anything more depressing than having a costume that's clearly different because you've had to expand it. I want to have the costume that's different because it's so beautiful :)

Ewok Babies!

They will capture you with cuteness! But not with spears. My children find weapons enough on their own without me handing them any.

So half of my kid sewing idols have this thing they do called Sew Geeky. It's run by Max California and Sew Chibi who are basically the rock stars of the geeky sewing world. (Some of my other favorite kid sewing bloggers are things like Sanae Ishida or MADE, with much simpler, classic styles. I'm not sure what that says about my fashion sense. Hopefully the mix works? lol)

Sew Geeky is exactly what it sounds like: a geeky theme is announced and we all make something that fits the bill. Obviously we're all about Star Wars this month. (I'm sure at least one person out there went "May the 4th be with you to you...)

"I sat here while you put this thing on my head already, like I'm staying put for photos when there's a whole backyard I could be wreaking!"

So Ewoks hoods aren't the most original thing I could have made. I didn't put a fancy new spin on what's already floating around the internet. To be completely honest my kids don't even know what Ewoks are since Sophie won't sit by and watch something bad happen to an animal, even on TV. Picture to yourself how many times something fuzzy gets hurt in those movies. Yah...

As far as my kids were concerned these were just a new addition to the dress up box. No fancy clasps they had to do up. Not too hot to wear in summer. Just some wonky old pillowcases made out of jersey and some scrap pieces from the elephant rug.

Ok, so he kind of looks like a Jedi baby with bear ears in this one. Guess one size doesn't fit all :)

Look! It even has a hooded cape option if you get sick of this game and shove Mommy's silly hat thing off of your head so that you can see properly!

Little Miss "No Face" strikes again.

I will admit that it's kind of amusing to dress my children in cultural references they don't understand. I do my best to brainwash them with an age appropriate level of geeky-ness though. I figured I'd done my job as a parent when Sophie asked for a Totoro birthday party, complete with catbus and birthday dress! I'll share, I promise. You'll probably have to wait until next Friday though, since I've been dying to give you a sneak peek at one of my belly dancing costumes first! 

Elephant Rug

In hopes of a home to put this in soon, I made an elephant rug.

Is that not the cutest little guy ever? I really feel that like it needs an ear though but I'm afraid I'll trip over it if I add one. Sophie took one look at it and told me it needed babies :) Maybe you'll see some elephant pillows in the future! 

I just folded the edges over and hand sewed them down. (We're still in the keeping the feet up stage.) Whether I put a non-slip layer on the back will depend on where we live and what sort of floor we put it on, since I'm pretty sure this would stay put on carpet.

 Can't you just picture a baby sleeping here? If I'd made this a few days ago I could have played photo shoot with baby Hunter :) I made it out of this grey and white fake fur that I got a ton of for 4.99$ at the thrift store. I used maybe half of it. Unfortunately the baby elephants are the least strange use I've thought up for the rest. (Ewok hats and Princess Mononoke capes come to mind.)

These pillowcases are where the elephant idea came from, I plan to turn them into laundry bags and thought it would be cute to pull one of the animals from here. It's a good thing pinterest exists though, because without it I'd have a much harder time coming up with things to occupy myself with! Turns out I'm not a good patient, two weeks into putting my feet up occasionally and I'm going squirrely! 

Look! I Actually Have Two Kids I Sew For! (AKA Baby Shorts)

Ok, seriously, there are the cutest thing ever!

They're the Fancy Pants Leggings again, but the shorts version. I cut a 2T this time since his leggings are getting small and we need room for a cloth diaper bum.

 Here's a look at the front, plus bonus baby toes to make the Mama's squeal.

You know me, if something's quick and easy I go on a rampage and make a hundred more. (Or 3)

These shorts are so great I didn't even wait to photograph them before putting them on the baby! (Meaning I may or may not have stolen these from the laundry pile...)

Maybe I should have said 2.5 pairs of shorts. I hurt my legs within a week and a half of deciding I could totally just run (despite my last attempt being pre-Deacon) and haven't been able to use my sewing machine since. I have however spent a ridiculous amount of time with my feet up knitting and hand sewing things so you may get to see some of that soon.