Wee Wonderfuls

smock on a peg

Lots of new things today: a new smock for Phoebe, a newly hung peg rail in her room and the sun!

The smock is a copy of a vintage one (here's Phoebe modeling it) -- oh! another new thing, a couple of them actually, Phoebe can now push herself up to sitting from laying and pull herself up to standing from sitting. She whipped these new tricks out yesterday and the day before. bam! I have a feeling she'll be trying to break Oscar's record of walking at 9 months. I need to stop sewing and start babyproofing, but back to the smocker, here's a close up of the matryoshka fabric that I bought at kitty-craft and I'm so proud of myself that I tackled this because I dread catching ric-rac in a seam. I love the way it looks but I have the hardest time with it. anyone have any pointers? I did okay this time -- even with Oscar complaining to me that it was taking forever -- but still had to go back and fix half a dozen spots where I didn't catch both sides of the fabric. But I think it turned out really cute...and I made fabric covered buttons for it. Fabric covered buttons make everything right.

playdate outfit

We have a playdate with a sewing mom tomorrow. This is a new thing for me. I love playdates with sewing moms! Such a good excuse to spend a Sunday afternoon sewing. I made a little top and matching barrette for Phoebe for the occasion.  Phoebe's going to be swimming in this. The first time I made this top I resized it down from the smallest size in the pattern book (100 cm) to be about 70cm and forgot to prewash my fabric. Now, after being through the wash, it's doll sized. So I thought I'd give it another shot. I overcompensated by doing the 100cm size & prewashing and now it's ginormous. Oh well, I think Phoebe can pull it off. And perhaps the matching barrette will be a distraction from the poor fit :)

Kit, Chloe and Louise

These three little gals have been on my mind for a looong time. They've finally made it out of my head here for a little debut. Kit, Chloe and Louise are three best friends who are up for all sorts of adventures and hijinks. What kind of gals are they? Well for one, these are the kind of girls who know how to stitch in a ditch.

Quilting Bee, limited edition Stitchette
coming to the shop February 2008

basement day!

Today is basement day and the Langs are very excited. Today we spend the whole day in the basement working on projects. The basement fast became the dumping ground when we moved in and fixing it up is our Winter project. I spent this morning unpacking boxes marked "Fabric - basement". These were filled with mostly thrifted finds that haven't seen the light of day in years. They've been moved from one basement to the next. I seriously weeded through it all and I think I've finally gotten it down to the stuff that I'll actually use. I was looking at everything with new eyes this time. Now that I've got a girl I was thinking a lot about doll clothes, dress up outifts, did I have big enough pieces for toddler/little girl outfits, etc.  I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm at now. Good enough that I'm dying to go thrifting. It's a sickness. What I really need to do is come up backstairs and start sewing! But it's still basement day so it's on to the rest of the tasks... toys, books, magazines, etc.

A big part of what made the whole fabric reorganization so fun were the huge garbage bags full of new to me second-hand fabric that I was lucky enough to pick up yesterday. A gal who reads the blog emailed me that she was helping a friend take apart her mother in law's home and that she had a bunch of old fabric that needed a home and was I interested. Interested? Heck ya! Here are a few pics I snapped while going through it all. I'm so excited!!

Sifting through bags of old fabric is easily in the top five of my all time favorite activities. What will I pull out next? What could I make with this? And I love the notions boxes, all sorts of little treasures. Heaven! Thanks again Angie for thinking of me. You made my weekend!

I was thinking it'd be fun to spread a little basement love so if you want a silly little package of oddities from my basement leave a comment and I'll send them out to the first 5 commenters.

wip's

I considered going all dyson today and complaining about my horrible sucky (or non-sucky really) vacuum cleaner. It's 5pm now. I've been hoovering since dawn and my house is still a giant tumbleweed of fuzz and legos. I can totally see why that guy freaked out and invented his own. Actually I could write a really long post about how much I hate cleaning of all kinds. What I'd rather do is show some cute fun project that I've finished but all I've got to show for this week's efforts is a still-not-that-clean house so instead how about some works in progress pics. I really hope I can get to one of these buggers soon.

research

experiments

puppets

paper dolls

embroidery

loot

all the birthday loot is in. hotdog! it's a lot of stuff but it is a looooong winter ahead of me. this should get me through til spring, hopefully.

sewing book and fabric ordered from etsy


a conincidental present, milk magazine finally caught up with me after the move

longed for liberty fabric and selvedge ordered from purlsoho

goodies from gail wilson


glass head pins from japan also ordered from gail wilson


fabric for phoebe outfits from reprodepot and equilter




these, unfortunately, won't last til spring. birthday brownies from amy. long gone.

hanging out

these gals have been patiently waiting on my desk for their photoshoots. they have been pokey pokersons. some sitting around for days with no hair, weeks with no faces, months with no outfits. now they're all finished and waiting for the sun, and for me to have the time and concentration to do some set ups.

folkster

I just finished making the first of the dolls from my christmas break sketching session.

I stenciled the pattern on the velvet skirt. I was so excited about this part. There were supplies to get and paint colors to pick out. The design was going to be a lot more elaborate but man, cutting through acetate with an exacto knife is tricky! I need more practice.

The rest of her turned out very close to what I'd envisioned. I love her big loopy braids although I think she might need one more braided bun. Yes, all the star wars watching is getting to me. Soon my dolls will all have queen amidala hair. Instead of my usual wool or flannel body this gal's is heavy canvas and I love how stiff she is. I definitely want to tweak a few things on the next one but I'm very pleased with my new girl. she's hanging with this guy.

After all the work on her outfit I'm actually most fond of what's underneath, her striped underthings and yarn shoes.

choking hazards

Ok, yes making Phoebe clothes is addictive but what about barrettes! No one prepared me for barrette fever. I'd been resisting because honestly I've been waiting for and expecting her hair to all fall out any day but here we are at almost 7 months and it's still here, yippee! And almost in her eyes (not really) so these barrettes are a necessity (nope) and that totally outweighs the fact that if one falls out of her hair into her lap it'll be in her mouth in 2 seconds flat (I watch her really carefully). So Santa left her some cutie Haba barrettes and Mom had to add to her collection with these...clockwise from top: her name machine stitched into wool felt and slid over a clip, my shoddy version of these super cute barrettes I spied at tiny mcsmall made by little something, a felt bead glued into a felt flower and glued on a clip, an anchor button glued to a clip and a fabric covered button glued to a clip. If you're tiny and in my craft room you'd better watch out cause you're going to get glued to a clip.

And this is, I think, my favorite so far... made from selvedge dots. I want to make an army of these! I couldn't help but put up the Phoebe shot but there's a better shot of the barrette over here.

I promise (Katie!), I'm being super careful about her not choking on these. Every time I leave the room or put her in the carseat or down for a napper I take the barrette out of her hair and stash it somewhere, most often in my hair, which is how I end up at the dentist looking like this.

Reminded me a bit of this funny mom story.

child labor

hey look, oscar can draw robots! I didn't even know he could draw faces. I'm feeling like the mother of the year over here accepting my award for attentiveness but I swear he just pulled this new skill out of his ear. tim was surprised too. he'd just been coloring same as normal and then bam, robots! so exciting! I put him to work straight away on some thank you cards.