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khaki scout uniform

Have you seen Moonrise Kingdom yet? Not my favorite Wes Anderson movie but amazingly gorgeous and perfect nonetheless. And one of my favorite themes, camping/scouting. And did you know that Kit, Chloe and Louise‘s free pajama pattern can be easily made into a khaki scout uniform? I was pretty excited when that dawned on me. All I had to do to modify was make some shirt pockets, fold up cuffs and tie a kerchief around her neck. I was going to sew up a bunch of tiny badges and then realized I had enough oddball buttons to do the trick. Now she’s quite the accomplished khaki scout!

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Juliet

Now that she has a new frock, Juliet is not embarassed to turn around. I like this dress much better, mostly because it took me 10 minutes to sew but also because it's made from a super soft vintage sheet that I think is really dreamy and looks like something Juliet would don.

I was torn on her hair. I wanted to do a huge elaborated braided up do with lots of ribbons woven through. When i was searching ballet photos many of the ballerinas performing Juliet had hair like that. But the long, free flowing hair is so what I think of when I think of Juliet so I compromized with a braided crown with pink woven in. 

I'm not working on these dolls for patterns, they're actually all the same pattern… Elise/Elsa Elf. I've been wanting to sell one of a kind dolls for always but never seem to have the time, and I'm perfectionist, and I can think of a thousand reasons not to, but I really do enjoy it so I'm plunging in! I've listed Juliet on ebay here. 

I love having a character as inspiration. I want to continue on this theme and make another ballerina. I think a trip to library to brush up on my ballets is in order.

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moko!

Okay, it’s sticking. Kitten’s name is Moko. Here’s how we ended up introducing them, after about a week of sequestering Moko in the bedroom I put a baby gate across the doorway and opened the door. Didn’t work so well because Moko just kept scaling it and climbing over. So the next day we just brought her into the fold. Hazel was pretty cool about it. Not freaked because she knew there was a kitten on the scene and actually seems sort of into her. They wrestle a lot but no one is getting hurt. Hazel is totally fine with Moko sleeping on her chair and on top of/under her. So they seem acclimated. I hope they’ll be buddies. I’m so glad we did this. I think Hazel was definitely lonely for some kitty camaderie.

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our newest addition

No, we're not crazy cat people who are going to get a new kitten every Spring but Hazel needed a pal and our friend's cat just happened to have kittens. What can you do? Here's our newest cutie. Name suggestions welcome! Also introducing cats to each advice welcome. We've had new kitten sequestered in our bedroom for 2 days now. Hazel has worked up to sitting at the door hissing at her. And that's how that's going.

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sorry, were you looking for me?

I was outside. Weeding, watering, planting… here and at school. Things are looking good in our garden at home. I got antsy and moved a bunch of stuff but nothing has died yet so that’s good. We have a few more plants to buy to fill in and I think, at least part of the garden, might be right this year. We’ve dug a new bed in the front yard so we have that to screw up from scratch – exciting! And Tim built us a new path around the bed in the back. It will be so much easier to weed now. Yay! And we’re going to put a tree back there. Tim’s liking a pagoda dogwood. Anyone have love/hate input on that?

Things are chugging along slowly with the school gardening projects as well. We were able to get funds from our PTA for our school garden and are going to start building the raised beds this Summer. Right now my friend and I are weeding through the craziest mulched over mess to make space to plant annuals for our gardening class at Exploremore Day. Do you have this at your school? It is so much fun. The kids sign up for their favorite picks and spend the day going around from class to class. The classes are taught by parents, people from the community, dance/karate schools, etc. I just love it. This year is our first year teaching a gardening class. I really hope we can make it fun for the kids! I’m looking for a garden marker craft to supplement the planting activities (or to keep them busy if god forbid, it rains!). Any ideas for me?

Man, I’m full of questions today!

my mother’s day flowers

lettuce!

allium

ferns and their friends

lily of the valley is just about done for the year