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reversible jumper

More baby clothes today. I made a little reversible jumper for Phoebe. It was inspired by this one by Makie. I made mine out of a linen Japanese print and a solid cotton poplin. I made the test pattern out of muslin and was so excited when I tried it on her. Thought this would make the perfect baby outfit. Something to throw over her one gazillion onesies. And it turned out great and I do love it, on the hanger. It’s a little stiff and a little big. The big is okay but I think I’ll try the next one in a lighter fabric. It’s hard to outfit these squirmy babies. I really should be making things out of knits but knits scare the bejesus out of me. Me and my 20 year old sewing machine.

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bonnet for the peg rack

Amy sent out an email yesterday to her mailing list announcing that her bonnet pattern reprint is now available! That totally reminded me of this project I’d been wanting to do. I want to have a shaker peg rack full of bonnets for Phoebe’s room. I was inspired by another photo from the Collecting American Country book (the first inspiration being the doll quilt wall) and also the shaker nursery in Martha Stewart baby. As a card carrying mail order club member I already have my bonnet pattern so I got started last night and ordered my peg rack and finished my first bonnet. Talk about immediate gratification. I love this pattern!

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backa packa

Someone’s starting preschool very very soon. His school supply list called for one backpack with large zippered opening, no wheels. I let him pick out some fabric from his fancy fabric stash (all the great japanese prints I’ve acquired for Oscar use over the years) and this is what I came up with.

I used some fusible interfacing to stick the already canvas-like fabric to some even heavier weight canvas and then cut my pieces out from there. I didn’t use a pattern but just cut out a backpack shaped front and back and then a 5″ wide or so strip to go around. I got some canvas webbing and D-rings for the straps, which I, of course, sewed on the wrong way so I had to cut them off and sew back on the right way because I can never get a thing completely right.

My favorite part: I used this bit with driving cars from the selvedge to make a handle. Oh! and that in addition to sayings like “happy town” and “enjoy city” it says “poo country”. hee! I put that bit on the back though. You know, just in case some advanced classmate can read already.

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old kids books

Here are some more peeks at the book sale stash I mentioned the other day. As most of you know, I am a huge sucker for vintage kids books. I pore over them at every book sale, garage sale & thrift store we go to and have a fast growing collection to show for it. We were running out of room at the apartment but now that we have a basement, bring them on!

Illustrated childrens books are the one source of inspiration for my crafting that never gets tired. The colors, the stories, the outfits! It all makes me so happy.  A good batch of em, like these, really motivate me to get sewing. They also bring me back to my first months of craft blogging. I just past my 3 year mark here wee wonderful’ing and I’ve been a little sentimental about my blogging beginnings. You know, back when craft blogging and I were first dating. When we’d take long strolls, pushing baby Oscar through the streets of Oak Park dreaming about projects. When we weren’t afraid to take on anything new and jumped right into quilting and toy making with abandon.

Now we’re committed to each other. We’ve had to be responsible and make difficult decisions. We’ve had to think about our future. We’ve also weathered a few major bouts of blogger ennui and cynicism. In the end though, it’s true love. And I’m feeling the need to tackle some big projects. Maybe it’s the books, maybe we’re finally getting settled around here or maybe it’s the upcoming Fall. Fall is always a good time for me and craft blogging. Like we’re kids again.

The rest of these and more book pics will be up in my vintage books set on flickr.