Making Lemonade

10.30.2013


You know the saying "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade?"

Well, to be perfectly honest, when sewing hands me lemons I usually don't make lemonade - instead I just make trash.  It's wasteful and lazy and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit how many projects have ended up in the garbage.

On the flip side, it is oddly satisfying to wad up a project that has given you hours of frustration and shove it in a garbage can.


And that was what almost happened when my version of the Hemlock Tee came out looking utterly ridiculous on me.  Even my 4 year old said "um, I think you made the wrong size."  Perhaps the over-sized look is not one that I can pull off.  In any case, by the time I finished the project is was clear that it was a failure.  The good thing about the fact that the Hemlock Tee is so oversized though is that it leaves large pieces of fabric in tact so I was able to refuse the fabric to make a Flashback Tee for O.


Look at me making lemonade out of lemons!

Find the bird, C!

The fabric is from Girl Charlee.  It's a fairly thin, drapey jersey that is part cotton and part rayon. I opted for a super-simple version of the tee, leaving off the cuffs, and just hemming the sleeves and bottom with a double needle.  Done deal.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to go drink my lemonade.

Her Saving Grace

10.28.2013

Allow me to introduce you to the world's worth teether.


I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been out drinking all night, but in reality I was up half the night with an inconsolable toddler and I was sleeping the other half of the night in the living room with said toddler on my chest.  And for the record, having a toddler sleep on your chest is not like having a sweet little baby sleep on your chest because the toddler is much, much heavier.  And she has more hair on her head which tickles your chin when you're trying to sleep.


Her saving grace as always, though, is just how darn cute she is in the morning.  It almost makes me forget how miserable the night was.

Almost.  But not quite.

Snow White

10.21.2013


Let’s just start by pretending that my peter-pan collar actually meets in the middle as it’s supposed to, okay?


Good.  Glad we got that out of the way.  Now on to the rest of the post.



I knew that I wanted to make at least one Halloween costume this year but I also knew that free time is at a premium around here nowadays so I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out how to sew random amounts of fun-fur together.  So instead I opted to use a pattern modification that had already been figured by some other kind soul in blog-land.  Just like Janimal, I modified the Oliver and S Puppet Show dress to become a Snow White dress and I followed her directions for creating these lovely pleated sleeves.  O is really into floor-length dresses nowadays so I opted to add some length to the dress by adding 8.5 inches to the bottom.  Because this also resulted in a wider dress I decided to just leave off the hem facing and instead I finished the bottom of the dress with a regular hem.  Also, because this dress is longer than intended I added some extra buttons down the back to accommodate the extra length.  


And can we just talk about these buttons for a second?  I know it's next to impossible to see in these pictures but they’re gold!  And super fancy!  And kind of perfect for this dress!  And I actually had enough of them since I bought two packets of them from an antique store many years ago.  That was a miracle in itself. 



Not a Christmas miracle.
A Halloween miracle.  Which is usually just me not eating all of the Halloween candy before Halloween night.


Letting Go Of Summer

10.13.2013


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I loved having my babies in the spring - mostly because I don't do so well in the winter.  Honestly I was afraid that chronic sleep deprivation combined with winter-time lack of sunlight would have turned me into a very unpleasant person should my babies have been born in the winter.  But despite my love for them being born in the spring, I always considered the summer after they were born to be a loss.  I know that some people hit the ground running when they have a newborn, but that just doesn't work for me.  Instead, I'm all for hunkering down and staying close to home when we have a new little one in the house.  So while last summer was a bit of a loss, it just meant that this summer was that much sweeter.

And sweet it was.

I'm sorry to see it go.

(Although I am excited for up-coming Thanksgiving food.  Bring on the stuffing and the apple pie!)