Category Archives: Clothes
The Bucket Hat
I finished the first project for the Little Things to Sew A Long hosted by A Little Gray! That really should be followed by a dozen exclamation points and a YEAH!!!! Everytime I finish anything I am super pleased with myself but this in particular makes me happy. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t finish it and then that would just be the beginning of not finishing projects for the Sew A Long by the dead line and I know I would be very happy if that didn’t happen.
So anyway a couple of notes about the Bucket Hat. First I will never again attempt to make 4 identical hats in 2 different sizes. Or I will never cut all the peices out at once and then try to figure out which went with what. It was all okay until it wasn’t and then it took me forever to get the pieces to line up correctly. So I have ONE finished hat and not four, because I’m thoroughly frustrated with trying to get the pieces together. Perhaps marking them would have been smart, but I never claimed intelligence.
The second note is that the medium size doesn’t fit my daughter. She’s 2.5 and has a large head and the hat just not go all the way on her head. I should have measured her head but when I was tracing and cutting out the pattern she was napping and it just never happened. I figured that with the large range that it would definitly fit but I was wrong. It’s okay, though because it’s to big for my son and he’ll grow into it.
The fabric I used for one side is a dragon fabric that my mom got for me at a thrift store. The fabric is cotton but it’s wicked rough, so when she gave it to me I really didn’t know what I was going to do with it. She’s started buying fabric at the thrift store for me and although it’s nice of her, it’s not really a great price at $7.00 a yard and fabric like clothes is a bit subjective. But I did like the idea of using this for the hat. I thought it would be different then all the other hats and fun. I used an orange Kona Cotton for the other side.
Tesla was really interested in the hat until I wanted to take pictures of her in it and then it was all “NO NO PICTURES!”
So I thought why not get the goats involved. Wouldn’t it be cute to get a picture of one our goats wearing the hat. (We got goats over the weekend, by the way.) But they wanted nothing to do with it. In retrospect I don’t know why I thought they would. It’s not as if my cats enjoyed wearing dress up clothes when I was a kid, why would goats???
Anyway, overall this was fun to participate in. I can’t wait to check out everyone’s hats. Please go to a A Little Gray’s blog and see the link up party that she’s started with all the other participants.
Thanks for checking out my blog. I love getting comments so please feel free to leave one of your own!
>In Retrospect
>Sometimes, it’s only obvious that something is a bad idea after it’s to late. Let me explain. Saturday night we went to a concert at KidsQuest. Tim Noah was performing. Now I LOVED Tim Noah as a kid and now that I’m older and have kids I still love him. His music is fantastic. It has all the right themes.
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| This was the only pic I could get from his website. (He’s won Emmy’s! Impressive!) |
His songs from my favorite CD In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble waggle wazzie Woodle Woo include:
Zoom
If I Only Knew
If I Was
The Monkey Song
Big Booger
Tears On My Toes
Little Miracles
Sunshiney Mornin’
Musty Moldy Melvin
Friends With A Song
Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle WOO
I Can Do Anything
When I was in first grade this CD came out and Tim Noah did a tour around our area. Now I thought that he was HUGE, a rock star. Just huge. I believe it was really the first concert I ever went to and it was great. I remember listening to my tape and jumping on my bed and singing,
That Big Booger’s pickin’ on me”
We also bought his DVD, which is so good, and totally works today, even though it’s over 20 years old. Jason and Tesla watched it yesterday while I sewed and he was really impressed. It’s really a fun DVD and so cleverly done. Tim Noah also does a children’s theater up in Snohomish, and I think we’re going to have to go to it. It should be fun!
>More Beep Bots Love
>Do you remember the PJ’s I made for Nigel? Well due to a miscalculation on my part, I ended up with an extra three yards of fabric. I was using my husband’s calculator and it’s reverse polish notation and well I couldn’t figure it out and it was late in the evening and I had to place the order right away, so I ended up with 3 extra yards. Yes in in retrospect even the next day, I was like wait, that’s not right. But fortunately a friend loved the fabric and asked me to make some PJ’s for her son. The bottoms turned out really good. I even added in pockets which I had never done before and I did a separate waist band in a coordinating fabric.
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| See the waist band, and pockets are in a coordinating fabric. |
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| Close up of the pockets. |
Well I couldn’t really stop there, I asked my friend if he’d like a t-shirt as well with an appliqued robot on it. I should have taken a close up of the applique but this is as good as it’s going to get.
But there’s more! She also wanted a pillow with the fabric. She wasn’t specific about the pillow other then it would cover a 20×20 pillow from IKEA. I originally cut it 20×20 but it ended up 20×18. Not sure how that happened, my cutting mat is upside down and it always throws me when it’s like this, I could just flip it but there always seems to be better things to do. Anyway, I wanted to do a red piping on the pillow and add a zipper. Both things I had not done before and I do enjoy a challenge. I would like to say it was super easy but really it wasn’t. There are not a lot of tutorials that include both adding a zipper and pipping so I had to figure it out on my own.
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| The zipper pretty much ended up hidden. |
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| Her it is in all of it’s glory. |
Of course the pillow is 18×20 now, so I went ahead and made a custom pillow for it using some white fabric I had on hand and fill I had.
Here’s John in his robot glory. I had to beg him to try it on, he looks so cute. It was worth all the begging and pleating. He looks like he’s saying “beep bot, beep bot.”
>A Vacation!
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You know it’s funny, I have my favorite bloggers and get so annoyed when they take forever to blog again, so I feel bad when I don’t blog too. Like I’ve been lazy, but the truth is our son has been knocking our feet out from under us. He’s adorable, but he’s waking up twice a night again, and we are tired!!!!! It’s such a bummer too, because we were in this nice little routine and it was working out well for everyone. A friend gave me the Baby Whisperer so I’ll try that out and see if it helps us. Her kids are all on a good schedule and I trust her for advice about this so I think it will.
Anyway, this has got to be quick, the little man is stirring. Last week I went away on vacation with Tesla and Ben. We went to Camano Island in Puget Sound. A friend had rented a house and invited us along. It was great! At one point we had 10 kids with us! Running around, having a great time. One of my friends had bought fabric so that we could make something for the girls. We decided on skirts. In all I made 7 skirts! SEW much fun!!! Here are pictures of everyone in their skirts.
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| Tesla, Laura, Daniella and Dina. |
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| Lilly and Pea. Lilly got to choose the length of her skirt and was so pleased with it! |
>Spring Top Sewalong Entered!
>The top has been accepted and entered. I also found out the name of the floral print. I emailed the folks over at Pacific Fabrics. Annette and Michelle got back to me. Michelle said that the print is called Floral Lawn Print Plum. It’s not part of a specific line but it’s lovely just the same! Pacific Fabrics got back to me really quickly! I really appreciate it their help! Thanks Michelle!
Rae over at Made by Rae (the host of the Spring Top Sewalong) has posted some of the prizes for the Sewalong. There’s a lot of really cool packages. I love all the bows, patterns and fabrics. It’s really nice that I had never heard of any of the companies either so even if I don’t win I get to learn about new businesses that I clearly need to know about! Check out these bows by Bird Song Bows!
How pretty are they? I have a few friends with little girls who these bows would look amazing in. Well and Tesla of course.
Also apparently there is going to be a Reader’s Choice Winner…. My goodness, now I’m nervous. I wasn’t so nervous until I realized people are actually going to be looking and judging the top. Yikes! You should go over to the Flicker Pool and check out the other entries. There’s some really amazing tops. A lot that people made up on their own. My goodness I wish I could do that. Check them out here. I’ll find out how you go about voting and update next week once it starts.
Oh, I also wanted to mention that Fabric Flair is having a huge sale right now. Most everything is under $7.00 a yard. I bought some really great auto inspired fabric by Riley Blake. Check it out!
I know that I’m going to make some fun stuff for Ben with this!
Thanks for visiting Tesla’s Mom! Leave a comment!
>Spring Top Sewalong: A Completed Top!
>Well I did it! I have to say I’m proud of myself every time I finish something. Usually I make things with no particular deadline, or perhaps a birthday or holiday deadline, but for the Spring Top Sewalong is different. Perhaps because I have been reading all about these amazing sewers and quilters for awhile now and they all seem to have this great community in which they share and create things together, and with the entry into this I’m joining in on the fun and not just sitting on the side lines. Or maybe because I am feeling like I am not getting anything done and to pick a pattern, buy the fabric and sew a top that looks pretty darn good on me within any given time crunch is, well, satisfying. The pattern I used is from NEWLOOK or Simplicity #6937. I used a Robert Kaufman Solid Plum for the yolk and unfortunately the patterned fabric name is not correct on the receipt.
Without further ado, here is my Spring Top for the Spring Top Sewalong hosted by Made by Rae.
I had all these grand ideas that I would do my hair and makeup before Nigel came over to take the picture. But then everyone in my family got sick with over 100 degree temperatures. So I ended up handing Ben to Nigel when he got here to hold while I changed, then coming back in and handing Ben to Jason who was about to throw up at any moment. Then ran outside took the pictures, ran back in changed back into sweats and grabbed Ben from Jason who just about fell over. So the fact that I’m laughing in this picture makes me smile.
I like this one, I’m striking a pose… Or showing off the cool sleeves. I really like the feel of them. They are very light and airy and cover my arms nicely.
This is the official entry photo. The entry is supposed to just show off the shirt. So the head and legs came off.
What do you think? Leave a comment!
Would you like to see the other tops entered? Go ahead and check out the Flicker group, here.
>Spring Top Sew Along Progress Part 2
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I added the yoke/collar to the top that I am making for the Spring Top Sew Along hosted by Made by Rae. I ended up not following the directions on the pattern and making it up as I went along. I can’t believe I got it on. The fact that it doesn’t look right and that it eventually needed to be pulled off completely and redone is beside the point. I actually just got it on all by my lonesome. The reason that I did it was because the directions made no sense to me. Really no sense. It was like they were written in a foreign language I just couldn’t decipher them. I googled the pattern and with the exception of one person no one else thought they made sense either. So I didn’t feel to bad about my skills.
The issue with the yoke and the reason I pulled it off was because of that puckering at the right breast. It doesn’t do that on the other side and I thought it didn’t look right. Also look at the side view.
See that? The yoke is falling backwards off the shirt. Not exactly the look I’m going for. The bad news is I ended up getting a great idea to fix it at four o’clock in the morning and then whatever it is that I did ended up looking so much worse. That’s when I pulled the whole thing apart and started over.
The shirt is officially done. But our friend Nigel is coming over tomorrow night for dinner and he’s going to take pictures. There is a very specific way that the picture needs to be taken and I also want the color to show through correctly. I would have my sister do it because she’s an awesome photographer but I want the pictures NOW, and since it’s not a really serious thing I hate to ask her to come right over and take the pictures. Not sure if I will post them here first or on the contest site first. The shirt looks great though and I’m really proud of it.
>Spring Top Sew Along Progress
>Well as you know I have been working on the Spring Top Sew Along hosted by Made by Rae. It’s a bit slow going since I have to do during nap the kids nap times but progress is being had just the same. Yesterday I cut all the fabric out. Ben started waking/crying just as I was finishing up. I was cutting so quickly at the point, I wouldn’t be surprised if I made a mistake!
Today I managed to sew the bottom part of the dress up. Basically everything but the yoke/collar. Here’s a picture of the progress so far.
Okay, first let’s just get it out of the way, that is my bra showing through and if anyone thinks my flopsy nursing bra is risque more power to them. Other than the bra though, it’s looking pretty good. At least it’s not to small, and the color is good. Now on to the yoke!
>Spring Top Sew Along
>Hey did I tell you, that I’m going to do my first Sew Along? Made by Rae, one of my favorite blogs is hosting a Sew Along. It’s a top just for you, eh well for me really. But it can’t be for the kids or for my mom or for Jason it has to be for me! I went to the fabric store today to get the fabric. It’s in the wash right now, but I’ll show pics tomorrow. Can’t wait to get started. Go check out the blog Made by Rae, I just love it.You can find all the Sew Along Rules and submission requirements there. I have until May 9th to get it done. Wish me luck!
>1/2 of Goal Complete
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Next week’s goal. Dress 2!
