Homemade Non-Easter Easter Dresses

Well, I haven't posted in a while.  The Hubby changed his work schedule, which will be changing again at the end of the summer...so much drama...anyway, I'm basically a single mom- with someone sending her money to support the kids and herself.  So I don't get to blog as often as I like.  Someday I'll save enough to buy a laptop so I can blog from the familyroom, which would allow me to blog every day!  Can you imagine?  But for now, I have to wait until conditions are just right to go clear across the house for 20 to the only room in the house wired for internet access.  Frustrating.  Anywho...

Do you remember back in January I posted about some happy mail?  That I got a package of fabric that I had ordered from Hawthorne Threads?  Well I made dresses for the girls just in time for Easter!  Yes, I know they aren't exactly Easter dresses...but I let Moo pick out her own fabric, then I picked out something kind of complimentary for Toots and since when I ordered them I was not thinking of Easter, this was not an issue.  But since I had time and got a wild hair, I decided to bust them out in time for the holiday.  Plus I've always wanted to make an Easter dress.  Of course, it was freezing on Easter so the girls are wearing long sleeve shirts and Toots is wearing leggings too.  I promise the dresses are not as sloppy as Moo is making hers look.  I made Moos' first and followed the pattern exactly, gathered top and front pockets.  Then I modified Toots' little dress to be easier/faster.  I omitted the pockets because she doesn't need them and I actually like the cleaner look as opposed to the broken line the pockets make.  I also did pleats instead of the gather along the yoke.  I thought this would be easier, but I did have trouble keeping the pleats nice and neat while sewing.  It was a faster set up to do the pleats, but totally easier to sew the gathers.  A toss up, I think.  There is a little button at the top/back of the dress which I was proud of since I have never done anything with a button before.  The girls both seem to like their new dresses and I made them in sizes 7 and 3, so that they should last for a while ( I hemmed Moos' up after I finished it so that it would be the proper length.  The main difference between the 6 & 7 was the length.  It can be let out as she grows.)

Moo likes hers so much she wore it to Costco the day after I finished it.  A woman with about 5 kids all under 10 asked if I made it.  I told her I did, she said it was cute, then we went on with our shopping.  After I had a huge inner dialog about why she would ask that?  Does it look homemade?  Is that a good thing?  I thought it came out rather well and since Moo liked it so much I was pretty darn proud.  But boy did that lady ever throw me for a loop.  I never thought I would be bothered so much by something like that.  Now obviously, I don't care if someone else likes the way I dress my kids or whether or not their clothes come from my machine or Target, but I hope that kind of thing doesn't rub off on the girls.  I hope they always like wearing the things I make them.  I hope they always think of how much time and love went into those items...so much more special than a $10 dress from Walmart.  But I guess we'll see in a few years...

By the way, the fabrics are from Hawthorne Threads and the dress pattern is the Ice Cream Social Dress from Oliver & S.  In case you were wondering.

Baby loves Baby

Today's obsession is not mine, but belongs to Toots.  It is her baby, well Moos' baby, really.

Moo was not into baby dolls until she hit 4.  She still isn't really big on them.  She'll play with one for a few minutes, then get bored and move on to something else.  She's gonna be my career minded gal.  Toots, on the other hand, seems to love her baby.  At 16 months, she is all about pushing baby in a stroller, feeding baby, making me change baby's diaper...she hugs and kisses baby all the time.  She still carries it like a toy (see above photo, I promise I don't carry my babies like that) and will still drop it and run to the table if I offer her a snack.  But the other day she started doing something odd, but funny.  She dropped baby, on purpose, then made a noise that sounded like a tiny kitty meowing.  She looked up at me with a terribly sad face and said "Oh no, Wha happen?  Baby fa dow, baby kwyin!"  (that's crying for all you non-mom's out there).  Then she picked it up, still meowing, and handed it to me.  I did what I do for her and said "Oh no!  What happened?  Did you fall down?  Where is your boo-boo, let me kiss it...there all better!"  She smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen and said "Fank you, Daddy!" (Yes, she still calls me Daddy sometimes-I know, don't even start).  Then she did the entire thing over and over again, about 30 times.  Since then we have had to go through this little ritual daily and while it still is funny to me to see her little face make that terribly sad sympathetic frown and pathetic meowing, it does get annoying when you can't finish making dinner until baby's boo-boo has been kissed.  On the plus side, I actually got a picture of her smiling!  She sure does love that baby!

Moo's New Haircut

Before

After

 Haircut a la Mom.  I think she likes it, thank goodness.  I tried to talk her out of it for a long time because I thought she'd regret it since she LOVES having long hair to do fancy hairdos with.  But she's had her hair like this for about a month now and she really seems to like just throwing on a headband in the morning instead of me spending half an hour brushing through the long tangled jungle of hair before school.  She looks SO grown up now!  The before was taken right before Christmas, not too long ago but look at the difference!  I think I might try to keep it like this, even if it does make her look ready for college.  What do you think?

Happy Mail!!!

Look what I got in the mail today!!!  The elephants (sorry they are upside down) and the grey with little swirly dots are for a dress for Moo, the large and small pink dots are for a dress for Toots and the two tone pink is for a shirt for me!  I let Moo pick her own fabric - I was not expecting that one.  And I picked for Toots and had to go with the pink and grey dots because they were just adorable and I LOVE pink and grey together.  And the tone on tone fabric was a hard choice for me, I don't usually wear patterns that bright, but it was between this one and another, but this one was on sale.  Had to go with the sale!  And I think it will look nice in the pattern I have from Indigo Junction.  The girls will be the Ice Cream Social dress pattern from Oliver & S.  So cute.  I'll post pics when I complete them.  These projects will have to wait until I tackle the Hoarders paradise that is my craft room/office.  Every time I come in here to use the computer I'm afraid of being trapped under a tower of collapsing scrapbook paper.  I need to get this under control before I can begin any new projects OR finish any of the long term/pending projects I've got stashed around here.  But it was fun mail to get!

*Fabrics were purchased from my new favorite fabric store Hawthorne Threads!  Check them out, they carry some SUPER cute fabrics!!!

Stuck!

I have no idea how she did this, but while I was doing the dishes Toots climbed into one of her toy bins.  Then she couldn't get out again.  But she didn't freak out, or scream, or cry.  She just sat there and looked around.  After I noticed her situation, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pics then asked her what she was doing.  "Stuck" she said.  That's all, just stuck.  Then she just kept looking at the toys around her and started playing with the cow right in front of her face in the above picture.  I slid the drawer out and pulled her out of it.  She stood there looking back and forth, from me to the drawer to me, then just went right back to playing.  She's so odd sometimes.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Moo, Toots and Me!

Handmade Mermaids

A few months ago I found the directions for these cute little handmade mermaid dolls from Wee Wonderfuls and found a free tutorial.  Of course, I can't find that tutorial now so I just posted a link to Wee Wonderfuls so you can see all of her wonderful stuff.  So creative that one.

So after deciding that I just had to make them, I, well, made them.  Actually, I waited until closer to Christmas, since I am really trying not to give the girls gifts just because.  So I bought the fabric, followed the directions that I had printed out weeks before and worked on them slowly.  S-L-O-W-L-Y.  I had to wait until Moo was asleep AND Daddy was home to hold Toots, since she is not a big fan of sewing machine noise.  A little bit here, a little bit there and some sewing machine problems (I still have no idea why the machine decided to change tension on me in mid fin) I finally finished late night Christmas Eve.

Cute, right?  The one with the blue hair belongs to Toots and the pink belongs to Moo.  They came out pretty good, if I do say so myself.  And I was afraid that I would have spent all that time on them and nobody would want to play with them, but Moo seems to like them well enough.  Toots is still not too interested in dolls, but she did carry it around for a while. 

Mermaid in stocking.  They were just too cute - no wrapping required.

Seems to be enjoying her new mermaid.  Here you can see the size, perfect for little hands.  Not so perfect for bad eyesight and hand sewing.  It was about 50% machine and 50% hand stitching, and my big meaty hands are not meant for delicate stitching!  But in the end, it all worked out and now the girls have some cute little dolls.  Moo even asked if I could make her another one so her mermaid could have a friend.  I think that means it's a hit.  I told her I'd make her one for her birthday (in March) and that she could pick out the fabrics.  She should have loads of fun with that project!