the Bean's reversible dress!

all made from scraps!

i decided to try this out, i've seen bibs made like this. basically, you just tie a knot where you want a button, so you can easily lengthen or shorten straps, as a kid grows. so i thought it might be cool on this dress/top. plus it makes it more easily reversible with no buttons on the inside, for comfort.

I put reverse-print heart pockets on the front of both sides...

I know an adult could never get away with putting these two prints together, but it works, I swear, on a baby.
I also made some lightweight knit pants out of purple jersey... red might be better, but I didn't have the right shade, and I didn't want to buy anything to test out this pattern.
does anyone want a tutorial on this? I might post the pattern if anyone is interested...

Happy independance day!

Plain n simple vanilla frosted sugar cookies. Stop by our house for
yours!

American Pie!

This is for the Bean for summer/4th of July... the dress is reversible
to match the wrap skirt I made last night. (gotta use up all the scraps!)
I made 2 to test my pattern, one of which just got mailed off to a
very adorable 1 year old.
I think I'll do a tutorial/pattern for this one soon.

My helper. Or, rather, one of them.

4 cats, (2 dogs and 2 kids too) are always great helpes.

My new skirt!

The wraparound Yard-Sale Skirt.
Adapted from Weekend Sewing.
I'm gonna seriously modify the next one, but it's a good jumping off
point.

Tricycle seat cover!

D got gifted a wonderful Radio Flier Trike from our neighbors down the block. He LOVES it. he rides all over the place, as much and as fast as he can (he usually pretends to be a train of some sort, doing really useful work). He rides so much, in fact, that his butt is all bruised from the hard seat.

Ergo: mama has to make a cushion to protect his "widdle buddum"
just in case anyone else needs to do this, here's a step-by-step of how I made it.
Materials needed:
trike seat (remove it from the trike with pliers and elbow grease while batting away pesky toddler who's upset that you're messing with his trike)
foam (i bought 1/4 yard of 2"thick foam from joanns (ONLY buy it on sale, or it's ridiculously expensive. it seems to go on 1/2off at least one weekend a month, so wait for the sale!)
Leftover batting (i had some junky poly batting left from something old... )
1/4 yard of scrap fabric
scissors, needle and thread.

trace the seat on the foam with a sharpie

here's the shape of his seat.

the people at joanns told me to use a serrated knife to cut the foam. i don't think i have the worlds dullest bread knife, but all it did was make the sides look like this. so i turned to my kitchen shears

voila! a seat cushion shape!
cover it with batting (to round out the edges and ... actually, not sure why i did it, but i know you do this when upholstering things, so i figured i should do it for this....) i tacked the batting down with some quick and dirty stitches
these were the two semi-vintage red prints i had on hand, so i let D choose which he wanted. he chose zigzag (it looks like rows and rows of primary colored rickrack). (so glad he chose that one, i have jumper plans for the polkadot, but i have learned that i MUST give my boy a choice)
i laid the seat (with its foam and batting) on my fabric, and roughly cut the shape of the trike seat. (i took a rectangle and cut 2 corners off, so it was a very oddly shaped hexagon)
i used a lot of pulling and pinning, and threaded my needle with super strong thread, doubled, and sewed the fabric taut around the underside of the seat. i didn't bother covering the underside, cause it's not gonna rain upside down, nor will D be riding through lots of puddles in drought-ridden (ha, pun) SoCal.
TADA!!!!
D won't stop riding to let me take a cute picture, but at least it's getting used!

A tricycle seat cushion

I'm gonna post a tutorial on my craft blog in a little while... He's
pretty happy with it, but he's making a face at me cause he doesn't
want to stop and pose, he just wants to ride!

Someone just moved into my sewing room...

The little floor space I had (the part not covered by fabric and
projects in various unfinished states) has just been taken over by a
squatter. D is supposed to be in bed right now, but between his
sickness and the heat, and his exceptionally adorable behavior....
Well, the results are obvious. He's entranced by SYTYCD, which I'm
watching on TiVo while I sew.
Sigh.

Booo. Hiss. Booo.

I didn't buy enough of the chickens to make that skirt! So I'm gonna
make it with this. It's been so hot lately, an I have 1 skirt, and NO
shorts. I'm living in jeans or yoga pants since I had #2. So I NEED a
skirt!!!!

Love at first sight!

Chickens!!! And eggs!!!
I don't generally have a thing for poultry (I mean, I enjoy eating
them), but I fell in LOVE with this print today at my sewing machine
store.
It's destined to be a cute wraparound skirt (this one from weekend
sewing). And it will meet it's destiny TONIGHT. Jumping to the head of
the line.
I MUST wear a chicken skirt tomorrow. Must must must!!!