Linen for Lorna

Aren’t these shoes too cute? I love the pleats on the top.

The pattern is here.

Of course she needed a new dress to match the shoes! So its linen for Lorna. Doesn’t she look thrilled?

Weaving Potholders

Remember these? I do! And I remember always wanting to make more. As with all store-bought craft kits, the supplies run out too quickly.  While at the store a few weeks ago, I saw an inexpensive box of the knit bands. I didn’t realize that the loom was is the expensive box beside it. So, I came home with a bunch of bands and no loom. Stephen to the rescue! He framed 4 – 2x2s and lined the sides with trim nails (the ones with no heads). 18 per side. Eleanor made one potholder and was done. Maybe Henry will like it better. I have plans for it too along the lines of this woven trivet.

Crafty Valentine Ideas for My First Grader

I think I’ll let Eleanor decide what to make her class this year. Happy Picking!

Long-stem roses using egg cartons.

Love bugs

Stick of Gum Butterflies

Sucker Flowers

Heartbreakers (again, so cute!)

Sew felt heart cards

I Got a Crush!

Bento Box Lunch Tote

Eleanor uses boxes for lunch and when I’m creative, it gets prettied-up. I love the idea of cute, well-packed bento boxes. Here are a few of my favorite inspiration blogs for bentos:

• Happy Little Bento
• another lunch
• Wendolonia
• KookyCulinary

I had picked up two cheap Daiso (we are lucky to have one at our mall) bento bags at the beginning of the school year, but they are falling apart already. Here’s her new one made from Ayumi’s tutorial at Pink Penguin.

Swaddling Blanket

A few years ago, I found this sweet, embroidered tea towel at a garage sale for $1.00. I put it away with all my other non-practical linens, and forgot about it. At the time, I bought it to make a framed display for a nursery, or a baby shower gift of some sort. I never thought I’d use it for another of MY babies! I’m so happy I get to! The stitching is so fun. I could gaze at it for hours.

The sampler has 7 different sized alphabets, and well as 30 alphabetic pictures.

I used this tutorial for a swaddle blanket-a self-binding method. It is backed with a light pink flannel that has bright swirls and flowers.

Baby Clothes

I’ve been hanging on to stained or holey t-shirts recently to up-cycle into tights or leggings for Lorna. Dana and Rae taught me all about re-using knits. So here are two simple cotton tops and leggings (from Eleanor’s recycled t shirts).

Another photo of a Baby shower gift I made a year ago: Fancy frock and cloth shoes. My ironing board is covered in this fabric, too!

Baby Quilt for Lorna

It is my tradition to make a baby quilt for each one of my kids. Eleanor’s quilt was the ABC’s in Bears cross-stitched on each square. You can read about that huge undertaking here. Henry’s has appliqued airplanes for the squares. For Lorna, due in a few months, I wanted something simple and vintage. A friend of mine gave me her grandmother’s stash of fabrics from the 80’s, so I combined some of those prints with my own stash.

The front is patchwork squares in blue, red and pink. The back is cream linen with a strip of patchwork off-centered. I machine quilted in the ditch around the squares, because I wanted that old-fashioned puffy square-quilted look. We have a few vintage books laying around, and that type of quilt seems to be the most prominent in baby quilts.

Baby Basket

When my dad passed away six years ago, I was 6 months pregnant. My sister, Kanda,  sequestered a basket she spotted at the memorial service that was filled with green plants. To her eye, it was the perfect size for a newborn! So she cleaned it, and lined the sides with white, fluffy fleece and made a removable pad and sheet for the bottom mattress. She gave it to me for Eleanor, and Eleanor used it exclusively for about 2 months before outgrowing it for a larger vintage portable carry-all bed. Henry, my second baby also used the basket, but he only slept in it for a month.  Since then, this keepsake from my father’s memorial has held stuffed animals, kittens (not for long before I put a stop to that!) and plastic babies. I had pulled all the fleece liner off. My sister had hot glued it, so it came off easy. And we were just using it around the house as a large catch-all. But, now number three baby is due soon.

So, after a good detergent bath, it was time to whip it back into baby duty. This time around, I used a pale flower fabric and used elastic and fusible fleece to ensure I could take the liner off and on for washing. I also made a matching, fitted sheet for the mattress pad.

Bank Account Chart

Recently, my daughter’s mind has been on money. She is starting to put value on money, because it gets her things she wants. Since we live in a nearly-cashless society, I’ve found it hard to follow the traditional allowance system since I never have money on me. We always get behind, and she is always in want. To solve this problem, I made her a  bank account chart.

I’m excited about using the chart for a number of reasons.

1.   I won’t get behind doling out her allowance; and if I do, I can just catch up quickly! The date and description columns will help me keep track.

2.   It is important in our family to set aside saving and giving money. Before, I used a savings jar and a little world bank to keep the monies separate. That required a lot of dimes and nickels, so she could physically save and give 10%. Now, I can just write the amount in, or subtract if her compassion moves her to give some of the gift money at any time.

3.   We can keep track of her purchases in the description column. She will know what she is spending her money on, and weigh the value accordingly. “Where did all my money go?” can be answered easily by a glance at her bank account chart.

4.   Of course, the whole point of giving her money is to teach financial responsibility. I think this chart is a real-world representation of our cashless society, and with time she will understand what the figures and columns represent in terms of actual coins and dollars.

Want to try it on your kids? You can download a bank account chart of your own!

Little Black Dress with Petticoat

When I saw a petticoat at one of my favorite inspiration spots online, I knew I had to make one for Eleanor!  She needed a black dress for the Lynnwood Children’s Choir Spring Concert, and there was my motivation to finally get it done!

Petticoat

I used a white Percale fabric. The pattern is a full circle skirt with an elastic waist. I simply used a tape measure, chalk and a thumb tack to draw a half circle on the fold, twice at different lengths. Once for the hem length (21″), and once for the waist hole (5″). For the waist, I cut a 2″ casing strip and sewed it around the waist hole, and ran a 1″ piece of elastic through it. The ruffles took a few hours! They are strips cut at 1.5″ wide by the width of the fabric. I used four of those strips sewed end-to-end in a big circle for each row. I finished the side edges with a rolled hem on the Serger, ran a gathering thread down the middle, pinned it in place on the skirt, and sewed it down. Honestly?  I don’t think my rolled hem is going to hold up in the wash. The parts that ran across the bias, pulled out. grrr.Black formal concert dress

The dress was super easy. I have made countless “Bishop” dresses, which is a style in smocking where you gather the edge around the neck in tiny gathers, then smock along the top of the gathers with tiny decorative stitches. So, I could cut out the bishop pattern in my sleep, for any size! Instead of smocking, I gathered the neck and sleeves with elastic and added a longer cuff for the ruffle at the neck. It took about an hour. Really easy.I let her wear my grandma’s faux pearl necklace, and I could tell she felt like a princess. Success!