Friday Night Sewing

Friday nights, DH and the Monkey go to play D&D. Last Friday, I made it to Joann's for lunch (expensive lunch). Saturday, I went to my niece's birthday party. Coincidence? I think not.

My niece had a gift list going at the toy store. There seemed to be two themes - princess and dolls/mommy. We got her a Fisher Price 3-in-1 high chair (also converts to a baby swing and bassinet) and a set of "magic" bottles. Putting something like this together seemed natural.

I came to an age old quandary: how do you make sure the corners match up. In this case I "squore up" the two segments I had, and one line of boxes is no longer square. But the corners match. Which is more important?

The pink border is an accident that turned into a design decision - It's the pink flower material, but inside out. I have trouble with "Right sides together" when I'm tired. I decided I liked it better because it gives it a softer, springier, more feminine feel and those two pink squares on the right edge and the border are different colors now.


here's the back - I used the flannel that is left over from the PJ pants I made her for Christmas.


I need to make something pretty like this for La now. But in blue, she says.


These summer dresses were "impulse buys" - The fabric was 40% off, and I had just seen a really cute one here. I loved the idea of coordinated, (and tailored to personalities) but not super matchy dresses for cousins close in age. The pink is for my niece and the blue is for La. Hopefully it still fits after it's washed. It was really super simple - I turned up the bottom edge twice, then guestimated how big to make the chest. La had already gone to bed when I remembered that I needed to measure her, so I took the number off of the back of a pattern. And made it a little smaller (seemed like it should have negative ease.) I'm happy to report that both girls wore it right away.

Topics to come: the sweater for El. (now in it's third try). And the curtains are up in both of the kid rooms. Need to remember to photograph.

Easy Come, Easy Go

I started this sweater for El. It was coming right along.

Then I started the sleeves. And they were fiddly. I can totally see why the directions are set up the way they are, with a seam down the inside of the sleeve (and down the sides of the sweater).

The sleeves, I started working in stockinette in the round. I know how hard it is to get that little girl's thumb through long sleeves and can't imagine it getting any easier this winter. The yarn looked soooo much better in stockinette.

I tried the sweater on El, while still on the needles and it didn't really close well.

I looked in the inside and could see strange pooling. And the lace didn't look great in the varigated colors.

I never really liked how the button holes were (a)I mis-remembered the directions so they were one stitch over from where they should be (b)I forgot to start them when I should (c)there was a third problem but it flew right out of my head.

The sweater is well on it's way to becoming yarn once again. One day it might be a plain stockinette sweater. I'm still debating pullover or cardigan. There are a couple classics in a Debbie Bliss book I have.

New Projects

Two of them. One for me. One for El.

1. I cut this out Friday night. Haven't had a chance to try sewing it. I figure it's good practice for making a dress for me.

2. El is working on crawling. She will put her head and chest up. Then down and put her back end up. Then down. Then look around like she knew she knows how to do this but can't quite remember how. Then flip herself over and get mad because that's definitely not it. Every once in a while, she gets everything in gear and crawls a couple of steps. It's not the destination. It's the journey.

Fabric Grocery Bags

I started them here. Eventually, I finished the set, but haven't blogged them yet. They've been in service for probably a month. The verdict? I really like them. They are very easy to overload, though. The baggers at the store seem to approach them with some trepidation. But I have more than enough to hold a week's worth of groceries. They're great for when you find yourself at Costco and need to carry your purchases from the car to the house. Or find that you forgot to bring a bookbag to the library. So, all in all, a thumbs up. And I found a window cling at my groecery store to put on my windshield to help remember to bring them in when I got shopping. I made them out of thrifted sheets and the tend to remind me of when I was a kid and would go trick or treating with a pillowcase to hold my treats.

Middle School Awards Ceremony with a 5 year old

The Monkey won (earned? recieved?) an award tonight for his scores on the FCAT for the last three years.

We went with the whole family. The Monkey's award was towards the end. Here's what I sat next to:

squirm squirm squirm
wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle
up down up down
shift twist adjust
drop pickup
are we done yet? no?
how much longer?
whisper whisper
flip the seat up and down
fidget fidget
kneel sit back
sit up sit back
stand kneel
when can we be done?
can we go outside?
wiggle wiggle
up and down up and down
squirm squirm
squirm
whisper: now?
man! whisper whisper
sit up sit down kneel
whisper whisper
squirm squirm squirm
wiggle wiggle
up and down up and down
drop blankie
pick up blankie
flip the seat
flip the seat
are we done yet?
find thumb
squirm squirm squirm

Let me just say: (1) The girls did better than I expected. (2)I was very pleased that the monkey earned an award.

It's beginning to look a lot like Popsicle Season

Well, it has been for a while here. Here's what we've tried so far...They've all been tasty. The measurements are pretty much all improvised. Go for it. What's the worst that can happen? They're popsicles.

1. pureed mango. Peel 1 mango (smallish) per pop. Take the meat off of the pit and throw it into the blender until it's a "smoothie" consistency. Put it in the popsicle molds and freeze. Inspired by Disney's Pass the Plate.

2. mixed berry. Combine One smallish container of produce department prepared berry smoothie mix (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, maybe blackberries) and a good glob of nonfat vanilla yogurt in the blender and blend until smoothie-esque.

3. Strawberry-Limeade. Clean, hull, and split in half a quart-sized container of strawberries. Add to the blender. Add prepared limeade (we used Minute Maid but Simply Limeade would probably be nicer.) Lemonade might be good for this too.

Next up: Orange Juice, Strawberries, and Bananas.

Hey Look! Knitting!

I finished this sweater for La today. Ends woven in and everything. Well, it needs buttons. But except for that. Now, I think it needs a sundress. And then she'll have a fabulous ensemble for Pre-K graduation.

Here are the deets:

Yarn - Plymouth Encore Worsted (colorspun)
Needle - size 8 circular needle.
Pattern - Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater on Two Needles.
Notes -
1. The numbers/gauge worked out so that the numbers in the book worked for my 5 year old (Babies come in all sizes?).
2. Inspired by this one (Ravelry), and La trying it on when I had just split for the sleeves and her saying she wanted it "just like that". She approved of the one on Ravelry.
3. I went back and read notes from Ashley of Dogged. and Jared of BrooklynTweed for making it more seamless.
4. Once I thought I was finished with the yoke, I ran a lifeline through it, just in case. Then I started the first pattern row: Garter border, First pattern row for 15% of the sts. CO 7, skip the allocated sleeve stitches (20% of the sts), first pattern row for 30% of the sts, CO 7, skip the stitches for the next sleeve, then first pattern row for the other half of the front, garter for the border. wash rinse repeat until it's long enough. Garter stitch bottom edge.
5. For the ruffley sleeves, I ran my needle back through those lifelined sleeve stitches, k1 row, purl one row, k1f&b for all stitches, purl back, k1F&B for all stitches, bind off in purl. Repeat for 2nd sleeve. Purling and binding off those 112 stitches just about killed me. definitely killed any desire to make a "Potato Chip Scarf".
6. I'm not sure that I did the increases in the yoke "right".

Switcheroo Update

(Hopefully) I recently discovered how to schedule posts. Or you're getting an onslaught of posts. Who knows.

El and La were sick this week. During the 2 hours of torture where I made La go without TV (and El was snoozing), we did some work in her room.

1. We made some room at the foot of her bed. Now you can safely reach the hamper. The "treasure box" (from Ikea) has the dress up clothes. Is it wrong to love the dichotomy of Hannah Montana and the Space Shuttle?


2. We made use of the top shelf of the closet. La got to pick out what stuffed animals to keep. Frankly, she didn't remember that she had lots of them. And we hung up the fairy pictures from her old room.


3. We started to clear out a place for her bookshelf. It'll go in the half of the closet that is behind the crib. The long blue dress you see is an Ao Dai that belonged to their Grandma Ngo (Each of the granddaughters got one). We're going to have to find a new spot for the pretend stove and pretend sink (that my dad built for my sister and I when we were La's age.)

Knitting! Woo-Hoo!

I have really been knitting lately.

1. I finished up Ellie's socks. I used the same yarn as for my sister's Jaywalkers, back in the day. I used the Baby To Toddler socks pattern, which I've used once before.



2. I made a tribble. A one-day knit. Peaches and Creme dishcloth cotton. I'll probably be making more of these.



3. I cast on a February Baby Sweater (ravelry link) for the 5 year old. I think it'll be quite lovely in this yarn, the yarn La picked out for a sweater for El. I think I'll make El a Febuary sweater too, but out of different yarn. I'm about 2/3 done with the yoke. I was worried that I'd have to do a lot of scaling to get the pattern to work in her size, but the yarn is kind of a heavy worsted (size 8 needle), and so far the numbers in the pattern seem to be working out. We'll see, though, if the yoke ends up being wide enough.

Etsy Finds!

I've been doing some browsing on etsy. Here are some shirts I found for the girls. El's (the bird onesie) is from Because I'm me. La's is from Roslyn's Closet.

I found a little something for myself too. A little mother's day gift from me to me. These came from RubySapphire, an Orlando outfit who I found through the "shop local" feature. The purple in this is hard to capture. It is Purple with a capital P. The pink stripes is to make socks for Ellie. I was realizing that I don't have any real "girl colored" yarn to make her socks with. (hand on the forehead, Whatever will I do???).