Baby Rag Quilt

I finally got around to making and finishing a baby blanket for the Mystery Baby.  I made a strip rag quilt.  And he has a Ty Pluffies monkey (Dangles) who I'll take his picture with each week/month like I did Little Guy and his alligator.

front

back

Happy Easter!

Dyeing eggs on Saturday.

Easter basket and hidden eggs.

I made Princess Sparkley's skirt Saturday.  The wind is blowing it weird in this picture.  Pattern from here.

PJ Shorts

This is my first attempt to sew clothing (other than two skirts I've made for Princess Sparkley) and a pair of shorts I sewed in 5th grade or so.  PS's turned out best although the waist band is really low, hipster-like and if she gains more than three pounds, they probably won't fit her.  All three of their shorts would probably stay up on their own without the elastic waistband.  And now I've learned from my mistakes (hopefully) and I have three more pairs (one per kid) to sew this week.

 

From here, here and here.

 

Dress

 I've always seen the pre-shirred fabric in the store and wanted to try making Princess Sparkley a summer dress out of it.  She had a few when she was a tiny girl that I loved.  I saw this fabric the other day and bought 24 inches hoping that would be enough.  It worked, but next time I think I'd buy 30 to be safe, this top is a little tight on her.  My seam is about 1 1/2 because it's hard to straighten/flatten out the top part to get it right.  All I did was sew it together in a tube and add straps (from leftover bias tape from her Easter skirt) and the green bias tape border at the bottom.

Tree Pillow

Sorry, couldn't post this until after Christmas presents had been opened
... presents made with love for Grandparents.


Grandma and Grandpa L
(button tree = top two right hand corner pictures)
Idea from here.
The big kids helped sew on some of the buttons while Little Guy dumped all the buttons out, sorted them and handed them all to me. I think for my kids' ages and abilities, we should have done something more like this or this. Or just made a smaller tree with less buttons. I didn't realize how out of hand and heavy the fabric would get with all the buttons.

Grandma and Grandpa M
(embroidered tree accented with fabric markers)
Princess Sparkley started this as a project at Activity Days at church. She designed it herself, embroidered it, and colored in some of the intricate details she'd designed with fabric markers. Then we were out of town for Thanksgiving the week they finished it and I never heard back from any of the leaders on what to do... so we just made it into a pillow our way.

Candy cane pillow. Idea from here.
We made a set for each set of grandparents. Each kid drew me a candy cane that I used as the template for one pillow per set. PS's candy cane is the red ho-ho-ho one. Buddy's is red and white striped. Little Guy's is red, white and green striped. Buddy and PS and even Little Guy helped stuff the first set of candy canes. Then they lost steam and I finished up that set and the second set.

Tree Skirt

I decided this year we needed a real Christmas tree skirt. Not a bunched up fancy place mat or scrap of fabric. So, with the help of this, I created my own version:




The two smaller pictures on the bottom right are different stages of creation.

Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the other side. I used a cute green flannel with tiny trees in little red and green wreaths so if I want, it's reversible.

Random Pics

Top left: Little Guy (what is it with kids and laundry baskets?)
Top right: Buddy, with help from Princess Sparkley, dressed as a pumpkin*
Middle left: I sewed this apron for PS's friend A's birthday. We got her some fun cookie cutters, some recipes, icing, sprinkles, etc. and this apron. PS picked out that fabric and then modeled it for me.
Middle right: Little Guy
Bottom left: Princess Sparkley
Bottom right: Buddy



*The kids, knowing that Halloween is the next holiday, even if it is 7 weeks away or something, have started planning. The other day they set up a Halloween shop and PS put on her witch costume from last year. Buddy's past Halloween costumes are all service people (mailman, fireman, UPS man, etc.) so he was disappointed that he didn't have a costume to put on that was more festive. So I dressed him in one of B's shirts, orange, and PS helped make a Jack-O-Lantern face and stem for him.

Buddy's New Blankey!

I FINALLY finished Buddy's blankey. And it was actually rather simple and very quick. I got out all the fabrics (8 of them) that he picked out and ironed them one night. I was planning on doing a rag quilt with 5 inch squares but was terrified of actually cutting out all those 5 inch squares and lining them all up right to make it look good. Then I had the brilliant idea (thanks to Etsy) to do strips instead. (This helped too.) The next day I cut each half yard into 6 inch by 41 inch strips and had Buddy help decide how we'd put them all together. I didn't know if the front and back should be identical, or if we should create basically two different quilts. He ended up liking the layout where all the orange fabrics were on one side. And I eliminated one fabric that was more babyish and knocked the Nascar fabric down to only one stripe. I'm sneaky like that. And I sewed it all together. Here's the final product!


The orange side is the frayed side, so I guess the front. I really like how it turned out.


The back.


Folded in half so you can see both sides at once.


Zoom in on the one corner. I eliminated one row of the Nascar fabric (because I didn't really like it, and didn't think it matched well) and added a row of street sign fabric (that I only had a little bit of) and a rectangle of scraps from Little Guy's blankey fabric (since what started this whole mess was Little Guy stealing Buddy's tiny blankey I made to replace the burp cloths that had always been his blankeys). And the white fabric with little cars on it next to the navy blue and white stripe, is some of the tiny scraps I have leftover from Buddy's original blankeys, two burp cloths I sewed for newborn Buddy. He still has those burp cloths, they are in his bed or under his bed or scrunched down in the toes of his bed, they just aren't AS important as they once were.


Happy Buddy!

National Cherry Blossom Festival

Yesterday was the start of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC, and, according to Bloom Watch, which I've been checking all week, the blossoms are in the "puffy white" stage, just before peak bloom. Yea!

I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see how my cherry blossom project turned out. The wait is over:


Princess Sparkley modeling her new bubble skirt and cherry blossom t-shirt.

It was touch and go with the skirt. I ended up finishing it and it being WAY TOO LONG. So I ended up taking it apart, and taking 4 inches of the interior (which I haven't even gotten a picture of yet) and exterior fabrics, and then resewing it. Craziness. And it ended up being a cold day, so she had to wear a sweater and leggings. The t-shirt has a brown felt tree, and pink flower shaped buttons as the blossoms. Click to zoom in.

I knew it would be crazy visiting on the first day of the festival, also on the day of the Kite Festival, and on a Saturday, during lots of spring breaks... especially after tourists practically abandoning the city all winter. And it was. We got to the Metro station (11am ish) and had to wait in line more then 15 minutes to buy our tickets from an automated machine (mainly because everyone buying tickets was from out of town and didn't know what they were doing... I'm so past that:) ).
The train was super crowded and we got on at the end of a line, so it just kept getting more and more crowded. And it was me, three kids, a stroller, a diaper bag, a lunch bag, and a picnic blanket. When we got off the train, I hadn't put enough money on our Metro cards for the 10 cent per ticket fee increase that just happened (because they didn't mark the fee increase clearly... it was just a giant green dot on the overall price board, not at each destination. And I was looking at "S" for Smithsonian while the green dot was hanging out by the "A"s. So it turns out I was one of those amateurs. BUT, they had tons of extra Metro employees working due to the large crowds, and our guy just told me the problem but waved us through). Then, I kept the stroller folded up so we could take the escalator and end up closer to the Mall but the escalator was broken, so I had to carry the stroller, Baby X and one bag up it. And it wasn't even the escalator that I wanted, this one brought me up right next to the elevator. Argh.


The Kite Festival was Saturday as well. There were people flying kites all over the Mall.


For some reason, I think I have a picture of the kids in front of the Washington Monument each time we've gone into DC... why stop now. We even have a picture of me, B and baby Princess Sparkley in front of it from December 2002 I'll have to scan in sometime.


The Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin.


Buddy and Princess Sparkley walking around the Tidal Basin towards the Jefferson Memorial.


Me and the kids. I offered to take someone's picture, so they took ours in return. We also saw a man taking a picture of his wife and their two dogs, but the two dogs were facing the other way, so it was a woman, and two dog behinds.


Jefferson Memorial.




Cherry Blossoms up close.


Picnic by the Jefferson Memorial.


Airplane coming in for a landing at Reagan National Airport.


Inside the Jefferson Memorial. Baby X got in trouble for eating (he was holding a bag of goldfish leftover from lunch and our walk over).


Pretty pretty.


Steps of the Jefferson Memorial.


The kids in front of the Jefferson Memorial (my first time here as well).


Washington Monument reflected in the Tidal Basin.


The sign on this tree said it was damaged in the February 2010 blizzard and was guessed to be 80-90 years old and the stump will be removed soon. It's right next to the tidal basin.


PS with some cherry blossoms.


This might have been Baby X's favorite thing... the ducks. We got them to quack at us. He also liked the airplanes landing at Reagan and the kites.


Regular blossoms, not cherry... I think.





The Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial. Buddy and PS wanted to pose by Benjamin Franklin's signature. They were also excited to see John Hancock's signature. We also saw the Vietnam and the Korean war memorials for the kids' first time, but I didn't get pictures.


Kites.


Those circles on the Washington Monument are a kite.


The Kite Festival.


The kids loved this airplane kite.


Different organizations/museums had booths to make "kites." We got to the kite area later in the day, so the only booth still doing it was the National Aquarium. So we made kites that look like Stingrays. Buddy "flying" his stingray "kite."


One of the kids' favorites was this octopus/jelly fish kite.


I love all the kites around the Washington Monument.


PS flying her "kite."


Baby X holding onto his "fish kite."


On the Metro on the way home. Princess Sparkly has invented this game called "Fish" that she
and Baby X like to play. He requests is saying, "[PS. PS.] Fishy game." The game consists of them making fishy open and close mouth faces at each other. They also have "shark game" where they clap their hands real big like in the "Slippery Fish" song. And there's a new one when they growl at each other like lions or something.

Going home on the Metro (late afternoon) was just as crowded (or more so) as going. We had to wait in line forever to take the Metro elevator. Then the first train was a short train and really crowded (and I was hoping to not have to fold up the stroller) so we waited for the next one. It was packed. Luckily a bunch of people got off at Metro Center just a couple stops after we got on, and we grabbed a bench with enough room for the stroller in front of us. And we saw a lady get her purse stuck in the train door. That was sort of exciting (as long as it wasn't me or one of the kids).