Piapie

Yellow Grey

I am not at all sure that I like it but a color scheme has been unfolding in our house.  It all started when I picked a mustardy yellow to paint in the main living area of our house.  I truly cannot explain why I picked that color.  I never go for yellow.  Never.  Not once has it been one of my preferred colors.  I look horrible in yellow.  I mean, really horrible.  But somehow I picked it.  I can't even blame it on Papi Chulo.  It was entirely my choice. 

In certain kind of lighting, it looks alright.  Sometimes I almost really like it.  It also happens to match some Jay Ryan prints we have.  I decided to sit with it for awhile, see if it would grow on me.  Last fall the Old Peep made some pillows from fabric in the stash that matched the yellow perfectly.   And then I found a quilt kit with fabric that matched the pillow perfectly.  The ball was rolling.

Downhill.  Fast.

Anyways, I made my first quilt.   At the moment, it's for the living room.  Maybe someday it'll just be for picnics or in the stack of spare blankets for when guests come to stay.  For now I am going to just excited to have made my first quilt. 

Banners

I 've been needing a jump start on the creative front.  Specifically sewing.  I have a mound of mending and a growing pile of projects for which I've bought material but have yet to do anything with.   My sewing corner feels like it has gotten lost behind and beneath clutter.   Then in came a request for some banners.  It's a familiar project, one I've done about forty times now.  It's something I created when MonkE was born and have now made for all the little ones in our life.  It felt good to be back at the machine and making again.   Now that the juices are flowing maybe I'll actually tackle some of those projects.

The Promise of a Garden

This past week the weather warmed up a bit, allowing us to venture outside without needing to bundle up against biting wind or shield ourselves from cold rain.  I noticed that the rhodadendren buds are swelling and spotted some early blooms on a cherry tree (I think).  Suddenly spring was on my mind and with it the promise of a garden.

For this past Christmas I gave the girls the promise of a garden.  It came with packets of seeds, gloves and proper tools sized for little hands, a gardening book, and completely unnecessary but ridiculously cute gardening aprons (pattern by Oliver + S).

 

The garden is something that we have wanted to do since we moved into this house almost a year ago.  Unfortunately our attention was consumed by more pressing demands last year.  I couldn't even maintain the plants we inherited with the house, to say nothing of starting some thing new.   My treatment for cancer was on a three week cycle and I quickly found myself operating within that twenty-one day window.  Anything beyond that was too much.

In early December we learned that the treatment seemed to be working.  It was only then that I began to open myself up to thinking about life after treatment.  I started to think about what I might do with my time once my life no longer revolved around chemotherapy.   I began to plan.  Little things, but still I began to plan.  The first thing to plan was the long talked about garden.

Our garden.  The one where we'll plant vegetables and herbs.  The one for when I am in the middle of preparing dinner and will have to ask Funky B to run outside and cut some basil for the pesto.  The one that the girls will go to to pick cherry tomatoes to pop in their mouths while we lounge on blankets reading books under the summer sun.  The one that will change and expand, maybe shrink and then grow again as we learn more about this small bit of land that surrounds our home.

The warmer weather this week brought with it the beginning of the garden.  MonkE and I spent an afternoon digging up some of those plants we inherited to make space for the ones we will put into the earth.  It won't be a particularly large garden but it will be enough to get some dirt under our fingernails and the taste of fresh produce on our plates.   More importantly, it will fill me with the on-going promise of another season.

 

Music Box Ice Cream Social

As Funky B and I were discussing, planning, drawing out the Halloween costume, she had high hopes for a one-piece costume like what you'd buy at the store, only handmade.  Well, I wasn't up for that.  I couldn't find a pattern for a tulip petal flower fairy despite all my internet trolling.  And I couldn't justify spending a bunch of money on a costume when we already have an overflowing dress-up bin.  My compromise: let's make a dress that you can wear on any day and make a petal skirt which we attach to the dress!  She was game.  Whew!

At the time, MonkE was content to be a princess from the dress-up bin which I was very happy about.  So off we went with MGM to the fabric store to get the materials for Funky's costume when MonkE realized that if she were to be a rose petal flower fairy, she'd get a new dress out of the deal too.  I might be giving her more credit than she deserves in working the situation, but I am not sure about that.  She's a sly one, you know?  

Well, you know how this ends.  Both girls got their dresses and their felt petal skirts.  In the end I chose patterns from Oliver + S.  The girls picked out their fabrics.  And this is what we ended up with:

For Funky B, the Music Box Jumper:

with inverted pleats, to which I am partial.

And for MonkE, the Ice  Cream Social:

In the interest of time, MGM left off the pockets but I'll be adding them soon (or later) because I think they are what make the dress so cute.

Last of the Capes

...for awhile at least.  I started making the capes about a year ago for all the little kiddos in our social group.  They now all have their own, with a few exceptions (the 6 month old Huck isn't quite ready for his).  Funky B has been invited to a few birthday parties via her preschool so I've cranked out a few extra there plus some for the pals back in Virginia.  In total I think that I have made close to 22 capes in the past year.  About two a month is not bad.   

While the capes are always well received, I am not always sure how well used they are once the party euphoria wears off.  Seems the boys make better use of them than the girls.  Regardless they have been fun to make, especially the part where I get to wander a fabric store to pick out just the right fabric.  I really like the variety, everything from a sparkly fairy cape to black & white magician capes.  

Twenty two is enough for the time being.  Now I have to decide on this year's go-to birthday gift.  I am thinking puppets....

Kyoko #4

This Kyoko dress has been in various states of progress now for months.  It took me a very long time to decide on the fabrics, in large part because this is for a 10 year old girl whom I admire and adore but am not quite sure what her preferences would be.  Her mama advised, "Girl but not too girly".  Um, OK.  I  realize that rules out fairies and uber-pink but does it mean no flowers?  How about purple?  Bright and bold, pastels, geometric,...?  Oh what to choose?

Once I finally picked out some fabric, I then had to modify the pattern since it only goes up to size 7 and I am quite sure that that would be too small.  But how much bigger and where exactly?  I had measurements for the girl but they were dated (remember it took me awhile to pick out fabric).  How much had she grown?  I hadn't seen her since last summer so I had to use my memory to gauge her frame.  My memory!?!?!  That thing's been shot for years.

But still I forged ahead.  I cut, I sewed, I hemmed, I hemmed and hawed.   I stayed up until midnight finishing the dress, hoping that, if anything, it wouldn't be too small (she could always grow into it).  Looking at it I am pretty sure it's not too small.  But I am not so sure that it's going to fit her before she heads off to middle school.  Oh well.  Off it goes into the mail.  We'll see in May how well I did.

 

Baby Stitches

Someone has her very own sewing machine!!!!  It came to her on her birthday last year as a very special and generous gift from a dear friend.  The machine dates back about forty years, to her childhood.  It is a little treasure that sits behind my sewing machine.

   

Funky B has been quite keen on learning to use it.  No surprise there.  We started out with "straight" lines and quickly moved onto little blankets and sleeping bags for our resident baby dolls.   Her big goal has been, from the very beginning, to make clothes for Baby Doll.  

So finally, finally, we moved beyond those kind-of-but-not-really straight lines and I pulled out the iron, the straight pins, and the elastic.  We sewed a hem to catch the raw edges and made a casing for the elastic at the waist.  

The best part was when she gave the finished skirt to her little sister as a gift.  How sweet is that?

Placemats

With our new wood dining table came a whole new set of worries.  Scratches, water stains, permanent markers, ....  Now, I am glad that we are not going to put the first marks on it as it was previously owned and came with a couple of good dings.  But, we are hoping to keep it in as good condition as possible.   And so it was that I found myself needing to come up with a solution, one that just might require a trip to Fabric Depot and some sewing.  Oh darn.

I tackled this one without a pattern, thinking that a rectangle with some padding couldn't be that hard to figure out.  And for the most part it wasn't, although in the end I benefited from some suggestions from the Old Peep, including the addition of bias tape and instructions on how to properly sew it on ("Ohhh, that's what it means to 'stitch in the ditch'").  The placemats are, admittedly, not perfect.  But, they do the job of protecting the table during meals AND match rather nicely with both sets of our napkins made by MGM. 

Won't you please come over and have dinner with us?

Kyoko Dresses

Every since making Funky B's birthday dress, I have been enamored with the Kyoko dress.  It certainly helps that she wears it as often as she can.  The moment I finished the first one I set to work on a second.   I cranked this one out almost immediately using an old shirt of mine for the top and things I had in my stash for the rest.  Quite satisfying.

I set that one aside for Funky B's Christmas present from me and then went in search of fabric for one for MonkE.  Nothing in the stash grabbed me but all sorts of goodies at Bolt.  I think that the fabric for the skirt is just about perfect for my MonkE.

On a technical note, the pattern is easy to follow.  My only complaint is that the obi (sash) has a tendency to slide down on children who have no real waist or hips to speak of.  To correct this I stitched the obi to the front, about 3 or 4 inches across the top of it.  That seems to solve the problem without creating any others.  

Santa's Seamstress

Papi Chulo's not the only one busy crafting away this year.  I've been doing a little bit too.  A little bit.   Less than I might have hoped for but enough to satisfy the desire to show our love and appreciation with something handmade.  Granola for the teachers, glittery play dough for the kiddos, and napkins for the families.  The napkins were a particularly rewarding project for me.  A year or so ago, I made napkins for all the families based on a pattern from MGM.  The leftover fabric was stashed away until I came upon it halfway through December and had an a-ha! moment.  I could make kid-sized napkins to match the grown-up ones AND use up some of those scraps that fill up an entire tupperware bin in my closet! 

There was even enough for matching bags, because, you know, being coordinated is important.