Pictures of You

This week I was delighted to receive photos of the kiddies trying on their gifts.

The Anna dress was a perfect fit and this smile is absolutely priceless.  It was followed up by a priceless email:

"dear Dani

thank you for making the dress for me I love it!

I am going to wear it for my party.

Love Anna."

And take a look at this cutie.  The newsboy flatcap is still a bit too big for this little guy but he'll grow into it soon enough.  Thanks for the photos :) :)

Summer Stars Hat

Spring has finally arrived!  Going outdoors without a jacket? Now who thought the day would ever return.  

It was time to make Adam another summer hat.  I decided to use Riley Blake's star fabric on the outside and a complementary old-school comic book fabric as the lining.  Here's Adam modeling the hat in profile view.  No. Actually he heard Lulu (our neighbour's dog) barking and turned to look. Nonetheless it's a good shot of the hat's lining, trim, and of course, my new blue tuque baby logo.  Too bad I didn't have cream coloured binding instead of the Javex-bleach white binding on the edge.  Subtle difference but I see it.  Maybe once the hat gets a bit dirtier from the playground it'll all become the same.

Right, here's Adam pointing to Lulu just in case I didn't hear her at the fence (not really possible; she's a small dog with a big voice).

And here's a fairly good shot of the inner lining.  Sorry, I couldn't be bothered to take any dedicated photos of the hat itself since I already did in my last post.  I was amazed how much bigger this hat is compared to this one from last summer.  On a side note I am also amazed at how much drool continues to spill from Adam's lips like a faucet that has been dribbling for over a  year.  I recently had to whip up another handful of bibs so they aren't the limiting factor for when laundry has to get done.  Bandana bibs are our new best friends.

Hats Off to Twilltape

Tomorrow is my last day in the office and I had been waiting for my blue tuque baby labels to arrive in order to finish up the three baby gifts for my co-workers.  How disappointed was I when they hadn't come in by the weekend?? It meant leaving each project just a tad unfinished and pushing it to the very last minute.  Which of course, is exactly when twilltape came through for me.  I ordered my labels precisely two weeks ago and they arrived today, just in the nick of time.  I'm considering going with woven labels for any future business product but for now I just needed something with a quick (or maybe not-so-quick?) turnaround time and I like the fact that you can print any logo or font you want.  I'll keep looking at what's out there though.

Here's one of the hats I finished up tonight using the same newsboy  pattern as the one I created for Adam last year.  This one turned out better.  I think it might have to do with using the beautiful plaid wool which was left over from my cape project.

Splash of colour for the lining (or course)

And here is the other project from tonight - a cute and colourful summer bucket hat with yellow Velcro straps.

I'd love to write more but my brain is fried.  I'm still recovering from the 11 hours at work yesterday and the scrambling to finish up sewing projects tonight.  Time to catch some well-deserved rest, I'd say.

BTW Thanks Kelly for introducing me to twilltape.  You and I need to get together soon and do some serious sewing.  The Lola dress is at the top of my list and you can be sure it will involve a tonne of piping :)

Peakaboo Paisley Dress

In the four short months that I have been back at work several people in the office have had babies.  I count seven?  I've been wanting to make a few gifts for the cuties but never found the time (sad excuse, I know).

In fact, could it be that the only thing I've made since going back to work was my cape?  Yes.  How disappointing.  At least I'm cheered up that spring is arriving (and no, I don't agree that it's already here despite what the calendar says).  Very soon it'll be warm enough outside that I can sport my cape on a regular basis :)

I really enjoy making baby gifts, partly because it's a great excuse to use the most colourful and whimsical of fabrics and partly because they usually don't take that long to make!

Here is my latest project, a pretty-in-pink little dress I finished just this weekend.  Aren't long weekends wonderful?

Snap buttons and a lace collar

I had an urge to use up the rest of my Peakaboo Partridge and Pink Paisley fabrics and I just didn't think they were well suited for little boys.  Well, at least not the Pink Paisley.  I've already used the Partridge for one of Adam's summer hats.  Just my luck - earlier this month along came baby Noelle!  I hope you don't mind a bit of pink and a bit of frills because you're getting some of each.

Pink elastic lace trim for the sleeves and white piping for detailing

Although I like the look of buttons and buttonholes I decided instead to use hook-and-loop tape for the back enclosure. I'm somewhat paranoid about making baby gifts with buttons that could become a choking hazard.  I did choose to use white snap buttons as detailing in the front but those are solidly fixed in place with pliers so I'm not worried about them coming off.  Actually if it weren't for the fact that the two halves of the snap buttons haven't been snapping together very well lately I would have used them on the back!

Yellow lining peeking through from the inside

Of course I added piping (love, love, love) and then I lined the whole dress with a yellow polyester just to give it a bit more weight and so it would feel nice a slippery against a baby's soft skin.

Now I'm just waiting for some new BlueTuque labels that I recently ordered for fun.  No, BlueTuque isn't going to be the name of my new business but I thought at least for some of the random gifts I make here and there it would be nice to have a little label that's my own.  Photos of the labels to come; stay tuned.

DIY Fabric High Chair

When I read these fabric high chair tutorials from this mama makes stuff and homemade by jill I knew I had to make one.  They're so simple and yet so functional!  Last weekend we forgot to pack the travel high chair when we went for dinner at the in-laws so we ended up propping Adam on some cushions and then strapping him to the back of a chair with a belt.  Good grief, 2-point harness! It worked pretty well to be honest but didn't look all that comfortable.

Then I came across these tutorials so yesterday I pulled out my pretty fabrics and got to work.  I'm not even going to bother explaining how to make this because it's so easy and already covered in the tutorials I mentioned above.  I'll just say that the dimensions I ended up using were:

Waist belt: 40" x 6"
Connector: 4" x 6"
Front panel: 10" x 20"

Outside fabric

Inside fabrics

I used whatever materials I had on hand and was a bit short of the pink-yellow honeycomb pattern which is why part of the lighter floral fabric spilled over into the front panel.  I really love piping and pulled a bright orange one out from my stash.  It was perfect.  Piping just breathes life into a project.

The only catch to using this fabric high chair is that you have to have the right kind of chair.  It works best where the chair backing has vertical bars, such as with our dining chairs.  Otherwise there needs to be a gap between the back and the seat in order to feed the front panel through. Here's what I mean:

Yup

Yup

Nope

Our dining chairs have bars and a gap so the waist belt can be fed through (as shown below) or wrap around from behind.  Either way would work but threading through the bars allows for a more snug fit around the body.

The waist belt attaches with long Velcro strips around the front panel which folds over the top.

"Abracadabra!"

And when you're not using the high chair you can just wrap the front panel around the waist belt a few times and then secure it closed with the Velcro.  

Pretty. Simple.  

Babysaurus Rex Part Two: The Torso

Aside from making the semi-successful pumpkin granola this weekend I also finished off Adam's dinosaur costume.  Last week I started with the head. Then, after three attempts at the inner lining I finally got something that fit properly around his torso.  I mostly sew during Adam's naps and this means I can't try things on him as I go along.  I try to use some of his shirts as guidelines and sketch up pseudo-patterns to follow but it's not really the same as having a physical model to try it on.  However once I got the sizing down the rest was just a lot of fun.  

I wanted a round, stuffed belly for the dinosaur as well as a stuffed tail and spikes all down the back.  I debated for a while about where to put the opening for the torso and didn't like the idea of a zipper running through his belly or interfering with the scaly spine.  In the end Velcro did the trick and I used it along one side of the torso and shoulder strap to secure the costume together.  Velcro is certainly simpler than installing a zipper and I should have thought of that from the start!

Scrap fabric for inner lining

Velcro closure along the side

Orange felt for the spikes

Tonight Mike helped try the costume on Adam and check the fit.  Halloween is gonna be awesome!

"Raaargh!"

Babysaurus Rex Part One: The Head

Halloween is just around the corner and this year we are playing dressup!  Two years ago Mike and I attended a terrific costume party as Maverick and Generic Flight Attendant (guess who I was).  How funny was it when the host came out dressed in the same Top Gun outfit?  Looks like one of them had to be Goose instead.

Last year we wanted to get dressed up but I had trouble thinking up a good costume for my 7-month pregnant body.  I Googled a bunch of costumes for pregnant women but just wasn't in the mood to paint my tummy a pumpkin or a basketball....or fish bowl...or bowling ball. You get the picture.  We ended up just carving a Frankenstorm pumpkin and handing out candy to children in the rain.  No costumes.  Just nice, loose sweat pants with elastic waist bands - ohhh yea.

The really great part about handing out candy last year was that we got to see just how many children there are in our neighbourhood!  I was shocked. We ran out of candy waaay before 8pm and I'm sure we must have had at least 60 kids, rain and all.  I had no idea!  Now that I'm on maternity leave I'm getting to know the children in the neighbourhood and regularly see groups of them at the splash pad down the block (or at least I did in the summer).  It's great to know Adam will have lots of children around him as he grows up.  

We've decided that even though he won't understand what's going on yet, Adam is going to participate in Halloween fun this year.  He's going to get dressed up and sit by the door and "help" hand out candy. What is he going to be, you ask?  A Babysaurus Rex!

I got the idea from this site - now isn't the "fuzzy dinosaur" costume just adorable??  But paying $70+ for it at Pottery Barn Kids is much less than adorable so I'm going to make him one instead.  Yup...I paid a visit to Len's Mills and raided the scrap bin for fleece.  I would have preferred green but blue was on sale.  I'm sure a blue dinosaur is every bit as believable as a purple one, right Barney?

I've only finished the head so far but it's a pretty big accomplishment.  I modeled the inner lining after a hood on Adam's zippy.  I knew I wanted the head to be puffy so I sketched the outer shell to be roomier than the lining, creating a big pocket for batting.   After attaching teeth and spikes I was ready for stuffing - the fun part, right?  Actually it hadn't occurred to me (though it should have) that stuffing the pocket would turn it into a big awkward ball rather than a helmet-shaped dinosaur head!  There was no way it was fitting on Adam's head.  I also realized it only made sense to stuff the top portion of the head, not the part that sits at the back of where Adam's head would go.  Oh well, you learn by doing.

I ended up having to tack down a whole bunch of spots, essentially pinning together the inner lining to the outer shell.  This seemed to help shape the head back into a nice helmet-shape.  I'm eager to try the finished head on Adam but don't think it's a good enough excuse to wake him up so I'll leave it til morning.  On to the torso and tail - hooray!

Little Red Riding Bonnet

Making baby clothes is so much fun!  The projects don't require much fabric so your scraps are perfect...plus they don't take nearly as long to make as adult clothes.  Sometimes I can whip up something over the course of just two or three good baby naps.  The downside is that babies outgrow clothes so darn quickly...and sewing sleeves for a tiny shirt can get pretty finicky.

Here's a new red bonnet that I just finished for little Delia who will be twelve months old by the time this post is published.  :D My fingers are crossed that the little bonnet will fit.  It certainly does on Adam who is three months younger which sort of concerns me.  I actually Googled "head circumference for babies" and one site said that growth slows down after the first six months.  By one year the average circumference is about 18".  Hm....I think Adam's head is already at 18.5" :O  But then again it's hard to take a head measurement for a squirmy baby so it could have just as easily been 16.5" with all of his bouncing and hand waving.

Here's another shot of the hat with the inner lining in focus.  I used this fabric for Lily's dress last year and Grace's flat cap earlier this summer.  See what I mean about scraps coming in handy?  It works so well with this red wool that came from an old skirt belonging to Mike's grandmother.

I had some leftover black piping lying around which was just long enough for a floral detail on the side of the bonnet.  I have a thing for using piping or binding to create floral detailing.  I've used binding in this manner for several past projects including my green wool skirt and ribbon shirt.  The first time was on my Boxing Day shirt.  It can be a bit time consuming but really worth the effort.

Well I was just about to post some cute photos of Adam with this bonnet on but Mike vetoed it because he said the hat makes Adam look like a little girl.  He was just trying it on for Delia! No big deal, right?  Oh well.  I can save the photos for Adam's wedding slideshow to be presented some day far into the future ;)  I don't know which of the two will be more horrified.