Child's Apron

I made an apron for my niece with pockets for a pencil and paper to take orders.

Here's what I did.

I used an apron I had made for my 4 year old as a pattern, but I had plenty of this material to use just one kind of fabric, and I wanted a different shape at the bottom.  I folded the doubled up fabric and the apron and stacked them.

I cut 1/2" bigger using the outside top corner, waist, and length for references, and curved in between.

See the 2 layers unfolded?

I took one layer and pinned ribbons in place for the neck (about 16") and the side ties (length depends on child, but I made mine plenty long so they can be wrapped around and tied in front).  I heat sealed my ribbon ends by melting them with a lighter--it will give the ends of the ties from becoming freyed and the insides from freying and pulling out.

Then I stacked the other layer on top, right sides together and sewed the perimeter with a 1/2" seam allowance and left about a 8" opening.  I left it open on a curve which was tricky.  If I did it over I would have left it open on the less curvy bottom.

I clipped curves and corners before I turned it right side out so it wouldn't pucker.

I top stitched around the edges (and hid my opening this way without hand stitching--I just tucked the edges in and pinned them in place.  It would have been so much easier if I had chosen a straight edge to leave open).

I chose a contrasting fabric for a rectangular pocket and long strip that I folded in half and gathered along raw edges.  I sewed the rectangle in half along open sides (leaving a whole to turn), then clipped corners, turned and top stitched one of the long sides.

Hmm...unfortunately blogger didn't rotate this picture.

Then I sewed a ribbon on the apron to make a stem, spiraled my ruffle into a flower and machine sewed it on in a somewhat wonky fashion. Last, I sewed the pocket onto the apron where the pocket wasn't top stitched and sewed along one of the stripes to make a small pocket for a pencil and a wide pocket for a notepad.

4th Birthday Party

My 3 year old will be turning 4 soon.  We've been talking about party themes...she has wanted Olivia Pig, a Princess Tea Party, a Star and Kitty Cat, a Pizza, and a House...all in the past month.  I told her we need to be finalizing things and I think I have her convinced to have a Dolly and Me Tea Party. Oh boy, I've wanted a tea party for a long time (I probably should have done that for one of the girl's first birthday parties when they didn't have an opinion).

I've been looking at ideas online.  I like this cake from Our Scoop blog, and this cake from The Birthday Blog.  I've also seen a cake with the spout and handle made from sugar cookies.  I don't want to mess with fondant and I think I will make the cake from 2 bundt cakes instead of cooking the cakes in my mixing bowls.  I'm afraid of burning the outside to get the inside cooked.

I have a problem though...all of our family lives far away so I feed everyone lunch.  In the past I've served chili, or hot dogs, but that just doesn't seem fitting for a tea party.  Can I get any budget conscious, tea worthy ideas?

Fixing Mystery Holes in my Shirts

I decorated this shirt after being inspired by a tutorial Disney did at Ruffles and Stuff a while back.

But I found this in the lower center of the shirt before I washed it the other day...

I've been frustrated recently because I've had this happen to a lot of shirts in the same place.  My husband thought it was silver fish, but I thought the placement was too consistent.  I thought maybe it was from my pants rubbing on my shirts when I carried kids, but I normally carry them on my hip (I know bad for my back huh...they don't care, though and dinner still needs to be made).

I finally realized the culprit...no wonder I got a good deal on it at a garage sale.  It looked to innocent.

I fixed that shirt (well, made do at least) by catching loops from the inside of the shirt with needle and thread, but my next shirt was too far gone for that technique to work.  It needed a patch really.  I kept laying a couple strips of fabric on in different directions, but I just didn't like how it looked, and I didn't think I could pull off flowers or ruffles on top of my pant zipper. 

Then I thought of this.

I love the bird and branch silhouettes I've been seeing for a while, but I don't have the guts to put it on any of my walls.  I think I like it here.  It looks like something that I might see screen printed on a shirt.  Here are some close ups.

Book Page Wreath

I found a cute wreath tutorial at Living with Lindsey so when I went garage sailing last weekend I had my eyes open for wreath forms and paperback books.  I ended up with a straw Christmas wreath that I stripped bare, and a book about Princes Grace (I didn't want anyone admiring my wreath to think I allowed trashy romance novels in even if I wasn't going to read it).  The only thing I changed from the tutorial was to tie my hanging ribbon on before I started gluing pages (I used about 350 pages), and I covered the back with smashed page tubes as you can see in the last pic.

Here's how mine turned out...

I am going to be hanging this wreath in a window, so I did this to hid the back of the wreath.

Cardigan #1

I finally finished the first cardigan I started here.  I took the long folded fabric from the mentioned post They are 3" wide and as long as the cardigan front) and folded the ends of the fabric inside, then sewed the long sides closed with the openings of the cardigan sandwiched inside.

Then I cut 2 rectangles of fabric twice as long as the sleeve openings are around and 3" wide.  I sewed the short ends together to make tubes, then fold the tube in half with wrong sides together and zig zagged the raw edges.

 

After that, I basted beside the zig zag and gathered to match the sleeve openings.

With my sleeves turned inside out and folded to the right length, I pinned the ruffles on the current outside of the sleeve and zig zagged in place to allow some give.  Then I trimmed off the extra material that was turned up.

The circles are cut from my material and scrap from the sweater that I finished with frey check, and attached with a few crossing rows of zig zags.

Homemade Bagels

I'm still (slowly) working on cardigans.  In fact I cut out I started the second this morning, but haven't done enough to post yet.  I'd be working on it now, but I'd have to go through my daughters' room to get my sewing machine and I'm not sure if the 1 year old is asleep yet.

I made bagels yesterday!  I'd thought about it before, but I thought it would be too hard.  Then I found a recipe at Diaries of a Whimsical Wife.  It really wasn't that hard after all, but I forgot that Fahrenheit isn't the universal measurement for temperature, and tried to cook my bagels at 220 degrees Fahrenheit.  I thought it was kind of low, but I'd never baked something that was boiled first.  I got to thinking about where the Whimsical Wife lives (Australia) halfway through baking, and realized I should probably be using a hotter oven.  I reset my oven for 350 when I flipped them over and after that did another 5 minutes on the first side.  They turned out okay...not too doughy, but I toast them before I eat them anyway.

Here are mine.  Oh, and half of my flour was whole white wheat.