Birthday Knits!

I've been all about knitting lately -- I think because it's been obnoxiously cold here for so long that I'm drawn to things I can do while I'm on the couch wrapped up in a blanket.  Heh.  There are a few February birthdays in my family, and everyone received something that I knit.  (Knitted?  Apparently they're both correct, but they also both sound wrong to me.)

In reverse chronological order, here's E's birthday sweater.  Since her birthday's today -- Valentine's Day -- it seems appropriate to start with her.

This was a top-down seamless raglan that I changed from a different cable to use this cute heart cable, making it sort of Valentine-y without going over the top.  I started it on Saturday and finished it in time for her to wear it to school yesterday, since she doesn't go on Fridays.  I would not recommend this short of a time frame.  I think my hands are still recovering.  It's a little roomier than I necessarily wanted, but I don't think she looks like she's swimming in it, and it'll give her some growing room.

She's been showing a preference for purple lately and was all smiles when I showed it to her and put it on, so I think she approves!

For my sister, I made another pair of boot toppers.  I used the same pattern as last time, but made a few changes. 

 

Ray had requested some slippers for around the house, which I was pretty excited about.  He rarely asks me to make him anything.  I decided to make felted slippers, which is always fun, and also less likely to be traumatic if they accidentally get mixed in with the laundry. They looked impossibly huge before I threw them in the washer!

They felted to the perfect size, though, which always seems rather miraculous to me.

Happy Valentine's Day!  I'm off to finish E's birthday cake and finish a few other last minute birthday details while the girl naps.  :)

A Sweetheart Dress for a Birthday Girl

Just when I was starting to think I'd never decide what kind of outfit to make E for her birthday, I found out I won luvinthemommyhood's Sweetheart Dress pattern from a giveaway on 2 Little Hooligans.  Decision made -- it was the perfect choice for my littlest Valentine.

I didn't want an overly Valentine-ish fabric, and I had a cardigan in mind for her to wear with it, so this purple fabric with metallic silver dots was an easy choice.  Since E's chest measurement is between a 3 and a 4, but she's closer to a 5 for length, I cut a 4 for the bodice and added 1/4" to the bottom, and used the size 5 skirt dimensions.

The bodice construction was new to me.  It's fully lined and all done by machine.  Since I hate hand-sewing, I was all for that, but there were definitely some fiddly bits.  I especially had problems getting the 1/2" seam allowance of the upper armhole turned in nicely, since it's along a curve.  After fighting with the front bodice, I decided to do the back bodice differently and basted that part, clipped and ironed the seam allowances, and then took out the basting stitches.  That went much better.  Next time I'd also try opening out the seam allowances when sewing the shoulders together, pressing the shoulder seam open, re-pressing the seam allowances in, and then continuing as instructed. It seems like it would be a cleaner finish, unless I'm missing something that would prevent that from working.  Those minor points aside, I love the tidy lining.

I also used my new favorite method for gathering the skirt.  I wish I had thought of it myself!  It makes for such even gathers.  I still need to pick out the bottom line of basting, though.  I ran out of time last night, but I don't think anyone noticed at school today!

The thread button loop was new to me also.  I'm not sure I'd do it that way again -- at least when I'm sewing under the wire, which is pretty much always -- but once I got the hang of it, I liked it.  It's a nice detail.

E usually doesn't show much interest in her clothes.  She doesn't talk, so she's not as opinionated about her sartorial choices as some other five-year-olds I know.  When I showed her this dress, though, her face absolutely lit up.

A sleeveless dress with a back cut-out isn't exactly seasonally appropriate, so she's layering with this adorable little sweater she got for Christmas. She's also wearing her pantalets underneath, since she loves to show off her flexibility by pulling her feel over her head! 

E's Birthday/Valentine's Day Outfit

E. turned four on Valentine's Day.  In birthdays past, I've tended to not emphasized the whole hearts and flowers aspect, but since she's in school this year and she's in the perfect age for such shenanigans, I went for it this year.  I was, as usual, cutting things a bit close, so swapped my original, more elaborate dress idea for the beloved Fishsticks Designs Emmy pattern (Bonnie's discontinuing the design, so if you want one, jump on it!  Looks like the little girls' pattern is sold out, but there are still a few big girl patterns in stock).  I've lost track of how many of these I've made, so it went together easily -- I was going to say seamlessly, but that would be a poor word choice in this case.

I'd also picked up some owl and hearts knee highs a couple of weeks ago, because I am apparently *still* unable to resist anything with an owl on it. Since we walk to school (well, I walk, she rides in leisure, all bundled up), I thought she could use another layer on her skinny little legs and decided to finally make some legwarmers.  I can't believe I've never done this before, as the girl has a ridiculously large collection of Babylegs and Huggalugs.  It took maybe five minutes to make these.  There are a ton of tutorials on how to sew them; mine were like this.

It was a bit of a crazy busy ensemble, but if you can't be dressed a bit over the top for Valentine's Day when it's also your fourth birthday, when can you?!

E. is generally uninterested in modelling, and I have apparently forgotten how to use my camera in low-light situations with a wiggly subject, so the full-body shots are pretty terrible.  I'll just leave you with this one.

You want me to show off the legwarmers, right, Mom?

A HeartFELT Valentine's Day

Nothing like waiting until the last minute once again, huh?  I finally finished up our Valentine's Day bunting this afternoon, after having the pieces cut for weeks.  O. chose the glittery felt for the hearts.  I'm so not a glitter person, but it turned out cute.  This is the first time I've made a bunting with felt for the backing.  The others, for the kids' birthdays and Halloween, were turned and topstitched quilting cottons.  Those hang better, but this was so much faster!  I think it would be a great no-sew project too.  I wanted the added texture of the visible stitching, but you could whip one out pretty quickly with a hot glue gun!

Look, we covered up that weird outlet above the mantel with a clock!  Much better.  "Bee Mine" is a printable from here and the owl is from here.


While we were stocking up on glitter felt, O. also found some felt bookmark blanks, so we decided to get some felt letters and hearts and make personalized bookmarks for his classmates' valentines.  Grandma stepped up and helped him work on them over the weekend when I was knee-deep in prep for E's birthday party (dress details to be posted in the next few days), and we finished the last five or so last night.  He really enjoyed choosing which colors and hearts to use for each friend and did the majority of the work himself.  He only needed help finding the letters in the pile and putting on the ribbons.

Liebster Blog Award & Yarn Heart Wreath

A big thank you to my friend Leigh of Sleepytime Sewing, who tagged me with the Liebster Blog Award.  The Liebster is intended to recognize smaller blogs (with fewer than 300 followers) and get the word out about blogs you otherwise may never have heard of, but are worth checking out.  Part of the award is getting to nominate 3-5 other blogs.  Hopefully they don't all need to be crafty, because mine are:


A pie a week...  Follow the adventures of Simple Simon, an unnamed member of my family, in his quest to to bake 52 different pies.  He's nearing the end, with 47 pies to date.


My awesome Auntie M's Photo Journal of a Woman of Age.  Her tagline is "Random Acts of Photography & Musing", which sums it up well.


and


The Fishsticks & Fries blog.  I'm sure you've all noticed my obsession with Bonnie's Patrick Curved Raglan pattern, and the Emmy follows close behind.


Google tells me that liebster is the German word for dearest or sweetheart, which is a nice segue (which, btw, I totally thought was spelled segueway!  I had no idea that's how it was pronounced) into my project for this post, a yarn-wrapped heart wreath.


Our front door was looking a little sad after taking down the Christmas wreath, so I started scouring blogland for Valentine's Day wreath ideas.  I saw a lot I liked, but none that I had all the materials for on hand.  And really, I don't *need* a V-Day wreath and I have a basement full of craft supplies.  Then I stumbled across this and knew I'd found the one if I made it on a bigger scale.  I found a big box and two shades of burgundy acrylic yarn that were from my pre-yarn-snob days.  Cut out a giant heart and started wrapping with the darker burgundy as we watched our family movie on Saturday night.  I nearly finished, but ran into problems getting the yarn to stay put on the pointier part of the heart -- you can see in the original link that theirs has a shallower point on the top of the heart.  I put it aside for a couple of days, trying to figure out how to salvage it, when I realized that glue guns solve all crafting problems.  Once again, hot glue saved the day! 

That door knocker needs to go.

I like how using two colors of yarn add some dimension to an otherwise simple wreath.  I don't love it, but it gets the job done.  :)


In other news,  I finally sewed again this week, after being a bit burnt out from Christmas.  It's a gift, so I'll post pictures once it reaches its intended recipient.