Handmade Holidays: Gifts for the Five & Under Crowd

Sewing for kids is one of my favorite things -- I'm sure you can't tell -- so it was fun to come up with things for our smallest nieces and nephews. Both of Ray's sisters had babies this year, whom we finally met this Christmas.  I tried not to hog them too much, but it was tough.  I did get to hold the youngest one, who's just over two months, while he napped.  Is there anything better??

Here's what I made him, to continue on with the football theme.

I used the football softie tutorial from The Train to Crazy, but with football pieces traced from a freebie fleece sewing magazine I picked up years ago from Hancock Fabrics.  I put a cat toy in the middle for the bell. I'm 99% sure that Charlie didn't actually see me do that, but she was quite interested in the football, so maybe it's some special cat sense  Or she's just nosy.

Our other new nephew's mama is a huge book-lover, so I was happy to put a stashed Paddington Bear book panel to good use.

The only thing I didn't like about this was that there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the pages.  The directions even said to place them randomly, but I'm not so good with random and spent wasted a lot of time trying to put them in some sort of sequential order.  It didn't work. But the book was cute anyway.  I ♥ Paddington!

For the three-year-old nephew (and partially for his dad!), I made another Snapazoo. I spent a little more time playing with this one and managed to configure it into more things.

Elephant

Turtle

Seahorse

I also made one for E, even though she can't do the snaps.  I didn't topstich hers, and I think I like that a little better. 

Snapazoo times two!

For my five-year-old nephew, we put together a fort kit.  I used cotton yarn for the ties on the sheet instead of making them from a tee.

Flashlight not pictured

He looked a little puzzled when he opened up his [fabric] gift bag, pulled out the tote bag, and then found the drawstring bag.  Poor kid, he may have thought he was just getting a bunch of bags!  Hopefully he and his older sister have built a fort by now.  If nothing else, he had fun with the flashlight.

Snap-a-who? Snapazoo!

I made this little guy last week from the KAM Snaps tutorial for a two-year-old's birthday present.  I think he's pretty funny.

I used two layers of anti-pill fleece, but it took me way longer than the woman on the Kam site who made hers in fifteen minutes.  I finished in about an hour.

I ran out of time to try to decipher many more of the teeny-tiny instructions, but did manage the above bear and this pig.  He was my favorite.  O. thought he looked like a cow, which I can also see.  Either way, his little face amuses me.  I don't think this will be my last Snapazoo!

Star Wars Cargo Shorts & Pool Noodle Lightsabers

In addition to his Captain Rex tee, O asked me to make him cargo shorts with crossed lightsabers on the pockets to wear to his birthday party.  So I did.

I used the Hot Scott Cargo Shorts pattern.  Honestly, I wasn't crazy about it.  She notes that the sizes run big, which I found unusual for an independent pattern company.  I measured O and found that he was just slightly bigger than the 5T (he wears a 7 or 7X in RTW), but there was a huge jump in sizing for the 6, so I made the 5T with a 3/8" seam allowance instead of 5/8".  This proved to be unnecessary.  The shorts are big.  Very, very big.  Hopefully he'll still be a fan of Star Wars for several more years.  I also thought the directions could have been more clearly written and that using plaid fabric for the black & white instructional photos was a poor choice.

That being said, O liked the shorts.  I used leftover fabric from his swim bag for the hip pockets.  It amuses me to have Vader peeking out of the one.

I intended to sew down the lightsabers on the cargo pockets, but when I realized how tiny I'd made them  and just how late at night it had gotten to be by that point, I decided to take my chances with Steam-A-Seam 2's claim of a permanent bond.

Back

In action

I also made some of the ubiquitous pool noodle lightsabers for the guests.  I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy it was to make them.  Usually the projects that I think will be fast take the longest!  A serrated knife cut the pool noodles in half easily, then I used shiny silver duct tape cut in half lengthwise to cover the bottoms (in Xs, kwim?) and clipped the ends of the tape so it'd curve nicely.  Then covered about 7" up the length with the silver for the handles, added two stripes with black electrical tape and drew on a power button with a red Sharpie.  While I was doing that, O was cutting out an assortment of masks from here and here that we'd printed onto cardstock.

The lightsabers were a huge hit, and most importantly, were painless when you got whacked with one!  They also made a cool -- loud! -- noise if two of them were banged together.

Mermaid Doll

So many of our friends-and-relations have birthdays between mid-January and mid-February (including a brand new nephew born Wednesday!) that it's practically a second Christmas around here crafting-wise.

In addition, Ray and I decided that as we are both turning 33 this month, it's time to get serious and see how fit we can become if we work out more consistently.  We are calling this "The Last Hurrah."  So I'm running five times a week and lifting six time a week on top of my time-consuming Pinterest addiction.  And that whole parenting thing.  It's a good busy, full of things that I love.

On to the sewing content, which is probably why you're here.  A little friend of ours just turned four.  I rarely see her without a stuffed animal of some kind -- she has an assortment that she rotates through -- so I wanted something in that vein.  This mermaid doll tutorial quickly became the top contender.  I realized after it was done that I'm not sure I've ever seen her with a doll, usually animals.  Hopefully the tail makes it count! 

Don't you think a mermaid tail calls for sparkle dot material?  I've never sewn with it before, but fortunately thought to Google for tips ahead of time and saw the recommendation to use a leather needle.  It helped tremendously.  It did get gunked up with the glue a bit, but it went much more smoothly than I expected.  I also used the selvage edge for the hem and shirring, which simplified things also.

The other change was to make yarn hair, using this tutorial and this one.  There was some procrastination involved with the hair and face, since I was worried that I'd screw them up and ruin the whole thing, but it went quite well, and much more quickly than I expected.

I left her hair kind of shaggy in the back, thinking that mermaids don't get to the salon too often.

With her tail off

The embroidery was what I was most nervous about, so I decided to go for a Waldorf-style face.  I like their simplicity, plus it was less scary!  I thought she turned out really cute.

Sorting & Matching Peg Dolls

One of my friends has a little guy who turned two last week.  I've had this Wooden Peg Sorting & Matching Doll tutorial picked out for him for quite a while, thinking two is just about the perfect age for such things. 

I found some candle cups at JoAnn's and the chunkier pegs at Hobby Lobby.  I really liked the simple faces on this version, so I tried to emulate those, but with boy/gender neutral hair.  I was so glad I had the teeny-tiny paintbrushes from the medal holder; they made things much easier, what with my lack of painting experience and all.

I used a matte acrylic spray, rather than glossy.  I tend to be a matte sort of a girl, but it did make it hard to see if I'd completely covered everything or not.  Hopefully two coats did the trick.

My next thought was that little sets like this tend to get scattered all over the house, at least in this house, so they needed a storage bag.  I'd pinned this clear storage bag tutorial a while back and thought it would be perfect.  

It went together easily, although I should have planned out the size better.  The dolls were drying in the basement, and I was too lazy to run down and actually measure how big of a bag they'd need, so I guessed.  I used a 7" diameter base, which was much too big.  Hopefully he has some other loose toys that would like to share a home with these little guys.

Every time I pulled the drawstring shut, at least one guy fell over.  He looks kinda pathetic, doesn't he?

When O. saw them, he decided that E. needs some for her birthday, and then when he noticed that one of them had green eyes, he decided we should make Harry Potter ones (this is not an original idea, apparently).  She doesn't have the manual dexterity to actually put them in their cups, but she might like picking them up and knocking them around, so we'll see if he remembers as it gets closer to her birthday.

Gerald the Giraffe

A very special little dude turned one yesterday, and I knitted him this little wool giraffe.  I don't know what his name is actually going to be, but it was Gerald during his time with me.

I used this pattern, but with worsted weight wool on size 3 needles.  There are several minor errors in the pattern, like stitch and row counts being off, but otherwise it knitted up easily.  I used two new-to-me cast ons: provisional and Turkish.  More knitterly details are on Ravelry, if you're so inclined.

I can't decide what I love more, his little potbelly... 

Or his tail.

Doll Mini-Wardrobe and a Play Sling

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from a friend's not-quite-four-year-old (I think?), asking if I would make her doll a dress.  Obviously a request like that must be taken very, very seriously.  The dress turned into two outfits for her baby and one for her older sister's.


I found a bunch of patterns here and got to work.  I made her sister's doll a reversible cross-back dress and bloomers.

Back View

Then I went for a poofy party dress!  This one has a hook & loop closure in the back.

I think my favorite, though, is this casual outfit, a knit peasant top and jeans!  Hee hee.  I used some pants that E. had outgrown so the hems and side seams would look authentic.

I've never sewn doll clothes before -- although I did once knit several pieces for my older niece's American Girl dolls -- and I really had fun putting them together.

As I was working on the doll wardrobe, another friend asked me if I would make a play sling for her daughter as a gift for when her new sibling was born.  Surprisingly, I didn't have any long enough pieces of girly fabric, so I was forced to go to the fabric store.  It was rough.  ;)  I got enough extra to make a dress for E. as well, so you'll be seeing this print again, hopefully soon.

I make doll slings almost exactly the way Jan Andrea shows here.  I used to sell them on Hyena Cart in my one-child days of leisure and even emailed Jan to see when she had put her instructions up, since they're nearly identical.  I'm a big fan of her site and wondered if I had read them, forgotten about it and then subconsciously made mine the same way!  Turns out I made my first one right before she posted her tutorial.  Nothing new under the sun, right?

Handmade Holidays 2010

One of these years, I hope to not be frantically sewing on Christmas Eve day.  2010 was not that year.  There's hope for 2011, I guess...


The first things finished were these reversible tote bags for a friend's sister-in-law's toddler. I had planned to use a lightweight iron-on interfacing, but was out and it was blizzarding that day, so I used the sew-in heavyweight I had on hand. I really like how sturdy they turned out.

A friend got married the week before Christmas (coincidentally, she's also related to the purse orderer), so I made a gift bag and tied on this cute ornament that I thought was fitting for a December wedding.  I usually make gift bags with a drawstring, but tacked the ribbon on the back of this one.  I like how it turned out, and will use that method for younger kids from now on, since it's easier for them to open.

If you're following the time-line here, it's now a week before Christmas, and I haven't yet made a thing for my own kids.  But there are therapist and teacher gifts to make first.... E. has a team of three therapists and an early childhood teacher who each come to our house twice a month. They used to come weekly, so they're a big part of our lives.  I made them granola, using a tweaked version of this recipe.  I found printable labels and then made gift bags.

Next up was O's teacher. I asked him if he had any ideas, and he said she likes dragonflies and tacos.  Helpful.  We spent some time looking at beaded dragonfly tutes to make an ornament and settled on this one.  I changed some things to use beads from my stash and added beads to the wings to make them stand out more on the tree.  I also made some note cards and a chocolate cobbler mix from printables here and added a gift tag from here.  Hooray for blogs!

The cards have her first initial on them, which is hidden a bit by the ribbon.

O. had originally picked out the following fabric for his teacher's bag, but I thought it might be inappropriate to give to a woman, so I strongly encouraged him to choose a more colorful print.  I don't know how I didn't notice it before -- maybe because I'd used it for kids before?  LOL  I thought my aunt would think it was funny, so I made a bag for her from it.

Isn't the spacing weird?  I think it would have less insult potential if the words were grouped together like "ho-ho-ho" or something!

O. needed Christmas jammies too.  The kids usually get them from St. Nick, but of course I hadn't made his by the 6th (E's still a blanket sleeper girl, so I bought hers), so he looked at the fabrics I had and chose "candy cane" jammies.  Both pieces are from Ottobre 06/09, the "Night Owl" top and "Stripy Legs" pants.  He's a 6 in RTW, and the 110 fit perfectly.  I sewed these on Christmas Eve day.  *sigh*

He swore he needed a candy cane hat to go with it, so I showed him this, and while it wasn't exactly what he wanted -- which was something that looked just like the top of a candy cane! -- he thought it would work.  The he refused to have anything to do with it, so I wore it on Christmas Day.

E's only handmade gift this year -- other than some of the playsilks from my last post -- was a fleece hoodie from this print I found at Hobby Lobby.  The poor girl takes after her mother, who is always cold.  This is a T3 from Kwik Sew Sewing for Toddlers (or KSFT) which has horribly dated photos, but is great for basics.  I added two inches to make it more of a tunic length. 

O. requested two things: a lion knight shield and a hat that looked like a police helmet.  One of the coolest things about being a sewing mama is that your kids think you can make anything, but it's a bit of a double-edged sword.  Hee.


The boy already has a dragon shield, but wanted a lion shield (a la LEGO Kingdoms) for battles.  I used the same basic pattern as the other one, from Ottobre 04/04, but changed the shape and used an applique pattern from McCall 5500.  I had planned to make it color-blocked like the LEGO one, but I didn't have any white pleather, just red, and since I was, of course, doing this pretty much at the last minute, I didn't want to run to the store for some.  He seems okay with the lack of authenticity.  ;)

The police helmet was a little tricky.  He suggested that I make it like E's fleece hat, from the Rainshed Convertible Bomber Hat pattern, but I wasn't sure how to get the word on it and have it look nice.  I'd had my fill of applique from the lion.  My next thought was to try the freezer paper stencil technique, but was afraid that ironing it on would melt the fleece, so I decided to try using printable sticker paper.  It worked pretty well.  The edges aren't as clean and crisp as I'd like, but it looks pretty good from a distance.

The lettering really is straight and even, it's just not flat in the photo.

In retrospect, there weren't even that many projects -- although I sewed up several gift bags that aren't pictured and there were cookies to bake, etc. -- but considering most of them were crammed into one week, it was pretty hectic.  Next year's my year!  Yeah, right.  Check back and I'm sure I'll be saying, "2012 is my year.  I mean it this time!"