Teacher Gifts: Part II

Earlier this month, I had the following conversation with O.

Me: What does your teacher like? We need to think of a Christmas present.
O: I don't know.
Me: Anything? Favorite animal, food, color? Last year you said your teacher liked dragonflies and tacos.
O: I think she likes teaching.
O: And kids.
O: And probably her mom.

He's a helpful kid.  I asked again several times and got about the same response. So... generic teacher gift it was. He was adamant that he wanted something "teacher-y", but had no suggestions about what that might actually be, so I suggested a book ornament like this. I asked if there was a book they'd read in class that he'd really enjoyed, and he said Snowflake Bentley. I printed the cover image on this June Tailor printable fabric, which I'd never used before.  I was really happy with the picture quality, although I didn't rinse and iron it to make it colorfast, assuming an ornament wasn't too likely to get wet.

O. chose to use some sparkly red felt for the cover, and asked that we make the pages from paper (cardstock) instead of felt so he could draw on them and could write the "to" and "from" inside. 

Mr. Bentley with his camera

For the second part of the gift, O. looked through my gift ideas board on Pinterest.  He picked this orange peppermint scrub.  It smelled really good, but probably could've used a bit more peppermint.

He finished it off by stamping on a brown paper lunch sack and adding a ribbon bow and tag.

Teacher Gifts: Part I

E. is in an early childhood class four mornings a week. There's the teacher, a paraprofessional, and three therapists that come in to work with her. They're all fantastic with her. We're grateful she's in such a great program.

Last month I started brewing some vanilla extract to give as gifts (I start using mine much sooner than she does). I found some cute food-safe bottles at Hobby Lobby, added some new beans and bottled up the extract.

It's probably a good idea to check your tag size before printing, so they're not bigger than the bottles.  Ha!

I wanted to make something extra-special for her teacher and para, in addition to some other purchased edibles that I stuck in their bags. I've had this pattern printed off for *two* years, and figured with E's owl theme this year, now was the time. I finally sucked it up and ordered some wool felt, and wow, it is amazing. So much better than the sheets of poly felt.

As I've mentioned about a billion times before, I don't really do hand sewing, so I vastly underestimated how long they would take.  That quickly reminded me of just why I avoid hand sewing.  They're so cute, though, that I'm glad I made them.  I have one more on my to-sew list for E. herself.

One minor drawback of finishing projects at night is terrible lighting. And stress. The latter is a given at this time of year, though, since I will apparently never learn my lesson.

Fleece Hats

A few weeks ago I realized we were sorely in need of new hats. I walk E. to school and back four days a week, and O. was no longer a fan of his police hat from last year.

O. requested a simple hat from the leftover Badger fleece. The scale of that print is a bit too big for a kids' hat, but I tried to make it work. I made a size small Classic Beanie from Green Pepper 534 - Polar Beanies.

Unwilling Model

Then I got to work on my hat and E's. I was going for maximum warmth, so decided on The Rainshed's Convertible Bomber Hat pattern, which is the same one I'd used for O's police hat and E's last fleece hat. I left the drawcord off of mine, but added a 1" wide strap with velcro onto E's.

Once O. saw mine, he said, "I really wish mine had earflaps." To which I replied, "I asked you if you wanted earflaps and you said no!" And then I made him one anyway, because Wisconsin winters suck, and I'd thought he should have the warmer version in the first place. There was just enough of the print fleece leftover to eek out one more hat, although once again I didn't get the W in quite the right place.

 

Adult S/M, Child M/L, Child S/M

Not bad for an afternoon's sewing, huh?

Yarn Ball & Ornament Wreath

I spent some quality time with my glue gun over the weekend, officially becoming the last person on the planet to jump on the yarn ball and ornament wreath bandwagon.  I actually bought all the supplies last December, but didn't get to it, so the bag of stuff has been stashed  in my craft room for the last year, taunting me with its unfinishedness. 

My camera's not loving the red, I guess.

It took waaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than I thought, probably because I overthought the placement of every single ball of yarn and ornament.  It looks a lot better in person, really popping against our green door.  The lighter red yarn has a red strand of tinsel or something running through it that adds another dimension. I don't know why it photographed so badly.  The photographer is probably at fault...

A few hours after it was finished, I ran my hand through my hair and said to the husband, "Wow, my hair is really snarly today.  Did I forget to comb it?"  That actually happens to me;  my hair is *so* straight that you can't even tell.  Then I found some big gobs of hot glue in the ends.  LOL  Next time I'll make sure I have my usual ponytail in before breaking out the glue gun.

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.

More Owl Hats

Remember that tiny newborn owl hat I made for a friend's baby this spring?  She asked me to knit two more, and I was happy to oblige.  You guys haven't noticed that I have a thing for owls, have you??

The one with brown trim is baby-sized, roughly 6-12 months.

The orange-trimmed hat is more of a toddler size.

 

I'm still thinking E. needs one, especially since her winter coat is brown with cream around the hood, but I may be going overboard on owl things for her.  We'll see if I'm burnt out on knitting owl hats or not...

A Harry Potter Halloween

For years I've been planning to do a family theme for Halloween, but haven't actually accomplished this since it was just the husband and me as Richie and Margot Tenenbaum a looooooooooong time ago -- until this year! 

O. decided he wanted to be a Death Eater from Harry Potter, so we determined E. would make a great Hedwig, which left the husband to be Harry, and my hair made me an excellent candidate for Ginny Weasley.

The Death Eater costume started with a blank cardboard mask that we spray-painted silver.  O. then added the details with some pewter paint.  I tried very hard to let him do most of it (I may have a bit of a control problem when it comes to crafting...), and just helped with the spots that had too much paint.

The cloak is sewn from twill, based on this tutorial, sized down.  I rounded the hem at the sides so that it would be even, and also rounded the back neck, and left it unlined.  We were pleasantly surprised that the hood would stay up in a point (for a while) in true Death Eater fashion.

He decided on a striped long-sleeved tee underneath, to look like he had escaped from Azkaban.  It's sewn from the Fishsticks Designs Charlie Tee pattern.

Our little Hedwig's costume started with a quick fleece pullover jumper dress, so I went with my old fallback, the Ottobre 4/08 Nasta Pinafore, which has now been the basis of three out of her four Halloween costumes.  This year I added two inches and flared out the hem a bit more than last year's bee costume. 

Her wings are the Martha Stewart Masked Owl, printed at 450%.  Instead of ironing the pleats, I sewed tucks, since I was using cheapo poly felt rather than wool, and she was going to wear it a few times, so I wanted to be sure that they'd keep their shape.

Her hood is from the now OOP Simplicity 9331, which is a hand-me-down from my sister, who made an adorable leopard costume from it that I think all of her kids wore at least once.  I was happy to put it to good use again.  :)  My original plan was to add ears, until I realized that Hedwig, a snowy owl, doesn't have ear tufts.

For her feet, I made another pair of Super Slouchy Boots.  These are just a single layer of fleece, and I added three rows of shirring at the ankle to help them stay on.  For the talons, I sewed some fleece scraps into a cone shape, and then used liberal amounts of hot glue to attach them to the boots and shape them.

I had originally intended to sew robes for the husband and myself too, but not surprisingly, ran out of time.  Most of our costumes came from our closets and thrift stores, with ties from eBay.  I did hem my pleated skirt, which you can't even see in the group photo, but hey, it's a bit of sewing!

 Happy Halloween!