Vintage Dress #2

So here is yet another vintage dress that I'm working on for the girls.  (Yes, it is still a work in progress, so please just ignore those bright blue marking lines everywhere.)  This particular pattern is for a dress and a very ruffly apron, which means that Fig, who loves all things girly and ruffly, immediately fell in love with it and just had to have it all to herself.

I'm really loving these vintage patterns.  Just like the last one, this dress has an amazing fit and a gorgeous shape.  If there is one downside to these vintage patterns, it's how time consuming they are.  There are a good number of bias strips for necklines, arms, waists, etc., etc. to be measured and cut from remnants, lots and lots of hand sewn elements to be done and little details everywhere, that aren't quick and easy, but really help to make the dress.  No instant gratification here, but the end result is totally worth the time and effort!
So this dress just needs a whole lot of hemming and some buttonholes to be complete and then it will be on to the apron!  And then, of course, there will be the pink dress to finish up.  And then...we'll see!

Color

Lots of painting outside today.

Followed by lots of painting the outside.
Eveything is now covered in paint.
Hopefully it rains soon.

Continuing our Search

I've been slowly working my way through two more vintage dresses for the girls, but have had to stop as I need to make a trip to the store and buy some matching bias tape and buttons.  Although the girls are really anxious to have some new dresses, going to the store is not tops on their list of things to do.  It's been pleasantly cool and sunny, the perfect weather for all day play at the playground and evening fishing at the lake, so that's what's been winning out around here with the kids.  It is supposed to get hot and humid again shortly though and when it does I know I'll have three red faced, cranky and irritable kids very ready to take a trip in the air conditioned car to the air conditioned store to buy bias tape and buttons.

So besides hanging out at the playground and fishing at the lake the kids and I have also been continuing our search for new bugs to photograph for the bug book and new bug specimens for our bug box.  We've had a bit of luck with the bug specimens thanks to some pretty frequent storms in these parts.  Flash floods do in a number of bugs, so it's just a matter of getting out at the first glimpse of sun and finding them before the ants do.  And we've definitely had a lot of luck with our bug photographs.
Like this little fellow who I believe is a katydid nymph.

It took us a long time to ID him.  The antennae kind of threw us off for a bit there...

And then there is this as of yet unidentified fellow.  Little P is big on finding bug specimens, so when she found this fellow she immediately brought him in the house for us.  When he turned out to be alive there was an awful lot of squealing and back out the door he went!

And grasshoppers galore.  They are everywhere.  I had no idea there were so many different varieties...

Then there was this bee fly (I think) which we spent a long time trying to get a pic of.  There was a whole lot of, "he's over there!!" "no, I see him, he just flew over there!" "no, wait, I don't see him anymore!" during this photo shoot.

And finally this Gray Hairstreak butterfly, which, sadly, is the only butterfly we've managed to get a picture of so far this season.  I've planted all kinds of flowers that butterflies are supposed to love, but so far not a one has dropped by.

So those are just a few of the pics we've been taking.  We have a ton of these to print off, ID, and add to our bug book.  Maybe that's something we'll do when the weather turns horribly hot again...right after we get those buttons and bias tape of course.

Finis!

Pookie's dressed is finished!  I am absolutely loving this dress, as is Pookie.  She says it's the perfect spinning/dancing dress and I definitely agree!

I really, really, love this pattern.  It fits her perfectly and just has such a lovely shape to it.  Fig and I can't wait to get her version started!  In fact, Fig can't wait to get started on a bunch of dresses.  She's been busily browsing the vintage patterns with me on etsy and has been making me "favorite" all the ones she likes.  You'd have to hear her talk, "That one, with the short sleeves, not the long, and I want it in yellow not blue, and I think we should make the skirt a little longer.  I like the flowers, but maybe they could be white.  Can we get a hat like that for it?"  Fig, a little fashion designer in the making perhaps?
So now I'm off to work on dress two and then, if I'm still feeling energetic and enthusiastic, there might be a little bit of pattern shopping next!

Still sewing...

I've been meaning to post all week about the sewing challenge, but I seemed to be making so little progress, a post didn't seem worthwhile.  But it's Friday (!) so I most certainly need to put up something by now!

So here is Pookie's dress which is almost finished.  I've really been taking it slowly--making sure that I do everything right and that all the seams are finished nicely.  There is still a bias tape trim (that goes around the neckline) to do, four buttons and buttonholes to add,  a very large bow to sew on, and some dreaded hemming and then I'm finished with this one!

And I really need to hurry up, because Fig is dddyyyiiinnngg for her dress!

Day One

Okay, it's day one of the kids clothes week challenge and I've already gotten in umm, well more than one hour of work, technically speaking.  Granted, most of that time was spent rummaging through boxes in the garage and complaining loudly to the dog about how impossible it was to find anything, but that's hard work, right?
I did finally manage to pull together a pattern, some fabric, and a bit of bias tape.  The fabric is all ironed and the pattern is traced and ready to be cut out, but I can't begin sewing anything until I go out and buy a needle.  Sewing machine needles were just one of the many things I could not find amongst all those boxes...  *sigh*

So I'm going to be making two dresses from the vintage pattern pictured there (the white and red polka dot dress view) and I'm hoping that a vintage size 4 fits both Pookie and Fig.  I'll be making Pookie's dress out of the blue print and Fig's out of the pink.  A quick trip to the store for needles, a bit more bias tape, and some buttons and I should be good to go.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a lot more done tomorrow!

Birthday Prep

Birthday's are still 2+ months away, but I'm already preparing for them.  Last year, birthday's were sadly very boring and uneventful due to our move, so I really want to go all out this year.
That and seeing as all the birthdays take place over the course of just seven weeks, a little bit of early prep certainly doesn't hurt...!

So here is a little bit of what I've been working on for Fig's birthday.  There is still a lot of thinking and tweaking and what not to do before it's just right, but it's coming along.

An easy project for me to do a little work on here and there...in-between unpacking all those boxes of course!

Lake evenings

Throughout the moving process, we've spent most of our evenings down at the lake.  Sometimes the kids fish with Dad and other times they just putter around the lake throwing pebbles, pulling out aquatic plants, and picking flowers.

Everything stops when a fish is caught though.  Suddenly there's a scramble to get to Dad and see/touch/poke the fish.

Then the begging and pleading starts.  "Can I puhleeeeze put the fish back in the water?!"

As soon as the fish swims off, the kids all return to their play as if nothing had ever happened.

The kids didn't hold a fish last night, but they did see a duck egg, smell honeysuckle, and listen to a chorus of frogs.

I guess fishing isn't always about catching a fish.

Yes!

We have moved! And yes, we have internet again!  I'm frantically working at unpacking boxes in the hopes that I'll be done in time to participate in The Kids Clothes Week Challenge.  Of course, I don't necessarily have to be done unpacking in order to participate, but I do have to find the boxes that have all my sewing tools in them...  Not an easy task!  If only these boxes would unpack themselves!

Nature Sketchbook

We found a dead bird in the front yard recently.  It had obviously flown into the window and perished.  The kids were pretty excited about this nature find, Pookie especially.  She spent a long time observing the bird and kept saying, "I've never seen a real bird this close before!"

My sister (who was here visiting for the week) whipped up a little sketch book for Pookie and then the two of them settled down, pencils in hand and proceeded to sketch the bird.

I was surprised to find that, a half hour later, Pookie was still contentedly sketching the bird.  It was the first observant drawing that had ever done and she was really enjoying it.  She really took her time examining the bird and adding all the details to her drawing.

A few days later, I started searching online bird identification guides in the hopes of naming our mystery bird.  Every time I settled on a bird, Pookie was quick to point out why it couldn't be that bird.  "No, it had spots here, remember? No, it was all brown here, remember?" No its eyes were yellow, remember?" she kept asking me.  And no, sadly, I didn't remember.  Without the pics I'd taken, I would never have been able to identify the bird.

We finally determined that our bird was a Brown Thrasher.

I wanted to keep the bird around for its skeleton, but sadly something took off with it during the night.

I think I'm going to make Pookie a larger nature sketchbook.

And I think I'd better make one for me too!

Change of color...

We're supposed to be moving here in just about a week, so I'm back to packing boxes.  Or maybe I should say I'm "repacking" boxes.  While I am very excited about the new home (more space!), I'm hating the process of boxing up everything again.
So for now all sewing, drawing, painting, crafting, you name it, has come to an end.  It's all in boxes.  Except this one thing...

...which you may remember.  It's been sitting unfinished for a very long time.  I kept intending to go out and buy more embroidery floss so I could work on it, but it just wasn't happening.  Finally, as I wasn't feeling wild about the color scheme anyway (what was I thinking? white and light pink? those colors would never show up! no one would ever even notice all my hard work!) I decided to just work with what I had.
And I have a huge pile of embroidery floss to work with.
I finally settled on using various shades of red and so far I'm liking it.  I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of flowers (yet again, I tried counting them, but there are just too many!), but I'm gonna give it another try.  And maybe, seeing as it's the only thing not in a box, I'll actually finish it this time.

Sunsets

Today was entirely unfun.  My husband had to work, which meant I largely forgot (or more likely ignored) the fact that it was Saturday.  By seven this evening I realized what a truly horrible day the kids had probably had--a Saturday stuck at the house with a very grumpy, short tempered mom, who insisted on doing housework all day, ugh!

Determined to squeeze some fun into the last few hours of our day, I rounded up everyone and drove down to the corner store for some ice cream treats.

Then we sat by the lake and enjoyed them.  And by the time we were done eating, talking, and giggling, Saturday seemed like a pretty good day after all.

Summer Skirts

Pookie is both incredibly tall and incredibly thin, so it's hard to find clothing for her that fits.  Occassionally, we find something that works, but more often that not we just end up with clothes that either fall off her or are way too short for her to wear.

My frustration with her wardrobe reached an all time high yesterday, so I finally just raided the fabric stash and made her a skirt.  I loosely followed the Lazy Days pattern over at Oliver + S and just one hour later, I had two skirts ready to wear.

Two identical skirts because Fig would not let me leave the sewing machine until I'd made her one too.

I ran out today and bought some more elastic so that I can whip up a few more of these.  Once we are settled I plan on getting out the patterns and making Pookie some dresses and stuff, but for now I'm sticking with these skirts.  I can whip one up in between packing boxes, which currently makes the Lazy Days skirt the perfect project for me!

And Back Again...For Now...

Well, I'm back...again.  My apologies for that really long break there.  It took two weeks to get internet access installed here at the new house and then, shortly after we got it, we lost it.  Some kind of problem with our internet service provider meant yet another week without internet.  So three weeks of no internet plus two weeks of packing, moving and unpacking equals a very long blog absence.  Sorry.

So what's happened since my last blog post?  Well, we have quickly progressed from winter to summer here.  I suppose it is technically still spring (the trees are still leafing out and the daffodils have only just begun to fade) but seeing as we went from wool coats one day to swimsuits the next, it does feel a bit like we skipped spring.

Not that I'm complaining mind you.  With the return of the warm weather, we've been able to spend a good portion of our days outside doing all the summery things we love.  We've already blown bubbles, licked popsicles, played in the sandbox, had a picnic, planted flowers, splashed in the kiddie pool, and covered the patio with chalk drawings.  Good stuff.

And when I haven't been busy outdoors playing or indoors cleaning up sticky faces, hanging up wet swimsuits, sweeping up dirt, and mopping up puddles, I've been working on a few summery projects.  Hopefully, over the next few days, I'll get a chance to share some them.

It's good to be back!

As concerns that "for now"-- I  might be missing from here, yet again, sometime soon. Word is we're moving...again, so at some point there might be yet another blog break while we pack, move and get settled...again. I'll let you know when I'll be disappearing though!

Bird Watching

Since somewhere around late fall, our backyard has been full of Northern Cardinals.  Unfortunately they stuck to the back part of the yard, meaning they were visible (hard to miss that red), but a bit too distant to see well.  So, hoping to entice those cardinals a bit closer, I finally bought a bird feeder to put outside the girls' window.

The news quickly spread and suddenly all of the other neighborhood birds showed up.  The girls have been loving watching the birds up close and have quickly learned the names of all the most frequent visitors (Cardinal, Chickadee, Titmouse, and Nuthatch) and are slowly learning the names of less frequent visitors (Mourning Doves, which Pookie insists are called "good morning doves" and House Finches) as well as the less interesting visitors (apparently Juncos are just not worth memorizing the name of.)

The kids have been much more observant than I expected and are quick to come and let me know when there is some new bird at the feeder.  The House Finches only just showed up the other week and I wouldn't have known of their existence but for the kids.

Of course, I started taking some pictures of the birds and naturally the kids quickly became a part of that.  They know exactly what birds we don't have a picture of yet and at least once a day one of them comes bursting into the kitchen telling me to "Come quick!  There is a *fill in the blank* and it is close enough for a picture!"  They've also been reminding me that we need to go for a walk so we can get pictures of the geese and the heron that hang out at the lake.

Now, I suppose the next question would be whether or not to start a bird book (like our bug book.)  I'm leaning towards no for now--we're certainly not still or quiet enough to capture any pictures of birds "in the wild" yet and my camera is currently not capable of handling such distant subjects.  However, it most certainly doesn't hurt to begin collecting pictures now annnddd....see where it goes from there.

Snow Day!

We're having a snow day!  A real snow day.  We've had a bit of snow here and there this winter, but nothing to compare with our much beloved and missed New England snow.  But today, snow, real snow.

The kind of snow you can make snowmen with and build igloos with.  So that is exactly what we did--we built and built and built until we were too tired and too damp to build anymore.

And then it was time for hanging out by the warm stove making hot chocolate and hot cookies.

Seasonally correct cookies and cocoas.  We couldn't ask for a better day!

Alphabet-ing

The two older girls and I have started working on letters/numbers during Little P's naptime.  We've been cruising right along with the consonants, but have suddenly encountered a bit of trouble with the vowels.  As it's Friday and it's raining and those vowels are being so very pesky, I thought we'd skip the more organized learning approach and just paint with letters today.

Because it is so much more fun to practice your letters when they're covered in paint! 

An Introduction

I know, I've been missing from this space again.  But this time I have a good explanation from my absence.  See I've been rather stuck in the dining room/kitchen/outdoors with this little guy.

Jasper.  The newest addition to the family.  He's brought a lot of joy, a lot of frustration, a lot of excitement and a little bit of calm to the family.  We're still in the process of potty-training, so I've been hanging out with him in the only non-carpeted rooms of the house, patiently (mostly) working with him.

But it's all good.  I've brought all my sewing supplies into the dining room and consequently I'm finally getting somewhere with some long overdue projects.

And that's where I am--sewing while attempting to decipher the difference between "I really want to go outside and play" and "I really need to use the bathroom."

We're getting there...

Up, up, and away

We get inundated with newspapers here.  Normally they go straight to the recycling bin (after removing the crossword of course), but lately I've been letting them pile up.  The newspaper is for wrapping household items in (I'm boxing stuff up, we're moving...again, same assignment, new house), but I thought it might be fun to use some for a papier-mache project.

It was the kind of art project I thought the girls would enjoy, but no.  Several minutes into the process they began complaining about how horrible sticky hands were and sweetly suggested that I might like to finish the project for them.  *sigh* I thought kids liked getting dirty?  Dirty, but not sticky perhaps?

The painting, glittering, and decorating that followed, they loved.

And now the girls finally have their hot air baloon.  It's just large enough to give their "wee people" a new view of the bedroom.

Rudolph

I spent way too long yesterday trying to make Martha Stewart pipe cleaner animals.  Most of them were a disaster (the elephants looked like they hadn't eatten in weeks and the pigs looked like very round pink mice), but the deer came out just fine.

I thought they'd make some great Christmas ornaments, but the kids won't hear of it.  They've been keeping "Rudolph" and "Clarice" safetly tucked away in their pockets, only letting them out for little evening strolls past the Christmas lights.
I guess I'll just have to make some more...