Me Mudder's Hands

My mom came for a visit this past weekend and we spent lots of time crafting during baby naps.  She did lots of mending for me, too, taking great pride in patching up my old blanket that she made for me 30+ years ago.  Some of the old patchwork squares have been rotting, so at each visit she goes through my scrap pile and adds new squares.  

She also took some time to do her own embroidery:

Thanks for visiting, Mom!!

More Baby Art

They recently sent home more art, December-themed art, from baby school.  My goal is to figure out how to incorporate some into her scrapbook.  This gingerbread man is pretty easy and can just go on a page as is:

The same goes for this holiday light:

But this abstract snowman should be preserved just like it is:

And this winter wonderland is too bulky for the scrapbook:

But this sheet can maybe be cut into strips of something or maybe shapes....maybe for when I tell the story of the day she came home with a note from the teacher that said she ate a lot of glitter paint today...and then she pooped glitter for a day or two after that:

And then there is her birthday crown:

Do I cut it to fit a page or just flatten it and preserve it for the future?

And then the question is...where do I keep all this preserved artwork?  If she keeps making it at this rate, we'll soon be featured on Hoarders:  Baby Art Edition.

Double Dinosaurs

And here are the next two dinosaur capes.  I finished them up with some ribbon for neck ties and I attached them with a super duper zig zag stitch.  It looks a lot cleaner than the velcro fiasco.  

 My plan was to use corduroy for this one, but I didn't have enough of the maroon, so I used this heavyweight fabric I found at a thrift store.  I still have a bunch of it left.  I think it worked with this project, because it makes me think of scales, but I don't know what else I'd use it for.

As for the lining fabric, that is from my mom from when I first started sewing back in 2007 (or was it 2008?).  She sent me a big slab of that pink striped fabric, along with matching purple stripes and a  bunch of complementary purple fabric with white swirls.   The selvedge reads 1996.  Yup.  I can see that.   Should I ever need to make hammer pants...

As for the eyes, I used these nifty buttons I had in my stash.  I also have them in black, I think, but here I used the maroon and the navy buttons.

These capes are for a brother and sister, so I wanted to make them matchy-matchy and I think I did that without being too annoying.  Of course they are only three and two, so maybe the concept of too matchy-matchy hasn't registered with them yet.  We'll see.  I hope to get these in the mail today.  Yay!  Three birthdays down...one coming up...and I am almost 1/5 done with that one.  

Dinosour

So it turned out okay in the end, but I had a very challenging time with this pattern.  I bought a Dynamite Dinosaur Cape pattern a number of months back so that I could make three capes for my niece and nephews.  For their birthdays.  In December....and September!  I know, I'm so horrible for not getting these out in time.  I don't want to make excuses, but I had a number of hurdles:

1. Christmas (That's not an excuse for the September birthday.  Procrastination would be that excuse.)
2. Measurements (The pattern makes you measure things!  I hate that.  Just give me a pre-printed pattern and don't make me think about anything.)
3. Cat shit (After I finally got things cut out, I abandoned the project for a month -- or so -- due to post-Christmas craft-detox.  When I went to revisit it, I discovered that one of the cats had taken a dump on the cut out pieces....or so I thought.  I mean, I wasn't confused about the shit part...it was definitely shit...he (or she) had pooped on a pattern piece that I had incorrectly measured and abandoned, but due to procrastination had forgotten that it was a failed attempt.)

After I started making the thing, it was going along very smoothly until I realized that my decision to forego the recommended fabric (fleece) for corduroy had been foolish.  I just hate working with fleece so much.  It stretches like Gumby on crack and nothing ever works right when I use it.  The reason this was a problem for this particular pattern, was because I needed the stretchiness for the hood to fit around the entire cape mouth.  I did not take a picture of this fiasco or any of the steps that I took to resolve this matter.  It took a good two weeks for me to even revisit fixing this and I never remembered to have the camera with me.  

Anyway, I finally finished one cape last week and sent it out.  I am 99.2% done with the other two capes and will post pics of those after I have a little prehistoric photo shoot with them, but here is the first little dinosaur:

 My lion is modeling this for me.  I found this green corduroy at a thrift store and had been waiting for the right project for it.  I lined it with some fun polka dot fabric that I had previously used to make the seat cushion for black bear rocker.

 The pattern calls for a different closure, but because I had messed up on the front a bit when I went to fix my hood mistake, I used velcro to mask that.  It really just looks sloppy and I hope that the two-year-old recipient does not mind.

There's the little tail and here's a close-up of the eye (complete with fun plastic button) and the jumbo ric-rac teeth:

I hope to have the next two capes out this week and then I have to work on another birthday present for another niece whose birthday is in one week.  Blah.  That won't get there on time.

Not Sherlock

I found a book at the Roseville Library sale for $1.00, because I thought it would be a good addition to the fancy books shelf at home:

Have you found it yet?  Did the title give it away?  It's a book of poetry by Oliver Wendell Holmes.  There is no date, but it was published by M.A. Donohue & Co. which was based out of Chicago.

Check out the front cover:

And then, at some point in time, this book held a leaf.  I love that the fossilized remains of that leaf are imprinted on the interior pages:

Handle with Care

I bought a box lot of craftiness off of eBay a few weeks ago.   I think I was just searching for purse handles and this particular listing had a bunch of handles:

Mostly, they are single handles, so I need to think of types of purses that only require one handle. I'm not sure how some of them work, like that clear plastic one in the upper left hand corner.  Also, for those plain wood ones, do they get painted or stained or do they stay as is?  I'm not sure.

Also in the box was a bunch of ribbon:

I love ribbon!  

Hungry Caterpillar

A friend gave me a gift of a yard of Hungry Little Caterpillar fabric.  Fun!  What should I make the kiddo?

1972

Also on my trip to Savers this past weekend, I found two patterns from 1972...

Simplicity 5339 and McCall's 3471.  I love those little girl robes and dresses!  So sweet.

Amazing!

I received the most fabulous gift today from my sister-in-law.  She is an official scrapbooker extraordinaire and she gave me a custom baby book for scrapping my kid's life history.  Love!

When she was here for Thanksgiving, she borrowed the stencils that I used in the nursery to decorate the cover of the scrapbook:

That was a great idea!  

As for the innards of the scrapbook, we open to a gorgeous title page:

She then made pages for detailing the trimesters.  She left a lot of room for the ultrasound pictures and made little spaces to highlight my cravings during each stage of pregnancy. I also love the little baby growth highlights:

There's also a special set of pages for all of my crying baby photos with a custom icon:

Heehee!

She also made a turkey for the Thanksgiving pages:

So talented!

And then there is my absolute favorite set of pages...

Seriously.  The. BEST.  I love it so much!  I can't stop gazing at them!  She even did special lettering and I adore the clever use of the paper to frame the pictures:

So much fun!  I can't wait to fill it with baby pictures!  Thank you, Laura!  Go-Go Gadget hugs and kisses your way!!

Lots o' Fabric

We went to Savers (like a Goodwill) this weekend and came away with a buttload of fabric.  It was a little pricey...well, pricier than the Goodwill.  Anyway, here's what I came home with:

Corduroy!  In awesome colors!  I envision skirts for me and little jumpers for the kiddo.

And then there was this pile...

There's a ton of the green and white striped fabric, but just a sliver of the blue floral, so it was sort of a mixed bag of yardage.  There's enough of the Hanukkah fabric to make one gift bag.  I honestly don't know why I bought more cow fabric.  It took me about five years to use up my last batch of cow fabric, but maybe the kiddo needs a cow fabric dress with little red accents?  The plaid is pretty nice.  I want to make my husband a shirt and that may be the fabric for that project.  He asked if I could make it with pearly snap buttons...of course, I can!