Summer Vacation

Summer is almost over.  Or should I say summer vacation is almost over.  As my teacher husband likes to remind me, summer continues until September 21st!

With September only a week away, my time for projects will likely diminish a bit more.  Squiggles will be starting daycare, and my work hours will get a bit longer, and the days will get shorter, and our spare time even shorter with Mr. Bear back at work.  Hopefully soon, regardless of this, we will find some spare time to do a few long over due clean up and fix up projects on the house.

I also have a slew of sewing and a bit of knitting in the cue for the winter, some for me and more for Squiggles!  But for now, I thought I'd wrap up some of my summer activities.

Our first vacation in July brought us to our usual lake resort.  And with it brought some free time to knit some Monster Chunks!!  With the ever patient assistance of my sister to help me learn to knit in the round, and an emergency trip to the local discount store to buy some stuffing, embroidery floss and felt to finish them of.  And so we photographed them on vacation.

These were from one of Rebecca Danger's awesome free knitting patterns.  I love all of her monsters, and hopefully there are more in Squiggles future.  For now he likes to call them "balls".  But then again that was his word for almost anything remotely round for a while!

Our second vacation in August was to the ocean!

The south Maine coast in particular.  And while we were there and since we practically had to drive past it, a stop at Alewives Fabrics was a must.  And they were successful in forcing me (haha!) to buy this lovely stack of fabric.

There is no fabric store like it anywhere remotely near me, not even in Toronto and Hamilton.  Although trips to three different stores in these cities at the end of our first vacation did garnered me this stack.

And so, just what will I make with all this fabric?  You will just have to stay tuned.  Some of it does have a predetermined purpose, but a bunch does not, so feel free to leave me some ideas in a comment!

Pretty in a bonnet

I've decided bonnets are adorable on little girls.   Ever since Rae on Made by Rae posted her pattern for a Peekaboo Bonnet, I knew I had to make one.  But, since I don't have a little girl, I made one for Squiggles' little girl friends!

Her mom loves hats, and loves taking photos of her cute daughter in said hats, so it was perfect (All the photos here are ones she took!) Super cute I think!

I love Rae's patterns, and this one is no exception.  It's pretty easy to follow and super cute!  The only tricky thing was putting the piping on both sides.  The pattern calls for it only on the plan side (The bonnet is fully reversible), but explains you can add it to both side, it just requires some hand stitching, which I'm not that great at, but it works, and I do LOVE the look of the piping on the bonnet!  I think in future I might just switch it around and put the piping only on the pattern side and leave it off of the solid side.  In this case the pattern side is the prettiest anyways!

Now, who to make one for next? Well, friends of ours just had a baby girl last week!  So I'm thinking she needs a teeny tiny one!   And I just bought some pretty cute new fabric on our holidays that just might work!

Beach fashion times three

We took our annual beach and lake trip last week.  And it was a hot one!  Lots of time to just sit in the shade by lake and digest the yummy food the inn we stay at provides.

And finally, a reason to sew up some swim cover ups!  I'd been dying to try out Dana of MADE's Beach Robe pattern and so after securing some sale towels from Sears (alas no Target for cheap nice towels here)  I made two up.  One as a present for one of Miles baby girl friends and our neighbours.  She's just 4 months older than Miles and she is adorable!  I'd been wanting to make her something for a while, but couldn't decide.  She's not a dress wearer, so I thought a robe would be useful for when she goes to the pool or after baths!

Yes, I made Squiggles wear it to get a photo.  For the hood lining and one side of the tie on each robe, I used a fat quarter of fabric.   While not an explained option in the pattern, I saw that one of the pattern testers had put the pattern fabric as one side of the tie, and I loved the contrast so I did the same on both robes I made.  I think it totally adds even more cuteness.

I love blue and green, and love the fabric combo on Squiggles robe!

Two other things I realized with making these.  Cutting terry cloth towels is hard!  And the fibers get everywhere.  Number 2?  I don't know how to sew bias tape properly.  I should have listened to my mom, who tried to explain it, but no, I was sure I understood it.  Well I didn't.  And while it generally looks ok....  it could have looked waaaay better (just don't look to close).  A final note, I made the smallest size (9-18mths) for Squiggles because he's on the small side, despite being almost 15 months, it fits fine, but I should have made it a tad longer!  I made the medium for his 18 month old little friend!

As an additional little project, I made myself a coverup.  Look, we match!  I was inspired by the Beach Towel Dress on MADE, but I didn't use a pattern, just kinda winged it using her post with the elastic thread.  It was still a bit too wide, but its ok.  It was sooo easy sewing with the elastic thread that I'm totally inspired to use it again!

I may have bought some new fabric on my travels, so I have lots to stuff for upcoming projects!  Now to just find the time..!  Also, still need to work more on taking better photos, not too happy with these!  Although I'm glad to report I discovered how to make the pictures bigger on the blog! YAY!

A bear, an apron and a return to work

My maternity leave finally came to an end this week, and I returned to my job on Monday.  No so bad, nice to see people and do adult things without having eyes in the back of your head.  But I sure do miss Squiggles.  I like him a whole lot :)  Thankfully, because Mr. Bear is a teacher, he is home with Squiggles for the summer before we begin the adventure that is daycare in the fall.  They've already had lots of fun together this week, so I'm glad :)

I had wanted to finish a bunch of project I had in the queue before I went back to work, but not surprisingly, time ran out!!!  The office is still a disaster (although it is down two crappy bookcases, which is a definite plus)  And there is a small pile of cut fabric on top of a much larger pile of uncut fabric just waiting for my attention.

One of the two things I did finish was my second knitting project, a little green teddy for Squiggles from Erika Knight's book Simple Knits for Cherished Babies.

Despite it's miniature size, boy it took a while.  That's likely because it was full of knitting things I hadn't done before.  Simple enough stuff for most knitters, but not for me!  What I can say is that I'm pretty darn comfy with increases and decreases now, but still not so good with taking out stitches in any sort of organized manner.  Lets just say I had to completely take out and remake a few of the pieces of this little guy!   But he sure was a good learning tool!  And generally I think he's ok,  my seaming is not perfect and he almost looks like he has pointy cat ears, but ya know, Squiggles doesn't notice.

I made him a teeny sort of bow tie, although it could be improved, but it does hide my questionable neck seaming!

I also made up an apron on commission from my soon to be sister-in-law for her sister.  I like making aprons, you can use crazy fabrics, you don't have to worry to much about fit, and people love them!  Its made from this McCall's Pattern.  I like the basic design of it, it's a bit funky but not to crazy.  My sister-in-law likes it, and is sure her sister will too (I made my sister-in-law a similar one for Christmas last year, and her sister coveted it!)

I'm toying with the idea of designing my own apron, it's a gift I often make for people and I have some ideas about what I like and don't like in the several that I have made.  I recently also discovered that there is this quilt shop in the suburbs that actually stocks some actual nice designer fabric (moda, amy butler, anna-maria horner, etc) that would make awesome aprons.  Normally I'm just limited to what my local chain store has, which is sometimes ok for aprons, but I think I could make some that are a bit more modern with these fabrics.  And apron skirts are perfectly sized to be made from a fat quilt quarter!  So it's pretty affordable to get these fabrics for that purpose.   I'm making a trip to the big big city of Toronto soon, and will hopefully hit up some nice fabric shops there too!

That's all for now, I have more things brewing, despite my return to work!   

In the hood

So I sewed a bit the week before last.  This time I made use of my moms much fancier sewing machine.  It has stitches specifically for knits, and while I have sewn knits on my sturdy and awesome Pfaff, I'm limited to a wide zig zag and I wanted something that would hold up better to the tugging of a toddler.  So I was able to whip this up in 3-4 hours (with some interruptions to watch birth stories on TLC, which make my shake my head in frustration! [I don't have cable at our house]) while my mom entertained little Squiggles.

I wanted to make something for my lil almost 2 year old nephew who is visiting from far away Australia with my brother and sister in law.  And since it is wintery there, I thought a hoodie for layering would be a good idea!   I had previously seen and so I bought Jessica of Running with Scissors' Hipster Hoodie pattern!

It's a great pattern, easy to sew up, although it did take me a while to cut out as I couldn't get my head around how to make the stripes go the right way!   And I think it looks adorable!  I used a mens shirt I bought new for the stripe part. (It is VERY hard to get nice pattern knit fabric around here) and plain green that I had a bunch of for the rest (including the back).  The pattern is designed to be made from two t-shirts so I think I will be repurposing some of Mr. Bears old t-shirts for one of this for Squiggles in the future!

Mr. Bear like it so much he wants me to make him one.  Ha!  I don't think I'm skilled enough to resize the pattern that much!

Progress and a few steps back

So we succeeded in selling some stuff in the last few weeks.  Joined in our neighbourhoods annual garage sale and had some success.  Said goodbye to an old teak coffee table that my parent bought some 40 years ago.  But also said goodbye to a good chunk of books and records, two things that make up a lot of our clutter.   Also made some good money selling records outside of the sale to local shop in particular.

And on a heritage note, while I did not plan to buy anything from anyone else, I did snag to transom latches to replace a couple of broken ones on our casement windows.  Nice! (but please excuse the crappy photo, I'm still working on my picture taking stills)

But there is still way too much stuff here.  Trying to decide wether we should have another sale, or donate.  I think we'll wait a bit and see.  it's all stacked away in the basement for now.

Or most of it is.  Some of it is still strewn around the house, which is not looking clean and free of clutter at all.  So a few steps forward and a few steps back!

We did make a dent in our office.  two bookshelves are now empty (with many of the books stored away, can't quite get to parting with them all yet)  It just now needs a bit of a reorg.

But I realized I took no pictures of any of this!!  Well I suppose I could take a shot of the partially empty bookcases, but there is still other clutter around, so I think we'll wait till it's more tidy.

I've also almost finished two other crafty projects :)  I will blog about them shortly!

But for now, I must get cleaning, I'm back at work in just over 3 weeks, and I'm determined to have most everything pared down before then!...

Presents for little ones

I spend last week making up a few gifts for other peoples babies, which I have decided I love doing!   People always really appreciate them, and I just love making them!

I was however slightly sad to realize after reading up on one of my favorite sewing blogs Piccoli Piselli that last week was the Kids Clothing Week Challange (KCWC)  A week where you  pledge to spend at least a hour a day sewing clothes only for kids (be it yours or others), and of course, blog about it :)  I have a bunch of fabric to make stuff for Squiggles and could have used the motivation, but oh well, next year!! and I guess I did a bit, because I did make this cute dress for one of Squiggles girl baby friends (she is less than a day younger than Squiggles and born just down the hall at the same hospital :)

It was super fun to make something from a girl, although I have discovered that making stuff for boys is of course fun too!  This is the Pretty-as-a-picture Dress from Anna Maria Horner's book Handmade Beginnings.  She's a fabric and pattern designer and I'm liking her book.  Next up I hope to make the Baby in the Hood jacker for Squiggles, the fabric is prepped and waiting to be cut and sewed!

I also made two Peek-a-Boo toy sacks a free tutorial on Make it Perfect.  These are awesme, super quick to sew and I think super handy.  This is definitely a staple for future gift giving!  Perfect to hold blocks, legos, or whatever!

This one was also for the same baby girl as above

And this one was for the littlest boy of a friend and co-worker who turned 2!

I'm loving how you can play with the different colour combos on the lining etc.  I have many other ideas for combos in my brain!

That's all the sewing for the next few weeks.  It's serious cleaning time!!  We're having a serious yard sale in less than two weeks!