Blastoff to good dreams!

It’s cold in the basement at night and I always worry about Sprinkaan staying warm enough, even in his fleece footie pajamas. He had grown out of his infant sleepsack and I don’t like putting blankets on babies while they’re sleeping. Time for a new sleepsack!

The zippers I have for the infant sleepsacks aren’t long enough to go around the outside edge of the sack in a larger size, so I had to go with a center-zip design. I used a toddler’s jumper pattern for the top part of the sleepsack and the basic flared shape, just continuing then in a straight line to a couple inches past the length of the zipper. Like all my sleepsacks (some of which are for sale in my newly reopened etsy store), quilt batting is sandwiched between the print fabric and a white lining fabric. None of the zipper edges are exposed and all seams are encased.

Putting in the lining takes a bit of thinking where everything is inside-out and twisted for awhile.

I found a super cute rocket ship fabric and bought just over a yard of it.

The zipper is 36″ long which makes the sleepsack pretty generous, lengthwise. I put two sets of snaps on the shoulder straps to accommodate future growth.

Snaps, zipper, and a fabric tab to keep the zipper pull from poking the baby in the neck.

I’m seeing Sprinkaan using this to at least 3 years old, by which time he’ll be able to keep his covers on without suffocating himself.

Back when I made this (and took the pictures) Sprinkaan was not yet walking. He does walk now and, while I don’t put him in his sleepsack until he is in bed, he does toddle around his crib in it a bit. It pulls at his shoulders a little when he tries to walk in it, but doesn’t seem to trip him up too badly. When he gets older, he’ll learn how to put his feet in the corners and walk in it like his siblings do in their sleeping bags.

Before his curls started growing, so this was around his first birthday in November.

Easter 2014: A Dress Odyssey

It is a well-known fact that there is exactly one week between Palm Sunday and Easter. It happens every year. Palm Sunday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Easter. I know this in my head. The crafty portion of my brain is, however, disconnected from logic and basic chronological concepts (maybe this is why I couldn’t tell time until junior high? Even now, my grasp is tenuous at best). Last week — Palm Sunday — I thought, “I should make the girls Easter dresses! I’ll choose a simple pattern; it won’t be too hard. I can sew two dresses in a week.”

What a week it was.

Monday: After dropping the girls at school, the boys and I hit the fabric store. Sprinkaan slept, and Konik was engaged up until I changed my mind about the two bolts of fabric I had been carting around with us. Then I split my time between choosing new fabric that I liked better and playing hide-and-seek with the boy who had had his fill of fabric. “I wish you would have just left me in the car!”

Monday is my laundry day, so I got the fabric washed and dried while I traced off the pattern pieces for Granota and cut out the larger size for Rana. All in all, a pretty productive day.

The pattern I chose

Tuesday: This was to be my big sewing day after taking the girls to school. Right out of the gate, Tuesday did not go as planned. I had all the kids ready to go, piling out the back door as I pushed the garage door opener. When I came out, I found the kids standing in front of the open garage door with confused and helpless expressions.

 

Houston, we have a problem

It was jammed and I couldn’t get it open more than about a foot and a half. Looks like we’re walking to school today, kids! Except that, I had allotted enough time for driving to school, not walking, so we were definitely going to be late. Also, Granota had a field trip first thing that morning. I ran inside to call the school and was surprised to be greeted so enthusiastically by the school secretary until, as I regaled her with the trials and tribulations that had beset us, she paused and then informed me that I had called the girls’ old school. We laughed and I assured her that we would not be walking the 20 miles to that school. I called the current school, told my story again and this secretary told me that the buses for the field trip would leave at 9:00, could we make it? “I think so!”

Before we could leave, I had to get the stroller which… was in the car which was stuck in the garage. So I performed a little Indiana Jones homage, belly crawling under the garage door to get it out. Then four kids and I hustled our hind ends to that school! We arrived just as the kindergartners were lining up outside for their field trip. Whew! I gave Konik a piggyback part of the way home while I pushed the stroller (and later perched him on the handlebar). By the time we got home, we were both beat and sewing was the last thing on my mind. Whether it was from that unplanned jog to school or what, Konik got sick later that afternoon, throwing up everywhere. No sewing that day.

Wednesday: I still didn’t trust Konik’s belly, so I was keeping a close eye on him; Rana woke up with a fever, so I decided to keep her home from school. But when I went to take Granota, once again, the garage door got stuck despite Mr. Gren having fixed it the night before. I told her that she would just have to stay home, too, that day. The difference between Tuesday and Wednesday: Tuesday was warm and sunny; Wednesday was rainy with two sick kids. The two sick kids perked up by lunchtime, but it was still raining, so they were all stuck inside. No sewing that day, either.

Thursday: We got smart and parked the car outside the night before so there would be no issues getting children to school. I got about a third of the way through Granota’s dress. It occurred to me that I haven’t really sewn anything in months. I felt rusty and slow.

Friday: Panic was beginning to set in. I had to get these dresses done. I finished Granota’s and, miraculously, things were moving a bit faster with Rana’s. When Mr. Gren left for work that night, he asked me how late I was going to stay up sewing. “Until I start making mistakes,” I replied. One thing that I figured was pretty mistake-proof was putting in the gathering stitches, so I took every piece that needed gathering and did that. By the time I went to bed, all the individual pieces were ready to be put together.

Saturday: Whether it was having made the pattern once already or just another Easter miracle, I was able to finish up Rana’s dress in just two more hours. I sewed the buttons on both dresses right before I went to bed. Down to the wire! I still excel under pressure, Mom.

Easter Sunday:

In the tradition of family Easter photos the world over, Rana hams it up, Granota looks stiff and unnatural and Konik wonders what’s going on.

The fabric for Rana’s dress was called “rose sorbet” and Granota’s was “spring medley.” Cheery, no? It’s hard to see, but there are little rick-rack-bordered patch pockets on the dresses. (I did not make Konik’s suit — it’s on loan from my dear friend, V. Thanks!)

More Easter ham

Yoke detail with rick-rack and ball buttons.

All four chilluns

I did make the suit that Sprinkaan is wearing; Konik wore it for his first Easter! It’s a little blue and white seersucker overall and jacket.

Sprinkaan in his big brother’s Easter suit. Making it look good!

And a close-up of the baby, because he’s adorable and photogenic and actually smiles for his pictures.

What I learned last week is that I can, in fact, sew two little Easter dresses in six days, however, it’s not really enjoyable and I could benefit from a little planning ahead. Easter 2015 is April 5th (you’re welcome), so I ought to start March 5th, to accommodate sick children, garage door mishaps and whatever else might come my way. I might even have time to sew something new for myself! (Hush, Jennifer, that’s just crazy talk)

Bag lady

I have returned! My trip back East was wonderful beyond words. We didn’t really “do” anything other than just spend time together. It went by so quickly (well, maybe not for anyone else staying in the same hotel who had to listen to us), but it was worth everything it took to get there.

A couple of days before I left, I assessed my carry-on luggage options and decided that I needed a new bag. I had a small carry-on suitcase for my clothes, but I needed something that I could actually get into on the plane without thunking another passenger on the head, not to mention big enough to hold all my entertainment during hours of layovers. My purse doesn’t cut it. I like to keep my purse as small as possible. This bag needed to be able to hold my purse plus a water bottle, book, and small crochet project all while still looking like a purse so as not to arouse the ire of picky flight attendants.

I needed the body of the bag to be big enough to hold all the aforementioned items without being too big (Please store your personal item under the seat in front of you). Neither did I want it to be just one big cavern where small items would sink to the bottom making me That Person in the security check line. Obviously, multiple pockets were required to hold those smaller things. Also, knowing that I would be schlepping this thing through multiple airports, I wanted to have a long strap that I could wear cross-body to keep my hands free. This is more practical in my daily life, as well, when I’ve got to be ready to guide kids across parking lots and through busy stores. It needed to be a wide strap that could bear the weight of the bag without digging into my shoulder. With those criteria in mind, I spent some time searching online and I found two tutorials for different bags that I liked and created an amalgam of the two. I used the body of the Pleated Tote by Artsy-Craftsy Babe and the strap and pockets from the Olivia Bag by Dixie Mango.

Both of these tutorials are well-written, well-illustrated, and produce great-looking bags. And that’s high praise coming from me, because I’m not normally one to get excited about bags and purses.

Finished bag ready to fly!

So next came the question of fabric. Since it was only two days before I left, I didn’t have time to go to the store and I knew that I had enough in my stash. Sadly, the fabric I had in mind for the interior was actually yardage I had bought to make another blouse like the rose/leopard one of a few weeks ago. Why “sadly”? Because the print was terribly, obviously off-grain. That made it unsuitable for clothing, but for the inside of a bag — who cares if the stripes are a bit askew? I needed something heavier than just a plain cotton for the outside and, lucky for me, I had enough denim leftover from a skirt I made years ago (I think that was pre-blog). Well that was easy!

After cutting out pattern pieces, the first order of business was getting the pockets sewn onto the interior fabric. I made an easy pouch pocket for one side of the bag and sewed it down in little sections to fit my phone, pens, and pack of tissues.

But, the most fun was the zipper pocket that I put on the other side! I have never done anything like this before, but it went together like magic. More scrounging in my stash turned up this bright green zipper that I had bought years ago. It was originally intended for a dress, but… I changed my mind about the fabric and all of a sudden I had a bright green zipper with no immediate use in sight. Ah, but that’s why I save everything. The zipper was a few inches too long for this pocket, but a little zigzag stitching at the right length and *snip* Hello, appropriately sized zipper! The link to the zipper pocket tutorial is included in the Olivia Bag post, but I’ll give it to you here, too, just in case that’s all you’re interested in. Show me the zipper pocket!

Interior of the zipper pocket, in progress

Zipper inserted and looking all professional!

 

Two other features that I wanted for my bag that were not included in either tutorial were an elasticized pouch for my water bottle and a flap to keep the bag closed. The flap was easy enough to devise on my own, just taking measurements of the bag and sketching out a pleasing shape on paper to use as a pattern. I sewed it onto the exterior of the bag at the same time that I sewed the ends of the strap on, before attaching the lining.

The pouch for my water bottle wasn’t necessarily difficult, but it did take a little bit of advance planning. I measured around my water bottle, allowing enough for seam allowances and a slight bit of ease, and I also measured how high I wanted the pouch to come up on the bottle. It took a few pinning sessions to figure out the placement of the pouch within the bag. I actually sewed the side edges of the pouch onto the individual interior bag sides before sewing the bag sides and bottom together. The rest of construction was the same as the tutorial.

I found the outside a little plain in just the denim, so before I had sewn the exterior together, I cut out a little flower from the interior fabric and appliqued it the the bottom front. It’s not really “my style” necessarily, but it’s nice enough.

So how did the bag fare on the actual journey? Well, I packed that thing to the gills. And therein lay the only real problem I had with it: When I had sewn on the toggle button, I hadn’t taken into account where the buttonhole on the flap would fall once the bag was packed. I ended up really straining the buttonhole to reach the button. It doesn’t look so hot anymore. I’m going to have to reinforce the buttonhole and move the toggle button up higher on the bag so that it won’t be a problem for next time. Other than that, though, the bag worked beautifully. The strap gave nice support, the pockets held my stuff. The water bottle pouch was a wee bit flimsy so next time, I would interface it first to give it a little more structure. But all in all, I deem it a success! And was surprised to find that I had a lot of fun sewing it. If you’re on my Christmas list, you may end up with a bag.

Dress = Done

Last week turned out a little differently than I had planned. After posting on Wednesday, my French class was canceled just as I was about to walk out the door. Too bad, but that did mean a whole day to sew that I hadn’t been banking on! I was able to finish my shirt dress and Granota’s Cuddle Muffin jumper that evening.

For my dress I used McCall’s 4769. Pretty basic style, not much that really stands out. It would probably be great in a novelty print, but for this incarnation I chose a pale blue cotton/linen blend. This way I’ve got a blank canvas that I can spruce up with accessories to change up the look. I don’t currently have much in the way of accessories, but I do have a couple of silk scarves and a couple belts that I can use. And, hopefully without the distraction of pattern or color or unique features on the dress itself, I can get a little more creative about the kinds of accessories I can add to my wardrobe in the future. Future being: when we manage to get Mr. Gren a better job than ringing up plants and patio bricks.

We can always hope.

M4769

The other side of the lapel went together with about the same amount of fiddling as the first side, but at least this time I knew that, as ugly as it is on the inside, it turns out well on the outside. Just as miraculously, my machine didn’t jam up a single time while doing the buttonholes. That may be a first! At the waistline, there is a hook and eye to keep things together so that belts or sashes won’t get hung up on a button.

Went with the blue leopard print scarf this time.

I like those McCall’s guys. These are funny guys. They told me to “hem skirt by hand.” Bwhahahahahaa! Yeah, right. I barely got through hand-tacking the collar and facing down without wanting to kick a puppy. Good thing we don’t have a puppy. Besides, why hand-sew a hem when you can blind stitch it! That’s what I’m talking about. My first attempt several years ago at using the blind stitch on my machine resulted in a less-than-blind hem. I get better with every one I do. I can’t claim that this one is perfect, but a person is going to have to get pretty close to my knees to see the few stitches that managed to peek out.

Konik’s about the right height to examine my hem. Fortunately, he has no idea what he’s looking for.

Oh! And did I mention pockets? That’s always fun in a dress. The fabric was light enough that I went ahead and used it for the pockets, too, instead of a lining fabric.

I ain’t afraid of no crease

A lot of people shy away from linen because of its notorious tendency to wrinkle. What can I say, I’m a sucker for punishment. No, not really; it’s just that I love natural fibers. Besides, anyone who hasn’t worn linen is missing out. I wore this dress to church today with a navy blue belt and navy blue crocheted-by-me beret. I looked pretty sassy if I do say so myself. You’ll just have to take my word for it because Mr. Gren had to work today and couldn’t take a picture to document it for posterity. The dress passed the wearability test — it was comfortable and, despite sitting in the car for 40 minutes round trip and sitting in the church pew for another 90 minutes, the dress wasn’t too horribly wrinkled. I changed out of it when I got home because I had to start a fire and I would have been oh-so-sad if I’d gotten soot on my new pale blue dress. Soot is an unfortunate accessory of life in a cabin, but I can at least try to limit it to jeans.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You may have noticed that there was no French Friday last week (Hi, Mom). They used to be my most-viewed posts, but lately they were getting really low numbers. I have to admit that I was getting a little burnt out spending two or three hours on a post that only 12 people look at (Hi, Gma). So, do me a favor, peeps, if you like French Fridays, will you let me know? And if there are things you’d like to hear about my experiences in France, let me know that, too! Thanks. Carry on.

Bins of possibility

Yesterday, Granota wandered into my sewing room and informed me that she has no autumn dresses and she would like me to make her some. Unfortunately, she’s right. In the course of our conversation, though, I remembered that I had bought some fabric for that very purpose last year and then abandoned that project. I told her I would look for the fabric and the beginnings of the dress I had made for her last year. I looked through a plastic bin, two large bags, a laundry basket, and two boxes full of fabric. I have a little. I got ambitious and decided to measure all of it and pin a little tag to each cut of fabric and then made a list of what I had because I realized that there was fabric I had completely forgotten about. I found lots of pretty stuff!

Polka-dotted cottons

Batik and a thicker woven cotton

Floral pique and houndstooth corduroy

Stars and stripes

Lightweight cottons & denim

Wool & denim

Flannel and corduroy

Aqua wool-silk blend. Mmmm.

And more cottons and corduroy!

 

To most people, it may look like piles of fabric. But when I look at it, I see a fabulous 1950s circle-skirted sun dress; I see sweet little corduroy jumpers with Scandinavian motifs; I see a classic 1940s style suit; I see a tailored sheath dress; I see blouses and crib sheets and pajamas and more. If I had the time to sew up all of this, what wonderful wardrobes we would have!