moonlets and prospectors!

In the name of creativity....The other day the boys built a rocket ship in the living room and donned their impressive explorer paraphernalia. I asked them what they were doing, to which they replied: "We are moonlets, little boys that explore the moon and other planets. First we are prospectors that dig for gold and then we use the gold to buy supplies to use on our mission!" Maybe I should not have asked :)

As they were playing I was in the kitchen trying hard not to laugh at the intensity and seriousness of their mission. This is what I heard:

G1-"On some planets they say that it is raining cats and dogs but in this case its actually raining lizards and frogs! Pray for us and give us your well wishes as we explore this new planet! There is some excessive damage but our 911 crew will fix it, we need to go and explore...."

G2-"Look, I see a flying crocodile in the sky!"

G1-"That's not a flying crocodile it's a purple Maggi, he has unusual powers, do not attack or he will throw thunderbolts at us! Remember flying crocodiles travel in herds!"

G1-"Where is our astronaut that is scouting for food? Oh, there you are...what took you so long young astronaut we were so worried about you!!"

S1-"I was getting food for the winter here is the banana pie and the garlic stew!"

G1-"Great young astronaut, could you please organize the beans, salad and chicken for the winter?"

It's moments like these that I realize that I really have the best job in the whole world...being the mother of these fabulous boys and watching them grow and become best friends. Priceless!

sewing class project!

I've been teaching a beginning sewing class, which by the way is so much fun and my class rocks. I have such an amazing bunch of ladies. We just finished rod pocket curtains and now we are working on pajama bottoms which it appears they are going to crank out a plethora of them. I had no idea they were chomping at the bit to make pajama bottoms so badly! It's pretty cool to see their confidence build and lights going on in their brains as we discuss riveting topics such as tension, stitch length, salvages and fabric choice.

Anyway, our next project will be skirt for themselves or girls in their lives. This project will mainly demonstrate the concept of grain, cross grain and bias and allow them to make something functional that they can show off. I found a tutorial for a bias skirt on one of my favorite blogs and thought I would try it out before I get my students to take their cutting to the point of no return. I had to adjust it a bit and it's still a little more triangular than I would like but it is really comfortable, really fun and nice and cool for this insufferable heat. I finished the waste band with FOE which is code word for "fold over elastic" which I happened to have a ton of from recent diaper making ventures.

I'm not too keen about the ankle shot (never liked those ankles!) but the pedicure (thanks to my cousin Amber) is pretty cute. You can't see it in this picture but there are tiny pink polka dots on the French Pedicure white section. Also as an added bonus on this skirt, my mother would be proud to see me in colors other than black, brown and grey...which truth be told I hardly ever don those colors since giving birth to 4 boys. I have definitely jacked up the pink and all things girly. Need to leave my mark amongst all this testosterone!

Vintage dressform project!

So I've been trying to find a dressform that I can use not only for designing clothing but mainly as a model to take pictures of aprons and such. Dressforms are not cheap my friends and I wanted one that was visually appealing also. I was mentioning it to my dear friend Jenny (who's photography is amazing and I secretly covet her talent, I'm not good with photos!) and a couple days later her and her sister had a yard sale and what did her very cool sister bring to the yard sale to sell??? You got it, a vintage dress form...which I promptly purchased with my mind swimming with ideas of how best to make it into a photo worthy dress form. I must admit, the robin egg blue color is charming and I am rather partial to it, however the bolts and screws all over the place and it is not very sturdy at all so I have a mission. This is a picture of the original dress form, stay tuned to see the finished project. If you have any suggestions of what color to paint it when it's done I would love to hear them...I've narrowed it down to 4 choices. 1)keep the original robin egg blue just a fresh coat of paint 2)red 3)black 4)white. Also I need suggestions of what kind of decorative element to put on top, some sort of finial or maybe a vintage crystal doorknob, anyway cast your votes!

Apronista madness!

Here are a couple of aprons I designed based on some of my grandmothers old patterns that I found when I went home to visit my mom. I helped her dejunk her sewing room and there were all these old crochet patterns, sewing patterns, embroidery patterns that I remembered from my grandmothers sewing room growing up...talk about nostalgia! the bluish apron was made for my dear friend Kristin who will look smashing in it she's very hip and cutting edge, happy birthday Kristin!