Sophea's New Hat and Lunch Bag

 

 

 

Sophea wanted baby chicks on her bucket hat and lunch bag.

 Fabric Depot  had about 30 choices so it was difficult to decide what a 5 year old would want.
I went with the quiet blue with the words, "peep, peep, peep"

 I love these Stearman biplane patches. The hats are reversible.

I thought about adding a chin strap and decided not to. Someone in blogland added straps that attached via  a buttonhole just above the brim on the side of the hats. I thought about it for all of 20 minutes but decided not to. Those straps would get taken off and put somewhere special or flop around when not attached and......one more thing.

I did attach a cross body strap. Re-purposed from some belts with d-rings, I saved these striped beltings for this very day! haha.
Still - you never see striped beltings at the fabric store so being thrifty is useful.

Still coming up with stuffing.
I'll ship them to Battleground tomorrow.

Ella's hat is here:

Formula 1  bag is here:

First bucket hat - too small for Sophea was here:

My niece still wants a bucket hat for gardening. I like the oval tops and most of the free adult bucket hats have round tops. I'll have to get out my thinking cap and do some circular maths and come up with something that will fit my head, thus, fitting her head. We run to big heads in our family.

Ella's Hat & Lunchbag

I managed to get Ella's Bucket hat and Lunch bag done today.
I'll finish her sister's Lunchbag tonight.

 Ella wanted Ladybugs of which there were only three different cotton fabrics at Fabric Depot.

I found a small airplane logo fabric while I was there and I added a patch to the gingham side so they remember their airplane auntie.

 Sophea's choice of little chicks was more difficult with about 30 choices.
I'll post her hat and bag tomorrow.
Got to finish her bag first.

Owl Valentines

For my little grand-nieces - cutie pies that they are.
Mailing it today - the package should arrive tomorrow.

I saw this idea traipsing through the internet. 
Saw a pattern for five bucks.
Decided to make my own.
Just the right size to hold a few Valentine treats.

Monster Aprons

My practice grandkids are turning 5 and 3 this year. 




Phea has a birthday  party next week.  She is turning five years old already! Since they have about eight sets of grandparents and I'm smart, I am sending them the aprons this week so they won't compete with all the presents next week.

I picked up this pattern at Quilt Expo this year. I was not sure about how my great-nieces were going to get into these aprons themselves. I thought about re-drafting the back to cover their back with just velcro at the top. In the end, reality imploded said, don't change up the pattern because you are gone from your house 12 hours a day and you are approaching exhaustion. For once, I sewed this project as drafted and as instructed.

The bias tape forms loops so you can adjust the fit.
Afterall, my great-nieces reside over an hour from me
- it's not like I can fit the apron on them. I'm guessing at the sizing as it is.


The mouth forms a pocket for kitchen stuff.






Pink for Phea.    Rooaarr!!!!

Halloween Great-nieces

Great-nieces and friends.

Freezer Paper Stencils

Airplane stencils

For the Fugli giveaway - go here. I think I am closing this Sunday because now that I know I am infested with Fugli's, I feel the need for them to ship out-of-state - even out-of-the-country sooner.

My little great-niece turns one tomorrow.
I have two of these great-nieces and I consider them my practice grandchildren. So much fun.  However, these two little munchkins have 8 sets of G's and they live in a tiny house.
Hand-made gifts work really well here.
You might recall my sister and I outfitted the older niece with a fantastic doll bed for Christmas.

It seems like everybody in blog land has heard of freezer paper stencils. It's incredibly easy to do because for a onesie - you are looking at a 4" stencil at best. The hardest part is cutting out the stencil.

I printed the airplane onto the freezer paper. The frog was traced at the window.

My choices were an Airplane (from the airplane auntie), a dragonfly, and a froggie.
Hint: Pick images that are easy to cut out - i.e. line drawings.

After work today, I stopped off at Walmart to see what they had in solid color onesies. Almost everything for babies is short sleeve. Although we are heading for Spring, I really wanted something in the way of longer sleeves.

This is what I ended up with. The purple stripe, the pink small print, and one long-sleeved bodysuit. All from Faded Glory. These were $2.27 a piece, making this an affordable gift.

First, iron a piece of freezer paper inside the onesie. This will keep the paint from bleeding thru.
Second: Iron the stencil onto the front.  The stripes were very nice to line up the airplane straight.

That's about when I discovered the box of craft paints no longer resides here (mumble, grumble, text).

Ironing the stencil on, generally, means the paint won't bleed under. Pretty cool, really.

I had a jar of Luminous paint in my favorite blue-green, a spring green craft paint, and dimensional paint in black and white.

No - I DID NOT cut out the dragonfly. I have a mylar stencil.

Using what I have on hand, at least the three onesies will be coordinated.

I used the dimensional paint to make froggie eyes.

Photo taken at night-time. It's still a green frog on a pink shirt but it's a varigated green - really froggie green.

 I also tried my hand at shadowing the airplane with the black dimensional paint.This purple shirt probably needed a second coat - a little more difficult in getting an even coat. My shadowing isn't bad. Remember I told you the paints don't reside here anymore? Well - the brushes aren't here either. I had one brush that if I flattened it to a line against my finger, I could get an almost straight line. The prop lines were freehand.

And here's my fave - the dragonfly on white.

Fun project. I didn't post any links because there are about a thousand out there. YouTube videos as well.

The last thing I need to do is heat-set these. Generally, this involves your hot (dry) iron and a pressing cloth. Tomorrow (24 hours), I will cover the design with my pressing cloth and press for a few seconds. This should make the ink/paint permanent thru multiple washings.

Catch-up Photos

Clearing out my temporary photo file --- wanted to share:

Miss Ella - behaving herself at  an Ikea shopping trip

 Missy Sophea - my great-niece. One of her grandma's made this darling knitted jumper dress. The armholes and neckline have a knitted embellishment.

 My fabulous Amaryllis.
Sent up one stalk which was four (4!) trumpets. The second stalk also had four trumpets.
It started blooming New Year's Day and is still going strong.

 Playing around with my camera settings - post Christmas.
I'd taken all the ornaments off and sorted them into boxes for my kids and wrapped the rest away - down to the lights when I took this breather.

And finally, this cute little doll-sized trunk. It looks like a simple wood box you can buy at Micahel's and then add 'leather' embellishments.  It's on my inspiration board- which if I could manage one more web platform - would be Pinterest.  Pretend Pinterest.

I think this closes out 2011.