Posts Tagged ‘Penelope’

Sewing: Floral Dress for Penelope

March 5th, 2013
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I was pricing out some fabric for a youth activity for church and I came across this floral fabric at JoAnn. It’s cute but perhaps a bit too much for something for me (I’m such a selfish sewer, I rarely think of projects for Penelope and Felix before projects for me). I had to buy it, though, the colors and drape were so nice. So a project for Penelope it was!

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Penelope certainly has a shortage of church-appropriate dresses these days. She has been growing by leaps and bounds. The travails of growing up! I wanted to make a cozy transitional spring dress that could work on cold spring days. It’s about 10-20 degrees colder on the mountain where we live than down in the valley, so I’m trying to boost all of our wardrobes with light-weight long sleeves in preparation for spring.

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With her recent spurt in mind, I made her a simple jersey dress that hits just below her calf. This should fit her for at least the next year. I hope!

I used one of her shirts to draft up the top, but I just estimated around the sleeves since I made just a batwing sleeve so I wouldn’t have to inset sleeves (I’m lazy, I know). I then attached the batwing top to a rectangular skirt (about 4x Penelope’s waist).

This fabric has a four-way stretch so to keep it from losing its shape, I reinforced the waist seam with narrow elastic. It’s all on the inside, so you don’t see it. It’s soft enough that Penelope doesn’t even notice it.

For the hem finishes, I just made bands at the neck, waist and bottom hem. It was easy enough and I had enough fabric left over to do that.

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She’s pretty thrilled with her new outfit. Her reaction when I showed her the finished dress was just priceless. I really wish I had it on camera. I can’t help but feel so giddy to see her say, “Oh mommy!!! It’s for me?!? *gasp* It’s so beeeauteeful!”

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The success of this project has really gotten me excited for Easter outfits. I have the perfect fabric in mind for all of us. I’ll have to upload sketches soon. Growing up we had a family tradition of new church outfits (matching, sewn by my mom) and I plan to try to keep that tradition as long as I can. Do you do that? What are your plans?

Sewing: Leggings for Penelope

February 18th, 2013
2 Comments

It was another bust of a weekend. It’s like we’re never going to get out of this flu season alive. I’m sure we will, I’m just having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Felix is now sick, which put a stop to all of his birthday festivities that I had planned. I’m hoping we can celebrate at some point this week. At least Felix is at an age where he has no idea when his birthday is – let alone the day of the week – so he’s not disappointed one bit.

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I found this sweet fabric at Fashion Fabrics Club and got so excited to make a little dress for Penelope. I thought it would’ve been a regular tshirt knit (like it was described), but I should have taken better notice of the fiber content. It’s not really suitable for blouses, it’s more suitable for activewear. It’s like a swim suit fabric. Disappointing, yes. But, the fabric also reminded me of my favorite dance pants in high school, so I made lemonade and whipped up leggings for Penelope. They’re shiny, so it kinda goes with the whole liquid legs fad. Right? I don’t care. They’re super cute.

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I told Penelope to show her dad her new leggings and she said, “Mommy, no – these are not pants, they’re leggings. I need to go put my pants on.”

Well, now I see where she stands on the whole are leggings pants thing. She’s still wearing them, though.

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Not really wanting to participate for the photo shoot, I bribed her with her phone. I’m such a good mom, letting her watch her phone all day.

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I used a pair of old leggings for the fit of these, but I had to alter the pants a lot afterwards. I’m going to start from scratch for her next pair. For how to make baby leggings (9-12 mo pattern included) click here. For mama leggings, click here.

Fabric provided by FashionFabricsClub.com

Flu Season Wins

February 11th, 2013
3 Comments

I’ve been popping pills like an addict to stave off the pain and fever basically all weekend. I’m pretty sure this is how I felt when I had strep throat many years ago, but we won’t find out for sure until later this afternoon.

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I feel like at least one of us has been sick at any given time since the end of January. No reprieve for us. Penelope has been hit the hardest, poor girl. Seriously, look at that face. It stinks, but it could always be worse. We are counting our blessings.

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And then there’s Felix. He seemed to be least affected by all the bugs flying around our house. Look at this guy! He’s so happy and cuddly, it doesn’t matter what’s going on (unless Penelope takes away one of his toys).

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On a more positive note, we got rid of a bunch of old furniture that has been cluttering up our hallway. It’s only taken us 3 months to do it. No big deal! Our hallway feels so empty without the headboard and six foot desk propped up against the walls. It’s time to put artwork up there instead.

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I’m planning on taking it relatively easy this week and focusing on hanging art in the hallway and living room. We’ve got an expansive blank wall above our couch, something needs to be done about it. Stat.

We were very pleased to get our new vacuum last week (huge splurge) – it actually works unlike our last one. It’s got so many beautifully engineered bells and whistles I’ve actually enjoyed vacuuming the floors (!!). P has even joined in on the fun, too.

We also got the most lovely wool rug from Dash & Albert. I’ll show more pictures once this space is complete, but you get the idea. I won it at Alt Summit – I’ve been eyeing it for months, so I couldn’t be more thrilled about our new piece. It definitely makes the living room look more posh.

Sewing: Cosby Sweater

November 15th, 2012
16 Comments

I found this insane sweater knit near the Riley Blake knits at JoAnn fabric. It’s sort of hideous, but really cool. I was a bit bummed at the price tag of $20 a yard (you know how I am), but after doing some precise mathematical equations in my head I figured I would really only need 1/2 a yard to make a sweater for Penelope. $10 was somehow easier for me to digest, so I bought it.

And precise I was! I had about 10 square inches of leftover fabric after making Penelope’s sweater. That made me feel pretty awesome about my math skills.

And Penelope loves this sweater (despite her expression here). I have no idea what this facial expression is about. Maybe she’s channeling a tortured artist vibe.

The sweater itself was really easy to make, I used mostly straight lines, see the illustration and instructions below for details on how you can make your own. I bet you could do something similar with a thrifted or hand-me-down sweater.

You’ll want to make your pattern first. Draw up your pattern on butcher paper, cardboard, newsprint, whatever. I typically have my model and a well-fitting shirt on hand to get a good fit. Measure your model’s chest, divide by two and add 1 inch (based on a 1/2 inch seam allowance). Draw the line out on your paper. Measure down to the waist. Do the same thing for the waist measurement. Measure the length of your sweater and use a shirt as your guide for the neckline. Instead of doing inset sleeves, I just draw straight lines from shoulder to pit. This will make it so easy to sew. Since you’ll be sewing with a stretchy material, the fit doesn’t have to be super perfect.

Measure your arm width at pit and wrist and draw up your simple pattern using straight lines. You can refer back to your shirt as a reference, if needed.

Cut on grain, and match up your grain! Now sew!

  1. Pin front and back right sides together. Sew shoulder seams and press open.
  2. Pin body and sleeve right sides together. Sew pit seams and press open.
  3. pin sides (and sleeve) right sides together. Sew side seams and press open.
  4. Hem sleeves by folding under 1/2 inch and sewing or attach ribbing.
  5. Hem sweater bottom by folding under 1/2 inch and sewing or attach ribbing.
  6. Cut ribbing 3 inches wide and as long as your opening (I cut it really long). Pin right sides together along neckline, stretching ribbing as you pin. Sew and press open, with the seam allowance facing down.
When sewing with sweater knits, you’ll want to use one or more of the following:
  • straight stitch with a short stitch length (I used 2.5)
  • straight stitch with a double needle and wooly nylon in your bobbin
  • a walking foot to keep both layers feeding uniformly
  • sew all your seams with a serger

Let me know if you make something similar. I would love to see how it turns out!

Sponsored: Crafting with Penelope

November 14th, 2012
7 Comments

This post is sponsored by KiwiCrate.com. Fun and engaging art and science projects in a box for kids aged 3-7, delivered monthly!

Connect with Kiwi Crate via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for new products, great ideas and exclusive deals.

We moved this summer, and we got to our new place too late to register Penelope for most of the local preschools.  There were a few options; one of them being a preschool that was 30 minutes away and charged $250 a month. Around Utah, that’s a LOT of money for preschool—when we lived in the SF area, $250 was unheard of everything started at $300+—and it would have been 2 hours of commuting for the kids and me.  I decided that it was better to spend that tuition money on a babysitter so I can keep up with the house/blog/craftwork a few days a week and focus on schooling and being present for Penelope and Felix on off-days.

Kate from The Red Kitchen gave me a few resources and we’ve been loosely following her preschool plan. It’s been great; however, I often don’t have the motivation to get creative with Penelope’s activities. Anything creative that I would do with Nelly is usually too much of a mess or would take more time to set up than I can spare. Penelope and I recently received a nice surprise from Kiwi Crate that lets customers sign up for monthly kids craft deliveries.  They sent me one of their seasonal crates, and it has been, as Finn the Human would say, Mathematical! The crate came packed with monotype supplies for decorating the included gifts and notecards.

Moments like these make me wonder why I don’t bust out more creative projects with Penelope. We need to take more advantage of her unbridled creativity.

Penelope made this present for Chris, and she’s super excited to give it to him for Christmas.  In keeping with our family’s recent Adventure Time fixation, she says that her print is a depiction of Jake the Dog. I think it’s amazing.

We had plenty of left over supplies, so we made a print transfer onto fabric and I embellished one of her shirts with it. Another very simple project, but she won’t take this shirt off. She knows how to make this mama proud.

Sponsorship aside, I’ve been incredibly impressed with Kiwi Crates. The quality of the materials are fantastic – they include real art supplies. They encourage real creativity without a dependency on licensed characters (Disney, Sesame Street, Etc). And no preparation is required: Penelope and I were projecting within seconds of the crate arriving on our doorstep. With pre-schooling Penelope and the inevitable long winter ahead, we’ll be using Kiwi Crate in the future.

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