And the scarf goes to...!

Mars!!! 

Mars' number came up via random.org.  I'm going to bed now, but I'll notify in the morning.  Congratulations!

Fun with sleeping baby in arms...

I really have a thing for elephants.  So here I am elephant hunting while my little sweet boy snoozes in my lap.  I have really been trying to relax about spending an hour or two this way here and there because it is so sweet.  With my older son, this was an every day thing, but with number two it is just so much harder to justifying sitting on the couch for so much of the day.  Today I was really in a groove working on organizing my fabric and sewing room when nap time came around.  But it'll come back around, right?

I just love this Elephant Rider from Green Man Studio.  I love the rider's outfit.  I want this! 

These would be sweet for my little one, and especially sweet for the big guy and the baby to play together. 

Another nice one for baby from Lauren Smash Toys.  She's got some really cute little monsters, too.

And, this is completely irresistible to me.  I kind of wish it came in two sizes though.  Wouldn't it be fun to make several in mama and baby sizes and make it possible to connect the trunk to tail?  I doubt I will last too long before I purchase it.  And I can totally see it in some super snuggly gray/blue obv.

And another one...  I love them both.  How can I justify that?  This one from Funky Friends Factory might be more suitable for obv, but there's no chance of attaching trunks and tails for an elephant walk.  Yeah, I need both.  Look how chewable those tusks are!

The little guy's up!

A rare joy!

The little one and I both really digging doing our own thing side by side in my sewing room!  I was making a pattern for and cutting out a white long sleeve/long legged romper for him to wear under the R2D2 costume that Lindsay and Bonny are making for him (all of our six kids are going to be Star Wars characters, lol).  He was taking cones of thread out of my big thread bin, one by one, and then putting them back.  He was totally enthralled for nearly a half hour.  Woot!

For once I had a good reason for the pile of fabric on my sewing room floor.  I was hoping it would soften the blow when he threw himself backward, but he never did so I guess he's really gotten the hang of sitting up.  Another woot!  And, ummm, in my defense, I just moved into this room and have had no time to organize.

Always good to know when to let go.

Sometimes my ideas work out perfectly as planned, but more often they are abandoned midway or never get off the ground at all.  The snake outfit I was so excited about for my littler one is one of my abandoned projects that I think I will finally just put behind me, make it official.  But first I have to show you.  I think that'll lessen the sting. 

So this was the vision:  a summer outfit with pair of big flowy pants out of this awsome woven snake quilters' cotton that would be cool but still protect him from the sun and a turquoise cotton lycra onsie with a (way too elaborate) snake hand embroidered on the front.  Other than the snake, it was a fairly rational idea. 

Now that I see the picture I'm trying to think of ways to salvage it.  I could cut the snake out and applique it onto a shirt that would fit him next year, for instance.  But I think it may be better to let this sleeping dog lie.

So now I'm onto my next project, which, I'm happy to say, includes a simpler embroidery.  I just loved that celestial fabric I used for those navy Pomegranate Pants, so I thought I'd build an outfit around that.  (I have to say though that it's never a good sign when I'm thinking in oufits.  I much prefer to dress myself and my children in mix and match type stuff.  There is just something too goofy about tops and bottoms that match in theme.  But obviously, I find the pull of the outfit idea nearly irresistible, as far as my crafting goes.) 

I dyed a piece of the print and a piece of white cotton lycra a deep bright yellow.  I was hoping that the navy blue in the print would survive unchanged -- it matched the corduroy so perfectly, but of course it didn't.  Now it's a murkier looking navy that doesn't match the cord quite as well.  But it's close enough to make cute baby pants.  The c/l turned out very pretty and I think will make a nice background for some celestial embroideries.  I'm planning on a planet with ring a la saturn (which is also in the print) on the sleeve and a man in the moon (traced from the print) on the front and a shooting star somewhere.  Here's a pic of the iron on transfer I made. 

Alright, I'm off to embroider!

Here's the tute!

I'm so excited about having a little one to make my Pomegranate Pants for again!  I think the big guy was probably about 3 1/2 the last time I made him a pair.  And he's actually got a pair that has fit him for close to four years now!  He was in diapers when I made them as long pants, so they became board shorts when he potty-learned and now they are a bit above his knees.  I still love them!  I made him all sorts of fancy pairs, but this pair he still wears is just a solid deep chartreuse almost avocado twill that looks gorgeous with almost anything.  I wonder if they will be totally worn out before I can put them on the baby.  Actually I wouldn't be surprised if he was close to fitting them now.  So, whatever you do, don't fret too much about the sizing.  As long as your waist and length are close, you're good.

I recommend these from about 1T to 3T, and maybe a little larger for board shorts.  At some point, the child will be too tall for these pockets to be practical.  But I have been told that they make perfect light saber pockets for five and six-year-olds.  They work well on boys and girls.  Here's a pic of my favorite pair I made for a girl.  Her mom told me the other day that her sweet little sister is wearing these now.

I tried to write the tutorial to accommodate all levels of sewing experience.  Just click on "read more" to see it.  Let me know if anything is confusing. 

Comment here for my giveaway... please!

sigh...

A Give-Away!

NOTE:  I'm so sorry my comments aren't working on this post.  To post a comment please click here.  Thanks!  And sorry this is a pita! 
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It's a scarf made out of organic bamboo velour dyed in various shades of teal and camel and it's six inches wide and barely shy of sixty inches long. 

And here's my friend, Evie, modeling it.  Just in case it's not obvious (since the scarf is very slimming), Evie is pretty pregnant here. 

If you'd like it  (oooh, and wouldn't it make a wonderful holiday gift?), just visit my shop and tell me in a comment to this blog post what colors and/or combinations of colors you'd like to see in my shop and tell me how you found my blog.  Then, two weeks from today, on Oct 28th, I'll pick a commenter randomly and contact you for an address.

I'm working on a tutorial!

Finally...  I've been meaning to do this for a while.  Truth is that baby doesn't seem demanding at all until I decide I want to do something.  And then I am shocked!  He doesn't want to be out of my arms for a minute!

Anyhow, I have this vision for my blog.  I'd really like to do a bunch of boy-friendly tutorials.  (And since I don't think my boy clothes must scream "boy", they will all or nearly all be girl-friendly, too.  I probably won't be doing any dresses or ruffles, though.)  I hate it when I see (mostly online) moms compaining that there's nothing cute to sew for their boys.  It's just not true!  I have gotten great joy out of creating things for my boys and I'd like to encourage other boy-moms (and dads) to enjoy it, too.  I'd love to look up a couple of years from now and see a whole wardrobe's worth of boy tutes in my blog -- and fun, cute ones that parents will enjoy making and boys will enjoy wearing.

So, first up is a tutorial for my Pomegranate Pants.  I've started taking pics and I'm hoping to get the tutorial up within the next few days (though, like I said, a little certain somebody may not cooperate).  I'm really excited to share it!  And here's a little teaser, one of my favorite pairs:

I used to have a whole album of them but it's been dismantled.  There's a bunch in here, though.

Birthday pics with a side of mama-made

So we had the big guy's birthday party on Saturday and it was not the best planned affair but the kids really had a blast.  I'm so happy with how everything turned out!  He said he wanted to have it at Harry Griffin Park, which was a little far from school, so I was worried that people might not come, and also that it would be hard to get a good spot with a table near the playground.  As it turned out, when we got there at 11:30, which I knew was pretty darned late to get a table, there were already like 15 parties set up.  We ended up having to take a table sort of back in the woods not all that close to the playground and pretty hard to find.  Ugh.  But, everyone did eventually find us and it turned out to be a wonderful spot because the kids didn't play on the playground at all, they stayed in the woodsy area and in the outdoor theater area near the tables and played tag and lots of pretend stuff and tons of interacting with each other, which I doubt would have been the case on the playground.  And most important, the big guy was really happy with it.  Phew!

The top pic is the big guy with two friends that he's loved since they were all babies.  We have known the little girl on the left since she was five months old (and she also turned six this month) and met the one in the middle very soon after.  Her mom has always taken the most beautiful pictures of my boys and she took these with her phone.  I can't believe she takes better pics on her phone than I do with my camera.  Sigh...

And of course I made his six shirt and it turned out just as I had envisioned!  The party was vaguely halloween themed -- halloween invites, cake, goodie bags -- and the shirt's got trick-or-treating skeletons on it.  I was afraid the "6" wouldn't pop if I put it right on the dark gray shirt-front, so I put a layer of chartreuse jersey behind it and sewed the six on with a straight stitch right on the edge of the skeleton print so the raw edges of  jersey underneath could roll.  You may see more of these in the future.  It wasn't actually that long ago that I realized how easy it is to applique onto a knit, and I'm still all jazzed up about it.  I'm also pleased that it has more of a big boy look than most of the shirts I've made with prints. 

Bought a couple of things for the boys!

We're all going to D.C. for Thanksgiving so they really need some cold weather stuff. No *really*, these purchases were totally justified! Plus, I've been drooling over this hat pattern for so long that I owed its author something. So, yesterday morning, I figured I'd take the plunge and buy it. And it was an instant download, so I could get started right away. Yay for instant gratification!  (And then, just my luck, about ten minutes later I broke a dish and cut BOTH hands badly enough that there was no way I was going to be able to start for a couple of days.  Wah!)

If you look here, you can see about 4,000 versions of the hat.  And here's the pattern.  My little guy's is going to be made with a really gorgeous raspberry and olive variegated wool and a matching solid olive that I bought for longies while I was pregnant, in stripes I think.  My older picked this awsome autumn leaves colorway from Evermore Studios, and I can't wait to play with it!

He's got very mature taste for a six year old.  Don't you think?

I also bought the older one a monster of his very own from Allyshells Craft Shack.  I bought one for myself when it started looking like the completion of my new sewing room was imminent.  Although I have all sorts of plans, he was my first, and so far only, stab at decorating my new room (which I am actually sewing in now!).His name is Zimbakren Mclayray and, if you can believe it, he is even more stunning in person:

I seriously adore this monster!  Sooooo, when my older told me that he wanted to bring him to school to share with the class for his "me week" I got a little melty (I also feel this way when he likes a song that I do) and told him I thought he needed a monster for his new room, too.  So this is who he picked out:

Alyshell had a portrait of him for sale and did the sculpture for us custom, which I am pretty sure made my older feel like it was even cooler.