A new dress.

After much success with the Simplicity pattern, I decided to pick up something a little shorter, a little more casual. I can't find the pattern right now or I'd tell you what it was. It was not Simplicity and it was not simple. I thought it would be easy but I had a lot of trouble with it. The instructions said to do things that didn't make sense. When I would look up the words they were using, I still couldn't figure out what they were asking me to do so I just did what seemed right. I guess that's why sewing classes are useful. I've never really had one.

I love how this turned out. I used yet another Alexander Henry fabric that is fabulous. It's called Traffic Pattern. I paired it with a dusty blue polka dot that I picked up at the local quilt shop. Instead of buttons, I used snaps. I still don't know how to use my machine to make a button hole and what toddler is going to sit still long enough for you to button them into something. Mine sure doesn't.

Mr. Lemon assisted with the photo shoot on the porch by blowing bubbles to entertain the little one. More pics on flickr (link to the left).

Other Crafty Endeavors

This summer I took advantage of semi-lax summer hours and a cooler-than-I-ever-remember-it weather pattern, and made a whole bunch of stuff for my kid:
This is a little drawstring bag lined with a shirt I bought at Gabe's just for the print. I appliqued these crazy animals onto it. They're from some fabric someone gave my mom. It's very weird and safari-esque. We put the finger puppets we bought last year at Old Navy into it.





I love this little fabric book. I cut out the animals from the new Eric Carle fabric that my local quilt shop surprisingly had in stock. I appliqued them onto some of my favorite prints from my stash. The facing pages are all solids. The inside of the cover also uses some of the fabric from the Eric Carle yardage. I didn't have a pattern or directions to follow so I just sorta went with it and I think it turned out well. I improvised a Japanese stab binding and it has started to come apart from toddler abuse so I'll have another go at that with some thicker thread or I'll double up the embroidery floss. That number print is Alexander Henry.

This is a travel highchair. If you do a google search you'll see what one looks like in use. I used some more fabric my mom gave me (her church quilt buddies gave it to her -- you can't buy stuff this amazing). There is also some polka dot and corduroy from my stash and that paisley print is a fat quarter I got free when buying from an Etsy shop that was having a sale. Oh, and of course, that Joel Dewberry pink faux boix that I can't get enough of (literally). I like the way the prints work together.

Small for Big

My screenprinted yeti onesies were featured on the awesome Small for Big blog that features really cool stuff for kids.

These onesies have been really popular and I'm considering making more. I have my friend Dorsey, who prints all my yeti shirts for me, print some onto fabric. I iron my fusible interfacing to the back of them, cut them out, then iron them on to the onesies and use the sewing machine to do the applique like I do for my other designs. His press is too large to print directly onto onesies.

People had been asking for these for a while so I made some up. It's so nice when someone else "gets" your stuff. I want my stuff to have an edge without being snarky. I want my kid to look good without announcing her parents' sense of humor to the world. I have so far successfully avoided buying baby clothes without witty (or not-so-witty phrases on them) and I'm hoping to keep that up and make it possible for others to do the same.