shirt and shorts: sleep sets

Two identical pairs of pajamas - but it took me two months to finally get around to finishing the second pair.  I used the same pattern as the nightgowns I made earlier this year, and just traced off some of her current pajama pants.  It took about an hour per piece (top and bottom).  She LOVES her sheepy pajamas (since she love all things sheep), but the floral ones are equally as comfy.  

S is for Stencil

I made three (more) reusable grocery bags back in April.  Two for Tawnia, and another one for me.  I had just discovered freezer paper stencils, so I had to try it out.  (For a complete tutorial you can find one here.)  I have tried painting on fabric before, and this is the best method I have found so far to get clean lines and enough layers of paint on so it won't fade.

My favorite was the mermaid one (I found the original image on Pinterest and free-handed it).  A bold graphic that came together really quickly.  The aunt quote is fabulous BUT it took for. ever. to cut out all the letters.  Worth it, because Tawnia uses it all the time and loves it.  Tawnia also requested some flowers - and her favorites are lilacs.  I didn't stencil those at all, just had fun with a paintbrush, but I stenciled the butterflies afterwards.

Grey Sheepy shirt for a sheepy 4th birthday party!

 I actually made this shirt and stenciled it back in April.  I was going to use it to surprise my brother and sisters when I visited them.  But right before the trip I miscarried and had to put the shirt away.  Funny enough, when my sister came to visit at the beginning of August, I was able to pull out the shirt again to make our announcement to her!

I is for INSANE!!!!

So the three older girls and I just wrapped up with a community theater production of "The Music Man" - the girls were in the junior chorus, and I was one of the pick-a-little ladies. About 10 days before the show was scheduled, I asked the producer what we were going to do about the toga costumes for the Grecian Urn sequence ... she didn't know ... I figured it out ... and suddenly I'm charged with making ten togas in a week ... I don't think that's quite what I was offering, but there you go. And glory be - I pulled it off! Just in time for the dress rehearsal! For real. Dress rehearsal was Wednesday. I finished the last one around midnight on Tuesday night.

I used this tutorial for a pillowcase dress, although ours obviously were for adults. My original measurement for the two rectangles of fabric was 36x60 inches, and we adjusted from there. A couple of the ladies needed it wider, a couple more narrow, and some needed to be hemmed a lot more than others - but that was the starting point. For the fabric, I went to Walmart and got the cheapest white top sheets I could find in the bedding section - a twin was 5 bucks and I could get three togas out of two sheets, depending on the measurements. I used a 1-1/2 inch satiny ribbon for the shoulders - a couple of years ago, I got huge spools of ribbon from clearance in the gift wrap section after Christmas and they were still just sitting there. This was a good use of it. That was pretty much it - it just took a lot of time because I had to do them all really fast, and there were so many! I did get some help from a couple of people, which I very much appreciated because at the same time, Adam has been sick all month and we were trying to put up blueberries (frozen) and cucumbers (pickles) (not combined) from the summer harvest.

Anyway, the togas. The insane number of togas:

 "Aaaand a fountain!"

"Triiiiickle trickle trickle trickle!"

H is for hatinator

My hat for "The Music Man" ...

Th original hat was in a box of random hats, and this was the only one that fit my head over my hair ... but it was too big, and the brim was too floppy. So I cut the dome and settled the top down into it further - you can kind of see the line on the top left in the picture. The stitching was really obvious so I knew I had to cover it with something ... obviously I went with lace. I also cut about a half inch off the brim and that helped A LOT. I originally wanted to get a feather boa and just wind it all around but I never made it to the store to get one. When I was doing the lace, I also pulled out the tulle, thinking I'd make some kind of bow but fortunately (because this was about 3 hours before the dress rehearsal), inspiration struck and I just twisted a long strip of tulle around and around and fluffed it up. Except for the stitching on the dome, the whole thing was done with a heck of a lot of glue in my hot glue gun.

And here we are!!

The hat in action! On stage, I was the Pick-a-little soloist ... "Just melt her down and you'll reveal a lump of lead as cold as steel ..."

And with three of my girls in "Wells Fargo" ...

P.S. This type of big foofy hat, in England anyway, is actually called a Hatinator. Here, we just call it a Kentucky Derby Hat. HA!