Butterfly Garland

Over our summer holiday, Ben’s mom bought the girls a really adorable butterfly garland during our layover in the Seattle airport. We kind of fell into a butterfly theme for their room some time ago and it stuck.  Since their bedroom has no overhead lighting, and the idea of putting standing lights in there made visions of crashing stands and broken light bulbs dance in my head, I opted to hang colored Christmas lights instead. We also found some cute patio butterfly lights at Target that fit right in and Ophelia is rather partial to them. The only downside to the arrangement was the single unsightly cord hanging from the corner. It’s tucked out of the way of the children’s reach, but still, there it was. Ben had the ingenious idea of wiring the new garland so we could wrap it around the cord to hide it. I had some craft wire on hand, and tied the garland tight in between a door knob and a cabinet to hold it still. After locking the cat in the laundry room (she thought it was all a fantastic game), Ophelia and I spiral wrapped the wire around the fishing line that suspended the butterflies and tacked it to the ceiling before wrapping around the offending power cord. Tada!
(Side note: Ophelia does not sleep in the crib. It’s in there for Mira, but since Mira hasn’t graduated out of the pack n’ play yet, Ophelia makes good use of the crib as a trampoline.)

baptism gowns

I had originally planned to use the baptism gown that I made for Bella for all of my girls. Then I pulled it out last week and was reminded how ridiculously huge it was, even though I made it in the 0-3 month size and followed all the correct seam allowances and everything. When I say huge, I mean she could probably wear it now at the age of 3 1/2 YEARS. Anyway. So I decided that Eva should have a better fitting one, and I also decided that it would be nice for each of my girls to have their own to use for their girls (I’m a big fan of family heirlooms like that). I used the same pattern for Eva’s, but I made it a size smaller (the xxs, up to 7 lbs size that is still too big, but at least it’s an improvement). I used a different trim and tried out some “decorative folding” along the bottom. If you have any idea what the real name for this decorative folding is, please let me know. Maybe it’s just called pleats, I don’t know.

Eva’s dress is in the foreground with Bella’s in the back.

Here is Bella’s collar…

And Eva’s collar…

And Eva’s skirt…

And the trim on each of the skirts…

I do not recommend waiting till the last few days to get something like this done. I was up till the early hours of Sunday morning hemming Eva’s dress so that she could wear it for her baptism yesterday. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of Eva in her dress yesterday because everyone forgot cameras, but here’s Bella in hers from a few years back and apparently I have no pictures of Bella in hers either. Maybe we’ll get our act together for the next one!

Introducing the Tagger

The Tagger is Beloveds answer to the cliche of tacky and bulky comfort items. They don’t think children need to be over stimulated to be entertained and comforted. They have chosen quality fabrics that are interesting, elegant and texturized for maximum motor skill development without offending your sense of aesthetics.

More Skirts

I’m still enjoying making little skirts and experimenting with all the settings on my machine. Here are the latest…

pretty burp rags?

I’m really not sure what the purpose of these are, but I saw some similar ones on Etsy and thought that they looked like a fun place to use some of the fabric I’ve been collecting. I suppose that they just serve to glam up what are normally very mundane birds eye cloth diaper burp rags. Whatever the reason, I like them, and there are two packed away in my hospital bag.

As a bit of an aside, I think these are also a great testimony to expectant fathers-to-be how undeniable the nesting urge can be sometimes. My husband came home and saw me making these and kind of just stood there for a minute and watched until I looked up and said, “Yes, I’m sewing pretty fabric on to diapers. I know, don’t ask, but I am.” And fortunately, he understood.

My Hotsling

I also refuse to pay $50+ for what is basically stretch cotton sewn together at the ends. So again, I turn to my trusty Viking and make my own. Apparently I’m really into hot pink this time around, so a lot of baby things are coming out in that hue. I followed this tutorial which happens to be fantastic, mainly because of the pictures. It’s kind of hard to display without a baby tucked inside, so you’ll just have to wait a month or so for some modeling pictures.

My Moby

I refuse to pay $50+ for what is basically a length of knit fabric. That just seems silly to me. I’d much rather go to JoAnn’s, pay $15 for 5 yards of knit and add in a fun bit of hot pink floral to the middle (left over from another project) to make my own sort of Moby D wrap. Here’s a pic.

The picture is kind of non-descript right now (they’re kinda hard to display without the wee little one inside), but you get the idea. I’ve tried it on and I’m a little concerned that it’ll be way too warm this summer, but we’ll see. If you’re not sure how the Moby wrap works, here’s my 3 year old big-sis-to-be modeling a Mini-Moby.

Easter Skirts

I’m also in the middle of making Easter skirts for Ophelia and Mira. I’m using a faux Dupioni silk in gold with a sheer embroidered overlay in ivory. We’ll also be attempting to add some volume with eggplant colored tulle underneath it all. Here is little M helping me…

Easy Skirt

I ran across some fabric I loved in the scrap bin at Joanns the other day. It was brown cotton, with a muted red plaid pattern.  I cut it into two rectangles. One was 10″ x 29″ and the other 12″ x 45″. I hemmed under the long side at about a 1/2″ to be the bottom of the skirt and created a seam at about 3/4″ for the elastic casing on the other long side. Then I sewed both the short ends together (make sure not to sew the 3/4″  together). I used 1/2″ elastic and threaded it through the casing and sewed the ends of the elastic together before pulling the fabric over top and sewing it in place.  Then I just turned it right side out. It was really easy and both skirts were made in about an hour. It helped to have the plaid pattern because it made it easier to sew in a straight line (a big challenge for me).

Simple Dress Dilemma

I was inspired to make my daughters little matching dresses since I had such roaring success with Ophelia’s. It took me several hours and several seams ripped before I turned out this little gem.

It was only when I tried the finished product on Miss Mira that I realized in my attempt to keep any loose ribbons from being a hazard that I had made the straps undeniably the wrong size. The fact that she is a mobile little creature who won’t tolerate “beauty takes pain”-ness-straight-jacket-like-sheath-dress also came to light. Looks like Ophelia’s babydoll just inherited a new dress. As you can see, I also made little shorts, but in my haste to turn them out before the end of naptimes, I forgot to make them diaper sized friendly. Pride goeth before the whatsit? Better luck next time.