A little gift sewing....

Thing 1 had a birthday party to attend a few weeks ago, and his friend loves lizards!  We looked in vain for some sort of a stuffed lizard for him, and then Thing 1 thought that a pillowcase would be fine.  Then we searched in vain in the fabric stores for a suitable fabric - I know I've seen cute lizard fabric in the not too distant past! - and came home to find the perfect flannel print and coordinating solid in my stash.  Go figure!  I made this up the night before the party, and both the boy and his mom loved it!

And one of my friends was having a birthday, and she's expressed interest in the past for using cloth grocery bags.  I know that she hasn't gotten around to making herself any, so I thought that would be a perfect gift for her birthday!  (As well as using up some of my stash....)  The outer fabric is a wine labels print that I picked up on clearance at JAF years ago.  The lining is the same fabric, but on a tan background.  I think it's pretty hilarious for grocery sacks.  Hopefully she likes them!

And I realize this one isn't sewing, but it's pretty darn cute!  Thing 1 loves penguins, so I found a penguin cake mold at Amazon.  This is the prototype for his birthday party cake.  It didn't take too long to decorate, partly thanks to the large white belly.  And it's a smaller cake - doesn't use the whole box mix.  I think I'll have two for the party.  Anyway, Thing 1 loved it!

New pants!

Still catching up on blogging about Easter sewing....

Thing 1 is outgrowing his pants - go figure!  And he keeps getting holes in the knees of the ones that do fit.  So first I finally forced myself to repair 3 pairs at once, and then I searched through stores for new ones to fit.  But that was a losing battle, as he likes elastic waist, which have suddenly seemed to disappear from stores.  I don't get it.  Anyway, I thought that we were set on black pants for the Easter services and school concert, until I realized that his black pants are old enough to now be dark grey, especially from a distance.  Oops!  Time for a quick trip to JAF for black wrinklease twill!

These are KS 3042, size M with 2 inches added in length.  Since I was sewing pants with black thread, I also sewed similar pairs in a Transformers print (WM) and a dinosaur camo print on black (JAF, not pictured) for Thing 1 and a solid black pair (not pictured) in size XS for Thing 2 (his formerly black pants were also looking a bit grey).  I had to resize my templates for pocket openings, bags, and facings, but I think they turned out well.  And you can't tell from the picture (and it wasn't very visible on my other pictures, so I didn't bother using them), but I tried to make them look a little more RTW by pressing back the outer seam allowance and stitching it down about a 1/4 inch from the seam.  I also stitched a faux fly, as some of my son's RTW pants have this.  And I edge-stitched the top of the waistband before inserting the elastic.  I thought that might help keep that fabric from getting holes in it so readily.  We'll see....At any rate, three new pairs of pants that fit and are even a little long have now been added to the drawer!

Easter shirts! (yes, finally!)

Yes, I've been horribly remiss in posting pictures of completed Easter outfits to date.  Ridiculous, I know!  Anyway, here goes (and these are both B3475):

First up, Thing 1's white penguin shirt.  This is a size 8, and I added a lined yoke.  The outer fabric is a white twill from JAF.  The facings and inner yoke are a penguin print cotton, also from JAF.  To prevent the print from being visible from the outside, I underlined the facings and inner yoke with a white muslin.  It didn't add much bulk but did mask the print.  I used snaps for the closure, per my son's request.  And in the end, he didn't even wear this for Easter, as the kids' choir he was in decided that white was not a good color for the kids to be wearing onstage. :(  However, he did wear it for his school concert a month later, so it was all good.  He became very self-conscious about the penguin print facings, so I ended up adding another snap near the neck, so that only white was visible.  Next time, I would leave the facings plain and only go with something fun on the inner yoke.

 Thing 2 loves Star Wars, so I found him this Clone Wars print at JAF.  (No, our church is not necessarily traditional on dress code.)  This is a size 6, and again I added a lined yoke and used snaps for the closures. He loves it!  And I came this close (><) to matching the print across the front, but somehow it still ended up being about a quarter inch off - gah!  Oh, well.....it's still really cute.

All in all, a hit!