Fleece Hats Round 2

 

A few months ago, I made up these cute hats using a pattern from From An Igloo.  For my previous post click here.  I give much more detail in that post about adjustments that I needed to make for my “Amazon” children.

 

At any rate, I love this pattern and it is super easy!  My friend Caryn liked how the hats turned out too and asked if I could make some for her kiddos.

 

 

    

She wanted a girly version of the dinosaur hat for her little girl.

 

Caryn’s boys are 5 and are super into Batman.  You may remember the Batman freezer paper stenciled shirts that I made for her boys and my boys a while back.  Click here for the post about them.

 

I thought that I would try making this fleece hat into a batman hat for them and it turned out pretty cute!

 

My boys did some modeling for me so I could post about it.

 

 

This is Mateo, the number one Batman fan, in his new hat!

Talk About Celebrate The Boy!

Look what my sister made for Celebrate The Boy!

   

Baby Iré born February 16.  He was 8 lbs. 14 oz. and 22 inches.  I thought that the sleep sacks that I made in the last post were cute and then my sister had to go and top me.  Show off! :)

Well of course I needed to make something for when the little cutie pie came home from the hospital.  I found this great free tutorial at You Can Make This for a simple baby blanket.  There is also a free tutorial for a burp cloth.  Go and check them out.

 

I think that it came out cute.  I had only used piping once before and it was much bigger than this. 

It isn’t perfect on the back but I don’t think that he is going to mind.

Welcome to the world baby!

Sleep Sacks

 

     

 

In honor of Celebrate the Boy month over at MADE and Made by Rae, I am going to try to focus on making some cute things for my boys.  The little guys were in some desperate need of some “boyish” sleep sacks. 

 

Here is what the poor things have been wearing.

 

 

Hand me downs from their big sisters.  I know, I know, don’t stereotype.  Boys can wear pink and purple too but don’t you think the butterfly and princess are pushing it just a bit?

 

 

I know they’re big boys to still be wearing sleep sacks but I have my reasons.

1. They move around too much to ever possibly stay under a regular blanket.

2. They are chunky monkeys and wear a size 4t even though they just turned two.  However, they aren’t tall enough for 4t and I usually have to roll their pants up.  If I tried to put them in footie jammies they would be way too long.

3. They are still in cribs because quite frankly the thought of them on the loose all night is just frightening.  The sleep sacks are actually helping to prevent them from climbing out of their cribs. (FOR NOW!)

So that being said, sleep sacks are literally $30 a piece.  They would really each need two for laundering purposes.  No way am I spending $120 on fleece sleep sacks only to need to buy knit ones in a couple of months when the weather warms up.  I was complaining about all of this to my friend Susan.  “Blah, Blah, Blah…!”  When she cut me off and said, “Wait a minute.  Why are we even having this conversation?  Couldn’t you just make some?”   Duh!!!!!  What is wrong with me?  Oh yeah, I can just make some.  Thanks Susan!

 

For about $15 for cute fleece fabric and zippers, I made these cute boyish sleep sacks!  Yeah!  You could make them for less if you used a solid fleece rather than a print.

  I just traced one of the girlie sacks to make the pattern.

 

This tutorial was very helpful to me too.  I think that they turned out great seeing as I was just winging it. 

 

 

Remember that if you want the sack to zip from top to bottom it is very important to you use a separating zipper.  I used 24” separating zippers.  Have fun making some too.

Celebrate the Boy!

 

 

Whoo Hoo!  Today starts Celebrate the Boy month over at Made and Made by Rae.  It will be a whole month dedicated to the little boys in our lives.  Everyday, Dana and Rae will be posting wonderful boy ideas.  Lets face it, there just aren’t that many fun things out there to make for boys.  If you look back at my posts, most of the things that I make are for my girls.  I am really looking forward to making some fun things for my boys.  If you would like to be inspired too,  just click on the Celebrate the Boy here or on the cute button on the sidebar.

Not only will you be able to see all of the brand new ideas for this year’s Celebrate the Boy but you will see a round up of all of last year’s great ideas too.  Get ready to be inspired! 

 

I have been itching to make my boys this 90 Minute Shirt.  Now that I have more confidence sewing with knits, I’m so making this.  Have fun!

Valentine’s Day Class Gifts

 

Happy Valentine’s Day! 

These heart crayons are really easy to make.  I discovered this really cute idea around Valentine’s Day last year.  From an Igloo has a tutorial here.   We have been saving our broken crayons for a while now.   

 

The hardest part is peeling all of the paper off.  We soaked them in warm water and got to work.

 

Next we broke our crayons into even smaller pieces and put them in our mold.  We had a silicone mold so I put a cookie sheet underneath so I didn’t have to worry about the melted wax spilling when I took them out. 

 

We set our oven temp. to 250 degrees.  The tutorial we used recommended leaving them in for 5-10 minutes.  We had to leave ours in for 20 minutes.  It might have been because I wasn’t using a metal tray.  Just watch them closely because you want them to melt enough but you don’t want all of the colors to run together too much and make brown crayons.

 

We have plenty of snow around here these days so we just set them outside to cool for a bit.

 

 

Pop them out and that’s it!

 

Next we made up some cute Valentine Coloring Books.

 

 

Just do a search for Valentine’s Day coloring pages and you will find a ton of free ones to print out.

 

I used a small hole  punch and a twist tie to attach the crayons to the book.

 

 

We also made up some yummy snacks this week.

 

The girls baked some heart shaped cookies.  They were thrilled to decorate them with pink sprinkles.

 

   

The boys enjoyed our chocolate dipped pretzel rods.  ( I have to say that mommy liked these too!  That salty sweet thing gets me every time.)

 

 

Some of the blogs that I have been reading lately have been discussing how everything often looks perfect in “blog land”.  Everyone shows their best work and you never really get the whole picture.  While I was taking pictures of our crayons here is what was really in the background. 

That’s right.  That’s our Christmas Tree still on the front porch in February! 

Valentine’s Day Outfits / Carmen’s Tunic / Sewing with Knits

 

Have you tried sewing with knits yet?  I finished the girls’ Valentine’s Day outfits yesterday and I love them!  They do too.  This pattern is Carmen’s Tunic by Lille Skapet.   This is only my second time sewing with knits and I think they came out great.  (Click here for my post about the knit shirts that I made for the boys.)

   

This pattern is really straight forward and easy to follow.   Berritt even gives two different options for construction.  I chose option B.

 

 

I especially love the square neckline.

 

  

I’m always nervous that I am going to make something for the girls and that it will be too small.  I have gotten into this habit lately of making things way too big for them just in case.  My girls typically wear a size 7 or 8 but my paranoia took over and I made them the size 9.  This pattern is so forgiving that It still looks fine.  It will just be more of a dress this year and will fit as a tunic for next year.

I also found the perfect buttons to go with this print.   You may notice that the heart fabric at the corner were it meets the purple trim is a bit gathered.  I still need to work on this as I did the same thing on both tunics.  I’m probably the only one who will ever notice it.  When the girls are wearing it there is a lot of movement in the fabric so it is hard to tell.

Since we had the perfect buttons, I just had to make some quick hair clips to go with the outfit.  I literally made these as the girls were eating breakfast this morning.  Just cut a piece of 3/8” grosgrain ribbon to 4 1/2 “.  Heat seal the ends with a liter.  Hot glue the ribbon onto an alligator clip.  Finally, hot glue the button on.  Easy Peasy!

 

 

I definitely give this pattern a thumbs up.  Knits are just so cozy and it is what my girls prefer to wear.  I was just nervous about sewing with it in the past.  I think that I am finally over my fear.   I have Lille Skapet’s legging pattern and plan to try that next.  They also have a really cute dress called Mari’s Playdress that I am hoping will include big girl sizes soon.

If you would like to give knits a try here are a few suggestions:

Lille Skapet

Lil Blue Boo

Made

Carla C

Mod Kid

Train to Crazy

I Am Momma Hear Me Roar

From An Igloo

 

 

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Here are a few of our outtake pictures.

 

 

 

This is my favorite.    Mary Katherine Gallagher Superstar!