Jadon's First Birthday!

Jadon turned one this week! I can't believe that our homebirth-turned-c-section story happened a whole year ago. He has grown up so much, and Jon and I couldn't be prouder parents. We celebrated with friends and family on Labor Day, but Jadon was pretty oblivious to the milestone he reached.

My favorite part of the party was sharing a video I made of Jadon's first year of life. I can't believe how much he's grown and changed in just one year. You can watch the video below!

Though it was not a "Pinterest-perfect" party by any means, I decided to theme his party around one of his favorite books from this year, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I asked the guests to bring a food item from the book, and my decorations were littered with book references. Of course, I had been anticipating this special day with a few homemade projects for Jadon's party.

Because I managed to find some "hungry caterpillar" stickers at a thrift store (score!), I looked for ways to use them. The stickers ended up on party cups, a sign for our front door, and a homemade garland.

In order to make this garland, I first cut out circles from extra scrapbook paper I had saved from another project. Then, I ran them through my sewing machine. I knew you could sew paper because of my cloth bags project from a few months ago. Finally, I stuck the stickers on the non-colored side of the paper (okay, a friend helped with all the stickers...thank you, Kelly!).

I also made a mini garland to decorate Jadon's chocolate cake. All I did was trace small circles onto patterned cardstock paper to cut them out. Then, I sandwiched a piece of string between two of the circles, and glued them to each other. In retrospect, I would have also sewn these, but I wanted to try another method of making the garland. Sewing is faster and cleaner. I also like how the thin threads seem to disappear when you step back.

Of course, a red circle, followed by several green circles, resembles the caterpillar from the book. I tied the ends of my string to a couple of chopsticks and stuck them in my brownie cake. Done and done. I love that this decoration saved me the hassle of icing the cake. I just wasn't up to the pressure of trying to make frosting look good for this party!

"On Saturday, he ate through...a piece of chocolate cake..."

I also decided to make something special for Jadon to wear. I created a simple hungry caterpillar shirt with buttons and fabric.

I started by ironing some scrap interfacing to the back of some extra green fabric from my "leftovers" stash. Then, I drew a leaf onto the interfacing to cut out. Next, I picked out my combination of red and green (and tiny yellow!) buttons for my caterpillar. After hand sewing the buttons to my leaf, I pinned the leaf to my grey onesie (it had a hideous design underneath that I simply had to cover up!). Then, while carefully holding the rest of the onesie out of the way, I zig-zag stitched around the edge of my leaf with green thread to anchor it to the shirt.

"Jadon, when are you gonna grow hair?"

This is one of the only pictures I took during the party, and the best shot of Jadon in his shirt. The end result was exactly what I envisioned. Jadon was very curious about the new feature of buttons on his shirt. He eventually managed to rip one off! I have to sew that one back on and figure out how to keep the yellow eyes laying flat (you can see how they can shift and overlap in the picture above).

I'm glad the onesie is a size too big for now so that he can wear it for a few more months. He's growing too fast for me to keep up these days!

Thrift Store Makeover: Old Navy Blouse Edition

A few years ago, I bought an Old Navy blouse at a thrift store to wear for my student teaching. I bought it mostly because I loved the grey and pink flowery fabric, even though the shirt wasn't quite as long as I'd like, and the sleeves were a little too short when I bent my arms. Consequently, I only wore the blouse if I also wore a cardigan over it. 

Now that the blouse has been sitting in my closet for a while, I thought it was ready for a makeover. My basic plan of action was to get rid of the sleeves and use the fabric to lengthen the blouse a little.

First, I removed the sleeves by carefully cutting close to the arm seams.

Then, I cut off the gathered part of the sleeve that would sit at the wrist and ironed the fabric flat.

My seam looks like it was made on a slight angle.  This is because I was taking in the top of the side seam, and not the empire waist.

Before I finished a nice edge for the arm holes, I tried my new tank top on. I found that the arm holes were too big, so I took in the side seams a little bit. Starting about 3/4 inch from the original side seam, I sewed at an angle so that my seam ended right at the empire waist line, without taking in the waist line.

Arm holes: before and after taking in the side seam. First you see the white tank top underneath, and then you don't!

 Now that the arm holes were an appropriate size, I was ready to create a clean, finished edge.

I cut some long strips of fabric from the sleeves, joined them together, and used the iron to fold the fabric. In essence, I created my own bias tape. I sandwiched arm hole edges inside my bias tape and sewed all the layers together.

When I got all the way around with my ruffle, I had to connect the two ends of the  ruffle (see bottom two pictures).

I used the rest of the fabric from the sleeves to make a ruffle along the bottom of the blouse, lengthening the blouse by about two inches. First, I cut the remaining sleeve fabric into 2.5 inch wide strips. I then sewed all the strips together end-to-end. Next, I hemmed one of the long edges of this narrow strip. This became my new bottom edge of the blouse. Then, I started pinning the fabric to the blouse, folding the strip onto itself every few inches to create a ruffle. I had to unpin and repin my ruffle several times before it looked the way I wanted it to.

sewing           before ironing           after ironing

When I was finally ready to sew the ruffle to the blouse, I kept each pin in place until the last possible second so that the ruffle wouldn't come undone. Then, I ironed the ruffle so that it would lie flat, rather than stick out like a little tutu!

I was surprised that I had a lot of sleeve fabric leftover. I decided to use the remaining strip of fabric to make a decorative ruffle around the neckline. To make this ruffle, I began by hemming the other long side of the strip. Then I hand-sewed wide stitches in the center of the strip (each stitch was about half an inch long). As I sewed, I bunched the fabric up along the thread, which creates the ruffled look. Next, I measured how long I wanted my ruffle, and made an appropriate knot in my thread at that length. 

Like the bottom ruffle, I pinned my neckline ruffle about every inch before sewing. I kept each pin in place until the last minute so my ruffle would stay the way I wanted it.

Done! With these changes I might actually wear this thing!

The final product is even better than I imagined because I love the extra ruffled neckline. This is going to be a great tank top for humid Wisconsin summers because the fabric is light, airy, and so breathable. It's even compatible with nursing with the deep v-neck (score!). 

Now if it would just warm up around here...we're well into April and it's 39 degrees outside my door!

Thrift Store Makeover: High Chair Edition

My husband and I recently struck gold at our local thrift shop. We brought home several baby items for just a fraction of their retail cost. I was especially happy to find this sturdy (and clean!) $2 highchair that clamps onto a table. It reminds me of the one my parents used for my sister and I in the 80's! It takes up so much less space than those huge free-standing highchairs. Unfortunately, the lovely vinyl teddy bear decor wasn't quite cutting it for me. So, I made a slipcover! I made it completely out of materials I already had at home. I love that I can take it off to throw in the washer. It's even reversible, so I can switch up the color if I want.

Here's how I did it:

I started by tracing the seat and back of the highchair onto a brown paper bag. I used this "pattern" to cut my fabric: four seat pieces, four back pieces, and a few strips for the front and top edges. I'm glad that I remembered to cut my pieces slightly larger than the paper bags. The seams that attach the pieces to each other will "shrink" your design.

Starting with the seat cover, I sewed the matching seat pieces to their matching strips. With the "right" sides facing each other, I tucked one seat fabric inside the other, sewed them together, and turned them right-side out.

You can see from the top left picture above how this seat cover will sandwich the original chair. Next, I pinned the loose-fitting fabric in place so that the seams I just sewed were pressed right up to the outside edge. Because my sewing machine couldn't quite maneuver the tight corners connecting the seat pieces to the strip, I had to do a little hand sewing before moving on.

When I first started this project, I wasn't quite sure how I would attach the slipcover to the seat. Should I use ribbons that tie in little bows? Should I use Velcro? I ended up sewing buttons onto both sides of each corner of the cover (a total of eight buttons - four on the denim side, and four on the checkerboard side). Then I used small hair ties (that were always annoyingly small for me anyways) to anchor the corners to each other.

It was then that I realized that I had forgotten to leave a hole for the little seat-belt strap. To solve this problem, I used a sharp precision knife to cut a slit in the center of my front strip. In an effort to keep this opening from unraveling, I finished off the edge with a hand-sewn blanket stitch. I'll have to wait and see how this holds up with use.

To make the cover for the back of the seat, I first sewed my two corresponding fabric pieces together, and checked the sizing. Satisfied, I put them together, sewed them up inside-out, and then turned them out the right way. Before running a seam around the entire outside edge, I had to make a cut-out for the back. I knew that I wouldn't want to take off the cover every time we have to move the seat, so we need easy access to the part that tightens the clamp to a table.

After making a vertical cut to my desired height, I cut a "V" at the top of the vertical line. This "V" allowed me to tuck in the raw edges. I pinned the fabric in place, checked my work on the actual seat, and then sewed the outside edges around the entire back cover.

Finally, I added the buttons to all the corners and added my hair ties. Done!

Showing off his newly discovered tongue!

And here's Jadon sitting in the seat! Since he's nearly six months old, we've been sitting him in it while we eat dinner for the last week. He loves to study us putting food in our mouths, and he'll even mimic our chewing motions. Soon, he'll get to enjoy "big people food" of his own!

Applique Bird Quilt

Time with newborn Jadon is passing quickly by, and you probably aren't surprised that I haven't been working on any new projects lately. Here's a quick "show and tell" of something I finished earlier this summer.

Last summer, I was shopping at a thrift store and found a Paula Dean "Coupon Organizer" with a darling bird design on the front. I bought it because I loved the combination of colors and textures. I simply had to use it as a model for a project. But what?

So cute!

Over the course of last school year, the project slowly took form. I decided to make a baby quilt with an applique bird design on it. Not knowing at the time that I would be creating a blog, I didn't take any "during" photos for a tutorial. But now that I finally finished it (after nearly a year of off-and-on work!), I want to share the final product.



Front



 

Back

I'm especially happy that I was able to use up so many scraps from my fabric stash. I cut all the big squares for the front first, saving the one bigger rectangle piece for the center back of the quilt. Then pieces that weren't big enough for the front were cut into little rectangles for the border on the back. I just kept cutting leaves until I ran out of fabric, and then decided how I would arrange them. I love the feeling that comes from being resourceful.

I thought I could save this for a baby girl gift in the future, but I love it too much to part with it. Maybe for my own daughter someday? Funny that I'm already thinking of future kids when I have my nine day old son nestled in my arms!