It was a great 3 day weekend, that was filled to the brim with fun things, so I’m going to work my way backward starting with yesterday - Monday, Labor day.

I’ve always thought this was a fun idea - a cake to celebrate the beginning of the new school year. It originally was a cake a friend of mine made because she was so relieved to have the kids out of the house for a large portion of the day again, but I think it still works for us.

I put a twist on it though, we made it a KID-ONLY cake. Meaning, only KIDS are allowed to make it! I told them what to do, I held the bowl when they scraped it into the pan, and I put it into the oven, but other than that, this cake was made by KIDS ONLY! They were SO PROUD!

View all the photos in this here fancy photo-scrollin’-seein’ thingee below:

I haven’t showcased any kid creations for a while, but rest assured it’s not because there hasn’t been any creativity! It’s because Mommy is LAZY!

But in honor of the upcoming BRICK FAIR (which we are VERY excited about in our house! This weekend! Still time to make plans to go!) here is one of Ethan’s recent creations. (And by “recent” I mean, “has already been destroyed to make something even BETTER.”)

You can imagine Ethan’s GLEE when his class at his new (daycare) school went on a field trip to THE LEGO STORE! He came back with a clone trooper bobble-dude (the name used in MY childhood household for minifigs*) on a keychain which, through my winning charm and mommy-ness, Ethan gave to ME instead of Daddy. (HA!) (I RAWK!)

BEHOLD!

He also came home with several lego catalog/magazines which he has pored over nonstop ever since.

It’s going to be an AWESOME weekend at the brick fair.

*Just so you realize how much legos played a part in my childhood, I was actually not all that interested in them. My brothers, however, were very interested in them. Santa brought legos to my brothers every christmas, a tradition that lives on in our household to this day, except he brings them to everyone (mommy and daddy included) instead of just the boys. My brothers had a bucket filled to the brim with legos and my mother required a sheet put down before any were poured out. That’s how many there were. My brother Larry’s dog is now named, you guessed it, ‘Lego’. So, I guess you could say I’ve been training for carefully stepping over lego bricks for 34 years now!

-amy

Well, that was a quick sewing goal accomplished! The bag went very quickly with only 1 place where I had to stop and scratch my head. (Not doing the patchwork = EASY bag!) I think it took maybe 4 hours to sew all together, including cutting out.

I was going to wait until I could take prettier pictures of it, but oh well. iPhone photos below! Once again, the pattern can be purchased here.

I used the material I had left over from Jocelyn’s sundress. I did buy a new walking foot for my machine, and I must say, I wish I had bought one of these things YEARS ago. Sewing machines have this jagged little thingee that comes up from the bottom and “feeds” the material through — called the feed dog. If you have several layers however, the feed dog only pushes the bottom through and the top layer can go through at a slower speed than the bottom layer causing some wonkiness. A walking foot feeds the top side of the material through so there’s no wonkiness. This will be VERY handy on the satin binding of the baby blankets I make from time to time!

The only real question I had was the bias tape binding for the top edging and handle. The pattern calls for 1″ double folded bias tape. First of all, the tape I was looking at didn’t come in 1″ wide, only 7/8″ wide. And second of all, it looked much too wide. But, I bought some anyway and took it home. When it came to the binding/handles/tape part though, I still wasn’t quite sure. I had some 1/2″ tape on hand so I used that, which looked VERY nice. When I was pinning it on for the handles, it struck me that it would make very flimsy handles/straps. So I ended up taking the 7/8″ bias tape and folding it over - this made for a VERY thick binding/straps (my machine complained a little) but the end result is very satisfactory - nice thick handles to hang on to.

I love this bag SO much. I think it would be especially cute to do a little hand quilting on it - outline a flower or two, maybe sew on a few beads. That’s the kind of time-consuming hand work that I am not good at finishing though, so I doubt it will happen.

I definitely think I’ll be making another one of these. Or two. Or three!

-amy

Not a quilt for a baby, but a quilt made out of baby clothes.

Although actually, it’s more like made out of toddler clothes.

Except no, it’s not just clothes, it’s her adorable DRESSES!

I should really call it Jocelyn’s Toddler Dress Quilt.

So, just to warn you guys, this is a sewing post. But there are also pictures, so you can just glaze over the SEWING words and look at the pictures - sure, they’re of quilts, but there’s also a blurry one of Jocelyn wielding a naked barbie doll, so don’t skip!

I’ve been stockpiling the sweet little summer sundresses as she grows out of them with the intention of making a quilt out of them for her some day. I first discussed this here. Now, we’re talking about a myriad of patterns and colors and even fabric weight (though I’m trying to keep it to just wovens, no knits) so when I do make this quilt it will be quite a task to meld it all together.

So, a few items have caught my fancy in the last month or so, and I wanted to make a note of them so that when that Quilt-Making Day DOES arrive, I’ll have some ideas to draw on.

This Denyse Schmidt “Single Girl” quilt looks adorable, but I don’t think it would showcase each fabric enough. I want to be able to look at each fabric and remember my little girl WEARING it.

If I was making the quilt today, I would have to go with a coin quilt. Here’s Hillary’s blogiversary quilt from Wee Wonderfuls that jump-started that idea. The white base color frames each fabric beautifully.

I wonder if I have enough dress fabric for this yet? I think I definitely will once she outgrows this summer’s clothes.

Which will be in about TWO MINUTES!

(All they can talk about every time I drop her off in her new classroom is, “She’s HOW old? Wow, she is TALL. Look how TALL. She looks like she’s FIVE, because she’s SO TALL, TALL, THE TALLNESS, I MUST COMMENT ONCE MORE ON THE TAAAAAALLL.” — I get it. She’s tall. We have spawned a tall amazonian girl-child. Shuddup already.)

I am all itchy to sew something. I sewed a sweet little sundress for Jocelyn which she has not allowed me to take a picture of (here’s one I got where she is RUNNING AWAY IN PROTEST, wielding a naked Barbie doll. “Don’t take my picture! I have a naked Barbie, and I’m NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!)

I SHIRRED! It was lovely fun, the shirring! When I finally got it to work! If you don’t know what shirring is, it’s sewing with elastic thread in the bobbin which makes the material get all stretchy and lovely - the top half of that dress = shirred. I got the motivation and know-how for it over at Portabello Pixie (the Shir Madness! Tutorial is down the side of her sidebar).

But that was months ago, and I want to sew something NEW! Something FOR ME!!

Look! It even says it’s FOR ME!!

I bought Alicia Paulson’s Tanglewood Bag pattern the instant she put it up for sale in her shop, but not the fabric kit, and have been hung up on fabric.

For ease of use, I thought, “I don’t HAVE to cut 48 2″ squares… I could just make the pattern with a solid fabric and not do the patchwork thing…” Which, let’s face it, is an EXCELLENT idea because I’m bound to mess something up and messing up on a 48 pieced 2″ squares will definitely make me cry, and so I could make the solid purse kind of my trial run before a “final” version, and also? I still have PLENTY of material left over from the blurry shirred dress up there — but even that sort of lazy talk didn’t motivate me into actually sitting down and doing it. I may pitch in the fickle towel and just MAKE IT ALREADY.

So this bag is my goal for the next week. Sewing. WOOOO!

-amy. lazy, fickle AMY.

I have neglected to get some of the ADORABLE drawings that Jocelyn has done up here, so it’s remedy time.

Crazy Monster with Many Eyes

tomorrow - the book Ethan wrote and illustrated.

I am officially throwing in the towel on Photo 366. (Sorry Anna! Sorry Tamara!) I am just not cut out for getting those suckers up every day. Oh well.

We are busy. Making PLANS! For someone’s BIRTHDAY!

Imagine this folded into thirds.

You didn’t think I left the boys out, did you?

I found these (AND OTHERS!) darling paper dolls on the invitation at Teri’s Paper Doll Scans page.

So cute. SO CUTE!!

We’re going to be busy the rest of this weekend, and the week, for that matter.

But we got the important things out of the way. Jocelyn has a new “party dress”!

Which I’m sure you will see soon enough
-amy

This one was a present for a boy in Jocelyn’s class.

I need to learn to get these things done way ahead of time, as when you rush and finish it the day of the party, no amount of oohing and aahing (which there is usually not much) makes up for the stress.

This is the second time I’ve finished something for a gift way too late (was a joint baby shower last time).

Still though - very cute, don’t you think?

Yeah… too cute

Given to Leia on Saturday, at her 1st birthday party.

This is Jocelyn’s “Party Dress” that I got her before her birthday last year. She is wearing it for Ethan’s birthday in this picture.

She has shot up so much in the last year that this dress no longer is decent on her. I kept thinking what a shame it was, because, my baby! so cute in this dress! What a waste! Or was it?

So I cut it straight off right under the armpits, folded over the excess, sewed down the buttoned opening and snipped off the buttons, left the front of the waist flat and put a length of elastic in the back to make it into this skirt (oh, and I did this in 45 minutes, how proud am i!):

It’s definitely decent now and should last at least another year. Behold the Party Skirt! I have 2 other dresses I am considering treating the same way. We’ll see.

Pictures of the party where the party skirt made it’s debut coming soon!