halloween preview—sammy luke skywalker

the corrpro company halloween party was yesterday, so we took the opportunity to photograph sam in his finished costume for the event. this costume was by far the most involved i've done so far (i broke out the sewing machine for this, which is a big deal in our house). i don't think mine is quite as fantastic as what missy is constructing for oscar, but it was about as fancy as i could manage. missy posted reference material here, and i downloaded photos for my trip to the fabric store. i bought a pattern for the top (a karate uniform), but the pants were way too big for sam, so i had to make my own pattern for that. the belt is brown webbing with a prachute buckle (something sam could put on and take off himself), and has small pleather "tool pouches" for sam to put things in that he might need while fixing a droid, or some other task. the boot covers didn't exactly happen the way i thought they would partly because i couldn't figure out exactly how to construct them so that sam would be able to put them on by himself and partly because he decided at the last minute he wanted to wear his "work boots". of course, sam was completely satisfied with the outcome. to tell the truth, i think if he had just gotten the lightsaber, his imagination would have filled in the blanks without all the sewing and such. the highlight of the party for sam was the boy dressed up as a clone trooper. he thought that it was ultra cool to have another star wars character there and is already plotting for me to make him a red clone trooper costume next year.
sam has definitely been enjoying his very own lightsaber and takes it just about everywhere he goes including bed (and i believe he's had at least one reminder that it's not a bath toy). lucy has gotten a few clonks on the head (and assorted body parts), but i suppose that's to be expected when bad guys are peeking around every corner (you can't have a war without casualties). she's handling it all very well though.
lucy also wore her costume yesterday, but i didn't get a chance to photograph her before she got upset and needed a diaper change and a nap. i'm hoping to get a few photos on wednesday, so stay tuned for that reveal.

sam's previous costumes can be found here, here, and here.

making—quilt work-in-progress

earlier this month i finally finished the 70 blocks for the top of sam's "big boy quilt" and am slowly sewing them together. i'm a little worried that i'm going to have a hard time lining them all up properly, but will surely be posting on the progress as it happens.

bib for alice

i finally finished alice's bib just in time for her birthday.

i had this cut and waiting to sew since missy's first announcement because i was really, really hoping i'd get another niece. and i know that missy's got quite a few of these bibs from mom (and probably some she made on her own), but i had to make one for little alice myself. i hope she'll make good use of it. it looks like it will work well for chocolate pudding or strawberry yogurt, though it will be good at catching spit-up/drool while she's still on her way to table food. it will be making it's way south shortly.

welcome to the family alice!

ps - you can download a pattern for the bib here.

stuffed animals

i also decided to give stuffed animals a try. they turned out a little odd, and not quite what i wanted, but it was fun to try. i definitely think my technique needs a bit of help (perhaps some construction instruction is in order), but i sort of like the fact that they're a little quirky.

i made a white rabbit for alice (or baby jones who we are all assuming will be an alice), since i thought she would need someone to explore wonderland with. for sam, i made a little monster (see other monsters for sam here and here). you'll recognize the fabric, of course.

other things i did during my "holiday break"

i finally got around to making this pillowcase for sam's little pillow. it was a fun project one afternoon while sam and i were hanging out at home. it took me a while because i didn't bother to pull out the sewing machine (it's hard to use a sewing machine when you're humoring a two-year-old who wants you to sit in his "mouse house" fort for four hours), but i was able to cut and sew it all before mike came home from work that day, so not too bad. i used leftovers from sam's halloween cape and a piece of the striped fabric from various other projects (this, this, and this are a few of them). the only problem with this project was that when i finally got it done, sam wanted the old spongebob pillowcase he was used to. so much for cute color-coordination.

quilt update

here's a couple of photos of the quilt in progress. i've been spending most of my downtime on it (when i'm not doing freelance, or laundry, or playing with sam, or cooking, or cleaning, or whatever). i'm really enjoying it because i can work on it without really doing much thinking, but when i'm sitting and watching a buckeye game (or standing on the train on the way to work), i feel like i'm accomplishing something. very satisfying.

i'm a little over 20 blocks in, so i've still got about 50 to go. unfortunately, i think i'm going to have to put the quilt on a bit of a hiatus while there's a halloween costume to whip up. i still haven't nailed down exactly what i'm making for sam (he doesn't really get halloween enough to choose his own costume yet), but we're thinking superhero.

stay tuned!

slow progress

i was able to cut out about 20 quilt squares for sam's twin bed size quilt before we left for minnesota. however, i didn't make a whole lot of progress while we were there (though i did get some excellent tips from mom and her quilting sisters).

maybe i need to set a "block per day" goal for myself.

working on...

beyond my work, freelance work, housework, yardwork, trying to learn dreamweaver and watch sam, i've also been trying to finish up some bibs on behalf a some expecting mammas.

i've got one down and one to go. now if only i wasn't posting, i might be making some progress. maybe.

project #2

i made good progress on the changing pad cover today. i think all that's left is some reinforcement on the stitching. but it fits, and doesn't look too bad, so i'm counting it as a success.

complete!

despite the fact that i have many (or many, many) unfinished projects floating around the house, i was able to finish up this bib for ninja last night. the completion of project #1 was greatly helped by a slight car mishap that had me waiting an hour and a half to be picked up at the doctor's office thursday. now on to project #2, the changing pad cover...

sewing projects

we went to target and the fabric store yesterday to pick up a few more things for ninja. i decided on plain white cotton curtains for the room. i think i'm going to add color by using this striped fabric to do tie-backs or maybe some kind of applique or border on the bottom hem or something. i'm also using the same fabric to make a cover for the changing pad, and i started on a bib (a good "handwork" project). i'm hoping to at least get the bib done. i still need to make a pattern for the changing pad cover.