Minnie!

Addison has a Minnie Mouse thing.  She talks about her as if she is real.  The other day while browsing the sale bolts at Hancock Fabrics, I found this red and white polka dot knit fabric that looked like Minnie Mouse’s dress and bought a yard.  Last night, when we got home, I got started …

I wanted to make a circle skirt and had gotten a tutorial here at MADE and it seemed easy so I thought I would draft my own pattern.  Addison is pretty active so I looked up a tutorial for bike shorts and thought I would put a pair under it.  I used this tutorial from  Craft Whatever for the bike shorts.

So, once I traced the leggings, I cut out two pairs and started to make one of them.  The first pair came out wonky.  Mostly because I have a very poor 3D vision but once I dumped it, I figured out how to sew the other two seams.  Then, after 15 minutes of trying to fold the fabric in order to get the full circle without any seams, I finally did it.

Then gather the skirt, sew the pants inside the waist to stabilize it and then add the elastic banding.  It is so cute and drapes really well on her.  I decided not to even hem the skirt.  She decided to pair it with a “Minnie” Headband she bought last weekend and a blue T.

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Amalia wanted her to not “pose” so she started making faces and putting herself into the picture.

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Here is the “SPIN”.  Works pretty well.

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The skirt has those bike shorts underneath.  I think I will make them a little shorter.  I love the spandex material so I can just cut about 2 or 3 inches off.

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Isn’t she a beautiful “Minnie” ?


Crafts…

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I definitely can say that I am a frustrated craftswoman.  My overextended life makes it hard for me to satisfy those feelings.

The last few months, I have been following a number of craft, sewing and knitting / crocheting blogs.  When I was younger, my mom taught me how to sew on this old Singer sewing machine that had – like 2 stitches – straight and zig zag.  My mom often made my sister Denise and I our Christmas, Easter and other outfits.  We were dressed like twins and I can remember it drove us crazy.

So, Andrea from The Train to Crazy blog has some of the nicest PDF patterns that she sells.  Looking at her most recent ones, I began to get the itch to see if I could take the machine out again and makes some things for the summer.  This weekend I finally had some time to cut out the pattern and material and give it a try!  I chose to make something for Amalia first because she is growing and for the first time in her life, she doesn’t fit into any of the hand-me-downs we have gotten from our cousins and friends.

The Anywhere Dress looked like a good place to start.  The pattern is really flexible and there (literally) are about 5 seams!  Moreover, because it is done in a knit fabric, there is no hand sewing / zippers / buttons / buttonholes and …in my version, no sleeves to set in.  Yes, I totally was trying to get back into sewing slowly.

 

It came out okay…I definitely am out of practice in doing the edging and there are some places where the thread is more noticeable than I would like, but she loved it.

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I got the material at Wal*Mart on sale.  It was $1 a yard and for $1.50 I should be able to get this dress and a skirt for Addison out of it.

The hem line is a little more “wavy” than I would like but I think that is because the stitch length was too short on the knit fabric- but next time I might just leave the hem undone…since with knits they won’t fray…

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It also could be a little more fitted, I think I might let her wear a belt with it the next time she wears it.

Overall, she loves it, it was easy and even if it doesn’t last…almost nothing lasts with her – tomboy that she is.

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2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.


Mt. Vernon

I love when I get chosen to chaperone my kid field trip. It offers such a different perspective on their lives and personalities. Today Amalia and I went to Mt Vernon. It was a beautiful day and aside from one of the girls continually running. And the anxiety of potentially losing someone, I had a really goof time.

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Cheerleading

 

 

 

 


Pitching

Riley hasn’t had a chance to pitch with this new team.  The same 3 kids pitched the first two weekends but for the last couple weeks he has been coming home and saying that he was pitching the next tournament.  Well, that was supposed to be 2 weekends ago but all of the games were rained out.  So, he has been anxiously going to his practices and practicing.  Well, today was a beautiful day for a baseball game and he knew he was going to be pitching.  Unfortunately, the first team we were playing was the Gladiators.  The Gladiators is a new team that was made by the coach who coached Riley during the allstars when he was 9.  Riley was hoping that he wouldn’t be pitching against them but…he started the game.  I could tell he was nervous as the game started but he was throwing HEAT!  He kept his team close for 3 innings and then he seemed to throw out his shoulder and the next couple of pitches were wild and I could tell he was crying.  Luckily the coach came and took him out.  he wasn’t supposed to to throw anymore but another boy got hit by a bounce into his maxilla and had to leave.   He finished the games in the outfield.   I was so proud of him. 

 

 

 


RAINBOW

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