Besides avoiding taxes this weekend, we went to a welcome home party. It was for Alan’s cousin’s daughter’s baby boy. Whoo that was a mouthful. What does that make him? A cousin of some sort? Anyhoo, the little guy was born premature before Christmas and they had a party to celebrate him being released from the hospital. He came so early they never did get a baby shower.

I couldn’t find the umbilical cord hat I knit for him. Yes, I misplaced a knitted item. Sigh. I made it back in December and put it in a safe place until I could see them. They live up the street from us and this was the first time we met the little guy. Either that or I put it on Nathan’s head to see how much he’d grown and he walked off with it.

Ok back to what I was saying, easily distracted today. Since I couldn’t find the hat, at the last minute I sewed the baby a blanket with some fabric I had in my stash.

I think the fabric was from my friend, Veronica. She used it to wrap Nathan’s birthday present. How awesome is that? A present wrapped with FABRIC!! I made a baby blanket with it. Just a very simple blanket with chenille on one side, backed with this dinosaur flannel fabric and inside a layer of flannel. It’s nice and super thick. And for some reason I always mix up flannel and fleece. I have to ask Alan every time, what’s this fabric that’s in my stash. Ok went off the trail again.

While I had the fabric laid out and was cutting into it, Nathan was all over it. Later after the presents were all wrapped up, I felt bad. I should have saved the fabric to make something for Nathan.

I was looking through some old pictures this weekend and came upon this.

I realized I never shared it. It was taken back in August last year, right after we went to the Renegade Craft Faire. Isabelle saw a cute little robot there but we didn’t buy it for her. So, I tried to recreate one like it when we got home.

I let her choose the fabric and the buttons. It’s not as cute but it’s made with love.

And he’s special because I made a little heart to stick inside him.

I miss crafting. I cannot seem to find the time lately. I didn’t even finish the umbilical hat I started on Friday. It should have only taken me a day. Sigh.

It’s a shirred dress with some modifications.

You probably can’t tell from this picture though.

I made it so the back can open so it’s easier to pull on and off.

I used buttons as closures.

Isabelle chose the buttons.

It has three buttons.

One red.

One yellow.

And one green.

But not orange.

Because?

Because Isabelle did not choose orange.

I made matching button loops for each button.

I’ve never made button loops before.

It was easy.

I googled and found this great embroidery floss button loop tutorial by Ysolda.

So, that’s one red button loop.

It was a little wonky being my first.

One yellow button loop.

It was improved being my second.

And one green button loop.

The best since it was my third.

But no orange button loop.

Why?

Because Isabelle didn’t choose an orange button.

And I’m totally stalling.

Can you tell?

And why am I stalling?

Because if I show this next picture you’ll see right away the dress was not for me.

It was for Isabelle.

Isabelle’s Isabelle doll that is.

And of course we had to make dolly Isabelle a necklace to go with her new dress.

A jingle bell necklace.

Yay! No more naked Isabelle doll. So, that totally took me over two years to make her a dress.

And Isabelle wanted to cut her doll’s hair since Isabelle’s hair is no longer long. But it doesn’t grow back, I told her. Should I?

I should have been posting last week instead of hiding from my computer. Because, now, I have loads of photos that I’m jamming into one big post. Well, actually I’m not going to jam them all in because there are too many. But I am stuffing a whole bunch in here.

This year, with the homeschool group, we went to a new pumpkin patch. At a farm! Smith family farm. There was a corn maze,

big pumpkins as big as Nathan,

old farm equipment, animals, a Miwok Indian village, a show the kids participated in, and a hay ride.



I thought it was pretty awesome. And everyone who paid entrance got to take a pumpkin home!

In that same week, we went to my friend Veronica’s pumpkin carving party. We’ve gone for three years now. It’s becoming a tradition. I didn’t want to go empty handed so I attempted to decorate cupcakes with a Halloween theme: skulls.

Sort of looks like a blob. With three holes.

Isabelle was running around playing. Like last year, she had no interest it pumpkin carving.

She did draw a face onto a pumpkin which I then gutted and carved.

Hers is the one next to my bat pumpkin.

Then on Halloween, we started our morning by lighting up our pumpkins during breakfast. I made Halloween themed pancakes like this bat.

And after breakfast, I finished sewing up Isabelle’s costume, McCall’s 6141. Originally she wanted to be a robot. That’s why my banner looks like that. She wanted me as a dinosaur and Nathan as a red ball. I arbitrarily chose Alan’s costume, Kick Ass. But then Isabelle changed her mind and wanted to be a princess. She chose the pattern and the pretty gold fabric. And I’ve rambled a bit. Back to what I was saying. Yes, you read that right. I finished sewing it up ON Halloween.

The night before, I thought I wasn’t going to finish it. The back ties call for eyelets.

When I tried putting the eyelets on, I screwed up about 80% of them. I don’t know what I was doing wrong but they were all bent out of shape and not staying. And, stupidly, I had only bought one pack so I couldn’t try again. I didn’t have a zipper so couldn’t go that route. None of my buttons would have looked right so that was a no.

I was stumped. I dreaded the thought of having to go back to the store to buy more eyelets. Doing that just to have a strong possibility of screwing the eyelets up again and again and needing to cut out more and more pieces of fabric.

I lay down for bed and then it dawned on me. Buttonholes! I got right up out of bed, though I was tired, and made 14 buttonholes. FOURTEEN! And that did the trick. Don’t need no stinkin’ eyelets. So, the next day all I needed to finish was the hem.

After I was done with Isabelle’s dress, I was feeling ambitious. I decided to make her a treat bag too, a little frog prince treat bag.

I went with a frog prince bag because I really wanted to sew Nathan a costume to match Isabelle. But since it took me freaking all week to make Isabelle’s costume, I did not have the time to make one for Nathan. We ended up using a frog prince towel for this picture.

He didn’t care for it.

That night he wore Isabelle’s old bee costume.

So the frog bag was a good route to go. Nathan didn’t go up to any doors so it was silly to even think of making him a matching prince costume.

And that was our Halloween festivities. How was your Halloween?

I might be busy this week and not much on the computer. Heck, I’m not on it right now. I’m on my phone at the sewing table writing this. I’ll be busy working on Isabelle’s Halloween costume. I originally planned to be done with it this past Friday. But that did not happen. I just started sewing today. TODAY! Let’s hope I can finish before the weekend.