Apron Dress

In between pillow covers and curtains for the new house, I’ve finished a new summer apron style dress for Meredith. Many thanks to my friend and neighbor, Tina, whose daughter’s dress, served as inspiration. The pattern and styling are of my own design.

I had visions of taking some really great pictures of Meredith outside with green grass and flowers. Ha. I nearly forgot that the ground is still covered in snow and it was a mere 35 degrees today. How I miss Seattle weather!

The dress can be worn with or without a shirt and leggings underneath, but I think it looks best just on its own.

 

 

The bustle in the back is the cutest part. I hope that Meredith likes wearing the dress. She loves wearing dresses, but with the pretty part in the back where she can’t see it, I might have to do a little selling…

Meredith really was a good sport modeling the dress for me. It started to get less fun after awhile and she got a bit silly. But here’s the only good full front view that I got:

Now to make a version in pinks for Tina’s older daughter. I’m going to make a few modifications after learning by trial and error with this one. This version is actually quite heavy as the whole inside is meticulously lined. I think I’ll try something lighter for the lining and maybe some different styling for the bustle in back.

So these photos don’t have too much do with the dress, other than that I took them while she had it on…

And thanks to our beloved Ted. Meredith insisted that she be photographed with him on her lap.

Almost 4 years old-isms

Meredith seems to have a real sense of humor these days. It’s quite entertaining to hear/see what makes here laugh. Kids are so observant. And of course, at almost 4, my daughter lacks a politeness filter. In other words, she just says what she thinks. Today’s treats:

M: “You scared me out of my underpants!” (accompanied by fits of laughter from her)

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Nick was playing with a small massagebot character from Wall-e. Mommy to M: “Would you like a massage?”

M: “No, I’m not fat!”

(followed by laughter from me.) I guess this one only makes sense if you’ve seen Wall-e …

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Meredith and I were watching the Oscar pre-show hosts talking on tv.

M: “Mommy, that person with the white hair standing up in the front, was that a man or a woman?”

(if you watched the E pre-show, you know the male host that she was referring to…)

To Be A Locavore

I’m reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and I’m obsessed. There, I’ve said it. I’m only 1/3 of the way through it and I want to buy a farm and start growing my own food. I’m already surveying my yard and trying to decide where to plant a crop of asparagus come Spring.

In a nutshell, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is about a family that moves to a farm in VA and vows, for one year, to eat only food that they raised themselves or bought from local farms. Their main motivation was to “wring the petroleum out of their food supply.”  The first 1/3 of the book talks about the industrialization of our food supply and how we ended up with our supermarket shelves stocked with grapes from Chili year round. She talks about the amount of energy (and fossil fuels) it takes to grow, fertilize, harvest, package and ship our produce all over the world. Some of the statistics are enlightening: “Americans put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars. We’re consuming about 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen – about 17% of our nation’s energy use – for agriculture…(sic)...Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles.” 

While I’m interested in reducing fossil fuel consumption, I’ve found another of Kingsolver’s points even more personally relevant. How is it that our produce can stand a 1,500 mile journey that may take up to a week? Easy. Our fruits and vegetables have been genetically modified to resist bruising and maintain freshness for longer. But this comes at a price: TASTE and nutritional value. If anyone has tasted a plastic wrapped tomato or a peach in February, you’ll know this is true. As a Mom to small children, I struggle constantly to get my little ones to eat healthy. I hear over and over again how fresh fruits and vegetables are important to eat. Despite my best efforts to not over-cook vegetables and present them in an attractive way, there’s a simple fact. The asparagus at Stop and Shop in November is NOT the same as a bunch of asparagus grown locally and picked in early Spring. Period. I’ve attended lectures given by nutritionists, I’ve read many a nutrition article, but this is the first time I’ve heard, “Try a fresh, in-season, locally grown vegetable. Your kids may like it – it TASTES better.” A-ha! I love this quote from the book, “Bizarre as it seems, we’ve accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: ‘Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self.’”

There are many other startling bits of information in this book (our country’s overproduction of corn and soybeans, the dramatic and potentially devastating decrease in the number of varieties of our fruits and vegetables remaining…) I could go on and on – at risk of not being nearly so interesting or informational as Kingsolver. Pick up a copy of this book and you’ll not look at the food in supermarket in the same way again!

And, if you haven’t guessed by now, a locavore is someone that eats only locally grown foods.

Halloween Parade

I can’t remember the last time I pulled an all-nighter. College? Last night wasn’t quite an all-nighter (I went to bed at 2:30 am), but at my age it sure felt like it… At any rate, I finished the apple! Well, it isn’t quite finished, but finished enough to wear.

This morning was the town pre-school Halloween Parade. Too much cuteness in one place at one time. An adult-size Kermit The Frog led a hundred or so toddler and pre-school age kids in a march around the town common. Meredith got lots of compliments on her costume, including a random little girl saying, “You’re an apple!” Whew – at least it was recognizable. Nick got some compliments too. Although I don’t think a single person thought that I had made his costume. Charles thought that was a compliment in and of itself; however, after spending time on a project, you kind of want someone to acknowledge the effort. Ah well.

My favorite part of the apple costume is the hood. The stem and leaf are made of felt. The stem is three sided, stuffed, with a small fourth piece to cover the top. It’s just tacked on the top of the hood, but due to the shape it stands upright quite well. I was worried that the leaf would be droopy, so I actually sewed some green craft wire and a layer of batting between two pieces of felt. I also did some additional decorative stitching for a vein effect. Originally, I tried to get the leaf to stand upright (vertically) as well, but it was too big. I had to settle on the horizontal position, but the wire inside works quite well to give it some shape.

The body of the costume was more of a challenge. I started with the front, white section. It is two pieces of felt with a layer of batting between them. After cutting a real apple open for research, I did some decorative stitching in white. The seeds are wooden buttons. I finished the edges with some red bias tape.

The back, red side of the costume was the hardest. I wanted the front to be flat like the apple was sliced and the back to be round. The back section consists of one piece of red felt cut roughly in the shape of a body and then an additional three pieces sewn together to form 1/2 of a ball. Once I had the round shape I hand sewed the top onto the body shaped piece, then sewed the red edges to the white edges of the front piece. The three pieces that formed the ball were shaped like this:

 

I caught the edges of the body-shaped piece in the side seams thus creating a big pocket in the back to stuff to fill out the round shape.

So what didn’t get done? There’s actually a one-piece little romper under all of the felt in the same material as the hood. For the most part it can’t be seen, except for the legs peeking out from underneath. I caught the front edge of the romper with the bias tape with the white felt at the neckline. The romper is sleeveless and the edges are just raw as I ran out of time. As I’ve said, the whole thing was just improvised, and in the end, I don’t thing the romper part was really necessary. Originally, I was thinking it would be necessary to mount the felt to, but I used top and bottom pieces of felt. If I were to make this again, I’d skip the romper and maybe just make a pair of shorts or bloomers to go underneath. As it is, the closures on the costume include a zipper up the back of the romper (which is then covered by the red felt) and two snaps on each shoulder for the felt front and back. Not exactly the quickest exit for an urgent potty call!

I realized as I was posting this that I didn’t get a good photo of the backside. I’ll try to get one later this week and add it to the post. With the flat front and round back the profile was rather turtle-esque. Perhaps next year Nick will want to be a turtle?!

Panda Beau

Finally, a sewing post! And a Halloween preview.

Nick originally wanted to be a grape for Halloween, but we ended up with a panda bear. I started making Meredith’s apple costume from scratch and ended up spending a huge amount of drawing my own pattern. I looked at the calendar and got nervous that I’d never get hers done, nevermind another one from scratch for Nick. So I went with a pattern for Nick and took a hiatus from the apple. We recently took him to Build A Bear Workshop and he made a panda (which he calls ‘panda beau’.) So a panda seemed like a good fit.

I used the McCall’s Tom Arma pattern 267. I fell in love with some great fabric at our local Joanne Fabrics, but could only find the fur in navy blue. The fabric I chose is called Faux Persian Lamb and I had to order it online from two different sources – one for the white and one for the black. The lack of good fabric stores in our area is really depressing! While I love the fabric, I do have to say that it was super messy to work with. It shed like crazy!

I threw it together in a few nights. Not my best work, but at least he’s got something to wear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His face in the photo on the right cracks me up. He was saying, “Off, off!” The hood is the best part. It’s wide and stuffed so it looks pretty funny on. For some reason, the back view of the hood is the cutest. Maybe without the face to break it up it looks especially enormous. Of course, Nick’s not crazy about wearing the hood in particular so I keep having him try it on in the hopes that he’ll get used to it.

I’m disappointed in the lack of attention the pattern paid to the back of the bodysuit. The white middle section is only on the front. If I’d had more time I would have improvised and made the upper section of the back white as well. I made the skunk from the same pattern for Nick last year and thought the same thing. The back was plain and I really thought that a skunk should have a white stripe down the back. Don’t you think?!

A Boston Moment

After Meredith’s nap today I asked her to play by herself for a little bit while I got some work done before Nick woke up. She agreed and set about playing and singing herself a little song. Singing is one of her favorite things to do lately. She sings songs from school, or just makes up words to various tunes. Sometimes her songs drive me nuts and get stuck in my head, like the continent song for example. If you have a kid in pre-school, you can most likely sing along: “North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. And don’t forget Australia. And don’t forget Antarctica. North America….” If you don’t know the tune, just ask Meredith next time you’re over for a visit… But I stray from my reason for the post.

Today I overheard her singing a new song. Something about, “Love in your haaht.” And I was thinking, “Haaht? What on earth is she saying?” And then I recalled my conference with her school teacher, a lovely woman, with a thick Boston accent. Aaah! Heart! Oh shoot – she’s working on a Boston accent. I explained to her that the word was “heart” and she set about singing again. For the next ten minutes I listened to her go back and forth between haaht and heart as if trying to make up her mind which sounded better. Sigh.

At 4:00 ish, I loaded the kids in the car and then sat at the end of our street trying to make a left turn onto Mass Ave in afternoon traffic. Finally, at a short break in traffic, I said, “Hang on everyone,” and pulled out. Meredith said, “Mommy, you’re driving like a Boston driver!”

It’s official. We’re back in Boston.

Number 2

Today was Nick’s second birthday. We celebrated with my parents and my best friend and her family. After a not-so-scary haunted hay ride at a local farm, we had a quick pizza dinner and then had some neighbors over to join us for cake. I told myself I wasn’t going to do a big party this year. But what’s better than a house full of tiny fingers and red, red frosting on the cake? :) The kids seemed to have a blast. Nick didn’t seem to quite grasp the concept of his birthday. Although when asked how old he was he replied, “Three!”

The weather was fantastic and we managed to get a family picture.

The inspiration for Nick’s cake came from www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com. There were so many great fire truck cake ideas to choose from. I made the cakes last night and it took all morning to assemble, frost and decorate the truck. I used an entire small container of red gel and then some to get the frosting to be red! The biggest hit with the kids was by far the wheels. They all wanted one with their piece. I used chocolate double stuff Oreo and then added frosting for decoration.

And my favorite picture of the day: