little man's birthday outfit, pt 2

Ok, sorry I skipped a day guys.  I had a bit of a stomach bug or food poisoning or something similarly awful yesterday, and didn't feel up to computer-ing.  

So today is Asher's official big day.  He's had a nice time so far, I believe.  He played with his new bike and ran wild at the playground for some time this morning while sissy had soccer practice, and then celebrated with pizza and a sundae at California Pizza Kitchen.  He's now sleeping off the sugar high, so I have a chance to hang with you guys.

So, as promised, a brief tutorial on how to make the dapper 'lil man vest.

The nice thing about this vest is the back is made from a t shirt.  That removes about five steps involving hemming, and makes it super comfy and stretchy.  My daughter, in fact, can wear this vest as well.  So, start with a tee that fits well, and turn it inside out, tucking the sleeves into the shirt body, like so:

Line it up against the collar of the white tee shirt's back and trace around.  

 (I shoulda used a darker marker- but you can see it, right?)

Cut out your pattern piece, and mark center bottom and center top:

Lay this on top of your front fabric and trace the shoulders and sides.  Make a v line down the front, and angle the bottom hem down slightly to get the vest shape.  Cut this out, and then flip it, and place it on the linen, tracing again to get the other side of the front of your vest.  

Repeat this with your lining fabric, until you have two sets of mirror-image front pieces:

Iron the tee shirt armhole and hem and then topstitch down.  Knit won't fray so you can leave the edges raw.  I sewed once on the arms and two lines on the hem...

Line your front pieces rights sides facing in, and sew around the edges, leaving a couple inch gap in the future button portion for turning right side out again:

Iron flat, folding in the gap you left for turning.  Topstitch the neck, button panel,  and bottom.  

 Pin, then sew, the sides to the t-shirt back, and then do the same with the shoulders.  If you'd like, you can do a french seam here, but I just did a single straight seam, again leaving the knit edges raw.

Lay the vest flat and mark where you'd like your buttons to go.  You can then either do buttonholes on one side, and buttons on the other, or use snaps or hook-and-eyes and just put faux buttons on the top.  I had just sewn umpteen buttonholes in a jacket, so I went with hook-and-eyes.  

All done!  Pretty easy, no?  Lots of room for variation, as well.  You can make it single-breasted, or a rounded V neck, or cropped, for instance...  

And leave it unbuttoned for the afterparty ;)

Mr. was a sweet boy and got me some pictures of Asher playing during Kenzie's practice this morning.  

Does he look 2 now?

(say no!)

This is his Blue Steel look..  Or Magnum?  What is it when you go left?

This is typical Asher Vaughn.  A crazy monkey boy that makes mommy's heart stop every few minutes.  

On his new balance bike sent to him from his PaPaw.   It's a pretty sweet ride. 

That's all for now.  I may revisit this evening if the blowing-out-the-candles pictures prove too cute to wait....  :) 

Little man's birthday outfit, pt. 1

In two days, my baby turns two.

Two! 

It's so interesting the perspective that you get as a second-time-around mom.  I remember thinking of my daughter as a big girl at this age.  I expected much more from her than I do from my son.  And she almost aways gave it to me.  But with Ash, I still see him as a baby boy.  I carry him everywhere.  I shadow him and help him and coddle him... because I just can't see him as a big boy.  He's the last of my babies (officially) and I want to keep him little for a long long time.

But I want to dress him like a man ;)

For Asher's first birthday, we went all out.  First birthdays in Hawaii are a big deal, and we knew we only had so many shindigs left to throw with our friends there, anyway, so we really had fun with it.  But this time around, his day will be a "small kine party".  We leave the day after to travel down to Disney, which is his real celebration, and honestly, I haven't really helped score him any little buddies here to invite over to celebrate.  Bad mom.

But we'll do a little somethin' somethin'.  Cake and a fun day at the playground maybe?  Whatever the plans, he'll look good doing it.

This post will be in three parts- or four if you count the obligatory blowing-out-the-candles birthday post.  

Today I'll share how to use turmeric to dye fabric, tomorrow I'll share the vest tutorial, and Saturday I'll add on the bow tutorial.  And the obligatory blowing-out-the-candles post, too, I'm sure. 

Start out with some light colored natural fabric.  I used a cream linen, pictured on the left, and a darker muslin with a fair amount of fabric variation.

Bring a pot of water to almost boil, and stir in a couple spoonfuls of turmeric.  I used two heaping spoons worth, and had a medium sized saucepan.  If you use a big chili pot (which is best if you've got larger fabric pieces) toss in a couple more spoonfuls.  

Stir it all up...

And lower in your fabric.  You want to "agitate" the fabric, stirring and mixing and turning it so that it dyes evenly.  Keep the heat on, but it doesn't need to boil or anything.  Keep it in there, monitoring for uneven spots, for five minutes or so.  

Then rinse it in cold water.  Be careful to avoid splashing on your clothing.  Turmeric...dyes.  

Also be aware that the utility sink in your rental house may not be actually attached to the plumbing.  

Here's the requisite "mess" for this project....

Once it's all rinsed (water runs clear) do another rinse in a cold water and white vinegar.  This will help lock in the color. Let it hang dry. 

What an awesome color, huh!?!

shirting the issue

Apparently shirts are not my thing.  Dresses and pants work well enough for me- but shirts throw me every time.  

I present two recent examples...

The knit mock sailor shirt. 

I found this awesome sailboat print knit in the clearance bin of the local fabric store.  It's got a kind of nubby texture on the outside, and is slightly brushed on the inside.  It has a lot of one-way stretch.  And it picks apart if you seam rip it with anything less than utmost precision.  All this I found to be terribly unfortunate when sewing.

But it doesn't explain this:

I'm still pretty shocked that I managed to sew the sleeve into the neck hole.  Remarkably, it fit perfectly, too.  

I finally got it together (the right way) and it was brilliant.  Fit was great, it was soft and comfy and oh-so-cute.  I added a thin ribbon trim to give it a mock sailor collar, hoping to pair it with his mock sailor pants, and threw it in the wash.

Grumble grumble.  The shirt shrank, and the ribbon did not.  It got all wavy and wonky and no longer the crisp white piping-like detail I had sewn.  It's ironic, too, as the original trim I had picked out was a small yellow ric-rac.  Mr. vetoed that choice, though, claiming the wavy-ness was too girly.

Oops.

He's still gonna wear the shirt.  I worked too hard on that darn ribbon trim (I'm terrible at sewing with precision) to give up on it, and the material would fall apart if I tried to use the seam ripper to remove the trim. 

It's not too too bad, right?  

The long-sleeved tunic.

Maybe you can already figure out where this went wrong.  I have a gorgeous piece of linen I purchased recently- bright colors and a bit of a Moroccan print.  It's gorgeous.  I want to turn it into one of those long tunics with the split collar.  Something like this:

I was too scared to cut into my linen without a trial run, so I drafted a pattern and used a thin shirting material I had in my grandmother's stash.  

It was originally so so bad.  The sleeves were so tight I couldn't bend my elbows.  And the shoulders poufed up like a Disney Princess dress on crack.  Kenzie thought it was wonderful.  Mr.  just laughed.

So I cut the sleeves off and tried for a peasant top.  But the material was so white and thin that it just looked like a hospital orderly's shirt. 

Finally, I added a cobalt lining to the neckline, and used a stamp and paint to add the anchors around the neck, and it was wearable.  But nothing like the shirt I set out to make. 

I'm wondering if I should just buy a shirt pattern to learn from.  I hate using patterns- but I hate wasting fabric even more.
And I realllly want that linen tunic!

The Downton Dress.

Are you guys watching Downton Abbey?

You should.

It's a Masterpeice Classic show (comes on PBS) about English Manor life in the early 1900s.  It is *fantastic*.  

It also has the best wardrobe selection of any show I've seen in a long time.  Rivals Mad Men, in fact, for inspiring fashion revolution.  The beaded gowns and silks and minute details, and, oh dear.

I've been so struck by this show that I wanted to make myself a Downton Dress.  But the awesomely vintage-y fabric I picked up on sale wasn't quite enough to make a frock for myself, so the Kenzie girl once again got the new dress.  Lucky duck.  

Without tooting my own horn too too much, this dress is both super cute, and surprisingly well-made.  It's entirely lined, with almost all seams hidden inside the two layers.  Those that face out are french seams.  It's been washed twice now and nothing has frayed or split or unraveled.  Yay- I think I'm finally getting better!

 The bodice is sleeveless, with subtle flutters to the edges.  I did a pleat in the front, as well as princess seams.  And added three super cute frosted grey bauble buttons from my grandmother's stash.

But the back is what I really love.  A circle cutout!  I did that! ;)

It closes with three more of the grey frosted buttons, and a giant vintage wooden button at the top.  The inside is lined with contrasting fabrics- the bottom section is grey and the top is the peachy flowered print.

The bottom is hemmed with a scalloped edge, mirroring the dark brown lines in the fabric.  It also has a slight drop waist with some elastic inside to give it a bit of shape.  

Despite this expression, my girl loves it.  She also loved dressing for these pictures, as she got to wear mommy's fascinator and red lipstick.  I'm pretty darn jealous of the getup....

Here you can see a peek of the contrasting lining.  And a peek of the very rare MacKenzie angel.  

I'm working on a jacket now with a similar turn-of-the-century feel.  It is coming along swimmingly.  Too bad it, too, is child sized.

I need to wise up in my fabric purchasing!

We are now off to get the girl's soccer skills assessed for the upcoming season.  This should be interesting.  Wonder how upset she'll be when she learns tap shoes and dresses aren't allowed on the field....

recap.

 Ok, I know.  I JUST posted.  And I promise I won't keep you long.  I have Downton Abbey to watch, afterall.
Just wanted to toss a few pictures up of the girl's first day.
She had fun.  I have a feeling she and her teacher will have a bit of a clash of personalities, though.  There have already been changes made to seating arrangements to try to "tame" MacKenzie's socializing.  The teacher said "we'll work on that..."   Ha. Good luck.

But she can't wait to go back tomorrow and loves her new friends and is just thrilled with the whole adventure.

Here are the obligatory front porch photos.  She was so kind as to allow me to dress her "just the first day", and I selfishly chose a penguin dress I had recently sewn her. It looks much cuter without the tee and leggings, but here in the frozen tundra of Monterey, it's cold even in August.
I found the fabric at Goodwill- it was an old curtain or something. I thought it was all a bit j.crew, and as my daughter is obsesssssed with penguins, totally appropos.  My sister made The Cutest Hairbow Ever to go with it, but it met an untimely end on a walk back from the aquarium the other day.  (I am devastated!)

She quickly decided her giant backpack was a hinderance to her posing.  She was moving so quickly my camera couldn't focus well, but I wanted to post this- just because soon after her brother tried so hard to pose the same way.  The cuteness!

She made a friend in the PARKING LOT!  They were very excited to find they were in the same class together.  

The first thing she did when they gathered at their tables was instruct the other kids on how to do their worksheets.  She was very specific (read: bossy), and followed up frequently on their progress.  I kinda feel like I set her poor teacher up...

She was also quick to loudly point out that her apple name was misspelled.  Sigh.  

While big sissy was at school, the boy helped me bake a cake.  A fellow blogger (and super cool mama) from Hawaii has the sweetest tradition of baking a cake on the first day of school for each of her little girls, decorating them with the appropriate grade number.  I loved looking at the pictures of the cakes through the years so much that I wanted to steal her idea.

We made a super fancy dark chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and chocolate icing.  All gluten and dairy free, to boot.  Why gluten and dairy free?  Dunno.  I love wheat....and everyone knows I love me some cheese.  I guess I just wanted to try something different?  Or I felt guilty shopping in Whole Foods for wheat flour and milk?  Or I just wanted to be that granola mom from Cali?

Anyway, it was DELICIOUS.  Seriously, the best chocolate cake I've had in a long time.  Fudgy and rich and really really chocolatey.  Mmmmmm.  

My cake pans were slightly different sizes.  Oops....

I initially tried melting the bunny gummies into the letter "K".  I saw something similar with hard candies....but the bunnies just turned into gooey messes.  In hindsight, that seems obvious, huh?

Her expression upon seeing her cake for the first time.  PRICELESS!!

So, it was a good day.  

I hope this loving school thing lasts!