Do you see all of my handsome boys there together?  Oh my.  And a little man in a little suit.  Oh, I do so love this sweet boy!  It doesn’t get much more adorable then this.  Clearly he went  everywhere, saw every little thing and talked to everyone.  Also, I think that the photographer may have been a bit smitten (understandable).

Details for the bow tie can be found here.  As you can see, he was not forced to attend in his pajamas, as originally predicted.  Woo-hoo!  Score one for me!

The pattern is Butterick 6894, views B and D.  My copy is 12 years old, but it is amazingly still in print.

The fabric was a beautiful, thick, wool blend suiting with shades of grey, brown and black all mixed up in heathered diagonal stripes.

I had planned on making the older boys vests to wear.  But when I found these full outfits (shirts, pants, vests, and ties) on clearance, for around the same cost as just the fabric, well…considering everything else I wished to accomplish, it just seemed the way to go!  And they look fabulously handsome all the same, yes?

All photographs by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

I wasn’t going to bother with flowers for Màiri, but when she heard that all of the other girls were going to have some, she didn’t want to be left out!

While looking at other floral supplies, I came across these bags.  I hadn’t really seen anything like that before and I thought they were kind of a cute idea.  Rather then buy the $27 bag, I bought a plain, $3 one and embellished it myself.

I do not have pictures of the process, but it was fairly straight forward.

I used a bit of unbleached muslin that I had laying around for the skirt.  First I measured from the top edge of the basket to the fold for the bottom.  Then I measured around the edge of the basket.  I multiplied the second number by 2.5.

1st measurement by 2nd measurement x 2.5 is the size you need to cut your fabric.

You can finish the edges if you like.  The unfinished edges really appealed to me for whatever reason, so I just left them.

Fold the fabric in half, right sides together, lining up the short edges.  Stitch the short edges together.

Run a gathering stitch along the top and gather evenly to fit the top edge of the basket.  Pin it to the basket and stitch in place.  I used a zig-zag stitch for this.

At this point you can do whatever else you like to decorate it.  I used a strip of 3/4″ cotton lace, that I had leftover from Màiri’s blessing gown.  I sewed it over the top edge of the skirt.  Then a used a little scrap of Alençon lace from my gown as an applique to cover where the lace trim was joined.  The whole thing took around 15 minutes.

To fill it, I found that a milk carton was the perfect size, so I cut the bottom off an old one and cleaned it (obviously).  Then I cut a chunk of floral foam to fit neatly inside.  Once the foam had been soaked, I simply stuck spray roses into somewhat randomly.  I really only wanted to use the peach roses, but we had so many of the other ones with short stems, leftover from bouquet making, that it just made sense to use both.

It was a little heavy because of the water saturated foam, but the Wee Miss thought it was great.  And now she uses the bag to hold all of her hair ties and things.

All photographs by the lovely and talented Dawn Joseph.

Writing about The Wee Girl’s birthday sweater made me think of the birthday party I never posted about.  She wanted a tea party and gingerbread and to invite “lots of people”.  When specifically asked, “lots of people” amounted to Steve, Iain, Elijah, Galen, Pop-pop, Me-Mom, Aunt Tina, Aunt Rachel and myself.  We managed to round up eight out of nine, which was more then enough to keep her happy.

The dress she’s wearing is this one.  Which just barely fit her then and doesn’t at all fit her now.  I can’t believe how much older she looks a mere 5 months later.

For her crown a made three little roses from this pattern and sewed them all to a strip of green fold over elastic.

The hanging decoration was a day-of, off-the-cuff invention.  I stripped all of the greenery from the grapevine wreath base I had twisted together for our advent wreath and replace it with long bits of ribbon and lace and suspended it from the ceiling. It’s hanging in their playroom now where it always makes me think of May Poles and springtime.

Things are busy here.  So gloriously, nerve wrackingly, abundantly full.  My health is improving.  The weather is starting to turn.  We are so close to so many big and exciting things…the official start of baseball season (just as soon as the snow melts off the field!), two dance recitals, our yearly camping trip, our wedding, a private little trip for just Steve and I, an 11th birthday to celebrate…  My to-do list.  Ha! It’s a bit of a joke, with “need to do” and “want to do” blurring and running on into infinity.  In between the great big projects, I try sneak in little projects or tiny bite sized pieces of medium projects.  This bow tie (pattern: Sunday Best Bow Tie by Crab Apple Attic) was cut and pinned late one night, while talking on the phone with a friend, and quickly sewn up another morning, just before breakfast.  Ultimately I’m hoping he won’t be wearing it with a pajama shirt.  I guess it all depends on whether or not I get around to making the rest of his outfit!

you would like an explanation for the craziness of my last post?  There is a reasonable one, I swear.  Did anyone figure it out?

First a little story.  Steve and I have been planning to have a wedding since, well since we got married, but didn’t actually have a wedding…I remember us being in jeans and stopping in somewhere to sign some papers, on our way to somewhere else and not much more.  Two years ago we picked a time frame (this May).  Last year an actual date.  I started making myself a gown.  Then when I got ill this past autumn into winter, everything got put on hold.  When I started getting better we decided to go on with our plans, with a couple of alterations.  For example, I decided to be easy on myself and order a gown rather then making one.  I finally decided on and ordered one back in February.  And it was just last week, with less then two months to go, that I found out that my custom dress was not actually coming.  I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement, and so, I’m back to making my own…in a much more stressful situation then it would have been if I had just decided to stick with that plan all along.  Such is life.

For something like this you really need to get the fit just so.  The catch being that it’s very difficult to fit something to yourself.

 Hence the need for a personalized dress form.

(did I just hear a collective “OOOOooooohh!”?)

The basic idea:

put on an old tee shirt

have someone wrap several layers of duct tape around you

carefully cut it up the back

tape it back together and stuff it

More detailed instructions can be found here.

How do you spend your weekends?!?

Look, I’m a superhero!

General swing instructions here.

‘I Love You Raspberry Cheesecake-Mousse’ (raw, dairy free)- hers are ever so much prettier then mine!

Galen’s sweater pattern (shown in several pictures here both inside out and backwards).

Yarn for both Galen’s sweater and Teddy’s sweater (color: honey).

Teddy’s sweater and both sets of pants were improvised.

Fabric: random striped canvas found at a yard sale by my Mother-in-Law.

Teddy

Birthday Crown

We went retro this Valentine’s Day, with a whole theme coming together in a completely unexpected, not to mention unplanned, way.  For me it all started with a dress.  I’m a little bit obsessed with Modcloth at the moment (p.s. follow that link for $15 off of a purchase of $50 or more).  I did not get myself a birthday dress, but I did pick out a dress that I thought Steve would like as a surprise for Valentine’s Day.  And since I was going for the ’50′s look already, I decided to go all the way out and do my hair and make up in period style as well.

Hair tutorial here.

Make up here.  I did skip the the fake eyelashes and the beauty mark.

related musings…

1) I’m pretty sure there must have been more like 26 hours in a day half a century ago.  How else was there time for all of this fussing?

2) I’m incompetent with eyeliner, lack of practice I suppose.

3) What are the odds that this makes up for all of the times when he comes home and I’m still in (or back in!) my pajamas??

Miss Màiri Rose was not to be left out of all of this prepping and primping.  With her brother’s dressed in head to toe red, she declared that she needed something special to wear as well.  Which put me in mind of the presumably (and accurately so) still too big, genuine 1950′s party dress I had airing out in the attic for the future for her.  Had I known she was going to end up wearing it, I would have made a slip to go underneath and replaced the missing sash.  As it was she wore it layered over another dress, with a random sash of pink ribbon about the waist.  And then, my goodness, she set about arranging her hair in a “hairstyle” of her own devising.

How very fitting, and terribly romantic, when after the kids went to bed, my love presented me with a vintage (yes, 50′s!) engagement ring for when we exchange rings during our vow renewal this spring.  It’s tucked away for safe keeping in a drawer just now, but it took me a solid 2 days to convince myself to take it back off.

My (other) gift to him; a vest to wear to that very event (Kwik Sew Pattern 2314, view B, with some modifications).

Unrelated to the theme, but still utterly delightful, were the ooey-gooey, grain-free (!) cinnamon buns we made.  We replaced the white sugar with coconut sugar and they turned out wonderfully.

The hot water bottle covers, that Iain and Elijah made from old sweaters, to give as Christmas gifts.  They make winter a happy thing.  I keep threatening to steal them all and bury myself in them.  Simple pleasures.

Don’t unicorns and feathers randomly appear in your tree when you turn your back?

Everyone’s favorite Christmas Eve tradition, Pop-pop’s reading of “Twas the Night Before Christmas“.

A new idea this year; houseplants in the kids stockings.

This year’s Christmas pajamas…

fabric: ‘Woolies’ flannel by Maywood Studio

pattern: Kwik Sew K3945 for all three boys, with some length added for Iain.  I didn’t use a pattern for Rosebud’s, but this was my inspiration.

I was bored with my usual red and/or green color scheme and decided to try something new.

I’m so very sleepy.  Not much to say for myself tonight.  We have house guests arriving with yet another snowstorm tomorrow and much more celebrating to come.  All is well here.