Pattern Test for Melody’s Makings – 02

I just recently finished one of the cutest little animal projects that I have ever done! Melody’s Makings – Rustic Raccoon Hooded Cowl! This is her first hooded cowl pattern and you can clearly see that she hit the ball out of the park with this one! Can’t you just imagine a whole family of Rustic Raccoon Hooded children (and adults) walking around?! If I lived in a colder climate I would definitely make one for each of my kids and myself since the pattern is sized to fit a newborn all the way to an adult.

I love how Melody used bulky yarn for this pattern because I had the perfect Bernat Alpaca yarn to use for one of the projects colors! I also feel that using a thicker yarn means the projects go faster. So, I can easily see making more then one of these at a time (which is good since I want one for each of us)!

Another thing that I love about this pattern, is that Melody offers it in both knit and crochet! As I am sure you can tell, I did the crochet version… I have only done one knitting project so I wouldn’t feel to confident to try the knit pattern right now. But I really hope to be able to feel more comfortable with knitting so that I can take advantage of both versions of her patterns. Most of her patterns are available in both versions too!

Want the info on where to get this pattern? I am sure you do!

Knit Version: Website / Ravelry

Crochet Version: Website / Ravelry

Don’t forget to head over to her Facebook page and show her some love! She puts up a lot of great content and giveaways!

Why is your poop blue!? Oh yeah, you ate a blue crayon…. ugh!

Yup, you read it right. Little Miss S eats crayons. She is four months away from turning 3… and yet she still eats crayons. It doesn’t happen while you are watching her or when her sister is sitting down coloring with her. Instead she takes a crayon and sneaks away to eat it. Then she comes over to me yelling “Mommy, Mommy, Look!” while sticking out her tongue. Then I tell her how she can get really sick eating crayons and put her in time out. You can then go ahead an repeat this process in a couple of days.

Lately, she been picking blue crayons which have in turn made her poop some very interesting colors. Today she decided to switch it up a bit and ate an orange crayon. Fantastic! Can’t wait to see if this one effects her bowl movements in any way, shape or form.

I am sure that there are other people out there that are having this problem… or at least I hope. I definitely don’t want to think that she has some weird kind of crayon eating fetish. Miss S doesn’t really eat the WHOLE crayon… just chews on the end of it enough to get a good amount of little itty bitty crayon pieces all over her tongue, teeth, face, neck, hands and whatever else she decides to rub them on.

I really hope that she figures out that crayons are made for coloring on paper and not on the inside of her tummy. I’m really not a big fan of trying to scrape all the little bits out of her mouth. I’m sure Miss M would like it too, since she has really taken a liking to drawing and writing.

Toddler Sleep… Wish I could solve the mystery.

I don’t know about anyone else but things at my house have been pretty crazy. Both of my girls (Peanut will be 4 in September and Mushy turned 2 in April) don’t take naps anymore. I have been noticing some aggression, moodiness and down-right grumpiness from them lately. I chatted with my sister-in-law about this and she mentioned that it might be because they are not getting enough sleep.

So, I looked at the sleep requirements on the National Sleep Foundations website and sure enough they were not getting the amount of sleep that they say the girls need at their ages.

According to them 1-3 year olds need 12-14 hours of sleep in a 24 hours period and 3-5 year olds need 11-13 hours (information can be found at http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/children-and-sleep). My kids come no where near that amount! On a good day they will both go to sleep around 9pm and get up around 7:30-8am. Whenever my little Mushy gets a nap in (no matter how long or short the nap is) she ends up staying up longer. A good example: Yesterday she actually fell asleep on the couch and took an hour nap. Then when it came time for bed she didn’t fall asleep until almost 10:30pm which is 1.5 hours after we put them to bed. Even though she went to bed that much later, she still got up at her normal time.

So, with this kind of thing happening how do you get her to sleep longer so that her attitude isn’t horrendous anymore? Right now I am working on “quiet time” after lunch. When they are done eating they get cleaned up and then head upstairs to their room. I then put the gate up and explain to them that it is “quiet time” and they should lay down and relax while reading a book or playing with their lace-up cards. Of course I hope that they take a nap but that never happens. Instead they usually just end up fighting and bickering… the usual “sisters that share a room” stuff I guess.

The only good thing that comes out of that one hour of “quiet time” is that I get to “recharge”, make phone calls if I have to, do laundry, empty the dishwasher… you know get all of the wifey stuff done.

Do you have any advise on how to solve this kind of problem? Are you dealing with this kind of stuff? I like to hope that I am not the only one that has to deal with this kind of thing. If I figure any of this stuff out I will be sure to share the info with you!

Pattern Test for Sew Much Love Patterns – 04

This pattern is a little different then the usual patterns that I test because it was a sewing pattern! 🙂 Yes, Sew Much Love Patterns has broadened her pattern making into the wonderful world of sewing! I was very excited when I saw that she wanted testers for her first sewing pattern so, of course I volunteered! 🙂 I love her crochet patterns and just knew that I would love her sewing pattern as well. So, I am very happy to share this test with you all!

First things first… picking out the fabric. I decided to make something for my Mushy this time, since I usually make stuff for my Peanut. I took both of them to the fabric store but let the little one pick out her fabric. She immediately picked a pink butterfly sparkley fabric (I wasn’t really surprised by that) then I picked the dark pink color to be the accent fabric.

After I got home with the fabric I opened the PDF file for the pattern (this was my first PDF pattern that I have ever worked on). The instructions were very easy to follow for the measurements so I was able to cut my fabric.

After I got my four pieces cut to the correct measurements, it was time to move on to the assembling. This part of the pattern was so well written that I was able to whip up this dress in under an hour! From measuring to cutting to assembling! I almost wish that everything was this easy to work up! 🙂 She gives you instructions on how to do things for both sewing machine users and serger users (I don’t have a serger yet, but I hope to get one in the near future!).

My little Mushy just doesn’t like to model for me so, I had to settle with a hanger shot of the finished dress. I was able to trick her into letting me take some photos of her walking around though. Shhh don’t tell her! :p

Her older sister liked the dress so much that I am now making her one as well! This one is in the same butterfly fabric but with a purple background and she wanted yellow to be her accent color. I of course would have picked a dark purple and I suggested it. But she was very sure that she wanted it to be yellow. Guess it’s a good thing that my 3.5 year old sticks to her guns, but it didn’t hurt to try to get the dark purple. :p  I will be sure to share a picture of her dress all finished!

You can find the links to her first (of hopefully many) sewing patterns below.

Girls Dress Pattern – Simple Pillowcase Dress – Available sizes: 6 months – 8 years

Etsy: Girls Dress Pattern, Pillowcase Dress Pattern, Easy Sewing PDF Patterns, Sewing Pattersn, Baby Dress Sewing Pattern size 6 months to 8 years

Craftsy: Simple Pillowcase Dress Pattern

 

Make sure you check back because I have another pattern test coming up from a different designer. This one is more of a tutorial on how to create something using any kind of yarn and with any hook, and have it turn out right!

 

Mock Smock Dress Tutorial

My daughter Peanut just loves My Little Ponies right now so she was SUPER excited to see that they had MLP Mock Smock fabric at Joann’s . She loved the last dress that I made for her out of this type of material (so much that she wanted to wear it three days in a row). So, what better reason then to do a tutorial post about it up on the blog right! 🙂 This will be my first tutorial that I have ever put on there for a sewing project. These types of dresses are pretty easy to make so lets dive in!

First thing first… buying the fabric. With this kind of fabric you get a lot of stretch due to the built in elastic at the top of the fabric. What I like to do is measure my daughter around the chest then buy it at that length. When sewing the fabric together you will loose half an inch because of the seam. If you want it to be more snug then you could take  1/2 an inch off of the person’s chest measurement. But remember you don’t want to make it too snug so I wouldn’t go more then 1/2 an inch.

Once you have your fabric in front of you, you want to seam it together. Fold the fabric in half (right-side in) and match the edges up. Now you just have to pin the two sides together so that the fabric doesn’t shift when you are sewing it. How many pins you use or if you put them in vertically or horizontally is strictly your preference. I choose to put my vertical when doing something like a seam, but when I do something like the straps I put them horizontal. I find it easier for me to pull them out that way in a smaller area.

Once you have your seam all pinned up you just sew a simple 1/4 inch seam from top to bottom of the fabric. Now you will have a dress for a special little girl!

But if that little girl is anything like my little girl, she will need some straps added to her dress! Peanut runs around and climbs on everything so a strapless dress just wont do at all. I went out and got some matching 7/8 in ribbon to use for the straps, of course Peanut picked pink. hehehe I wasn’t surprised by that at all! Her current favorite colors are Pink and Green. You can choose a different kind of ribbon if you want to. That choice is totally up to you.

Now that you have your ribbon You have to see how long to cut it. What I do is have your little one put it on and directly measure it that way. I had peanut put the dress on inside out and then I took the ribbon and pinned it where I wanted it in the front and put it over her shoulder to the back of the dress. This will show you how long to make both sides. I like to have a good 1-1 1/2 inch over lap with my ribbon straps. Because like I said my girls are rough and tumble even though they love the girlie stuff too. Now that the ribbon is cut you don’t want it to fray over time. So, take a lighter and just run it along the cut edge of the ribbon. This will singe the edges making it so that it doesn’t fray. Once you have them singed and pinned to the wrong side of the fabric you are ready to sew them on.

As you can see I sew my straps on with a nice box and X pattern. I find that this is super strong and really holds up. I could have used a darker pink color for the stitching but I wanted to make sure that you could all see the final sewing design that I use.

This is what you get! One happy little girl! It’s only 66 degrees here in beautiful Southern California but she insists on wearing it! I think this was a job well done.

Please share with me your Mock Smock dress after you make it!

 

Felt Tetris Board

So, I am a huge geek that still loves everything from my childhood. That could be why my girls watch My Little Pony (even though I like the way they used to look better), Care Bears and Smurfs. But that is not were my geeky side ends, that is why I started working on my newest project. Peanut (my oldest) already knows all over her colors and shapes but Mushy (my littlest) doesn’t know them yet. So, I wanted to make them something new to play with that will challenge both of them…. FELT TETRIS! It can help Mushy learn her colors and shapes while Peanut works on her puzzle skills (which she happens to LOVE).

First I started with a bunch of felt. I picked black for the general shape of the game. I kept it the regular size that the felt sheets come in. I then picked a couple of fun bright colors to make the shapes in. There are five shapes so I picked the colors Yellow, Green, Red, Blue & Orange.

Once you have all of the colors picked out it’s time to start measuring for the different pieces. To make it easier for me to figure out, I used a 1 inch square to build the five different shapes. I cut them out of paper first so that I could have a good pattern before making the shapes out of the felt.

I wasn’t sure how  many of each shape I should cut out of the felt but I thought that 8 pieces for each of the colors/shapes would be a good amount to give both kids a choice of what to use. You can always cut more if you feel you need more.

After I had everything all cut out I set up the boards on the table and let the girls try it out… I have to say it was a success! Peanut just loves to work with the shapes and fit them all together. She even figure out how to use the shapes to cover the whole board without any of them sticking off the edge! I love how the felt sticks to itself and also separates when it’s time to take apart and start over.

The girls both give this project a thumbs up!

Robin

Toddler Shoe Tip

My kids are pretty independent when it comes to a lot of things. One thing that they really want to do on their own all the time is put on their shoes. Of course that means that there is a 50/50 chance that they will put them on the correct feet, most of the time that is not the case. So, I had to figure out a way to make it easier for them to tell which shoe went on the correct foot.

This is when I started with the stickers. Originally I was going to put a sticker in just the shoes that go on the right foot. But that could still lead to some confusion. So, I decided the best thing to do would be to cut the sticker in half and make it into a “puzzle”. My oldest loves doing puzzles so this worked perfectly! She no longer gets her shoes mixed up!

That’s a win for this Mommy! 🙂