Why we bought her blocks

This is why we have bought her blocks for her birthday *shhhh don't tell her and glad she can't read it yet!* :)

She gets to doing these patterns and then she runs out of materials... and gets sad, but starts over again with something new. I don't often catch them, because of this. I asked Mark to hand me the camera before she knocked them all over and got upset. She has lots of cylinders and blue squares and more of these red and green blocks exactly like these waiting for her to open in November. I know she'll be thrilled :)



For the record - I tried to make a pair of footed pants last night and failed :( I'll have to try again with a few modifications. I took the feet off them entirely and made a hem at the bottom. She is wearing those in the picture above 'clown pants' Mark calls them. I need to make a pair of footies for HIM - as he got cold last night. He says perfect them for her, then triple the size ;)

Finished footed pajamas

Made from 1940s version Simplicity 3493 footed pajamas pattern, size 4.


I took my glasses off to use the camera.. she found them


There is _QUITE_ a lot of room in the seat!

And about two to three inches are bunched up at her ankles, as well.



But it didn't impose much upon her playing while wearing them



As you can see, they are QUITE large, but usable :) I wonder if the fact they didn't have disposable diapers in 1940 had something to do with it? And a size too big to start with... but I can make some adjustments and make a newspaper pattern to try a second one. And she will grow into these. Even though they are too big she said 'mine - with socks' and grabbed the front of them and hoisted them up - walking away to go play... I take that as a good sign!

They are officially 'sock pants' to Esme - she asked for them off for a 'butt change' a few minutes ago and said 'sock pants off - no sock pants - need butt change.' ha!

A modern example for this pattern is Simplicity 5874, and it comes in multiple sizes. I might need to remember that later.

Red raglan shirt with the birds

It was so cold last night! I got up in the middle of the night and put on a second shirt and another blanket on the bed! I tucked Esme into her blankets as well, but that lasted maybe five minutes before she threw them back off....oh well, we try. I think I sewed for about three hours last night and Esme fell fast asleep watching Spongebob, which she calls 'BeeBob'.

I was 'bad' last night on the way home from work - I was supposed to buy a can of coffee - for myself - and instead I couldn't resist this bird fabric and put the coffee off until after the weekend. I still have a little coffee at home, and inspiration is worth it. If you know me well - that is a big statement to hear! I just saw little raglan sleeves made out of the bird fabric! I had also bought some regular sleeve fabric (white on white) and fell for a red fabric with white flowers that was actually not even unwrapped yet. I kept staring at it while she cut the other two and finally asked if it was for sale yet - and she unwrapped it and cut me a half yard ;) I spent five dollars on all three fabrics but being unexpected I still count that as a splurge. I know I have so much fabric I can use at home - but they keep threatening to close down the department at that WM and when I see something I would really like - I worry it won't be there soon. I think they have it all planned that way - because I saw a LINE at the counter that night to buy fabric. The red fabric this shirt is made of is a regular polycotton. It is from my stash. So, I am using my stash fabric up as well! Polycotton doesn't stretch as much or lay as nicely as pure cotton but I wasn't willing to cut into the other fabric without having the pattern planned out better.


I did not brush her hair out before the picture - because then she would expect to go to town/Grandma's house and bug me mercilessly. I'll brush it out later when we really will go to Grandma's house (we hope)

I searched through my patterns and could not find the front pieces for the raglan pattern at all :( So I tried once again to make it up - and ran into a tiny problem with the underarm of the sleeve in the front. It was not as bad as I thought it would be when I tried it on her - it just pulls a tiny bit when she reaches far forward. I'll try to fix that when I cut into the rest of the fabric I bought.


If you look right under and behind the arm you see the 'pull'
The neck would lay better in a different fabric
but I might also cut it a bit deeper on the next.


The black fabric has little white quails on it in leaves

I put the circle in the front of the bodice while Esme was playing longer in the bathtub. I felt bad about losing that odd corner of the fabric without anything to do with it - and decided that was a good use for it.

happy alphabet blanket

Happy smile over 'mine blanket' and being able to sit on it on the floor

A-Z animal panel

I cut out all the patchwork I was going to do and just joined it to some primary flannel I had sitting on the shelf. I 'quilted' it with a border all around the edge and following the lines of the squares inside the panel. It is very pretty - and she really likes it. I don't think it will see much bed use though, unless I can convince her. She doesn't think the bed is 'fun' - and she does think the blanket is fun, for sitting on the floor! I put it in the wash and hope to dry it before I put her to bed tonight. I was thinking about saving it for her birthday but Mark suggested I wrap her up in it immediately after it was done. It was a hard decision!

Equinox is coming, and animal town shirt

Asking to go outside and play with her 'green rebot'

September 23rd is the equinox this year, according to Wikipedia, and then the days will begin to be shorter than the nights and winter will be quickly arriving. When your birthday falls on the solstice you might be a little more interested in such terms. I was, when I was a kid.

This is the 'science experiment' shirt out of Japanese animal town fabric. It is the tieback pattern (without tiebacks) and with the bodice lining idea from the pink dress to line the entire top without sleeves. I also tried to gather the front instead of pleat it... worked half as well as I wanted it to. There would need to be just a bit more fabric in the front to gather it evenly instead of pleat it at the sides which I normally do.



I've been holding this fabric in reserve for about a year... guilty about buying it on Etsy at some 7.00 a yard and wanting to use it well. Esme saw it in a bag this week and said 'elephant with an apple on it's head!' That is one of the animal pictures on it. I asked her to find that one when I was taking pictures and she did point to one of them.


close-up of the elephant and apple

bits after the busy weekend

The weekend was so productive, two finished shirts and the pink dress, and then I had to go back to work today. I just really wanted to be back at my sewing table! It was a quick day though, and I was able to cut out yet another shirt at my lunch hour. Esme is wearing that shirt now, and it looks pretty good. It is a science experiment between a few of the patterns. So that is up four pieces of clothing since last week :) There is still more to make though.. and then I can repurpose the fabric from a few things and reserve others for only playing in the mud etc..

The little bits I wanted to remember this weekend:
Sunday I saw both the sunrise and the sunset. There was a lot of 'pink' there, too :) Esme and I played in the sand and I showed her how to make sand cakes with a bucket -- she said it was a 'dirty birthday cake - it dirty mumum! no birthday!' But after I made a few more of them she decided it was worth pretending and found some sticks to put in for candles. When we were out playing in the sand yesterday and when I was watching her today I was thinking: 'I did all of those things when I was little - I actually remember it..' I remember pouring soft sand on my knees so that it would trickle down to my feet, and then shaking it off only to do it again... I remember making several piles in a row and then smashing them etc.. It is like looking through a time machine. She has been really enjoying going through the five pounds of buttons or so that a friend at work gave to me. We empty one of the large plastic bags into a plastic tupperware and let her sift through them and look at all the colors, sizes etc... and her plastic horse dances in there for her because we told her she couldn't stomp in them. If she gets too wild with them she has to give them up and/or go to bed.. either way we put them away. Playing with the button box was another thing my mom used to do when I was Esme's age :) I bet if I closed my eyes I could still see some of them!

here she is playing 'birthday' with pencils stuck into spools and 'blowing out the candles.' She is getting in so much practice!





It's kind of cool and ironic that we have a Singer sewing machine sitting on top of another Singer - the *corrected* 1904 version which is still inside the wooden table. Esme sometimes points out the letters in the ironwork to me S-I-N-G-E-R.

I found this old blog picture showing the old singer before we put it away -- I was fiddling hard with the bobbin winder and never got it to quite work right enough to sew much. Mark had better luck with it, but agreed it was worth buying a new machine and keeping this one for antique value. This was in March 2007, and the new machine was bought for 79.00 in August 2007. And I've been cranking things out ever since :)


antique singer sewing machine from 1904 model 27-4 with a serial number beginning with 'B'

Pink butterfly dress McCalls 7708 from 1965

This is what I got from the McCalls 7708 pattern copyright 1965, girls size 3. The skirt is so poufy! I did view 'D' without the sashing and back bow. I also shortened the skirt at the 'to shorten fold here' line, as I was worried about running out of fabric. I think that was a good choice, as it is plenty long enough. She really likes it and was naming off the colors of the butterflies 'green butterfly', 'yellow butterfly', 'blue butterfly' etc etc... I had the opportunity to wash it this morning and it seemed to come through just fine wash and dry, as well. The fabrics are a quilter's cotton print and a 50/50 polyester cotton blend for the skirt and lining.

I think if I were to do it a second time around I would tuck in the bodice more into the darts in the back - and eliminate some of the back skirt in that step, as well. It could probably use a lot less skirt all around - to be a bit more practical. I watched her play with a balloon while wearing it. Whether it is intentional in the pattern or my own mistake in sizing or execution, I can see some of the roominess around the front/back as practical in itself. It allows her to stretch and play without being bound by the garment. Even taking that into account - a little less in the back bodice would still give her stretch room but not be baggy.

Actual working time was probably about three hours, including tracing and cutting. In reality it was five hours from start to finish - including dinner, extra fiddliness to make sure I did something right and staring at the bodice facing for a half hour with a confused look on my face. Mark made a pizza somewhere in there and we watched 'Bedtime for Bonzo' on DVD - which Esme really liked parts of and Mark and I made a lot of comments about 'raising a little monkey' to each other back and forth.


McCalls 7708 copyright 1965
View 'D' is the top center.



I tried to use the gathering stitch on my machine but it did NOT work.....so I ripped out the few stitches there and took a hand-sewing needle to put the gathering thread through the entire skirt top evenly, then pull it gently into place all around while pinning it in. That was fiddly... but turned out with a fairly even result which was worth the effort.

Mama make the pink this one shirt the dress the shirt

This is a 'mama please' expression I don't often catch on the camera.
It's kind of like the 'dog face' from the movie BOLT *hehe*


"Mumum make the pink, this one shirt the dress the shirt..." That is Esme-speak for 'Mama please make this dress here and make it out of this pink fabric.' She definitely tells me what she wants, although she does change her mind often! She has really been into the idea of pink color lately, since a little before that pink sweatshirt came into our lives (put upon bunny dog post) but definitely en force since then! I finished the OTHER pink dress but left off the red gingham ties for now... Mark isn't sure it needs it but I might make some thin ties for it later anyway. Now, I have another pink one to make.


McCalls 7708 copyright 1965

Esme wants the white one in the top left, but in pink... or she just wanted the windmill toy. She also wants the red balloon. I'm much more partial to the top right or the bottom center... for reasons of ease of edge finishing.


bodice facing for 'D' top center

AFTERNOON: Esme is napping. I'm staring at this bodice facing. It is supposed to be sewn face-to-face and then turned inside out and finished some more. It hurts my brain a little I think.. but not as much as the view 'E' top left that Esme wanted! For some reason they want you to finish that one inside-out and then baste the edge and turn it right-side out and stitch on a braided trim. I was thinking of bias cut fabric could work for it... maybe that would be second-time-around try. It's funny: the views I thought were easiest to make (A,C) were the exact and only one cut out of the 1965 pattern. All the rest of the pattern pieces were uncut and intact. I'm cutting out D,E now and reading ahead.

Mark read my post yesterday about needing to make more clothes - so he tried his hand at this.



I told him tubes don't wash well ;) He said we'd just throw her out in the rain. Haha! He is kidding, of course. It says 'if found return to:' and 'reward - one oatmeal cookie' on it in magic marker.

I made the paper tube into a tree with cardboard leaves after she got out of it. Then we made a construction paper family of brown bears with 'honey' and other food which were just squares of other colors of paper I had lying on the table. She is still playing that game with it this morning. They jump down the hole into the bottom of the tree, she tosses 'food' into them.. she makes 'eating' noises and then she pulls the tube back off the pile of bears/squares and picks them up to start again. It is extremely cute. She was trying to explain it to my mom on the phone last night but my mom of course could not see any of it and had a very hard time understanding her. Esme kept saying 'it fantastic Nana! Fan-TAS-TICK!' And then she would roll into laughter and Nana would, too.. and they had a lot of fun with hardly any 'real' conversation at all.

NIGHT: Woohoo! It probably took me an hour to cut out the dress - as I was very careful with the pattern. I also tend to take breaks in between cutting bits of the dress out (facing / bodice / skirt) or I get frustrated with it in an odd way. And then it took exactly four hours (but there was also dinner in there after Esme woke up) to sew the entire thing up and try it on Esme. It fits a little large, and the skirt is SO poufy she looks like a flower fairy! I am proud of it, and I think she is, too. Pictures tomorrow I hope! And second time around - there probably will be one, with a slightly smaller bodice back piece and much less skirt. The bodice facing I was thinking would be hard was actually quite elegant... I like how they did that!


link to the post with the finished pictures of this dress

run circles away from bug...

I was able to get a few frames in good enough light to animate - but not all of what I really wanted. All of the 'ahhhhh' expression is play acting, and the 'run in circles' animation link is hilarious!



Today she is out in the dirt and covered head to toe like PigPen. I'll need to go give her a bath soon.

green dress fits.. mostly

This is the new green top, now finished. I hope the front relaxes some after a few washings, it kind of sticks up some - that could be the fabric choice and it could be the newness of the fabric. She does like it, and besides that one little bit the dress fits very well. If I had had enough of the print green it would have been perfect - that fabric is soft and drapey.

We've been having a lot of playing and a lot more 'Bossy Cow' attitude today. She wants to pick everything at the store - have her TV do exactly what she wants when she wants it to (my tv, no mine mine!). And, she really really wants to go see Grandma - but I told her Grandma wasn't there when we called, and she was too cranky after that to call again. I think she really needs a NAP. Maybe she can see Grandma tonight, maybe tomorrow. All we have to do tomorrow is post office.

The baby cat has been an angel put in the box for most of the day. Esme has also been in the box. She's been playing with blocks and putting her toys through the tube again and feeding them with toy spoons. She did her shape worksheet one more time today - I put it out and didn't ask her to do it, but she saw it on the bed and went and did it anyway :) We watched another piglet video on youtube and then I put on Babe, the movie while she had her applesauce, bread and milk. She got bored with it about halfway through, but picked up on it again at the end. I'm thinking to get the picture encyclopedias out for her homeschool tonight, and draw some on paper with her - she is very much into pretend today. She is putting her blocks out as a 'road' across the room and having her playmobils jump jump across them and into the box at the end. 'jump dolly - jump! jump back dolly!' She's also having a lot of fun with a funnel, a piece of fine chain, the paper towel tube and a large box.


shape page


wearing Daddy's boots and playing with the paper towel tube

hoping for good news

I had my interview today - hope to know by the weekend. The interview seemed to go well. That job will be a lot more intense and more responsibility - but it is one I've wanted for a while.

When I got home Esme was in a really bad mood - she had just finished eating and didn't want me to start - she wanted to play immediately. I ate anyway, and she was mad about that a little. We've had to tell her to let us talk more often now, as she wants the only conversation to be hers, as well - 'I talk, my talk!' etc... trying to sink that ship before it gets any further - no WE talk right now, stop shushing us and eat your dinner/play toys/ etc until we're done.

Since she was in a bad mood I didn't think we'd do any 'homeschool' stuff, but then I loaded up a video of little piglets and let that go from there. When she was tired of surfing youtube with me she was a little calmer but still being bossy (no I choose - this one! (choose something I can't get to, frustration ensues etc.). We did see some great counting videos including a couple going up to one hundred and several other baby animal videos.

I gave her a bath then we played with some regular toys and I printed out another sheet of shape matching for her. She is really excellent at that 'game'. It's just putting the cut-out shape into the matching box on a sheet of paper. She did so well with the patterning blocks on her first introduction to them last week I knew she would get this little game immediately. And, she did. After that, I cut out all of the shapes out of a second copy and scattered them on the table. I gave her the colored shapes to lay back out on the scattered shapes. She got those right, too.. I stretched it and asked her to match up some of the word names of the shapes - but she could only do a few of those and they were probably guessing -- she said she wanted to go back to matching the shapes so we did a few more times.

She asked me to cut out several paper animals for her - something I do pretty well and like to do, as well. :) I made her a red doggie, a grey kitty for the dog to chase, and a green baby kitty for the mumum kitty to love and say 'you are so cute' to. Then she wanted a purple kitty and a turtle.. but I made her a rabbit and said I was done after that. Now Shaun the Sheep and ease her off to bed because we have a big day tomorrow. I have to stop by work to make a call and we have a very long grocery list.