June 2011

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fashion dolls shirred top hand sewn dress

The girl chose this fabric out of my scrap bin for a new dress for her Liv fashion doll, Alexia. I decided to try shirring the top since I’ve never done shirring before. I couldn’t find the elastic thread anywhere so I ended up couching a line of zigzag over cord elastic. That worked out okay but it’s a little heavy at doll size. I also used the black elastic cord for the doubled shoulder straps which makes it easy to put the dress on the doll.

Next to Alexia is Roger (named by the boy), who is sadly still wearing the polyester duds he came with. The manufacturer didn’t even give him shoes, poor guy. I think sandals are in order for both dolls.

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These little charmers are called spiderwort. I have no idea why. And the Latin name is rather a mouthful, tradescantia. They are perennials, native to the eastern seaboard. I received a few bedraggled plants last year, and they have adapted happily, blooming profusely this year.

pink and blue spiderwort flowers

My favorite fruit salads are usually composed mostly of berries—no bananas for me thank you. This one here has strawberries, blueberries, red plum and blackberries. I’m hoping that later this summer we’ll have blueberries off our own bushes, wild blackberries and maybe a few strawberries as well. Confession, I really don’t know the difference between blackberries and black raspberries. But I think maybe what we have in our backyard is not like these storebought blackberries so maybe they are actually black raspberries.

fruit salad strawberries blueberries plum blackberries

We had a dead tree taken down so I let the kids, ours and the neighbors, play on it for a few hours. They had a great time pretending the tree was a fort, a castle, a mountain, a nest . . . We also enjoyed, well, some of us enjoyed peeling back the bark and watching all the creepy crawlies shy away from the light. There was also a rather intense debate on the possible dangers of mushrooms and fungi. I stayed out of it for the most part but helped guide them to the conclusion that mushrooms were best left alone unless bought in the store or eaten at a restaurant.

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For a school field trip, the girl’s class was required to dress in orange shirts. The girl’s teacher was less than thrilled and I do have to admit that orange is not a common color in the girl’s wardrobe. The girl does have a tie-dyed orange tee shirt handed down from her brother that she could have worn but . . . I just can’t leave well enough alone.

So I took apart a tee shirt of mine in a nice pumpkin pie color. I modified a peasant shirt pattern with a little inspiration from a tee in the girl’s closet featuring raw edges. I had no thread that looked remotely suitable so I pulled out a directly contrasting slate blue and stitched away. I used the neckline trim to create an elastic casing for the neckline and empire waist. Having run out of the round cord I stitched some gathers into the sleeves by hand. I gathered strips cut from leftovers into rosettes and sewed tiny buttons to the centers, placing one on each sleeve gather and a grouping of five off-center on the empire waist. It turned out really cute I think. And the girl loved it.

pumpkin orange raw edge peasant tee

raw edge hand stitched gathered flowers rosettes with button centers

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This project is on the list, unlike some other things I’ve been doing lately, but I admit it is pretty far down the list. Why are those projects farther down the list so much more enticing?

Anyway, we have a lot to do this weekend and I decided I could accomplish one thing by doing the dump/recycle run this morning. Since it was sunny out (yay!) I drove up to the junk wood piles and the girl and I scouted for usable pieces. I was mainly looking for 1x4s so I can construct a roof frame for the top of the slide tower which the kids refer to as the treehouse.

wooden swingset slide tower treehouse fort

Since the swingset is nicely weathered, it seems silly to buy new wood, especially when there is perfectly good salvaged wood available for the hunting. I did find some suitable 1x4s, the girl found quite a few pieces for building a “castle”, and we also found a few other interesting pieces.

salvaged wood pieces

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One of the pieces I found was just the right size to make a counter to attach to the posts under the fort. We also found a turned post long enough to cut in half to make legs. It’s not exactly level but it is sturdy. The girl found some large painted fruit cutouts and we brought those along. After arriving home we had just enough time before lunch to cut and install some support pieces and get the counter into place.

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I’m sure it will serve nicely as an ice cream counter/farm stand/whatever-the-kids-dream-up. The roof frame will have to wait, the threat of gray skies and the need to do some math have driven me indoors for now.

salvaged wood counter and painted wood fruit on swingset slide fort treehouse

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I received a very polite e-mail from a reader asking about the pattern for the cyclette bag (see here and here). I had intended to write up the pattern with pictures and apparently didn’t get around to it. Not a surprise. But looking back through the pictures I did actually make three of them! Which is a lot for me, I rarely make two of the same thing. But I didn’t take process pictures of any of them, waah.

So I decided to make another one and write up the instructions and take pictures along the way. It turned out to be a bit more involved than I had thought it would be. None of the sewing is particularly difficult, there were just more steps than I remembered. It is a rather clever construction (If I may say so myself) and requires no hand sewing but all seams are neatly enclosed. I’m not sure how I will proceed with formatting this one. The pattern lends itself to a few variations, which I may play out in order to incorporate into the finished pattern/tutorial.

But here are the pictures of the latest cyclette bag, inspired by the musette bag or feed bag carried by cyclists. The bag is sized to hold lunch and a water bottle, plus your wallet and keys in the inner zippered pocket.

random-charm's cyclette bag musette bag cyclist tote inside zipper pocket detail tote bag

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