A Few Projects

Tiny Noro Hat for Mia's Penguin

I had a bit of the Noro yarn left from Mia's hat so I made a smaller version. I thought it might be for her American Girl Knock-off doll but it her new Webkins penguin was handy and it fit so there ya go. She was so excited about this little hat. I think I could knit the ugliest hat in the world and if I added a little matching one, it would be all good. This was a fun project. I think I need to make more small things since I'm more of an instant gratification girl.

I started the tiny hat on Christmas Eve and I finished most of it while I sat outside with the kids on Christmas Day. The boys played with their new footballs and Kendall rode her bike.

Sewing

Sometime last week, Mia decided to clear out the kitchen in my sewing studio, aka our garage apartment. It has become our unofficial storage unit. I had previously purged a ton of stuff so the things that were left were things that we definitely need to hang onto but don't have another place for them. After the huge toy purge of 2006/2007, there were bins with sorted toys like playmobil, imaginext, puppets, Barbie dolls, baby dolls, baby toys and a couple bins loaded with teeny, tiny parts that I just never got through. Mia emptied the kitchen...into the bathroom rendering it completely unusable. The bathtub was filled with bins, some without lids and they had toppled over. The tiny floor space was also crammed full of stuff. When the twins had gone out to the studio with me, and one of them had a potty emergency, I had to quickly remove bin after bin and they still had to climb over stuff to get to the toilet. But, hey, the kitchen was empty.

Between last night and most of today, I cleared out the bathroom and moved stuff back to the kitchen. We just don't have another place for these things. I suppose I could put some of the bins in the attic but then we would never see them again...not to mention that my larger bins don't even fit in the attic opening. And it's just a huge pain to put stuff up there and retrieve it. Oh how I wish we had an attic like my SIL in Indiana. They have an amazing old house that looks like its 3 stories tall because the stairs continue up to the attic. Our attic is a tiny opening and you need a ladder to get up there. Plus I have to actually put my feet on the top of the door trim to get myself all the way in the opening. Try doing that while balancing a box.

I did sort stuff and I emptied quite a few bins. I created a large bag of trash and another large bag of toys for charity.

So, with a clean sewing room, I needed to sew. I made a pair of King Kong PJs for my 5 year old son. The flannel was in the clearance section at Joann's. I also got another color of a coordinating King Kong print but I noticed that the pattern was printed screwy so I didn't use it. The pants were made from a butterick pattern. I went buy the measurements and it said that my 5T in ready-to-wear clothes was a 2/3 so that's what I went with. I chopped 2 inches off the legs and the pants were still too big. The shirt was from the Otto 4/04 and I made the 110 size, using fleece I had and orange binding. I had my son's measurements in inches but not in cm so I was really guessing on the 110. The shirt neck was *way* too tight. I think I did the binding on the neck 4 times. I tried my fancy binder attachment for my cover stitch machine and that was a disaster. I then tried my regular sewing machine and that was a bit better. It wasn't until I had a nice looking binding that I noticed the neck opening was teeny, tiny. I knew it wouldn't fit. So I cut it off and redid it again.

While I was making these PJs, I wondered what the heck I was doing. Ethan had already received a pair of 'Cars' store-bought flannel jammies from my SIL for Christmas that he loves. He told me that he want to wear them ALWAYS. When Kendall spilled Gatorade on them, I rushed the beloved PJs to the washer so he could wear them again. We waited the 35 minutes for the quick wash load on the front loader and then the 40 minutes for them to dry. And in his half-asleep state, he emphatically wanted to wait until he could put them on before he really went to bed. How could I compete with that???

I also thought about the bargain PJs that I recently ordered from the Garnet Hill, less then $5 a pair. Why was I sewing PJs that would probably not be all that less expensive then the bargain ones...and my pair were FAR from perfect. The truth is that I did it for me. I need to sew. I need to create. Based on my calculations of time (using my previous salary from corporate America) and materials, these hand sewn jammies are worth $150. And did I mention they are far from perfect? Yes - I did. That's that part that nags at me.

My son; however, deemed them worthy enough to wear tonight. Even though he had to remove the beloved Cars PJs to wear the new ones. And, *I* created them which fills a need deep inside of me.