rostitchery

nursery rhyme teacher gifts

 

it is totally illogical, but ella is in kindergarten and preschool.  :D  in tennessee, children are eligible to start kindergarten when they reach age 5, but are not required to attend until age 6.  since we are homeschooling, we went ahead and started kindergarten this year, but we kept her in her preschool three mornings a week because she is also still eligible to stay there until she is 6.  (and we LOVE her preschool--seriously love it, will grieve when she has to leave it).

this year the theme for ella's preschool has been nursery rhymes.  last friday night was the school's spring art show and program in which the kids performed a selection of nursery rhymes for their adoring (and rightly so) parents and family members. 

to thank the teachers for their work in getting the kids ready, i made each of them a humpty dumpty dishcloth--i'm so glad i "found" this pattern!--and ella made them each a little soap.  then she drew a picture of humpty dumpty for each teacher, i reduced the pictures on the computer and made wrappers for the cloths.

 

 

"humpty dumpty sat on a cloth".  this cracks ella up, she thinks it is her own personal pun.

on the back each one says "with love to <teacher's name> from" and ella signed her name.  she calls it her inscription.

and check out the font--it is ella's handwriting!  i found an online font generator that lets you print out a template, fill it in with your own handwriting, then you scan and upload it and it turns it into a truetype font you can use on your computer.  i originally used this to work on another project (can't tell you yet!  it is ella's secret) and it has come in handy on so many occasions, like in the header of my ELLA echo blog.

the teachers loved their gifts!  i posted pictures to facebook the day of the program so some of the other teachers at the school saw them before the recipients did, and they were all waiting to see them in person when we got there.  ella was so proud to give out her handmade presents, and it was a joy to see how much pleasure she got from her teachers' genuine appreciation for her handiwork.  that is certainly a nice way to go thru life because, in case you haven't heard, she's a maker.

meet the dorkingtons

last summer, ella saw this fabric at walmart:

 

which she wanted me to buy to make a hawaiian shirt for rudi. and while the woman was measuring the fabric, ella said, " and we need a little more, for me," so i had her measure out another yard, and then ella said, "and some for mama". and thus were born these:

 

and i kid you not, people literally stopped their cars as they passed us on the street to ask were we got the family outfits. and then when they got close enough to see it was "cars", i could have sold the whole set off our backs.

and best of all, ella's dress and my shirt are the exact same pattern and size--the only difference is that ella's sleeves are a little longer and there is some elastic for a waist (inside the red casing)--so she could conceivable wear this until she is an adult, if she so chooses.  i kind of hope she'll do that--it would be so sweet to think she still loves her baby things.

fleece is the word

we were shopping in walmart for this and that, and of course ended up in the craft section (how does that always happen?), and ella saw some fleece that she had to have and she knew just what it should be:  it was dora fleece and she needed a robe, STAT.  so we rushed it home and the very next morning it became what i am told is the robe of her dreams:

1.5 yards fleece + rotary cutter and table-sized mat + wild ginger software's "child's play" program which guarantees a custom fit pattern right out of the printer + serger already set up for three-thread overlock = SPEED.

one hour after taping the pattern together ella was ready for the runway:

 

     

         

she wore this all day, she thanked me over and over with hugs and kisses and basically made me feel like mom of the year and it's still only january.

however the joke's on me, it turns out that her idea of a robe is that you do karate in it.  oh well, she likes it so much that she plans to take it in for show and tell at playing school. 

for WG users:

dress tab:  t-shirt draft, double breasted, length set to midi in settings tab
curved V front neckline that i shaped downward 1 click using the neckline tools in the settings tab
jewel back neckline widened 0.375"
widened the neck 0.5"
set-in tapered sleeve
4" ease bust and hip

if you use a commercial pattern you can follow the same construction order as with a custom pattern--just 7 steps!

1. stitch shoulders on robe and on facing
2. stitch facing to robe
3. set in sleeves
4. stitch sides seams from sleeve hem to robe hem
5. hem sleeves and robe
6. make belt and belt loops from scraps
7. sew belt loops to side seams

as i sewed the facing to the robe i rounded the corner of the neckline edge.  i also stitched the belt in place at the center back so it wouldn't get lost.

snow is coming down today, and now i wish i'd made a robe for myself!

tennis shoes, sea coins, and lemonaders

the christmas crafting is almost done, and i am really proud of myself for not going overboard.  every project has been something that used materials we already had, and none of them took more than a day to finish.  i feel so virtuous which is a nice way to feel in this virtuous season.

i was invited to ella's preschool last week to tell them about christmas in the philippines and something that stuck with everybody, kids and teachers, was that one of the main gifts there is fruit.  so i was thinking on getting each of the teachers a papaya which was always my favorite but they are expensive here, then i thought of clementines which i like too but then at aldi's i saw pineapples for 99cents so i got one for each of the teachers and aides.  ella's lead teacher is extra wonderful so for her we splurged and got a chocolate reindeer.

however i thought it might be weird to just hand somebody a pineapple, so we also made bookmarks, using torn tissue paper which ella calls "tennis shoe paper", some sequins which she calls "sea coins", and the laminator which she calls the "lemonader".  this was really fun and i'm thinking we'll make some gift tags or suncatchers this way too.  i made tassels with yarn and tied the bookmarks around the pineapples, and with that we had instant festiveness.

   

this is a super easy project that even little kids can do:  just tear bits of tennis shoe paper and lay them inside the plastic lemonading pouch, add as many sea coins as you wish, then run the whole thing thru the lemonader.  when they have cooled, cut them into strips, punch a hole in one end, and tie on a tassel.  all done!

if you don't have a lemonader, you can do the same thing with clear contact paper.  i've also tried DIY lemonading, using ziptop bags and pressing them with a warm iron, this works but it is kind of tricky, you have to be vigilant or you will end up with a lemonaded ironing board. 

we delivered the pineapples today and everybody loved them!  ok, i did overhear one parent make a snarky remark about "fruity homemade gifts", so no pineapple for her.  :D 

we heart the wonder pets

when the wonder pets first came on TV, about two years ago, ella immediately fell in love with them and assigned us each a character--she was linny, rudi was tuck, i was ming-ming. for months she would only answer to linny, and if i forgot and called her ella she would simply ignore me or patiently remind me that her name was linny. during that time she only called me mama when she was asleep.

this show is so well crafted that even the opera singers would sit with ella and watch the videos.  the first year, the wonder pets' christmas special was "the wonder pets save the reindeer".  in it, the wonder pets get a snowglobe that has their schoolhouse, santa is flying his sleigh overhead and the flyboat is not far behind.  all ella wanted that year for christmas was that "snowglove"--it was all she mentioned to santa, and it was the only thing she asked for even after looking thru pages and pages of the target wish book.  i looked high and low, in every store in town and online and asked all my friends and i never found one.  i reluctantly settled on one that had snowmen roasting marshmallows, an activity she loves, and she was so gracious when she saw it but it was obvious that she was disappointed that santa didn't make her the one she wanted.

 

my heart was broken.  to this day, i am still on the lookout for the snowglobe and if i ever find it, santa will bring it to ella even if it is july.  (luckily our tree is up all year so he will know where to leave it).

this year, they (little airplane productions, the makers of the wonder pets) made a new special, "the wonder pets save the nutcracker".  as a former professional ballerina who has lived thru many a nutcracker hostage crisis, i normally avoid all nutcracker spin-offs because, frankly, they are usually dreadful.  but ella wanted to see the wonder pets special because she has recently developed a love of "knick-knackers" (nutcrackers), and she doesn't have any of the emotional baggage that her mama carries regarding all things "nutty".  so we duly set a reminder to watch the world premier, and ella was counting the days until it came.

in the meantime, she saw a little blurb on noggin about making wonder pets ornaments.  their website (or rather, the nick jr. website that noggin redirects you to) has templates and a list of materials with instructions on how to make them, and she determined that we would make ornaments so we'd be ready when the christmas show came on.  we checked the stash and we had everything we needed, so i printed out the templates and the afternoon of the premier it was time for teamwork--i cut and she glued and we both painted and when we were done, we had the wonder pets.

these are my new favorite christmas ornaments.  i esp. love the "sea coins" (sequins) that she carefully and lovingly placed on each one in specific places that she had determined before we even started them.

i am NOT a fan of dumbed-down art made for children, but "save the nutcracker" is not like that at all, it is respectful of tchaikovsky and very entertaining at the same time.  if you have a chance, do try to watch this show.  i would say it is one of only two derivative nutcrackers i've ever liked.  this is a perfect introduction to the ballet, it gives the music a frame of reference that directly corresponds to the ballet (unlike disney's "sleeping beauty" which uses the ballet like incidental music).  it is just so rare and exciting to see a ballet not get mangled in the process of making it "accessible".  the nick jr. website has more terrific wonder pets crafts and activity sheets to go with this episode, including a song book and some paper ornaments that you can just print and cut.

and now it's back to the search for the snowglobe.  i pray i don't end up having to martha one. 

baby cradle and knot doll

this is probably the year we're all going to have to take back our christmas craft revolt, but let's be reasonable--this is not the time to rush out to the craft store to stock up on supplies--now, more than ever is the time for us to shop at home and use the craft supplies we stocked up on already. 

but my rule is that no craft for anybody outside the family shall take more than one day to complete, and shall use materials i already have on hand.  and thus was born this cradle and knot doll. 

 

this was the gift we gave to the twin sister of the boy for whom we made the tiddlywinks game.  the cradle is an oatmeal box, i cut out the front leaving a bonnet on the back.  we (ella and i) covered the box with fabric and trim--ella picked it all out from stash--then i sewed a little mattress and blanket. 

the knot doll is one of my all-time favorite gifts.  it is just a general body shape (unstuffed) that has extra long arms and legs which get tied into knots to be hands and feet.  i stuffed a piece of muslin for the head, and made a little cone cap out of the scraps from the body.  i never put faces on these dolls, that way the child can pretend the baby is happy or sad or yawning or whatever.

this little cradle is kind of sentimental for me--the lace around the bonnet is at least 35 years old, it was in my childhood trim box and called out to me when we were looking for things to decorate the cradle with, and the fabric we used for the knot doll body was the last fat quarter from over five yards of fabric that i dyed when i was first learning about fabric dyeing so it is around ten years old. 

this gift was super easy and of course my little mommy-child wants one for herself.  i hope to make another one before christmas, this time covered in twigs and rough material, to be a manger for ella's first nativity--i'm pretty excited about a baby knot jesus, i think his little tied hands and feet would be a fitting metaphor for a god who confined himself to the human condition.

tiddlywinks

unfortunately most of my posts these days are hit-and-run.  such is life.  also please note that my skills as a photographer are about on par with my skills in automobile engineering.

as ella's social circle widens, so do her social obligations, and thus she has four birthday parties to attend between now and christmas.  however, things being the way they are vis-a-vis the economy and with christmas looming, i've been looking around the house for things i could use to make gifts that don't suck.  :D  this one, so far, is my favorite, it is a game of tiddlywinks.

 

the box was a toddler wipes container (it has a flat top--i think it was from target).  i made labels on the computer and stuck them on the top and all four sides (to cover the brand label on the back) with plain white glue.  the font is "matisse", which just reeked of "tiddlywinks" to me. 

inside there is a bag (made from stash fabric and ribbon) that holds four sets of different color buttons and four big white buttons (also from stash--see, stash is good!), these are the "winks" that you flip to play the game.  the launch pads are squares of scrap felt.  the cup was a cat food can, i removed the lid with the kind of can opener that takes off the whole top without leaving a sharp edge.  i made a "game board" on the computer using the pattern editing portion of the patternmaster boutique program from wild ginger software and added the color in my new favorite image editing program, paint.net.  then i wrote out three different ways to play the game:  using just the cup for a target, using the game board for a target, or using the cup in the center of the game board. 

 

i am so happy with how this turned out!  ella has asked me to make one for us too but now i don't have the wipes container so i fear i may be called upon to exert even more ingenuity on an already-finished project.

holder keepers

you know how every year in the spring you need to give a present to a teacher, graduating friend, or bride-to-be?

and you know how you never really have enough money for all the presents you need/want to give?

and you know how you decide that you could make something, but you don’t know what to make, and you don’t have much time left because you deliberated and cogitated and calculated for so long that you end up making something not very well at the last minute?

yeah, me too.

most of the time, i don't give in to the temptation--i run out and buy something and pretend that my self-esteem is not damaged by the act of giving a pre-made, already-finished gift.

but the director at ella’s preschool asked me to make gifts for the parents club to give to the teachers at the teacher appreciation luncheon--how could i say no?  the budget was $10.00 per teacher, and because of my schedule i had to get all of them done in just a couple of hours.

this is what i came up with:

it's a notecard portfolio, made almost completely from materials i found at the dollar tree.  the portfolio itself is made from a placemat--i folded up the bottom edge, stitched pockets, and then added ribbon ties to hold the whole thing closed.

in the pockets are, from left to right: notecards and envelopes, an address book, a pretty ink pen, and a notepad.  the ones the teachers received have their class picture on the front instead of a flower.

this is one of those projects that made me completely happy--it turned out pretty much exactly as i hoped it would.  i would have shown it to you sooner but a couple of the teachers read this blog, so i had to wait until after they were delivered.

however, i must confess that i did briefly hesitated to show this to you at all, because as soon as i finished it i thought, "from now on, everybody i know is getting one of these for birthday/christmas/graduation/whatever"--and now that i've posted it, all my friends who read this blog know my secret.  but this project is just right for someone with little cash, little time, and esp. for someone with little sewing experience.  you can create a handmade gift for someone in just minutes--i couldn't keep that kind of crafty goodness to myself.

oh, the name--ella calls them "holder keepers".  i didn't correct her because, for one, i love the little names she comes up with for things--it teaches me something about how she sees the world--and for two, because if she went to school and told the teachers about their holder keepers they would probably have no idea what she is talking about and so the surprise would be intact.  this is an important tactical detail, because what she said to me every day of the week before mother's day was, "mama, i'm making you a mother's day present and it's a surprise so i'm not going to tell you anything about the lemonade jar or the cookies."

ah, it was still a surprise--it was all delicious. 

preschool bento bag

ella and i spent the entire day doing a project i've wanted to do for a while now:  once-a-month cooking.  we didn't actually do an entire month of meals--it is more like two weeks--but in just one afternoon we put together 7 meatloaf meals, 6 spinach lasagna meals, 4 cheese lasagna meals, 2 stuffed cabbage rolls meals, 4 chicken and veggies meals, a batch of spaghetti sauce, a batch of meatball stroganoff, 4 breakfast muffins, and 3 breakfast burritos!  ella made sure to freeze HER meals too:

what do meals have to do with sewing?  at ella's preschool, the kids all have to bring their own lunch.  since going to preschool would be the very first experience she had with being away from me and rudi, it was really important to me to make something special for her, so i made a little bag for her to carry her lunch. 

she picked the fabric--remnants from her favorite sling.  :)  i picked out the containers that would be used and set to work.  the bag construction is nothing special, its just one layer of outer fabric, one layer of muslin lining, and an inner layer of 100% cotton quilt batting.  there is a pocket for a fork and spoon, a tab closure, and ribbon straps.

i measured the containers stacked, then i used the free wild ginger accessories software program wild things to make a pattern.  IMPORTANT HACK:  there is no bag like this, specifically, in the program.  but if you look thru the stock patterns and imagine them different sizes and shapes, you can make just about any bag you can dream up.  doing just that, i found the perfect pattern:  the travel tote.  the size it starts out in the program makes it vaguely briefcase-shaped, but you can input your own measurements to get a custom fit, and the program adjusts the pattern automatically. 

DEFAULT:

CUSTOM:

i cut the flap so it was the same size as the other sides, and used the part i cut off as the pattern for the flatware pocket.  the closure tab has snaps but you could use velcro or buttons.  the last touch was the most important:  a name label.  this one is simple, just a piece of muslin, raw edges turned under, and my sweet baby's name written with a pigma pen.

as for the actual containers, the big yellow box has three compartments in the bottom, a flap to cover them, and then the lid is deep enough that you can put a sandwich in the top.  the little orange box is a soap dish, never used for soap of course, that is for things that need to be more air-tight, like apple slices.  the fork and spoon "disposable" but i put them in the dishwasher with no problem.  and of course, there is always a love note.  :)

ella has carried this bag for an entire year--i asked her if she wanted a new one for the new school year but she did NOT, she wanted this bag, because "it matches for my favorite sling, denember mama?"  yes, angel baby, i DO denember, every time i pack your lunch.

i have a confession to make

i have been avoiding my blog.  i'm sorry.

wow, i feel better for getting that off my chest.  and now, back to some content.

ella and i have been working on presents to give her teachers.  it started when i knitted a facecloth using this pattern--when ella saw it, she said, "hey, it looks like divine!--denember, mama, the tree that came to playing school?".  and whenever ella sees something she loves, she wants to give it to someone--in this case, she wanted miss jenny and miss sue to have their very own divine facecloths, but theirs had to be green, because divine is green, not red, denember mama?

if you haven't tried to find 100% cotton, worsted weight yarn, in variegated greens, let me fill you in: as far as i can tell, there isn't any available anywhere in the western hemisphere.  oh sure, you can get variegated green with lots of white, or variegated green/blue/white, but just try to find greens and only greens--i was beginning to wonder if the color green really exists.

so i quit trying to figure out why variegated green-only yarn doesn't exist and just dye my own.  i used white, 100% cotton yarn (peaches and creme--i love that stuff), two different balls, so i could play with colors.

with the first ball of yarn i just dumped some yellow and blue procion MX dye in some cups--no i didn't measure the amounts, i just eyeballed it so there were different proportions of blue to yellow in each cup--i poured the dyes on the yarn, covered the dish and left it for the afternoon.  ella helped me rinse it with the garden hose (note--if you really need to know if all the dye is out, rinse plant-colored yarn in a plant-free zone). 

i had a lot of dye left over so i decided to do an experiment, i put the dye cups in the freezer overnight.  the next day, when the second ball of yarn had soaked, i just plopped the frozen dye onto the yarn and left it out in the sun for the day.

the results surprised me, the first batch--the one dyed the "normal" way--was a lot less variegated than the one dyed with frozen dye batch.  i'm not sure why, but i think it probably has something to do with the yellow exhausting before the dyes had completely migrated thru the fibers.  at any rate, i like what we ended up with, and ella loves the facecloths.

well, would you look at that. i made a post!!! 

max and ruby dolls

ella is in the most WONDERFUL preschool, and one of the things i like best about it is that they take emergency preparation very seriously.  the school sent home a bag with a list of things we were to fill it with--things like a change of clothing, non-perishable food, etc. 

one of the things on the list is a small toy.  at first i was going to make her another dolly like this one, but once i had the body done, i discovered this doll was WAY TOO BIG to put in the bag.  i was sitting at the dining room table wondering what to do, when i noticed a doll that she already had--a skeleton doll that came in a happy meal during the "pirates of the carribean" promotion.  that doll was the perfect size--but i definitely wasn't going to put a skeleton doll in her bag--it needed to be something comforting, something that would help her feel safe.

a few days later, we had gone to see thomas the train and ella was playing with her magnetic thomas the train book.  the book has several pairs of magnetic train cars, and she decided that of each pair one was the mommy and one was the baby.  she was cradling the babies on her arm, rocking them back and forth and cooing to them and singing them lullabies.  these were flat, hard magnets, and she was treating them just like baby dolls.

then it hit me--her definition of "baby" was much broader than mine--to ella, as long as she SAID it was a baby, and treated it as a baby, it was a baby.  it didn't have to have movable arms, or yarn hair, or a wardrobe--heck, it didn't even have to have a human body!

and that revelation inspired the perfect "baby", or rather a pair of babies--max and ruby.  she LOVES max and ruby, so much so that we spend whole days being max and ruby.  i knew having them with her in the event of a true emergency would be perfect to help her feel loved and soothed.

so, i found and downloaded coloring book pages of max and ruby, colorized them in photoshop, and printed them out on pieces of white muslin that i had previously treated with bubble jet set 2000.  then i layed the printouts face down on another piece of muslin, stitched around them (leaving an opening to turn), i turned them right side out and stuffed them, then closed the opening.  EXACTLY LIKE MAKING A PILLOW.  in fact, i would call these two things pillows--but ella calls them BABIES.

boring technical information (click any image to see an enlargement):

treat your fabric with bubble jet set before starting on this--the fabric needs to soak and dry before it can be used.  you can also use purchased printer fabric, but that is far more expensive (as in, about 7 times more expensive, based on prices found here in nashville).

find coloring pages, edit as desired (i only used the front of max and ruby):

colorize in the image editing program of your choice:

attach fabric to printer paper (i know--most people iron it to freezer paper--i've done that too--but on the day i made these i didn't have any in the shop, so i just taped the fabric onto the paper i had in my printer).  print and let dry:

remove fabric from paper, lay face down on another piece of fabric, stitch all the way around (leaving an opening).  turn right sides out, stuff, close opening:

proudly congratulate yourself for having made your child something so adorable:

(carrying dolls like this is called "up, up, up").

these dolls have been washed and dried in the machine several times, they get stuffed in our bag each day, they've played in the sand box and in the bath tub, the ink is permanent and has not faded at all.

i made two sets of dolls--one for ella to play with, and one for her emergency bag.  now she asks me every time i print something, "are you making me some more max and rubies?  i WUB max and ruby so much".  and i know in my heart that max and ruby love her too.