Craftyness

Since Dave was away, to keep from going stir crazy, I've been sewing! Sewing while home alone with Julia might seem to be a crazy-inducing idea, but since my alternative was to watch bad tv until I was homicidal, sewing it was. I found this tutorial online, and gave it a try.

http://www.make-baby-stuff.com/baby-yoga-pants.html

First you find a really large t shirt, and you get a pair of baby pants that fit your kid for the pattern. (Mine are brown.) You fold the pattern pants in half and lay them along the side seam of the t shirt, and cut with about 1/2 inch seam allowance added in. Repeat on the other side. I used the center of the t shirt for a matching hat as well. For a pattern, I traced around a hat I already had and added a couple inches to the top for space to make a knot.

For decoration, I took yet another scrap of t shirt fabric and cut out stars. Three will go on one of the legs, and one on the hat. 

For the hat, first sew on your stars. I don't worry about the edge since jersey won't fray. I also didn't worry about adjusting my machine at all. As long as I put the needle down and lifted the foot when I needed to turn the fabric didn't stretch much at all. To assemble the hat, start at the bottom, as it is much more important that your lower edge be even than the top. With right sides together, sew the left side, then the right side, bottom to top. Flip the hat inside out and use a pencil to push the tip all the way out. Tie a cute knot and try on your toddler for size. You can always make it smaller by moving one of the seams in a tad. 

she'd model for about 6 seconds before yanking it off and trying to eat it.

For the pants, sew on the decoration first as well. Turn the legs inside out and sew from the bottom up to the crotch on both legs. then put right sides together and sew from crotch to waistband, front and back. Fold the waist band down and sew the seam about 1/2 inch wide or more, depending on the width of your elastic. Leave a gap big enough to thread in a piece of elastic that you've measured around your toddler, and sew it in a loop, then finish sewing the gap closed. Easy as can be, and pretty darn cute too, if I do say so myself.

Sew on your decoration

sew your side seams with about 1/4 inch to spare

Sew your leg seams up to the crotch. 

make sure your supervisor arranges your ribbons properly

ready to do the waistband

Pause to take the toddler out to play

done and done!

send to quality control for inspection

she thinks pants are equally cute as a scarf

more yoga pants in maroon with pink hearts

and hats to match. 

yoga pants in pink with green patches.

Julia continues to astound me with her development. About a month ago, I was on a kick to teach her sign language, and I repeatedly tried to teach her to say "more" which is tapping the fingers together. I think I got her to do it once, and then I got bored with it all and forgot about sign language. She communicates fine with grunts and points anyway. Well, just the other day, I was feeding her some of my oatmeal for breakfast and happened to verbally ask if she wanted some more. She smiled a huge smile and made the "more" sign. Totally floored me. 

The other thing that has floored me recently? We're moving to Montana!!! Dave got offered a job as Principal of West Glacier Elementary, a K-6 school with about 30 kids, two classrooms and two teachers. We are THRILLED! Right before he got back from his trip to interview in Washington, they called and informed me that he was not offered the position. So I had to let Dave know that we just flushed $1500 in travel funds down the toilet. That day was a pretty bad one, but that night he had an interview by phone with this West Glacier school, the one that he'd had his hopes up about. He thought the interview was fine, but of course worried that he botched a question or two. They said that they'd let him know by the 11th, so we thought we had at least a week to wait. This morning, however, they called and offered Dave the job! He accepted on the spot and we've been absorbing the news all day long.