A few hours before the big snow came this weekend, I was busy reattaching the straps on wee's snow pants from last year. I bought a size 3 for my then 1 1/2 year-old and she was tall enough then that I was already worried about how they'd fit this year. Sure enough, when we tried them on the now 2 1/2 year-old wee one a couple of weeks ago, there was a good inch wide gap between the two snappy parts of the bib snaps that no amount of tugging could bridge. Hubby examined the straps carefully, looking deep in the snap contraption for a way to save the cash for another pair of snow pants. And after a minute, he said that we could get rid of the plastic piece the top strap was woven through (the one that allows you to adjust its length) and then we could sew the strap straight to the top plastic bit, thereby giving us another inch and half or so of fabric. And by we he meant me.

But, dang it, if it didn't just work! I used my strongest thread (in a, let's call it coordinating, shade of black) and, bob's your uncle, no more giant wedgie, no more tears and no more money spent!

Despite what the calendar says about December 21st being the first day of winter, it's winter here. We had our first snow over the weekend, sending me down to the basement to search for the snow boots and snow pants, which have been packed away since the spring (if winter starts here before the so-called first day of winter on the calendar, it sure as heck doesn't end until well after the "last day of winter"!). Actually, I'd already gone down the night before the snow to get the boots because it was the night before Nikolaus, when St. Nick comes to the houses of German kids and leaves small treats and gifts in their boots.

We had to go out the next morning so when it came time to stomp through the snow, the kids simply pulled the goodies out of their boots and slipped them on! But once the snow season begins, school rules are that kids aren't allowed to play outside at recess anymore unless they bring their snow pants to school. So down I went to the basement again to find the snow pants.

Upstairs, I've been working on a different sort of "snow" pants for wee one.

These are the fabulous Bella pants from Pink Fig. I made a couple of pairs of these in corduroy last winter for wee and they were so cute on her I knew I wanted to make more. This time, I used a fun corduroy fabric with little embroidered snowflakes and sparkles.

So perfect for my girl!

Here she is showing off the back. She likes them waaay better than her genuine snow pants, which she refused to even try on. I had to bribe her with some marzipan (oh, thanks Nikolaus for the marzipan!) just to discover that the old snow pants are too short now. Well, thank goodness these at least fit. 'Cause her boots don't fit either.

It's not THE Olivia dress, but it is another dress from Pink Fig's Olivia Top pattern. I made a couple of these last year to show off a fabulously cool Alexander Henry turtle fabric. This time it's pink instead of orange and Amy Butler prints instead of Alexander Henry. And while the pattern is the same, I've added shirring at the waist and moved the sleeve gathers from the upper arm to the wrist. It's a-whole-nother look and I love it as much as wee one does!

Something else I did differently on this dress was to use the serger to make roll hems on all the edges. It's a simple, clean look that works so well with the shirring. The serger and I are starting to make friends and I'm really starting to see the benefits of having this sort of machine. I could get used to this.

And so after a week of freezing cold weather, including snow on Sunday, wee one got to enjoy a rare sunny day in her new sunny dress.

We're supposed to have another lovely day tomorrow and wee one has already requested her jump rope dress. Yes, I could definitely get used to this.

This is what wee one calls my Polly Pocket shirt. You see, she got a Polly Pocket doll in a Happy Meal last summer when we went to Germany and Polly was wearing a light green shirt. This year for her birthday, wee happened to get a shirt in the same color and was so excited that she and Polly had the same shirt.

Then I happened to get this 3 dot shirt in the same shade. Wee one was always very happy when I would wear my Polly Pocket shirt and would point to it and say "mama's polly pocket shirt". But after I'd only worn it a couple of times, it got a tiny hole in it, front and center. Nooooooo! I had to find a way to save the Polly Pocket shirt!

So I decided to find (or make) an applique to cover the tiny hole. I'd put off the repair for a bit, hoping to be inspired by some fabric or applique. Then this weekend, I simply couldn't resist the cutie patootie little Japanese appliques they had at Purl Patchwork. I had planned on only using the flower, but then I realized that the hole was just slightly off center, so I added the bunny next to him to keep the whole thing centered. It's a little more baby-ish and even more Polly Pocket-ish, I fear. But I like it and it looks way better than the hole!

I loved that SNL skit from a few weeks ago where the financial guy keeps yelling "Fix it!" ("fix it" starts at about 4:30). Too funny! What's not so funny is the fact that the better my sewing gets, the more our clothes start to rip, tear, and fall apart, requiring me to fix it!

Last month, I sewed patches on six pairs of the boys pants and stitched up a huge rip hubby had in his favorite sweatpants. Last week, I secured a tear developing in the underarm of a t-shirt of mine and closed up three holes in some new store-bought gloves of the boys (the machine-made thumb gusset was a real weak spot!). Then I tackled this pretty little dress of wee one's.

This Splendid dress had been hanging in her closet for a couple of months waiting for her to be big enough for it (it's a 2T). Even though she's only 20 months now, she's plenty tall for a 2T these days, so I pulled the dress off the rack for its debut. As I tried to pull it over her, it quickly became clear that they had goofed up the sizing, because there was no way that neck was ever going to fit over her head. Trust me, I tried. (Poor girl.) The neck opening is simply too small, and while the fabric has a lot of stretch, unfortunately, the contrast trim along the neck has none. And there were no buttons to open the back or neck either. With no way to get it over a toddler head, the dress would be not only useless to us, but to anyone I might try to donate it to. Grrrr!

I decided that with nothing to lose, I would take apart one of the shoulder seams and attempt to sew on a few teeny tiny snaps. (I love this sort of 'nothing to lose' starting point. Just like in the case of my old sweater to dress project, is a great start for a sewing experiment!) There was about 1/8" of a seam allowance for me to place the snaps and I had to stitch them on to the thinnest cotton you can imagine. Ever have one of these Splendid garments? The cotton knit is the thinnest, softest, loveliest you've ever worn. Fabulous to put on, hell to secure something to. Somehow I got them on there. (I should mention that I am like completely snap retarded. I always, ALWAYS, sew the snap on upside down or put two prong sides across from each other. Doh!) I'm not sure it looks completely seamless, but since they are so small, I think we'll get away with it.

The dress fits her perfectly now. And I'm on to the next fix-it job....

That's the sound my daughter makes every time she sees blue kitty (sewn from this pattern) on my dresser. Poor blue kitty has been sitting on our dresser with pins holding its head closed and attached to its body for a year. In fact, I posted the picture of blue kitty in that state exactly a year ago today!

"Meeeeeoooooow," says wee one. I'd say, "Sorry, sweetie, you can't have blue kitty. She's has pins in her. Ouchies. Mommy has to finish making her." And then I'd forget. Bad mommy! Until Monday....

I had the blue thread out to work on a little dress I'm making for wee one right now and thought, now's the time to sew up blue kitty and give her to wee one. She has been meeoow-ing around the house ever since!

Oh yes, the holiday music has arrived already. And we heard plenty of it this weekend.

The highlight of our trip to NYC was to see the big holiday show at Radio City Music Hall. The first weekend in November does seem a little early to start getting into the holiday spirit, but prices go up after next weekend, so Christmas just had to come early this year. The boys loved it!

They loved the 3-D sleigh ride and the wooden soldier Rockettes falling down in line, the snow falling in the theater and when confetti was shot out into the crowd from a toy canon. Wee one spent the show getting to know the ushers and sellers in the lobby with the other tots scared by the loud music. She enjoyed her official Radio City popcorn very much though!

Despite the fact that the holiday season seemed to start the day after Halloween this year, I haven't made any plans yet for holiday gifts. But I did make this advent calendar in a recent quilt class:

click the pic for the big version and click here to see the backing

Now I've got to figure out what to put in it! Hmmm... something else to add to my list.

So how far behind are you already?

On Tuesday, I gave you a glimpse of some fabulous fabric from Alexander Henry (man, I love everything from that company! wee one's turtle top was also made from their fabric). The fabric made me think of the election, it made me think of America, and it made me think of my mother. So I made her a bag with it.

surprise mom! it's coming your way very soon...

The pattern is called The Un-Paper Bag (cool name!) and is a free tutorial from The Purl Bee. I hope all of you, knitters and sewists, follow the Purl Bee. They have amazing knitting and sewing projects every month. Beautiful stuff and never too difficult to make. Check it outl

And speaking of my mom and Purl in NYC, we're off to visit! Have a good weekend. Peace out.

The boys signed up for a little after-school baking class on Mondays. I thought they'd go for the outdoor after-school gym class, but baking is what they wanted to do. Okay. I casually checked the sign-up sheet Saturday night to see when and where the class was exactly and it says, "bring an apron!". Aaaaack! Where do I find a non-frilly boy apron in one day? (I, myself, don't really bake and so I have no idea where to find anything apron-y or bake-y anyway.) Guess I'll have to make one. Er, two.

I knew I had some cool "boy" fabric from Ikea ($7 for several meters), but could I whip up two aprons - with no pattern! - by Monday? I had to pre-wash the fabric Saturday night after the boys went to bed. Then I snuck into wee one's room to borrow a girly apron her aunt gave her when we were in Germany to use as a pattern model. I cut out pieces Saturday night and put off all the sewing until Sunday. No problem, except Sunday is hubby and my usual play day, where each of us gets to go out for a few hours and do our own thing (I go to knitsmiths of course), so there was actually very little sewing time during the day. And then at night there was the Red Sox game!

Awww, no biggie, the Sox are playing at home; the game starts at a reasonable time; it'll be over by 10:30; there'll be time to sew after. Nuh-uh. That game lasted forever. I was up until 1:00am, watching the game and running upstairs to sew between innings! The Sox ended up losing, but I think I came out a champ.

The aprons came out totally looking like aprons. I really wasn't sure of that outcome until pretty close to the end. All the early sewing was on fiddly straps and stuff, so it was a while before I had anything apron-y at all. After I cut the armhole curves, I had two pieces left over that, when I held them together, looked just like a pocket and so I had to add the pockets.

S told me his favorite part is how the stripes on the pocket line up with a couple of stripes on the apron. Thank you very much. I'm quite proud of that myself. (I was inspired by Amy Swenson's Rosedale sweater.) My own favorite part is the strap around the back. The boys still can't tie their shoes, so I wasn't sure about the practicality of putting ties in the back to close the apron. Then I just happened to find this apron on a wonderful sewing blog that had a velcro closure on the side to secure the apron. Brilliant! And I just LOVE how the stripes look on the boys' strap.

not too girly (well, once he puts some pants on!)

It was a little hectic for a day and a half there, but all's well that ends well. Well, that game didn't end so well. But the aprons came out very well and the boys are well prepared for baking class. I can't wait to see what they'll smear and spill on them first.

Well, it's a cool rainy day here, so the only picnic pictures I have for you are of wee one helping me plan the arrangement of the ugly picnic squares.

I was actually worried that my ugly picnic blanket was too pretty, so I searched through the dregs of my fabric stash and found even uglier uglies to add. Here's the final arrangement with the ugliest of uglies all added in. Oh, that's gonna be one ugly picnic!

click for the big ugly!

Instead of having a pretty picnic today, we went to our town's annual flag day parade.

There were folks dressed in colonial costumes. Later they fired off old-timey muskets which scared S and made him cry. But a nice man came by and threw a handful of lollipops towards us to make it all better.

I kept the wrapper on for wee one.

B got a blue one - can you tell?

We got to see our neighbor driving his antique fire truck. And then the big highlight of the afternoon, the boys' favorite, a street cleaner!

Woo hoo.

So, here's what happens when you go to a quilt shop. No matter what you're shopping for, you end up throwing a couple of fat quarters (18" x 22" cuts of fabric) into your basket. It's a standard size that every quilt shop sells (usually of end of bolt or sale fabrics). They only cost like $2 each and with 10 or 20 different ones you can make a really cool scrappy quilt. Plus, sometimes you don't want a full yard of a fabric. It might be cute or funny or pretty, but would never work in one large continuous piece. What this all means is that you're less critical when you choose your fat quarters. You don't have to loooove 'em. They just have to catch your eye in some way.

Because I have been to a few quilt shops, I have quite a few fat quarters. And I have been given many more by others (oh, everyone will help you collect fat quarters - easiest gift for a quilter ever!). I've got plans for a lot of them that work together real well or are from the same designer. And then I've got a bunch of uglies. Some of them are genuinely ugly and some are simply too bright or kitschy to fit into a standard matchy-matchy quilt design. I sorted out all my so-called uglies the other day and am planning to put them all together into a picnic blanket for me and the kids to bring to the park this summer. I'm hoping that all that ugly will come together to make something pretty cool.

click to see the uglies close up!

The large piece of fabric on the bottom is some Ikea fabric that was on sale for $2.50 a yard that I'll use for the back of the quilt. Doesn't it just scream "ugly picnic"?! Again, it's not heinously ugly, just weird, hard to coordinate with other things, not something that's gonna match anything else you have anywhere. In other words, it's perfect.

School ends in a week and a half, which means I've got to get sewing!

Remember the knit pirates bags I made at the beginning of the year? I just saw the fabrics I used on sale at equilter.com! I don't know how much is left, but check in their Memorial Week Sale section under Novelty fabrics here and here.

Happy shopping and sewing!

Oh yeah! It's a giant fabric flip flop that I just finished sewing up for wee one. Now before you ask why on earth I would sew a big flip flop, remember that I'm the girl who made the knit boot! I'm a little weird, yes.

Okay, so here's the story... I'd seen this pattern (Fancy Flip Flop Pillow from Roommates' More Splash than Cash series of sewing patterns for teens) and a sample at my lqs a couple of times and thought (like you, I'm sure) what a ridiculous thing. Why would you ever make such a silly thing? What are you supposed to do with that? Then I went to the shop another time with wee one. She spotted the flip flop and dragged it around by the strap the whole time we were in the store. The next time we went to the store, she went right to it again. Well, mommy can take a hint! I picked up the pattern - great pattern, super simple to sew up, by the way - and pulled out some really fun fabric I got at Ikea.

I centered this cute birdie on the top and put some other fun animals on the bottom.

And wee one likes it! There is actually an odd little warning on the pattern noting that "this is not a toy", but wee one begs to differ.

So yes, I sewed a flip flop. And I may even have some strange affinity for crafting useless footwear. But wee one's happy and that's all that matters, right?

Wee one has a new idea for blocking the hemlock ring blanket.

And she loves the fabric bowl I just finished for Dani's leap-year birthday.

Bowl facts: fabrics are Kaffe Fassett's Targets and shot cotton on the bottom - love that teal! - and the instructions are from Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Bowls or online at Simply Quilts. Not that any of that matters to wee one.

Finally, I've finished my Christmas crafting! Shortly before we left for Germany, I found this awesome fabric online called Knitmare on Elm Street from Michael Miller. I ordered enough of it to make myself and my knitting buddies cute little knitting bags. I didn't get around to finishing them though until this week. The pattern is yet another awesome project from Amy Karol's book Bend-the-Rules Sewing. It's the "simple tote" and is just perfect for making a small bag with a small amount of special fabric.

Back to the fabric. On this side I pieced together two fabrics called Knit Pirates (with the knitting needles) and Quilt Pirates (those are the scissors). How trendy is this fabric?! Pink and brown, skull and crossbones - it's what all the cool kids are sporting these days! And on the back, there's the hilarious Knitmare on Elm Street fabric with images of the knitmares that happen to us all.

The dog that chews the knitting, the cat that unravels the yarn, the kid that doesn't appreciate the sweater and my favorite, the quick and easy knitting project that goes on so long you think you're gonna die! And I did the inside of the bag in a fabric that looks like knitted socks from the Moda Funky Sock Monkey fabric line (more from me on this whole line of fabrics later this week!). Isn't it just perfect for the inside facing of a knitting bag, though?!

I had a blast making these. The pattern is adorable, with a teeny inside pocket and a funny long strap that fits into the short strap. And it's totally easy to readjust the size if you want a smaller or larger bag (I made mine a bit smaller than the pattern called for so that they're the perfect size for a little sock or baby project). Amy Karol also suggests lining her bags and quilts with flannel instead of some sort of batting. I really like the way the finished bag feels with the flannel lining - it gives the bag just enough shape, but isn't heavy or bulky at all. I may have to try using it in a quilt next time!

So, um, merry Christmas in late January to me and my knit buddies. Here's hoping the knit pirates keep any actual knitmares at bay. Aaaaargh!