Changing directions

Pardon me while I change my mind at the last minute and return all these items I purchased for Halloween costumes while buying new items for the costume I’m now going to make.

My wild animals

This weekend, we went to an “after dark adventure” at a local ecological preserve.  It was so fun!  It was a short hike on one of the trails, and along the way, there were “critters” (people--probably volunteers, judging by the range of acting ability, lol--dressed up as different animals that you might find on the trails) who told you a little about the animal they were representing and their role in the ecological system.  It was entertaining and educational, and I liked that it was a non-scary Halloween activity. 

When we signed up for the event, they told us children were encouraged to wear animal costumes.  None of the store-bought animal costumes really inspired me, so I took that as a challenge to make something.  I had bookmarked this blog post that had tips for making simple costumes.  I figured the owl was perfect for a night time hike in the woods.  A little bit of tracing, cutting and sewing, and here’s my version:

Poor blog...

has been totally ignored.

I've been missing the creative life.  For some reason, fall has been busier than even the summer.  We've been camping and enjoying the outdoors as much as possible.  I'm liking the fact that the kids are shaping up to be wilderness kids.  Baby girl loves playing with sticks and dirt.  And the little guy keeps asking to go camping again.  We didn’t do a lot of outdoors stuff when I was a kid, so it’s been fun for me to explore new trails and parks along with the kids. 

We live in a great city, where beaches and mountains are just short drives away, and there’s so much natural beauty to take in.  And it’s cheap entertainment for the kids, too.  :)

 
I can’t believe it’s already mid-October.  I need to get working on those Halloween costumes! I’ve been trying to get a work project out of the way first.  Pesky work!  Anyway, I had a request for another clue on the Halloween costumes, so I wanted to post for anyone who may be waiting.  :)  I thought my clues from the previous post were kind of vague, but one of you actually guessed it.  You guys are good! 

So, here’s another clue that should totally give it away:

Hello, internets!

So...when I started this blog, I intended it to be a little place for me to talk about my sewing projects and share with anyone who might want to read along.  I told a few people about it, but didn’t really “advertise.”  A couple of those friends, though, have told me that I should create a page on facebook, because that was how they get updates on blog posts.  So, I did it.  I’m now on facebook.  Hello to anyone who came over from there.  :)

While I was at it, I went ahead and created an etsy profile, too.  I’ve had several people tell me I should sell my stuff on etsy.  I don’t really have any plans to do that right now.  But who knows, maybe in a year or two, when I have more time to commit to something like that.  But I thought what the heck, I’ll just create a profile now.  Just in case anyone might want to take the name “hidden in the hem.”  lol.

The Halloween debate

Whether to sew or buy the kids’ costumes? 

Sew, of course!  :) 

Trying to plan ahead, so I just ordered some fabric for their costumes.  For a while, I couldn’t get the little guy to commit to a costume.  But I think I’ve gotten him to commit.  I gave him a few options of costumes that will coordinate with his sister's, and he agreed to one of them.  (Well, with some--ahem--politicking on my part.) 

Want to know what I’m planning?  Well, here are a couple of clues: 

 

Any guesses?

Care package

My boss is going on an important trip, so for her birthday, everyone at work contributed to a care package that she could take with her.  Some stuff people put into the care package was an itunes gift card (for watching movies on the plane), magazines, travel shampoos, snacks.  I made this tote bag to put all the items in:

And many more!

I’ve had birthday party on the brain.  My son just turned four (*sniff*), and we decided this year we’d do a birthday party, especially because now he's old enough to understand birthdays and feel special about being the center of attention.  For weeks, he kept asking when his birthday was, and we kept telling him a few more weeks.  He would say, “I can’t wait for my 4 year old birthday!”  Oh, such excitement, such build up. 

My new love: baby bloomers

I was going to write about these in my previous post, but it got a little long, and I didn’t want these adorable bloomers to be lost in all the toy bag talk.  :) 

The days are long, but the years are short

This is my current favorite quote on motherhood from this book.  Sometimes dealing with the everyday monotony of taking care of little children gets tedious.  But it goes by in a flash, and I’m trying to remember every day to savor every moment.

So...I already felt behind on my summer sewing, and now I’m seeing Christmas fabric on sale.  Christmas fabric?!  I guess it makes sense.  You do have to start early if, say, you have a big Christmas quilt to make or something.  I did briefly consider buying some of that Christmas fabric to make stockings. 

I had wanted to try to sew some stockings last year, but ended up ordering them from Pottery Barn instead.  They turned out to be way too big.  I mean, I hung them on the fireplace mantel, and they almost touched the bottom of the fireplace.  They were personalized, so I couldn’t return them.  In any case, I might try to make some again this year.  But July is still too early to think about this. 

And that’s probably why I didn’t quite get around to making those stockings last year.  heh. 

Anyway, summer is just going by too quickly.  The days are longer, the kids end up staying up later, we’re running around outside a lot more.  And (same old story) I squeeze in sewing time here and there, but never get as much time in as I’d like.  But that’s ok.  The little people are time consuming, but they are also very entertaining.

 
So, what have I been up to sewing-wise?  I’ve cut out a couple of dresses, and they are waiting to be sewn up (hopefully will be done while she can still fit in them).  My latest completed project is this toy bag: 

Asymmetry

I saw this tutorial a while ago and bookmarked it, because the dress was so cute.  I also loved the fabric, so I later got the same fabric that they used in the tutorial.  So, I was a total copy cat and decided to make the dress in the same fabric. 

The dress was really easy to sew together.  I used a pattern for an A-line dress and just cut a diagonal across the front to create the “asymmetric” look.  It turned out pretty cute.

There were just a couple of things that I would do differently next time.