Little Pink Riding Hood

Sprog was invited to a birthday party for one of the girls at preschool. I don't know her so I asked their teachers and was told that she is a girly girl. I decided to make something for her, a pink cape, and because I could, with a hood. I did a bit of googling and came across the Red Riding Hood cape from Fleecefun.com. I like working with fleece and fleece from the local emporium is cheap. Double win!

I also bought a length of pink sparkly gauze and some wide write ribbon. The basic cape is an easy sew. I made it more difficult by adding the gauze layer. The gauze moved a lot as I sewed. If I was to do it again, and I've had a request, I would cut the gauze a bit larger and baste the fleece edges in place before sewing seams to ensure  it didn't bunch during assembly. I finished all the edges with the white ribbon, and also used it over the join between hood and cape to make a clean seam, then extended it into a tying ribbon around the neck.

Sprog wouldn't model this one for me, (who knew he was so entrenched in gender traditions) so I made do.


The birthday girl liked it, the mother thought it was brilliant, and another mother has requested one!

Pink and Sparkly for the win!

Little boy pyjamas

Sprog needed some new shorts so I went shopping coming home with three pairs, but his favourite has to be the Star Wars shorts. He liked them so much that when he needed new pyjamas he said

"Mummy, I would like some Star Wars jammies. We will have to go 'round the shops and look, but if we can't find some we will have to make some."

Having found the free patterns on Melly Sews straightforward I went for the Lazy Day Pyjamas from Blank Slate Patterns. It has optional piping, but I liked the look and I'm pretty gung-ho about trying new things sewing so piping it was. I decided to make pyjama's for each of my sons.

Sprog chose his favourite of the Star Wars flannelette's on offer. Licensed fabric is expensive so Widget's fabric came from the clearance table. It was a choice of cowboys or sharks.  Husband was consulted. Cowboys won. They are really good brothers so I chose the same contrast red in order to let them "match". I couldn't find many piping options so they ended up with the same blue piping.

 
    

I had to redo the cuffs for Sprog as he couldn't get his hand though them. I must have cut the wrong size from the pattern. I french-seamed most of Sprogs' pyjama's

For Widget's Cowboy pyjama's I flat-felled as many seams as I could. There are little bits and pieces that I'm not happy with, but they feel so much more solid than their storebought pyjamas. They are my favourite pyjamas for each boy by far.

Sprog's Pirate Party

Sprog was invited to a 5th Birthday party. A pirate party. When asked he said he wanted to get Birthday Boy a telescope. After a bit of thought I figured out the best place to go and found an awesome extendable kaleidoscope in just a few minutes. With time to spare I decided to go the extra mile for the pirate dress up.

I found some cheap pleather at the local Emporium and set off home. Rather than faffing about, I decided to just use the Simple Vest pattern I used for the Paw Patrol vest. I trimmed all the edges with white bias trim, then attempted a couple of darts in the back to shape it a little, and wrapped a length of pleather around the middle for a belt.

Sprog dressed up with his stripey pirate t-shirt and a bandanna on his head. He had some hand-me-down jagged bottom dress-up pirate trousers too, then to complete the look we added the sword and scabbard I had hurriedly made for the last pirate party he went to.

In hindsight I would have extended the fronts a bit wider to make for a better coverage crossing over, and to create more of a floppy foldback collar.

He kept this outfit on all day, we went to a friends housewarming, and onto a fundraising quiz, all with him as Pirate Sprog.

Dress-up win!

Mending Mr All Black

Sprog is in the big kids group at preschool. The big kids have been taking turns to take Mr. All Black home for a trip, and this weekend was Sprog's turn.

Mr. All Black went swimming, and for a walk, but his top kept falling off. Sprog and I bought a little bit of black velcro, then Sprog helped me sew it on to provide a new closure for his mid back.

 

No more naked Mr All. Black, and Sprog was so please to be able to sew with me.

Easter Bunny

Every year our preschool has an Easter Raffle. Mostly it's chocolates and the usual Easter things, but insprired by Melissa of MellySews I decided to try my hand at an Easter Bunny.

I used the leftover fleece from making the many, many Paw Patrol vests, since it was what was on hand, and would be snuggly to cuddle.

The pattern was very easy to follow and used the insides of a pillow the cat had attacked for stuffing.

I embroidered the face on, making it soft and secure for a baby to snuggle and gnaw on safely. I made the pom-pom tail too, but added a note around Bunny's neck saying to remove it before giving it to a little 'un, just in case. I guess I wanted to be sure I wasn't responsible for a kid eating a woolly tail.

We know the family that won the raffle, they have a Master 2 1/2, and a Master 3-4 months. Snuggly Bunny has a good home and is cute as a button.

What Bronte Made First - The tale of the Paw Patrol Party

I first sewed in Sewing lessons at school when I was 10 and 11. My mother sewed, but mostly for my elder sisters, and brother before I was born and when she was a SAHM. When I started school she went back to work so with two incomes and little time she mostly stopped. From time to time she would make something, and I loved having something made especially for me, so it was always within my 'stuff that normal folks can do' range of thought.

For my 30th birthday my husband bought me a sewing machine (for the same birthday my parents bought me a weed-whacker) I made a couple of maternity dresses, badly but adequately, and didn't bring out my machine much when my kids were about in case they crawled on pins. I mended a few things, and made a couple of little things.

In January my son, Sprog,  informed me he wanted a Paw Patrol party for his 4th birthday in March. I picked up the theme and ran with it. I planned the cake, a "Lookout" tower, then went online for inspiration. There I found someone, Danielle of Danielle's DIY who had made a "Ryder" vest. It looked doable, so I decided to make him one. I looked about at vests, mostly looking for a free one, but decided to bite the bullet and use the same pattern, the Simple Vest from Lady Bird Patterns. After all, it had turned out so well for her son's Ryder outfit.

Then it was off to our local Emporium for very competitively priced fleece. I decided to also make a Chase vest for Sprog, since Chase is his favourite pup, and a Ryder Vest for little brother Widget. While I was at the Emporium I found fleece in every colour at very little cost, so I bought some in every pup's colour (This was after only viewing season one, so no need for Mint coloured Everest pup). This was quickly spiralling a bit bigger than I  initially planned.

I got home and prepared the pattern. Since I was making so many I cut and glued the pattern onto card before laying it out and cutting. I am quite stingy in my fabric use so the pieces were very closely put together with a bit of extra left over.  Which was great because I then had plenty for...

...the extra bits. All of the pups have a badge which I appliqued, trying out that technique for the very first time.  I made a standard Paw Patrol logo for the Ryder vests, just like Ryder's. Fleece is a very forgiving fabric when learning a new skill. That was 14 badges.

For the badges I cut two shield badge shapes out of ice-cream container plastic to keep the sizes uniform. I cut out each colour and shape for the badges, then the inner bits, Chase's sherriff star, Rubble's spanner etc, then used double-sided iron-on interfacing on each. I started with the top layer, ironed, zigzagged the edges. Ironed on the next layer, zigzagged, repeat as necessary. I think Marshall's badge had 4 layers, the rest 2 or 3. I tried to plan them so I wasn't changing my thread too often by matching the colours.

Badges done, I cut other details, a tool belt for Rubble, belts for Zuma and Rocky, Epaulettes for Chase. I attached all the extras as I made the vests, some requiring to be added first, others to be added after, depending on seam placement. The vests for my boys were zippered and lined, the rest were single layer and had velcro closures. I may be a bit nuts, but I'm not buying 14 zippers, that would cost more than the rest of the project put together.

The final count was
1 Ryder Vest for birthday boy Sprog
1 reverse Ryder vest for little brother Widget, both Ryder vests were zippered, lined, and had pockets
1 Chase vest for Sprog, lined and zippered, no pockets (Pup's don't need pockets)
Then in basic, unlined and velcroed
1 Chase vest
2 Zuma vests
2 Rocky vests
2 Marshall vests
2 Skye vests and
2 Rubble vests

Partway through I decided that instead of party-bags this year each invitee would take home a vest instead. It sounds extravagant, but I had got the fleece so cheap it actually didn't cost any more than party-bags would, and I felt much better about avoiding more plastic tat. Our household has enough plastic tat, I'm sure most of the guests homes do too.

So that was the start of my sewing journey, I took my machine out of the store cupboard in January and it hasn't been put away since.