A Darling Chef Wardrobe

First off let me say that I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I have been without a computer for a bit since my computer was attacked by a virus!  It's up and running now, but I lost everything.  Luckily I did have a backup so I was able to retreive most of my pictures and important files.  Whew!  Unfortunately, the hacker came from someone who commented on my blog! SHAME ON YOU HACKER!!

Now I'd like to share with y'all some things I made for my darling niece for Christmas.  Santa let it slip that "darling" was getting a play kitchen under the tree this year, so I thought she would need to be properly dressed for her new chef duties.

I couldn't resist this adorable fabric I found at Hobby Lobby.  I made her a dress last summer with something similar and had to have it.  I bought two yards of it back in August and I have plenty left so I'm sure I'll be making something cute for her to wear this spring too.  And if she gets a new baby sister this spring, I'll be making two cute things.  She could be getting a brother, so we'll have to wait and see. Of course I'll be sewing for a darling baby nephew too, but not using this fabric! :)

I didn't have a pattern for a chef hat or apron so I thought I'd look online to see what I could find.  I got lucky and found a FREE pattern for the apron, pot holder and oven mitt and then a seperate pattern, also FREE for the hat!  Both patterns were so simple I got all my sewing done in an afternoon.

As you can see, the baby loved her new chef wardrobe!

Pumpkin Jumper

I have been researching monogram and applique machines and I have discovered one thing they all have in common - the are EXPENSIVE!!  Don't get me wrong, I still want one, and will one day have one, but that day is not today.  Now, if I were back in Georgia, I would just call up my friend Marianne and she would monogram and applique anything I needed, but I am in Louisiana now and I have not found a friend like Marianne to do these things for me, so I had to get resourceful and figure out a way to do it myself with my plain ol' sewing machine.

I bought some brown corduroy and some orange gingham check to make a reversible jumper for my darling niece.  I thought it would be precious if I could applique a pumpkin onto the brown side with the coordinating gingham fabric.  Here's how it turned out!

 

Not bad for my first try.  It would have been super cute if I could have monogrammed the pumpkin or the reverse gingham side, but I think it's pretty cute anyway.

 

Remember the Groovy Dress?  I had enough scrap fabric left over from it and the brown corduroy jumper to make a "mini groovy dress" for precious Anna-Kay.

 

I also whipped up this sweet dress and matching bib with some left over fabric.

 

I hope these two sweet girls enjoy their new outfits because I'm putting away the sewing machine until after the first of the year.  I'll be decorating for Christmas soon and I need to get my dining room table cleaned off.

 

On second thought, my darling niece has a birthday coming up soon and then Christmas will be here too, so I might need to whip up a couple more outfits.  I'm thinking a flannel granny gown and a cute peasant top with ruffle britches might be in order! Hmmmm.... 

 

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Happy Halloween Y'all!

This is our first Halloween in Louisiana.  It's also my oldest son Seth's 20th birthday.  This is the first year I will not be spending this day with him, but we will celebrate when we see each other in a few weeks.

This is Seth on his 19th birthday.

I have made a pumpkin cake for him for many a birthday.

 

One thing about having a Halloween birthday is you always have a theme to build your birthday party around.  When Seth was little all the kids would wear their Halloween costumes to his party and we'd have a hayride.  We did bobbing for apples one year, but all the kids got wet and made a fat mess so we didn't do that again.  I remember the year I attempted caramel apples and all the caramel slid off and puddled around the bottom of the apple.  I tried to make it sound gourmet by calling it "Apples on a stick in a bed of caramel"!  Basically it was a recipe fail!

I've made these ghost pops as party favors for years.  I made a batch for Luke to take to school, only to find out it was not allowed, so now I have two dozen ghost pops all dressed up and no place to go!

One thing I love about Halloween and Fall is decorating.  Actually I love that about every season, but there is something about the colors of Fall that makes me happy.  When Seth was born on Halloween I started collecting pumpkins and Fall decorations.  I have as many decorations for Fall as some people have for Christmas.

We are enjoying having a wood burning fireplace in our new house.

Luke wanted to carve the jack-o-lantern all by himself this year.  I think he did a great job!

Bring on the trick or treaters!

 

Happy Halloween from Louisiana Y'all!

A Groovy Dress

Now that I am unpacked and I've decorated for fall, I've decided it is time to drag out the sewing machine and get sewing for my darling neice.  I've also added another little bundle of joy to sew for and that is my friend Amy's darling baby girl  Anna-Kay.  Here is the little dress I made for her.

I used a pink gingham check fabric with eyelet trim.



 

I had enough fabric left over to make this matching bib.  If only I had a monogramming machine I could have put the baby's initials on it.

I love this peasant dress pattern.  It is such a simple pattern, yet it is so versitile.  Here is my newest version of the peasant dress I made for my darling niece.

 

This version has long sleeves in a coordinating fabric.

 

I added some elastic to the upper arm to give the sleeve a gathered look.

 

 

  

 

I added a coordinating border with a trim detail using a third coordinating fabric.  This is the first time I've done this trim detail and I love how it turned out!  I took a strip of fabric and folded it in half to create a narrow border then sewed it onto the dress along with the wider border fabric.

 

I'm dying to see how it looks on my darling niece!  Oh, and speaking of my darling niece, she will be a big sister come spring!  My sister is expecting her second darling baby.  Maybe I'll have a little boy to sew for this time.  We'll have to wait until the spring to find out though.  Can't wait!!!

 

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Long Time No Blog

Yes, it has been a long time since my last post - six months to be exact.  A lot has transpired since then.  I've had 3 parties -


A graduation party
 

 

A baby shower

An 18th birthday party 

I've sent two sons off to the prom with their sweet girlfriends...

Taken my son to have his Senior pictures taken...

 

Attended award ceremonies and Senior luncheons and recognition services for Josh...

I've created 10 scrapbooks to give to the children in my class at the end of the year.  That's a labor of love, but a lot of work.


I've moved one son home from college, while getting a second son ready to go off to college. I've attended college orientation for my second son and I did nothing to embarrass myself like I did at the UGA Orientation,.

 

 

Then I moved two sons off to college, one two hours to the north of my house and the other two hours to the south.

Josh in his new dorm room at VSU

 And on top of all this I prepared to move 500 miles away to Louisiana. I will not even go into the nightmare that the move has been, but I will say that we are in our new house and I'm making headway into getting us settled. I do love our house, but it has been difficult going to a house that is half the size. I've lost a breakfast room, a bathroom, a bedroom, a garage and a large storage closet. Finding a place for all the things that were in those rooms has been tricky. I'm getting there though.

Good bye old house

Hello new house

We are enjoying Louisiana, however, as it turns out, I'm not a big fan of Jambalaya (it's too spicy for me!), and I have not run into many heavily bearded men in camo or people with thick Cajun accents who catch gators!  The Louisiana accent is much different than I thought it would be actually.  Not many people have a thick Cajun accent, but instead sound very "Yankee" to me.   I would have sworn our real estate agent was from Long Island, but turns out she was born and raised here.  One thing I have seen a lot of are people wearing Saints and LSU jerseys!  My youngest son and I try to count how many people we see wearing team jerseys when we go to the store.  On Friday Luke's school is allowing the students to wear their favorite team jersey instead of their uniform shirts.  I'm sure Luke will be the only kid wearing a University of Georgia shirt with an Auburn jacket!

I know this has been a long post, but I wanted to tell you what I've been up to and to let y'all know... I'm Back!!!

Sewing for Summer

I was going to say "Sewing for Spring", but I live in Georgia and we just jump straight to Summer around here!  We've had temperatures in the 80's throughout the month of March and April and people are already opening their swimming pools! Either way, spring or summer, I've been sewing up some warm weather outfits for my darling niece.

Actually this skirt is for the little girl for whom I made the ruffle britches  (oooh "whom"!  I haven't used that word in a while! Fancy!).  This was the red monkey fabric that I didn't use on the sock monkey britches.  I didn't want to waste it and I had some solid black fabric laying around, so I whipped up this little ruffle skirt.

This reversible jumper is for my darling niece.  I love the color combination of turquoise and lime green! 

The cupcake fabric is some fabric my sister had purchased for the baby's first birthday outfit, but I went with a pink and white polka dot on the opposite side of the pink corduroy instead. I couldn't let this cute cupcake fabric go to waste so I used it to line the turquoise jumper.  I sewed the rick rack on using a decorative stitch so it would be just as cute on the inside of the dress as the outside!

I had some extra fabric and rick rack  left over so I whipped up some matching shorts.  I also found this cute turquoise and lime green polka dot ribbon, so I added the bows!  I just love how it turned out!

Now on to my most favorite outfit to date!  I love this tie on the shoulder reversible top and matching bloomers!

Isn't this the most gorgeous fabric ever!  I got this at Hobby Lobby and I could kick myself for not buying more of it and now its gone. 

Oui, oui, these are french seams on the bloomers!  So snazzy!

My Sunday school class threw a baby shower for a lady in our class so I made this pink gingham check peasant dress for her baby girl.  I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped it, so this is my friend Sharon holding it up at the shower. 

I am in love with this eyelet and rick rack trim.

Here is another ruffle skirt made with scraps from the ruffle britches

I hate to let fabric go to waste.  Maybe I should learn to quilt! 

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Preschool Crafts

One of my favorite themes to teach in preschool is Community Helpers.  February is Community Helpers month in my class and I thought I'd share a few things that we have fun doing.

Traffic Light Cookies  (oops it's upside down!)

Doctor Bags

All the supplies inside the doctor bag.

Dental Health Week -   The teeth are mini marshmallows.  I let the kids lick one end and stick it to the construction paper lips.  The sugar in the marshmallow acts like glue.

It always tickles me to see how each child applies their "teeth".

One of my favorite activites during dental health week is when we talk about healthy snacks and not-so-healthy snacks. I bring Oreo cookies, apple slices and a mirror to class. First I let them eat an Oreo and then show them how their teeth look when they eat not-so-healthy snacks.

Then I give them an apple slice to eat.

Afterwards I let them take a look in the mirror to see how nice and clean their teeth are after eating a healthy snack!

In Miss Wren's class we are all about some hats!  I love this little police hat and stop sign.  Of course, it reminded me of the Citizen's Arrest episode of the Andy Griffith Show, so we marched next door to Miss Peggy's class shouting "Citizen's Arrest! Citzen's Arrest!"

We had a real firetruck come to visit our class during Fire Safety Week, but guess which teacher forgot her camera that day!?

These hats make me want to say "Romper Bomper Stomper Boo".  Who remembers that from Romper Room back in the early 70s?  Man I'm old!

When I was explaining this theme to my class, we started listing people who are community helpers like policemen and doctors etc.  One little boy raised his finger into the air and proclaimed, "Witches are NOT helpers!"  You got that right buddy! 

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