Wednesday, October 17, 2007

T-shirt Dresses

I like T-shirt dresses. They are eeeeeeasy!

Hand-me-down T, purchased fabric and trim, done in an afternoon.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Back to School

Every time I blink, the kids are growing! No complaints, of course, but keeping them clothed takes a lot of effort.

So this year's back to school clothing involves buying 2 sizes up in pants for the oldest (renamed "Yossi" for blogging purposes, see here. Oh, and I've indulged in a little retroactive nomenclature, so previous posts will reflect the new naming conventions.)

And making T-shirt dresses for Devi, Malki and Tobi.

Yom Tov dresses would be good too. sigh. So much to do, so little time.

But I worked the JCC hat show last week and sold a few snoods and hats, so that's a good start to the school year.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Purim

Oh, and while I was doing Production, Purim arrived, and I had to costume my kids. I cheated on most of them (borrowed or found costumes) but I did make a pair of moss green camo pants for my 9 yr old (he "borrowed" one of the vests from Production to wear with it, but needed boy pants, not bloomers), a moss green camo vest for my 4 yr old (he had some green pants to wear with it) and created a "clown dress" for my 8 yr old. She designed it and picked the fabrics, I just chose the pattern that would work best for her design and cut and sewed. I really need to post a picture somewhere of that... I was very happy with how it turned out. (As was she, which is always good when you're sewing for someone else.)

Production Wrap-up

When all was said and done, I had created the following for Production:
10 prisoner hats
8 prisoner vests (# of prisoners in that scene went down in-between)
1 small brown felt drawstring bag containing 12 silver coins
2 pair of black bloomers
2 pair of moss green camo bloomers
2 moss green camo vests (with pockets, and snap fronts, fully self-lined. I am crazy)
2 pair of tan desert camo bloomers (don't ask why two different colors of camo. It made sense at the time)
2 tan desert camo vests (again, pockets and fully self lined.)
1 baseball-style hat, also in the tan desert camo.

I also provided (planning to get it all back) one velvet Shabbos robe and matching snood, 1 tan "military-style" hat, 1 gold sash, 6 yards of lavender lining material for a wrapped turban, and helped design the tent that had to "collapse" on the soldiers during their scene -- for that I had a local fabric shop donate some empty cardboard bolts (the 45" size.)

It was a ton of work, but I had a lot of fun... and when it was all over, I got a very nice letter from the school, stating clearly (among other things, like thanking me and praising my work) that they were looking forward to working with me on Production for many years to come. So I guess I'm stuck. :-)

Thursday, February 01, 2007

10 prisoner hats

Somehow I got myself involved with the High School Girls' Production (ie Play) this year. I think I said how I'd love to be involved, maybe when the kids are older... and I said it to the Director, who said, so get involved this year! We'll find you babysitters if need be. So I'm supervising costumes, scenery and props... and helping to make some of the costumes, scenery and props.

So far that amounts to 10 prisoner hats and a small drawstring bag of brown felt.

I'm also supposed to find camouflage material and make bloomers. (The school does not allow actual straight legged pants, even in a girls' only production with a completely female audience.) I found some on ebay, but am concerned that the one that's the best mix of colors is too thick to, well, bloom, so I'm going to look in person too.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

A new year... more posting?

I got off to such a good start last year... then completely stopped posting. Doesn't make for much of a sewing journal!

But anyway, I spent a good deal of time at the end of 2006/beginning of 2007 working on my website, www.heavenwarddesigns.com. Some building inventory (ie sewing snoods and hats) and a lot of tweaking the code, adding pictures, and discovering PayPal would actually do a shopping cart for me! So in went the little "add to cart" buttons... got them up on January 1st, had my very first online sale that very day (and she found me through Google, no less!) Talk about instant gratification!

So that's more or less what I've been up to. Yesterday I was in a pillow mood... made 2 nursing pillows and 5 neck pillows, but ran out of stuffing by the last. Today I have a nice new Big Box Of Stuffing. (Neck pillows are for the kids for longer car trips when they are likely to fall asleep, so I need a couple more.) I also have a list of UFOs I'd like to, well, finish. Still haven't called the electrician again, but the extension cord is actually being helpful for the moment.