Box Elder Sugarin'

{Things around here have been quite hectic lately - we moved into our new house one week ago and we are slowly, gently settling in. I promise to post more on that soon when I get a bit more time to take pictures and gather the words to describe the crazy process that is renovating a house and moving with two toddlers. In the meantime, this post has been patiently waiting for a final edit that got boxed away with everything else in preparation for our move. I would like to tell you that it is unseasonal at this point, but as I look out my window on this early May day to see more snow and sleet (yes, really) I realize I can still squeak it in before it is entirely obsolete.}

Lately when people come into our house the first words out of their mouths are, "What is that smell?" Slightly sweet, a bit earthy, hard to place. "It's syrup!" I squeal, barely restraining my delight. When an arborist paid a visit to our new house and checked out the trees I was deeply hoping we would have some maples on our property. And I was quite disappointed when I realized there were no sugar, no silver, no red maples to be found. Ah, but we have box elders! Three of them, in fact. And, yes, they are a kind of maple. "Can you tap them to make syrup?", I asked? The arborist paused a moment before doubtfully dismissing the idea.

But it turns out, you can!
And we did.

And I must thank my husband, who, in the face of remodeling half a house and moving our family, when confronted with my idea to add another project to our list of things to do right now - maple syruping! - not only responded with a "sure, let's do it", but diligently checked our sap bags when he was working at the house and lugged the heavy 5 gallon bucket full back day after day so we could boil it all down. He's also the one who makes Saturday morning waffles and pancakes on which we've been generously pouring our own sweet and sticky box elder maple syrup, so a double thanks and a big smooch to him. 

Loulouthi Geranium

After making my first geranium I knew another would be in the works soon. Rae's pattern is just so thorough and versatile, with many options for variation. And, importantly for nap time sewists who don't have much time to waste, it produces a well made garment in a very reasonable amount of time.

Ava accompanied me on my trip to Crafty Planet for this fabric, so she had a hand in the choice - and I think she did quite well, naturally gravitating towards butterflies and a bit of purple. The main fabric is Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi (Clippings in passion) and the lining is  Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush (Woodcut in passion). 

I opted for the flutter sleeve this time and though I was nervous about trying it (I had never done a flutter sleeve before), I am so happy I went for it. I think the sleeves turned out beautifully and really complement the print, echoing the flutter of a butterfly's wings or of flower petals in the breeze. Too literal? Perhaps, but I couldn't resist. I chose to do a gathered skirt again for this version. The 3T size fits Ava well with some room to wear the dress for a couple seasons. (Now if we could just transition into something that looks and feels more like spring - with 6 fresh inches of snow on the ground this week I am beginning to doubt that we will ever be able to wear short sleeves again.)

We found the buttons at a cool, new (to us) store in the Kingfield neighborhood called Digs Studio. They have a small but thoughtfully chosen selection of fabrics and buttons - both new and vintage, as well as handmade jewelry and gifts. I'm not sure the owner was thrilled about my children running around her store as I compared button after button to the small fabric swatch I'd brought with me, but such is crafting with little ones. Fabric, or in this case button, shopping with young children is not for the faint of heart. Bring lots of snacks and pray they don't break anything. The buttons I chose were naturally dyed and thus no two were exactly the same color. I like how they pick up on the pinks, reds and oranges in the print.

I have found that my home sewn clothes are always more loved when the wearer chooses her own fabric for the garment. This does not always result in fabric combinations I would have chosen myself, but I revel in Ava's excitement to wear what I've made regardless of whether it is my favorite. In this case, I can say we are both happy with the results.

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By the way, I wanted to note that Kid's Clothes Week is fast approaching. And while I would love to participate this spring, it happens to coincide with the week we are moving to our new house. (Yes, that means we are moving in less than two weeks. Eek!) I can't in my right mind commit to sewing for an hour every day during the actual challenge. In fact, I imagine my sewing machine will be packed up in a box somewhere while it is going on. So consider this my early contribution to the event. I'll be watching to see what everyone cooks up, and look forward to KCW summer 2013!

Little Hoodie

After being inspired by these hoodies made by my friend Ashley, I decided to whip up my own version of Heidi & Finn's Urban Unisex Hoodie for our little man. I actually began this project towards the end of Celebrate the Boy but, as noted in my previous post, sewing has taken something of a backseat to another big project and I only recently finished (and got around to posting) Eli's hoodie. 

The pattern is well written and easy to execute. I am happy to report that very unlike my last foray into sewing with knits, all went smoothly this time around. I used my walking foot for the entire project to avoid feeding the hoodie to my sewing machine, which otherwise tends to gobble up knits. I would advise anyone attempting this project with a regular machine (as opposed to a serger) to use their walking foot as the sewing gets quite bulky at times around the base of the hood and when top stitching the bottom cuff. My one little boo boo was forgetting to fuse the interfacing to the button flaps. I only realized this, of course, just as I was about to sew the button holes. They are a bit stretched out as a result, but still work fine.

I used knit fabric from Joanne's for both the main fabric and the lining with the exception of the hood lining, for which I used a colorful fruit and vegetable quilting cotton print to add a little pop of color. I have to say my only disappointment with this hoodie is that I'm not totally in love with the fabrics. I've had a hard time finding really great knit fabrics locally. I know I can find beautiful knits online, but I'm always nervous to buy a fabric before seeing and feeling it in person. I may have finally found a better option for knits, but that's a story for another post.

Though it may not be the smartest use of my time as we close in on moving day (3 1/2 weeks away), I imagine I will keep the sewing machine running as much - or as little - as I can until I absolutely must pack it up for the movers to take away. For it does keep me feeling a little bit more sane and helps me feel like I've accomplished something in my world of full-time mama hood, which sometimes leaves me spinning, wondering where the day went and how the house looks like a cyclone has passed through even though I swear I tidied up just 5 minutes ago. Mamas out there, you know the feeling.

In the meantime another hoodie for my girl is in the works, for spring may finally be starting to show her lovely face here in the northern midwest. Soon (fingers crossed) it will be time to trade winter coats for layers of warm comfiness that can be shed as the chilly mornings grow warm in noon-time sun.

Our House

I wasn't quite as active in the Celebrate the BOY sew along as I may have intended. Well, there's a reason - or several, really. But let's focus on the big one.

We bought a house!!! 

It's official. We are homeowners.

After years of renting both in Michigan and Minnesota, we finally have a house we can call our own. One that we aren't planning on leaving anytime soon. One in which Eli will have his own room - though I suspect he enjoys standing up in his crib in the middle of the night and peering across the room at us. There is only so much pretending to be asleep you can do when you share your (small) bedroom with a screaming, jumping up and down toddler who thinks your bed with all its pillows and blankets (and warm bodies) looks much cozier than his bare crib. A house in which Ava can fulfill her dream of a purple bedroom. But most importantly, a house that is ours. 

We went to visit our new house soon after closing. In its current state it is full of echoes and promise. The possibility of empty space is so exciting and a bit overwhelming. Ava was very helpful in keeping Eli out of the fireplace, which he, like Tom Kitten, kept gravitating towards as we walked through the house as 'our house' for the first time. She dissuaded him from climbing up the stairs by putting up her "Noah block sign". (Our girl has become obsessed with the story of Noah and the Ark and insists that we call her Noah - because Noah loves animals and so does she. Naturally. It all started with this song, which we now play on repeat for hours in our house. No, I haven't gotten sick of it yet. Give me a couple more days.) 

Ava also helped take pictures to document the house as it was when we bought it, before the demolition party that ripped out the contents of the kitchen and Eli's room. We'll be snapping images along the way as we step-by-step transform this place into our home. I imagine we will need these images to remind us how far we have come when the work starts to overwhelm and stretch endless before us. And I giddily look forward to the day I can set before and after pictures side-by-side in triumph of a job completed.

I'll wait to post pictures of the house until we've made some progress on our renovations - because some of the before pictures are little too scary to show. But here's a glimpse of one of my favorite parts of the house - the yard. We were so lucky to find this property, which is twice the size of most lots in the city. I am grateful for this little sliver of nature to call our own and look forward to realizing our dreams of what this homestead can become.

This will be a busy and trying upcoming couple of months, but I'm hopeful we will be ready and happy to move into our own home at the end of April. Ava made the move with us from Ann Arbor to Minnesota, and she seemed like such a big girl at the time. But really she was only a year and a half (hard to believe that she has lived more of her life here now than she lived in Ann Arbor) and didn't really internalize what was happening. She is so much more aware and attached to place now. She has moments when she says, "but I love this house" and my heart breaks a little as I reassure her that she will love our new house just as much and maybe even more. It is challenging to harness my own anxieties and fears about moving and about our new house and all the work that needs to get done. Admittedly, I don't always do a very good job of it. But it is so important to keep those thoughts in check for the sake of my sweet girl, who is now mature enough to have anxieties of her own in addition to the ones she channels from us. 

It is so comforting to know that after this next move we will be establishing ourselves in a place that is ours. A place we can settle into knowing we won't be leaving anytime soon. A place where we can plant perennials and watch them grow bigger with each season. Our own home. 

Big(ger) Butt Baby Pants

I couldn't go through two weeks of sewing for our boy without making him a pair of Big Butt Baby Pants. I've made several pairs of B3 pants for Eli in the 6-12 month size that he wore extensively over the last half of his life. They are so comfy and roomy in just the right places. But babies' butts, they do grow. And while he is still just fitting into his old pairs of B3 pants, the legs are getting a bit too short and the butt is getting a bit too snug. A time for the next size up is on the horizon.

I cut out the 18 month size pattern pieces knowing they will get lots of use over the next couple seasons. Making the same pair of pants over and over makes for very quick sewing. And these pants in particular are lightning fast to put together in part because each pant leg is made from one pattern piece rather than having a separate front and back. 

Spring is right around the corner, but unable to deny the two or so feet of snow that remains firmly planted on the ground around us, I wanted to make a pair that is warm enough for the chilly few months ahead while still light and comfy. I used some corduroy left over from these pants and a couple prints from the 'a walk in the woods' collection by Aneela Hoey for moda. I was concerned the quilting cotton prints would be too light paired with the corduroy, so I experimented with bonding the two prints together to make a warmer, sturdier butt panel. This resulted in a cute contrast on the inside of the pants.

Bonding the two fabrics together also made for a rather stiff butt panel that doesn't move freely with the rest of the fabric. I'm not sure this will matter too much in the wearing, and it probably makes for a more robust rear to the pants. But in hindsight, I'm doubtful that this was the best solution. I also happened to fuse glue to my ironing board and iron in the process. Double bummer. In case you ever need to remove glue from your iron you can try my new method - ironing a dryer sheet. It worked wonders for me. Thanks, internet, for the suggestion.

With more sewing experience under my belt, these Big Butt Baby pants are better made than past incarnations - with added topstitching on many of the seams and clean turn-and-stitch finishes to the crotch seams, these are superior B3 pants to the ones I threw together just 6 months ago. It's encouraging and gratifying to see progress in my own sewing and sewing knowledge.

This boy is growing fast before our eyes. And I find him irresistibly cuter every day. I know all too well that soon he will a big boy who won't want to be seen wearing big butt baby pants anymore. So I'll make them while I can, and get in as many cuddles and kisses as he will allow now before he gets to be that age when such things are shunned. How can I resist, really?

Reversible Bucket Hat

Despite the most recent snowstorm which left us with at least ten fresh inches of snow on the ground, I had sunny spring and summer days in mind as I made my second project for Celebrate the BOY - a Reversible Bucket Hat from Oliver + S Little Things to Sew. I used left over denim from these pants and the deer fabric from my first project for CTB. So, naturally, Eli's little bucket hat matches his new treasure pocket pants, though he can easily wear it with almost anything. And that's a good thing since sun hats are ubiquitous in the coming warm, sunny months.

I used this pattern last year to make a hat for Eli and I enjoyed it the second time around even more. It comes together so quickly and the resulting hat is so cute and so well made, as with all of the projects in Little Things to Sew. I highly recommend a copy of this book for your library, but if you love this bucket hat and need to make one right this minute you can get it as a free sample pattern from the Oliver + S website. I made a small, which is supposed to fit 12-24 month olds and seems true to size. My only divergence from the pattern was omitting the interfacing in the brim - I figured the denim provides enough rigidity.

I can't tell you how much I look forward to the day we switch from wool hats to sun hats. I assure you when it arrives, this boy will be ready.

Treasure Pocket Pants

For my first Celebrate the BOY 2013 project I made a pair of Treasure Pocket Pants from Sewing for Boys. I know I say this frequently, but I've been wanting to make a pair of TP Pants for quite some time - since my sweet husband bought me the book after we learned Eli was a boy (this is more indicative of how many future projects I have swimming in my head than of my own procrastination - I'm certain I'm not alone here). The limiting factor with these pants was that the pattern starts at 12-18 months, so I had to be a bit patient. Now that our boy is officially a toddler (and toddling all over the house to prove it) I thought it was the perfect project to kick off these two weeks.




At some point along the road to motherhood I inherited a pair of size one maternity jeans. Elastic cinch-waisted, size one, stretch maternity jeans, to be exact. Now don't get me wrong - a well-fitting, comfortable pair of maternity jeans should be cherished, lived in, then passed on and on to other mamas, because we all know how hard they are to come by. But size one, cinch waist maternity jeans? In my opinion, 'size one' and 'maternity' should never be used in the same sentence, let alone in a pair of jeans. So I had no qualms at all about sacrificing (ahem, transforming) this pair into a new pair of pants for my boy.

For the contrasting fabric I used Oh Deer! by MoMo for Moda Fabrics. My sweet and exceedingly patient (at times) children helped me pick this one out at Crafty Planet, perhaps the best fabric store ever. It is a bit of a drive from our house and as we pulled up I realized I had forgotten the Ergo back at home. Perusing fabrics with a 1 and 3 year old is not usually the kind of torture I would ever wish upon anyone, especially without a baby carrier. So I was grateful for that baggie of cheese (local raw milk gouda for my tiniest of cheese snobs) I had tucked away in my pocket, which I used to lure my son back towards me every time he tried to lunge in a kamikaze dive out of my grip. Somehow we actually made it out with several cute fabrics in tow and without any major tantrums.

While I was working on this project I felt they were taking a long time, especially for a pair of toddler pants. This made me laugh at how much more instantly gratifying sewing is compared to knitting, in which projects can take months to complete. But they are seriously well made. I particularly love the faux-fly and the contrasting fabric hems, which make them look cute and finished whether they are rolled or unrolled. And, of course, I love the pockets, which are true to their name - really perfect for storing little treasures and easy for little hands to access with their elastic openings. In the future I might opt to make them just a little bit deeper.

This project was not without it's problems. Firstly, I didn't go online to download the errata for the pattern prior to cutting out my pieces and was quite puzzled when one of the side panels just didn't seem to be the right size. This was easily remedied when I downloaded a pdf of the revised pattern for that piece. Also, the hem facings in the pattern did not even closely fit my pant legs. I am still confused as to whether this was my mistake or a mistake in the pattern, but I had to remeasure and cut my own hem facings to fit the pants. Again, not a huge deal, but another waste of time and fabric. Has anyone else encountered this? 

And finally, there's the size issue. These pants are HUGE on my boy. I made the 12-18 month size and my 13 month old will probably wear them by the time he goes to college. True, he's just a tad on the smaller size, but really? Again, has me scratching my head wondering where I made a mistake. 

All in all, the pants (assuming Eli grows big enough to wear them at some point) turned out well and are so very cute. I would use the pattern again once I've had some distance from it and my frustrations with it. For now, I'm looking forward to getting started on my next project for Celebrate the BOY!