I think I'm pajamaed out

 While blissfully alone in a quilt shop on the night of my birthday, I had a crazy idea. Without thinking, I purchased 3 yards of Bots and Rockets fabric thinking I could go home and whip up a pair of PJs for the child who wears a lot of hand me downs. I could define "whip up" in realistic terms for you, but you'd hardly like to hear about me sewing things incorrectly, letting my house fall apart, feeding the family cold cereal and take out and letting personal hygiene fall way down the list of priorities. So let's all pretend that in my spare time, which I have a lot of because I'm so efficient, I sew these pajamas without a worry or problem. And let's pretend that I didn't stay up until 1 am last night to finish them for first grade pajama day. And let's pretend I'm not insane.
We don't have to pretend that he loves them.

For the doll population of our family...

or the soon to be doll twins.
Pattern: Simplicity 4268, slippers are my own design (so don't look too closely).
Fabric: Riley Blake "Be Merry"

Because Miss A can't read my blog, yet

Here is my one handmade gift to give this season. I usually try to make a few things but am afraid I've run out of creative steam. And my sewing ability is shaky at best lately. I've made a lot of really dumb mistakes while sewing as of late. I wish I could blame it on my machine or someone else but I'm afraid it's just me. I suppose it's time to hit Target and buy the boys PJ's, I just don't think I can attempt to sew anything else until 2010.
I had a lot of handmade pajamas as a kid and I'm pretty sure that 95% of them came from this same pattern. I'm not even kidding, just ask my mom. The fact that it's still in print (after all these years) is pretty amazing considering pattern companies rarely keep patterns for very long. I've used this pattern quite a bit with my boys when making pajama bottoms. It was fun to make the feminine version this time around.

Pattern: Butterick 4222 in a size three. I made view B, but omitted the neck ruffle (I remember not liking it as a kid). Instead of eyelet trim, I used a coordinating fabric and made my own ruffle trim. I used my serger's rolled hem feature to finish the edge and my ruffler foot to gather it all (5 yards after gathering). The pattern was fairly straight forward and not complex. The pants went together very easily, and the top wasn't too bad other than gathering the pieces to the yoke, which wasn't hard- just time consuming. It seems a bit big, but I won't know until Christmas Eve how it really fits her. It might just seem big because the top is so full. Also, because the pattern is multisized and has so many different views, take care when cutting it out. I accidently (as was mentioned above) cut the wrong size out of a top piece and cut the wrong view (thankfully it was the longer view) out on the pants. It wouldn't have been a big deal other than I ended up 4 inches too short on fabric and had to scour every quilt store in the state to find more. Just a hint, finding snowman fabric two weeks before Christmas is not fun....

Fabric: Riley Blake "Be Merry" fabrics. In hind sight. I wish I would have used a fabric for the trim that had a little more contrast. And I wish I had made the ruffle just a bit wider. It's difficult to tell the difference between the trim fabric and the main print.

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A Very Pepto Christmas

Miss A's tree is pink. So pink in fact, that even as a person who likes pink, it's too pink for me. She loves it. It makes her squeal with delight. I have found her pulling feathers from the branches and putting them in her hair, or sometimes just petting it. She rearranges it's branches and ornaments at least twice a day. Even though my rule for the kid's trees* is "one new ornament a year and anything handmade," she insisted on getting other pink glittery items for it at the store today. I agreed thinking it would keep her occupied for longer than two seconds (which it did) and knowing that buying glittery things is far less messy than making anything with glitter. Also, she didn't like how I tried to repurpose her magic wand for the star on top and a tutu (which she won't wear) for the tree skirt. The small purchase made her day, and even though it looks like we've had a visit from Interior Designer Barbie, I'm happy that's she's happy. The second the boys got home from school she wanted them to see her "bootiful tree."
I made the tree skirt from a single layer if Michael Miller Yule Trees and a hot pink Pimatex dot for the ruffle. I put some lime green rick rack along the top of the ruffle to make it less pink, if that's even possible. I had grand visions of quilting the skirt, but am glad I kept it simple from a time management perspective and also from a "I may be sick of this by the end of the season" perspective. Overall, I like the tree skirt and think it would look great on a green tree. Maybe after Miss A has finished pulling all of the feathers off on this one I can see what that would look like.
*The kids have their own small trees. It keeps them from playing with the real one. It keeps me from being completely OCD with the Christmas decor.
** The tree is from Micheal's a few years ago. The branches are sort of weird because they swivel around the trunk, which makes it easy to store but a real bugger to keep the branches in place. They all tend to wander toward the middle front.