Birthday Time Again

June is the month for birthday parties and projects for Joey and Lexi.  I actually made two shirts for each of them this year.  I made the first ones out of darker colors.  Joey's was red and Lexi's was a dark shade of pink.  I had bought youth small shirts, but they were too big for them.  They will have to use them for sleep shirts.  I used the same pictures on both shirts, but the second shirts were the light blue and pink like I have used in the past.  I was afraid they would be too small because they were 4Ts and Lexi is four, but Joey is five.  As it turned out, Lexi's is still too big, but Joey's is just right.  They had two parties this year for both of them at the same time.  Last week, they had a party at a party place and had their school friends at that party.  Today, they had the family, church friends, and other close friends of the family and they had it at their home.  So, they already had worn the shirts before I got pictures of them.  I bought the cake last week and had them put the same pictures on the cake that I used on my shirts.  The costumes they are wearing in the pictures are the birthday presents I made for them.  Joey is Captain America and Lexi is Elsa from Frozen. I have already shown pictures of these in a earlier blog. I made the cakes for today's party and I put figures of their favorite characters from Avengers and Frozen.

This is the birthday cake for last week's party.  I'm showing it because of the costumes, not because of the cake.  I did not make it.  I love what they can do in putting pictures on cakes. Joey is in red because that is his favorite color and I think the blue looks nice with Lexi's blue Elsa dress.

Lexi's Frozen birthday cake.

Joey's Avengers birthday cake.

Lexi's "Lexi at four, Let It Go" birthday shirt.

Joey's "Joey at five, Fight for the Right" birthday shirt. Sorry for the wrinkles and the little pucker spot from where he had a super hero badge pinned for his last party.  I couldn't get the pucker out for the picture.

Close up of Joey's picture.

Close up of Lexi's picture.

Joey at five looks so grown up.

Lexi loves to pose for pictures.  I was trying to get the shirt, but she wouldn't cooperate by standing still. She was too busy letting it go.

Party time is over, so now it is back to work on the play mat sets for the babies.  I really need to get the baby stuff done so that I can get back to the pillows for Christmas.  I have so many of them to get made.

Under the Sea

In my last blog, I talked about needing to make a play set for my granddaughter, but I wasn't sure what to make.  I was talking to the mom to be a couple of days ago and she gave me a great idea.  She suggested doing something with an ocean theme.  I thought that would be doable.  I knew right away that I wanted to make this set on the machine as opposed to knitting.  I had one pattern for a fish, and I thought I had a pillow pattern for a whale or dolphin.  I almost could not find that pattern, and after I did find it, I found out that the only thing that was in the envelope was the directions.  I planned on using the larger dolphin as a storage for the smaller animals, so I just looked at the pattern and made my own pattern.  I didn't even follow the directions, because I was not going to make it into a pillow.  I decided to put a zipper in the bottom so toys could be easily put in and taken out of the dolphin.  I found my one pattern, a fish.  Then, I went online and looked at some images of sea creatures.  I wanted to make five animals like I do for the play mats, and I decided on a lobster, a turtle, a seahorse, and a sea star to go along with the fish.  I had to make up patterns for all of these animals. It was sort of fun, but challenging because I can't always figure out how to make things fit together to accomplish the effect that I want.  I have been making a few of the small animal heads for the huggy pals that I just finished last week, so I was able to come up with what I wanted.  Kim had said that the kids seem to like the little felt animals that I have made in the past, so I decided to make most of them out of felt.  That works for me, because felt is great to sew with.  It doesn't slip or fray and it actually is quite easy to turn and stuff because it is a little stiffer.  The animals are not as soft, but what I really wanted to get, were animals that all had some kind of easy thing for a baby to grasp.  As you will see, these little animals (between 5 and 9 inches) all have small, thin things to grab onto.  I used felt that I had available with all of the animals, except for the lobster.  I had a lot of the shiny red material left over from when I converted the graduation robes into boxer robes.  It was perfect for a lobster and also gives a different feel for this little animal.  Here they are: Creatures from under the sea.....

Full set of Creatures from under the Sea.

The lobster has biased tape loops for the legs and felt antennas. This is the only one not made from felt.

This is the only one made from a pattern that I already had and did not have to make on my own. It is the smallest...just five inches from the nose to the tip of the longest tail fin.  I wanted to make all the animals a different color, but somehow, I managed to get two light blue animals, the fish and the seahorse. They do look different, though, because this one has the darker blue fins and the seahorse has stripes of lots of colors along the body.

This sea star was the easiest of all to make.  It has an orange back.  I love it.

The sea horse was a little time consuming, but really quite easy to make.  I decided to use some of my scraps from the cuttings on the other animals to make stripes along the body.  When I was putting on the stripes, I started higher than I had planned, and so things did not fit right in the middle.  I was able to make the adjustment by just leaving the one stripe blue like the body.  I really like this little guy, but he isn't very cuddly...he is very stiff. He has some really good grabbing parts.

I wasn't planning on making a turtle because I have already made one for the family that is getting this play set, but I like turtles, so I decided to make one.  Again, I was able to use some scraps to make triangular spots on the back of the shell.  However, when it was sewed together, the spots were kind of small.  I decided to connect them with an embroidered pattern.

This little octopus turned into being more difficult than I had expected.  It was so hard to try to sew that little body with all the legs stuffed inside.  I had to do just sew the bottom, head, and one side with the machine, and then I had to turn it right side out and hand sew the other side after stuffing the head and body. If I ever do this one again, I think I will do it differently.  I will put all the legs as one piece with a flat circle in the center, which I will hand sew to the bottom of the body.  Oh well, I still think this one is pretty cute.

This shows the flat, empty dolphin. I put a zipper in the bottom.  There is plenty of room for these five little toys, and for many more toys, too. This is made out of fleece and is really soft.

This shows what it looks like with the toys stuffed inside.  Like I said, they don't take up much room, so there is plenty of room for storing more of the little animals I have made in the past.

I had a lot of fun with this project.  I can't believe that it only took me two days to do.  The hardest part is always the cutting.  It takes so long to find the right material for everything.  Since I hardly every throw anything away, I have lots of scraps that I can go through to get things for little animals like these guys.  The fleece for the dolphin was some that I bought one time on sale.  I knew it would come in handy some day.  It was too small to work as a blanket, but it was just the perfect size for this project.

Huggy Pals

I have a few babies to prepare for.  I have been busy working on play mats. I have sewn the mats and made the arches, but I have just started knitting the animals that hang from the arches.  I am making two of them; one for my great niece's baby and one for my neighbor.  I also have a grand daughter due in August.  I will not be making a mat for her because I have already made two play mats and a toy box filled with toys for that family.  I am going to make some toys for her, but I don't know how many, what medium I will use, or in what form they will be stored.  I know it will not be a play mat or a toy box.  I will have to think about it.  However, I have made three new toys of my own creation for each of the three babies (two girls and a boy).  I have made cuddly pals in the past, but the blanket portion was bigger than I wanted for these babies.  The heads, of course, were bigger also because the blanket was bigger.  I decided that I could come up with a way to make smaller versions by using the heads of some stuffed toys I have patterns for and just attach them to smaller squares of material. They are about 15 inches square.  Here is the result of my efforts for the day.  I'm calling these little guys Huggy Pals.

This little cow is for my great niece's baby boy.  The eyes are brown and do not show up in the picture.

This elephant is for my grand daughter.

My favorite, the puppy, is for my neighbor's baby girl. What do you do when you sew two ears for the same side? Luckily, you just make the inside ear brown on one and white on the other. Of course, the backs are the same way.  It works for a dog.

Now, I need to get back to knitting the animals.  I am making a forest mat for the boy and a jungle mat for the girl.  I have only started the owl for the forest mat.  The animals do not take too long, but I need to have the forest one finished for the baby shower in July.  I have a little bit longer to go before the other one needs to be finished.  It is a good thing because the jungle animals take a little bit longer to do than the forest animals.

Elsa and Captain America

It is birthday time for both Joey and Lexi.  The theme for their parties this year is Frozen for Lexi and Super Heroes for Joey.  I already had made the hood for Captain America, but Joey wanted the whole suit, so I made it for him.  Lexi wanted an Elsa dress from Frozen, so I of course made that for her.  Here they are:

Lexi: Alias Queen Elsa.

 Singing, "Let It Go."

Joey: Alias Captain America.

Ready to avenge an evil villain.

This is their first of many things to come for their birthdays.  I will still need to do their tee shirts and cakes, using the same themes, of course.

Captain America Hood

I never know what will be asked for next.  My grandson, Joey, is a real super hero nut.  He has almost every costume, mask, shield, and whatever that goes along with just about every super hero.  His newest favorite hero is Captain America.  He got a new shield the other day, but I guess he couldn't get the helmet, too.  Of course, Grandma was asked to make one for him.  The following is my version of a Captain America helmet (hood).

The side view shows the white stripe that is on the helmet.

Obviously, the front view.

As always when making something, I have to alter the pattern to make it fit correctly and to get the effect that I am looking for.  I had to do some extra cuts in the front to make it fit Joey's head a little better.  It was not wide enough in the front where the A was.  I had already stitched the A in place and had sewed in the nose piece.  I really didn't want to lose that effect because it was just what I wanted.  So, my alternative was to cut that part off and insert v-shaped wedges into the side of the A piece and the hood.  I ended up getting it a little uneven where I sewed it into the top of the hood.  It will have to do.  It is just for play anyway, so perfection is not a necessity.  Joey doesn't care.  To him, it looks like Captain America and that is what he asked for.

Ezra's Hobby Horse

I was visiting at my grandson's the other day and witnessed him riding a stick.  It gave me an idea to make him a stick horse.  I knew I had a pattern for one, so I started to make it yesterday.  I cut it out and sewed it today.  I took it to him and here are some pictures to show it.

When I took it to him, he was not home, so I left it leaning on the door for him.

Later, I captured this shot of him riding his horse.  Giddy up cowboy Ezra.

I guess one day he will grow into it if he has not already wrecked it by then.  There isn't much distance between the ground and his crotch.  The poor horse's head is dragging the ground.  I had to make some quick alterations because the head kept coming off.  I was afraid that would happen.  I followed the pattern to attach it, but it didn't seem tight enough.  I finally just duct taped it on.  It shouldn't come off now.  I also had to reattach the reins because the little wire that was attached to the plastic ring came open.  I just sewed the ring to the horse instead of using the wire.  Hopefully, it will stay together now.