Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

I made Quinn this little monster guy for his first birthday. (One! My baby is one! Oh my goodness!) He could not care less about it, much preferring to spend his precious time putting small inedible items in his mouth, but Adelaide loves it and has adopted it for now.

It's the Koji pattern from the Wee Wonderfuls book. I challenged myself to work only with what I had on hand for this project. The corduroy is from an old pair of Adam's pants. I have so many old clothing items sitting around waiting to be fabric-harvested, so this made me very happy. The wool felt is left over from when I made Adelaide some play food a couple of Christmases ago. And the argyle quilting cotton has been sitting on my shelves for years.

The pattern came together nicely and didn't take too much time. It's sturdy. And kinda cute, despite the wonky facial expression it ended up with. (I tried to get that mouth on straight, I really did, but...)



I have to keep reminding Adelaide that she can't keep Koji forever. Someday Quinn might actually want him. So she's requested one of her own.

KCW Days 1-4: Adelaide's Wild and Free Geranium Dress

The first thing that came to mind for me when I learned that this week's theme is "Kid Art" was letting Adelaide loose with some fabric paint. She gets some art project fun, I get some adorable hand-painted fabric, and we get to collaborate on making something in the sewing room. Win, win, win.

She did an awesome job with her fabric painting (no bias here, nope, not at all). There was no end project in mind when I doled out the materials. I picked this mystery fabric out of the remnant bin at JoAnn Fabrics ages ago. It's got a linen-ish thing going on, but I don't know what it actually is. Looking at my stash, this is what seemed best suited for a three-year-old's experimental fabric painting. I really let Adelaide do her own thing with the fabric paint, though I tried to keep about three colors in her tray at a time to avoid having everything turn to brown from overenthusiastic color mixing. 

Her finished piece definitely had a border-print vibe, and my mind went straight to the Geranium Dress pattern. I asked her what she wanted to make with the fabric, and she didn't know, so I made the suggestion and she agreed. 

The bodice is some chambray from another project. It happened to match some of the paint perfectly.

Adelaide even picked the buttons herself.

As I've mentioned here before, Adelaide isn't one for fussy clothes. I have to make a real effort to not treat something like this too preciously or she will NEVER wear it. I have to check myself: what is the point of a kid having clothes if I'm going to get bent out of shape when they get grass stains or ice cream on them? I'd a million times rather her wear something lovely and stain it (or rip it) than never wear it. She's my rough-and-tumble, garden-loving girl, so if she can't wear something for all that entails, it's not worth making. 

So here she is, watering the garden in her brand new dress. Perfectly Adelaide.