Little boy sewing

I've been doing a bit of sewing for my little guy lately. This is the backpack I made for him to take to school. It's fully lined, and it's got just enough space for a change of clothes, his activity books and his colour pencils.









This is the top of the bag. I don't know if you can see from the picture, but there are three loops there. Two are for the straps. Originally the plan was to thread the straps through the loops, fold them over, then sew them down. I put the bag on my little guy and just knotted the straps to get the right length. The knots held so well that I've never gotten around to the sewing. I almost didn't put in the third loop, but now I'm glad I did. It's perfect for hanging the bag on a hook.

I have a beautiful piece of pink cloth that I'm itching to turn into a bag for my little lady, but putting in that covered zipper caused me quite a bit of hair pulling. I'm not going to attempt another bag until I've figured out a saner method of inserting a zipper into a lined bag.

Here's the new 'baju melayu' (traditional Malay clothing) I made for my little guy. Yes, it's pink. He chose the colour himself. He's a sweet guy. Once, I put some ribbon flowers on his sister's dress. I had some extra flowers, so he requested that I put them on his pants. I put them up near the waistband, hidden by his shirt, so it wouldn't cause too much teasing at school.






I haven't made a 'baju melayu' for my little guy in a while, so I decided to do a 'tulang belut' (eel spine stitch) on the neckline. This stitch is a feature of traditional 'baju melayu'. It's a decorative stitch which also helps to strengthen the neckline. It's kind of like a herring-bone stitch lying on its side.
Mine isn't as even as it could be, for a few reasons. Firstly, I don't practice it enough. Secondly, I cheat. As you make the stitches, you're supposed weave them over and under each other. I cheat by doing the stitch correctly, but omitting the weaving. It speeds things up a bit.



After all this little boy sewing, I feel a bit guilty. The little lady needs clothes too. I have to get moving and plan some dresses for her.

Paper quilling

When I was looking for the crepe paper iris pattern, I saw an article for quilling. I couldn't resist, so I made these little uglies.

As usual, I neglected to read instructions carefully, so I cut 1.5 cm strips instead of the usual 3-5mm. The result is way too bulky.

These picture frames were next. For the black and pink frame, I had planned to do the white scrolls all the way around, but my little guy (my son) got involved. The big red ... roses? ... on the right are his idea.

The last paper item for the day is this little Kusudama ball, design selection and phtography courtesy of my little guy.

Temari

I made these temari a few years ago. The balls look a little worse for wear because I let them be used in the traditional sense (basically, I let my kids play with them).

I was learning to make these following tutorials from the excellent, but now sadly defunct, Temari 101 website. The site was great. The first ball featured overlapped diamonds (the small blue one). It took me two tries to get it right. The black, red and white ball was my first try.

The next tutorials featured a whole bunch of spindle balls. I made one (the pink one), then I had my first baby. Temari require marking with lots and lots of pins. Pins and babies don't mix, so I stopped for a while.

The kids are bigger now, so I ready to try some more. The black one is another spindle ball.

The yellow one is my mis-guided attempt to follow these excellent instructions. I'll have to try again some other time. I seem to do better with my second attempts.

The ball at the back is the Rainbow design from the Temari Traditions book.

These two are my latest. They are both attempts of the Triads design from Temari Traditions. The design is a fully covered ball (meaning that the entire surface off the ball is covered with stitching thread). Getting the effect requires precise marking, something I'm still working at. The purple ball looks pretty good though, so I'm happy.

More paper flowers

The thing with my son is that once he starts making something he won't stop. After the button flowers, he wanted more flowers. So I broke out my paper craft books.

We upgraded from pipe cleaners and scrap paper to proper floral wire and crepe paper. He cut and glued, and I assembled. We did the roses sort of like they did here, but much lazier, just drawing everything free hand.

The iris is from one of my old craft magazines. Now he's insisting he needs more than one purple flower.

Quick origami decorations

I was itching for a quick finish project, so I made these origami decorations. These are the first three balls from this book. They are made of six paper squares, folded, then glued together. The folding part comes together pretty quickly, and putting on the tassels is very satisfying.

I must have been feeling an urge to minimize when I made these. The first one is grape fruit sized. The second is orange size. The last one is lime sized.

Paper hearts

I did some crafting with my 4 1/2 year old today. We made the paper flowers from here. My little guy chose the paper. I drew the hearts. He cut them out, and we assembled them together.

The stems are pipe cleaners. I haven't played with pipe cleaners in years, forgot how much fun they are. Have to get more pipe cleaners...

Strappy dresses

I thought I'd start with some of my daughter's dresses. These are two strap tops I made for my lovely little lady recently. This first sunny dress was a real breeze to make.

It came together in a charmed three hour session during one of my daughter's rare naps. I even managed to get the heart-flowers embroidered before she woke up.

The second dress was the complete opposite. Here's the first version. That pink ribbon added a touch of colour, but it made the dress too stiff. The straps were too long and the whole thing just fit my little lady. Trust me, 'just fits' is not how you want to describe the dress of a growing two year old.

I decided to un-pick the side-seams, straps and skirt and fix the mistakes. In two days of seam ripping and re-sewing I managed to attach the back opening backwards and sew the skirt so that it was twisted like a pretzel.

It finally did come together though. She's worn it a few times, so now I feel better about all that un-picking.