Meet: The Three Month Aprons

I’ve been going on and on and on about these aprons…and wouldn’t you like to see the finished product?

 

Of course you would.

 

Ages ago (back when the year was new), one of my husband’s friends contacted me. She wanted to work together to come up with some aprons for her son and his best friends. The aprons, she was sure, would be a hit with the kids. The matching hats, she was sure, would be a hit with their mothers for as long as the kidlets would keep them on. Heh.

 

I don’t remember what exactly took so long, but picking out fabrics was definitely a big part of it. There was the shopping around, waiting for things to be back in stock, finding another seller for a print that was not negotiable and then the process of picking out coordinating fabrics for the details. (Each apron is double sided, with the backside matching the pocket from the front side and the band on the hat.) The actual production of the aprons was pretty quick, and took about two weeks (including cutting, pressing, aprons and hats). There was one tense moment when I realized that I had cut a directional print…the wrong way. Do you think a little girl would notice if all of her Winnie the Pooh’s were laying on their sides? Yes? Luckily, there was a remnant of the fabric left that was just big enough to cut another apron front, the right way.

 

Unfortunately, that remnant was a mis-laid hat piece. Which meant I had to cut another hat piece out of the REAL remnant piece that I had already put away on my shelf. Whoops. 

 

Ready to meet the babies?

 

Fabric purchased here and here. Both shops were a delight, and I will be going back! 

PS – If you are interested in getting a set, I will work with you to pick out fabrics. The sets are $30 each, plus shipping.

Come and Be My Friend?

Please know I am not trying to drum up followers or anything insidious like that. What I AM trying to drum up is interactions, and a bevy of "friends" to Chat Craft with during the day. Are you on Facebook? Come and find me! Just "like" my page, and then we can chat it up, LoLo Style.

I love to post about what I'm up to during the day, in the craft room, and get feedback. So, if this blog is a place to discuss and show you the (long!) process things take to get into my shop...then facebook is the place to discuss the process things take to get to my blog! Heh. Something that like.

The Craft Room: The Whole Story

Hello, friends. Can I call you friends? Cronies? Pals? You know I love you, right?

Like, really, really love you?

I’m ready to prove it now. Are you ready?

*deep breath*

I am ready to show you…the entire craft room. In all its glory.

 

Just keepin’ it real, folks. I have BAGS of foam, waiting to be turned into cute little poufs and chairs and whatever else I can think of to fill. I have scads of fabric waiting to be made into quilts, and armfuls of old clothes waiting to be made into new clothes for smaller people. I have wrapping paper, and detritus from a childhood of pack-ratting…and this is where all the magic happens. But can’t you just see the potential in there? Once the boxes are dealt with? And the fabric is folded? And the kids can be convinced to stop rifling through my gear, looking for their crayons?

I have to admit, I’m a little leery of this room. I’m afraid that by the time I get it Just Right…there will be a new little LoLo, and he’ll swoop in and take over my craft room. Isn’t that silly?? It’s ok…maybe the little LoLo will prefer Daddy’s Den!

(PS – No, I’m not pregnant. No, I’m not trying to be pregnant right now. That is all. Carry on.)

An Apron for a Princess

BBJ attended a birthday party for a friend, with a Princess theme. The girls were invited to wear their best "princess dresses" and come enjoy a lovely Tea Party. Oh, you'd better believe BBJ was excited! She picked out her dress herself ("I want my Easter Bunny dress, Mommy!" Funny that the Easter dress from 2008 still fits...)

We found some girly-girly fabric in the stash, cut out a basic pattern, and got to work! (Of course, when I say "we", you know I mean "I sewed while the big girl entertained her baby brother", right? 'cause that's a team effort, in my book.)

This is a new design for me, and I have to say...I think it turned out Princess-erific!

(If anyone is interested, some aprons similar to this one will be prepared for the shop soon. Shoot me a line if you'd like more info.)

A Mod Apron

Materials: Home dec. weight canvas cotton
Source: IKEA
For: Adults
Details: Two pleats, giving the skirt an A-Line shape.

I think I may have finally come up with a flattering apron! Do I get my Nobel Peace Prize now?

This one will be up in the shop soon...but she needs a name. I'm thinking "Heidi". Thoughts?

A new LoLo Craft Giveaway!

You might have noticed a little blurp up at the top of the blog? My sweet friend Lorie, over at Be Different...Act Normal is hosting a giveaway for me. She's getting ready to move, and life is crazy right now...but she's always got time to scour the net and post all of her favorite home dec projects. I love all the great ideas she finds...and (after reading the comments on the giveaway) I'm developing a crush on her readers, too. Such sweeties!

Also, because she's so very creative, she's come up with about 2 million ways for you to earn extra entries. The drawing will be for one of the aprons pictured below, your choice.

Hurry - the comments will close on 11/22 at midnight!
(Pictured, L-R: Child's full apron, Adult half apron and toddler full apron, with a pocket.)

Support Handmade

My friends...do you see that little button up there? (And over there on the sidebar? You do? Good. Just checking.)

The dear, dear ladies over at Wee Folk Art are compiling a list of small shops that specialize in the handmade and the homemade and the wonderful. LoLo Craft is now a member of this directory, and I'm just delighted!.

If you have a moment, might I invite you to peruse the list? You might find something lovely that you never knew you needed, or something marvelous that Great Aunt Betsy will love, or something fabulous that your favorite sister has been looking for all year. You never know!

Support Handmade...'cause it's swell.

(If you would like to be included in the directory, follow the directions on Wee Folk Art and e-mail your information to Michelle. Happy Crafting!)

PS - One you're over at Wee Folk Art, take your time! The generous lovely ladies over there have a lot of gorgeous patterns and tutorials, all free! Everything from crafts to appliques and embroidery patterns to tiny gnomes...you'll find it all there. Share the wealth.

WIP: Cozy Pozy Clips

(WIP = Works in Progress)

As the weather turns cooler, I've had the chance to make a few cozier items for my little princess. Starting with these.

She still adores the silk-flower clips I made her a few months ago, but they were just seeming so out of place. What kind of a winter fairy wears spring flowers, dear readers? I ask you.

Not many.

These little clips are made of red felt (which appears to have some lovely shimmer woven in.) Being ever-frugal, this felt was received as a gift on our local ReUseIt network. (I (heart) free!)

The center was carefully snipped with sharp little clippers, and then pierced with a teeny-tiny star-shaped "brad".

You can't really see it, but the clip was covered in a little piece of tan and cocoa ribbon from my bucket of "ribbon bits." I covered all four sides (top, bottom-top, top-bottom, and bottom) with ribbon. Next time, I think I will only cover the top and top-bottom, as the extra ribbon on the clip makes it awfully hard to slide into my daughter's hair.

What do you think? (They met with my daughter's hearty approval - she has worn the clip daily since its birth last Wednesday. That's a lot of cozy posy-ing.)

(These should be listed in the shop, shortly. As in...when the kids let me get around to taking better photos, etc. If they look like something you'd like to see on your own little fairy princess, drop me a line!)

Hats!

A while back, during a massive blog hopping event, I won some free patterns from You Can Make This. When I took off for two weeks with my family at a gorgeous lakeside home, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out one of the patterns!

I made a patchwork bucket hat...minus the patchwork. I was on a deadline, and had to make four hats. Two of the hats had to be altered to have chin straps so that teenies couldn't tear them off.

I got measurements from my sister, and set about making hat for all of the Smalls - three girl hats, and one for my little man.

Unfortunately, something was off in the measurements so that the smallest hat (Siu Jeun's) and the biggest hat (Ernie, my niece) weren't even close to fitting. Siu Jeun's could be crammed onto his head when I took this shot, but by the time we got to our reunion, the hat was way too small. Ernie's was the same way.

Oh, and the other baby figured out how to pull hers off, even with the chin strap tied.

Oh well - at least they're cute!

A Present for BBJ

A few weeks ago, when I was making this baby quilt for a friend, my daughter got jealous...as two year old girls are wont to do.

She first wanted to know if the quilt I was working on was for her. (No.) Who is it for? (Baby Clyde.)

Then the kicker.

"Where's my present?"

(Only, it was way cuter because she has issues with her "s" sound, and they end up just being a sort of a nasal sort of a *snuffle*, and she really said, "Where's my pre'hjnent?" See? Way cuter. Moving on.)

Thinking quickly, because I rock like that, I assured her that she had a "pre'hjnent" in the works, and I would get to work on it just as soon as she left me in peace long enough to finish Baby Clyde's "pre'hjnent."

Score one for mommy!

Wanna see what I was talking about?

Click over here.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

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Isn't it gorgeous?! A friend and I are following the tutorial and making twin-sized girlie quilts. (We modified the original pattern, which was a 3x3, to make it 3x4. We'll modify the sashing a bit, too, to make the quilts long/wide enough to cover a twin sized bed.)

Funny story - as we started gathering the vintage sheets we wanted to use, we scoured several thrift shops in the area. My friend even found a few gems when she went home to Ohio to see her folks. We were still short a few prints, but we started prepping what we had anyhow. As we went through our fabrics, my friend noticed that one of our fabrics (a green affair, with little pink and white flowers) was identical to one of the fabrics that the author of the tutorial had used. Weird, right?

It gets better.

I put out a call on our local Freecycle network to see if anyone had any old floral sheets languishing in their linen closets. Lo and behold, someone answered my call. When I went to pick up the sheets, guess what I found mixed into the bag.

The same green sheet.

Are there any linens experts out there that could tell me why every search for vintage bed linens seems to turn up this particular sheet??!

(Note - I'm so proud of myself because, today, I finished sewing up all those scraps in the shoebox below into 9-patch blocks. Woot!)

Do you see that lovely print, on the left hand side of the second row? That's the crazy sheet that everyone seems to have in their closets!

So, here's where I beg for y'all's input. If you clicked over to see the quilt tutorial, you would have noticed that her quilt has white sashing (the stripes between the little 9-patch blocks). I had intended to do white, but looking at the block in the picture above...there's already a lot of white going on. What color do you recommend?

Ridiculously Proud of Myself

(Did you guess what I've been working on? They're Kitty Kapes! One of Lo Gung's co-workers requested some flannel capes to keep her feline friends warm this winter. She did a trade with us...a new video game for Lo Gung in exchange for two kitty kapes. Once I realized that I was being given the OPPORTUNITY to make a kape in exchange for a game that only Lo Gung would play...I got him to sweeten the deal with a new paper cutter for me. Now we're all happy! Come to think of it...last winter was so cold here, I'm tempted to make a cape for Siu Jeun as well! He crawls around on all fours...it could work!)

Now, this pile of loveliness right here...is something that just makes me so very proud of myself. I love to sew aprons. These kitty kapes are quite fun to make as well. HOWEVER. I detest making ties, straps...whatever you want to call them. They are fiddly and never turn out straight, or I miss an edge when I'm sewing and have to go back over it...or I sew them inside out and am then stuck turning tiny little tubes inside out for half a day.

That's all about to change, my friends. Behold: 5 yards of skinny little ties!

These were really simple to make. I cut a white pillowcase open along the seams, then cut it into 1" strips. I sewed those strips end to end to make one ginormously long strip, then fed that strip through a 1/2" bias tape maker. After that, it was a simple matter of folding the tape over and sewing the entire length of it. Easy peasy! To make my ties, I just cut off whatever I need and sew it on to my project.

*sigh*

I love a happy ending!

Now, I just need to find a 2" or 4" bias tape maker so I can make up a BATCH of straps for my aprons...

A Shop Update!

Well, the big wait is over!

Could you guess what I've been working on?


A small army of hair clips, fit for a fairy...or a princess...or a fairy princess!





These are all up in the shop now.