Creativity involving my sewing machine

Incredibly, I still know where my machine is and also how to make it work. Life has seemed so busy around here that relaxing and sewing hasn't really happened much. (And it's not that I lack for projects!) One of the ways I made myself crazy last month was to want to make a pair of matching tops for G. and L. for their birthday. The trouble was, we were celebrating their birthday immediately after returning from our camping trip which meant I had to have everything done before we left. I got them done. Barely.

Here are the completed tops:

These are made from a curtain valance that I found at the thrift store for a dollar. I used the bottom of the valance for the bottom of the shirts (and I didn't have to hem them!) Then for the other parts I used some leftover lavender fabric from an Easter dress I made for P. and the top part of the valance for the yoke and sleeves.

The whole thing took much longer than it should have because there wasn't quite enough fabric to cut out all the pieces. If you look closely below you will see that I had to start piecing fabric together to have enough to cut out the required number of pieces.

But even though I had the tops done by their birthday, I didn't want to show them to you because I still wanted to make knit capri leggings to go with them. That is what I did this week. Here's the whole outfit.

And of course, G. and L. needed to model them. (L. is on the left and G. is on the right. You can also tell because L. has Tigger in front and G. has Pooh Bear.)

L. is holding a giant origami crane the M. made

The reason that the little girls were unusually cooperative with the picture taking was they were promised a chance to play in the water if they let me take their picture.

Because what else do you do on a day that is supposed to get to 105, but sit in a pool of water?

Even if the (garbage-picked) wading pool was made for two small children. It's still fun, especially if your father connects a (garbage-picked) slide to make a water slide into it.

L.

G.