Three Silly Sewing Things {needle & thREAD}

It's needle & thREAD day.  Yay!  So I've decided that this blog needs to be renamed "Goofing Around With A Needle & Thread" because that pretty much describes most of my sewing ventures!

Unless a special occasion arises, I work exclusively from my sewing stash and that means I have to get creative and work with odds and ends instead of yardage.  One such creative adventure of late was a skirt for my five-year-old.  She admired a purple and silver print I had leftover from a frivolous apron I'd made as a bridal shower gift (I wrapped it up with a bowl from their registry and a cake mix), but I didn't have much left over.

I squeaked out two pieces big enough to make a short gathered skirt (to be worn with leggings).

Stylish ensemble, huh?  She has white leggings and a purple shirt, so maybe we can come up with something more color-coordinated for the general public to see?  *fingers crossed*   By the way, when I'm making skirts like this, I use french seams on the sides.  It's quick, stops fraying, and gives a nice finished look.

Another recent sewing experiment had to do with finding a solution for this problem we have...which I can only hope is a universal one because otherwise you will have to try very hard not to judge me for this picture I took of the view under my couch:

Yes, friends.  We have a sippy cup problem.  An under-everything, upside-down, lost-by-the-dozen, sippy cup problem.  Someday when I get smarter I'm going to banish them forever, but until then I'm left scavenging for ways to identify who belongs to what cup on what day.  Nothing worse than finding sippy cups around and wondering...Is this ZouZou's or Jack's?  Was this from today or last week?

Solution attempt #1.  Sippy cup cozy:

If I assign a certain cozy to a certain child for a whole day, do you think it will do any good?

Not likely! And I have yet to find out because my middle child refuses to have a cozy on her cup.  I still think it's kind of a cool idea and I need to make a couple more.  Would be fun to put initials/names on them and might be just the thing for play dates.

I did find a better use for that lining fabric you see in the last pic.

It's princess tic-tac-toe!  Don't look too carefully at the stitching, okay?  My goal was not perfection with this project and I was on borrowed time!  It's made out of white felt, home dec fabric, double-fold bias tape, and ric rac.

 Crowns are lucky and hearts always go first!

I might have to do another post about this one because it is a big hit with the kids.  It needs a bag of some sort.  Hmmmmm.

As for this week's reading, I have to confess that I put down Rediscovering Catholicism by Matthew Kelly in favor of Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge.  I kind of bought it with the hope of tempting my husband to read it, but he reads intensively for his job and rarely reads for pleasure.  I read through the first few chapters with interest but it wasn't until about halfway through the book that it became more of a page-turner for me. As a wife and mom, I appreciate any insight I can get into the masculine mind!  I think it is the type of book that benefits the reader the most, so I'm game for any tips anyone has for encouraging their dear ones to read books.  I ordered Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of the Woman's Soul by John & Stasi Eldredge at the same time, but it has yet to arrive in the mail.  I have a notoriously difficult time 'seeing myself' in a book and I'm not sure how I'll do.

Anywho, that's it for today!  As always, thank you to Elizabeth Foss for hosting needle and thREAD!  Head on over to her place for more great sewing and reading :o).