More car stitching

When I think about the HOURS I spent in the car this summer, I'd like to also think I was able to get TONS of work done. But since I get awfully woozy in the car, too, I'll just go ahead and be impressed with my own work. I found that a very slow version of embroidery was perfect: lap-compact, not too sadly affected by jostling, and quick to put away.

Crafting for girls is much easier than for boys, and I have two beloved September birthday boys that I needed gifts for. I settled on little pillows embroidered with their own designs. The project was inspired by one in Amanda Blake Soule's (soulemama.typepad.com) The Creative Family. With colors and themes to match their rooms. And I must show the great backing fabric for the rocket-launch one: count-down! I love it muchly.From ohdeedoh (apartment therapy's children's design site) you can find a how-to for a similar project here, and a great review of the book here.

mermaidens

I would really love to stay up all night and blog about all of my summer projects, but since I have tried that 3-4 times this week working on post-vacation catch-up (of both the household and mental varieties), I really need to get some beauty and mama's-patience sleep to get ready for THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL tomorrow.

But Marian's first post of the year gave me the bloggy itch, so I will post just one: my August nieces' birthday gifts. Appropriate because they were my first projects from the book I gushed about in my last post (weeks ago!). I chose the mermaiden doll, and if you want her to be yours, you are very very lucky because she just happens to be the one free pattern from the book lurking around blogland (on the Martha Stewart Crafts Dept. blog, here). Much of the sewing is machine, but they have plenty of hand-worked fussy bits, so these lovely ladies were part of my road trip. The recycled felted wool sea buddies were part road trip, part late night crafting with my sister.Amari's is *ahem* not mailed yet (but boxed & in the car!), so I don't have her reaction to brag about, but Ellee was rather madly in love. She saw me working on hers a bit (I was trying to cram it in before her birthday party), and offered to help, since we'd sewed together when I visited her in Arkansas in March. She hinted that she'd like one of her own ("you can make this for me"), but I had to tell her "Later, Ellee, but this one is for my niece." When she opened it up that afternoon, she was quite giddy with mermaid joy, and paid it this supreme-from-her compliment when she was showing it off to my sister-in-law: "It's not pink, but I like it." She had it with her every minute for the last two days we spent with her.The playcloths were a major Old Navy find: a gorgeous scarf clearanced to $1.99 made of three shades of blue cotton gauze stitched along one side. I cut it in half to make two, and the resulting cloths still long enough to be put to good dress-up use (I saw it in action). You should be so lucky! I bought green, purple, and blue, and found another purple one at ON just this week (though a bit more, since it wasn't 1/2 off clearance day), so you might still be in luck.... Perfect for wrapping, too.