Gettin' Crafty...

Just after Luke was born, my mother-in-law, Peggy, bought me a super-fancy sewing/embroidery machine. I was excited about it, but with a 6 week-old baby and a lovely bout of postpartum depression to deal with, I couldn't even think about tackling learning how to use it, let alone finding the time to actually make something. Peggy was awesome and said that if I put it up in the attic and didn't even open the box for a year or two, she wouldn't have a single problem with that. She just knew that it was something that I'd like, and since it was really on sale at the time, she wanted to go ahead and buy it for me then.
Well now that I have been of sound mind and body for months, I decided it was high time I pulled it out of the closet and got to work. All I have figured out how to do so far is thread the needle, wind the bobbin, and sew a straight line, but I am loving it. I can't wait till I have several hours in a row to try to figure out how the embroidery part of it works. Right now it blows my mind that the machine can even do such a thing, but I am determined to figure it out...one of these days. It may be 2050 by then, but darn it, I'm gonna do it.
I also discovered the fine art of freezer paper stenciling and have been enjoying that little technique, too. Here's what I have made so far out of some boring shirts Luke had hanging in his closet and a few odds and ends that I picked up at Joann's.

This one is my favorite so far. Luke loves cars, so he HAD to have a car shirt! I used a reverse applique for the body of the car and made regular appliques out of felt for the tires.

Hey, Luke, where's your car??

Good job, Big Man.

I think he likes it!

Unfortunately as I was cutting off the extra fabric underneath, I cut a teeny little hole in the t-shirt. This is so typical of me. I always cut too close to the fabric when cutting tags off and such, so I shouldn't have been surprised by my idiotic move....Thankfully, it was very small so I just made a little patch and hand sewed the word "vroom" on it to cover my faux pas.


All fixed.
It looks awfully yellow in this picture, but it's lime green in real life.

I also took one of the ties from Luke's birthday banner and made him a Big Man tie shirt. It was an old madras tie that had belonged to our friend, Joel, back in the day, and it was too cute to get rid of.....so I just cut it up and sewed it on a plain t-shirt that Luke had never worn. Now I love it!




Our Big Man all dressed up and playing in the house painters' tarp (we were getting our house painted at the time).


Perfect attire for golfing.


As a nod to Luke's complete and utter obsession with fans, I also made him a fan shirt. I was inspired by Cheri of I am Momma Hear Me Roar (I heart her!) and used her freezer paper stencil tutorial. I Googled an image of a fan that I liked and made it into a stencil. Then I painted it onto a plain grey shirt and voila! While this shirt seems totally random to everyone else, Phil and I get the biggest kick out of it since we are all too familiar with Luke's fan love.


Up close and personal.



Our little fan.


Even though he's not smiling, this is a better pic of the fan and an awesome one of the belly!!

It's a great shirt for watching the painters.


Lastly, I made this robot shirt for our Big Man. Again, I got the idea from Cheri. She made a version of this shirt for her big guy, Rex, who is obsessed with robots. I thought it was too cute, so I just flat out copied her!



A close up.
(Next on the list of fancy gadgets to aquire: a DSLR camera so I can take decent pictures)

When I put Luke in the shirt and asked him to smile, this is what he did:



Then I asked again, and got this:



So I gave up and just started being silly, and finally:


Mr. Roboto smiles!

When I put him in his robot shirt for pictures, I also put some hand-me-down, lace-up tennis shoes on the Stinker Man for the fist time. When I got them on, along with socks (which he LOVES to wear), I found it hysterical that he no longer seemed to have ankles. It made him look even chubbier! He loved his new shoes, though, and walked laps around the house looking down at his feet the whole time.



His super wide, cubed feet could barely be contained in these size 7's!!


OH NO! Where did my ankles go??


Big-foot-beer-belly-robot-man mowing the driveway.


Anyway....
THANK YOU, MAMA T., FOR MY SEWING MACHINE. I LUUUUV IT!
I'd be happy to make you a car or tie shirt any time!!