Valentines Day Tea Party

Chloe and Harper in the skirts I made them.  (Blogged:  HERE.)

This year our kindergarten classes had their second annual Fancy Nancy Valentines Tea Party.  Each classroom did it just a little differently but all the children had their photos taken at our two 'photo booths'.  The one above was set up in the hallway outside my classroom and featured plants and flowers, china tea service, antique linens, etc.  Almost 80 children had their photos taken playing with my china and not one accident!  Chloe is in first grade now and Harper is in our 3 year old pre-K class but they play together every day while their teacher-mommies stay and work after school.  

I used vintage table linens on all the tables and draped over the small book cases and cloth napkins. One table had yellow depression glass dishes and the others had clear glass snack sets from the 70's.  Each table was decorated with a vase with flowers, glass candle sticks, vintage embroidered table runners, and small tea pots.  One of the mommies sent in shiny red necklaces for everyone in the class.  The parent volunteers shaped the necklaces into hearts at each table setting.  The party favors included bubbles and heart shaped sunglasses sent in by other parents.  The food was simple:  tiny cup cakes, cookies, fruit and cheese skewers (made by another of the moms who just happens to have been in my kindergarten class years ago!), grapes, gold fish and chips, and strawberries.  Little candy conversation hearts were placed at each setting in fancy little paper cups.  Two different types of hot tea was offered as well as lemonade and white grape juice.  We discussed proper tea party etiquette, what to do with a cloth napkin, and what topics of conversation would be appropriate.  We all had the best time!  (And not one accident with any of the fragile things!) It took forever to do all the dishes (no dishwasher in the pod) but it was so very worth it!  the children had a wonderful time!  Me, too!

The children's faces have been blurred but you can see the tables and part of the room set up for the party.

Center table set up with the teas and extras for the parent volunteers.  One teapot holds new fancy Valentine pencils.

Top:  Harper and her mommy.
Jac (He was in my class last year and his mommy is a teacher at our school.)
Victoria-Rose, my daughter, who came to help out that day before she had to leave to teach piano and voice lessons.
Chloe

The Kindergarten Team

Victoria-Rose and Me

A Trio of Valentine Skirts

Valentines Skirts for 2017.

 This will just be a quick little blog to post these skirts made for some sweet little friends for Valentines Day.  I may have been MIA on the blog but I have been sewing as usual, so... I have lots to post that I have made over the past few years!  Here I made two simple skirts with elastic waists for 2 little sisters and one more detailed/labor intensive skirt for my friend Kaye's little girl Chloe.  Harper's skirt is the one in the middle in the photo above.  It is a size 2/3 for a tiny three year old.  Her little sister Rory is 20 months and the skirt on the left is the smallest one (that wasn't with an attached diaper cover) that I have ever made.  I felt like I was making doll clothes!

Chloe's 2017 Valentine's Skirt.

Chloe is six and wears a size six in length but is still about a four in the waist.  Her skirt has an attached flat waistband in the front and an attached elastic waistband in the back.  I used the waistband/side placket/button loop from Oliver + S 2+2 skirt and just gathered about 60 inches of fabric for the skirt.  I added a lining to the skirt to add fullness/support because I knew all the buttons on the  3/4 inch hem tuck would weigh the skirt down.  I really liked using the pink gingham.  It is a little hidden pleasure you would only see if you looked for it.  

There are 32 buttons around the perimeter of this skirt!  It was fun to look through my button stash to find buttons that would be the right size/color.  Many of the buttons were given to me by friends who don't sew but have button collections that they have inherited from their relatives.  Others are given to me by friends as gifts.   There are buttons on this skirt from at least five different people including my deceased mother.  I know that Mama would be tickled with this skirt!  I knew Chloe would love the buttons, and she did!  She kept lifting it up to show her friends the different ones.  It is a good thing she wore little bloomers underneath!  

I will have some modeled photos, as well as some shots of the Valentines/Fancy Nancy Tea Party at my kindergarten, this weekend.  I have two other Project Run & Play posts to do before Friday.  Yes, I jumped in and made "Greenery" outfits for the Sew Along Contest.

This is my favorite Valentine fabric and there are only tiny scraps left.  I have used it before on several other skirts and a dress for Chloe from a few years ago.  I never blogged about the skirts but you can read about the details of Chloe's dress and blouse HERE.

Previous things made with this fabric.

"S" is for Sweet September's Valentine Dress

Dress Front

 This will be a 'quickie' post to share a dress I made two years ago and never posted!  I have a couple of Valentine Posts that I want to share this month so I better 'hop to it'!    I was given the printed fabric by September's grandmother to fashion into a dress that she could wear to a Valentine's Dance.  It was a warm February here in Florida and only a little white sweater would be needed to keep her arms warm when she wasn't inside at the dance so a sun-dress style was chosen.

I used a favorite 'go-to' pattern:  Annie's Sundress and Jumper by Primrose Lane.  It has all sizes, 2-12, and has a shoulder button closure view, too.  I added the sash and the hem border.  I had the perfect color Kona cotton solid to coordinate and the sweet trims in my stash.

Dress Back

Do you make Valentine's Day clothes?  Here they are often worn by children all February long.  I recently made some things with hearts for Valentine's Day that could be worn any day that I will share soon.

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still... loves you!"

"S" is for Sugar & Spice: Chloe and her Valentines Day Outfit

Katy from No Big Dill is sewing through the alphabet.  She has kindly invited us to link our blogs that coordinate with the letters for each week.  (Thank you, Katy!) I'll be linking this post HERE for "S".

This sweet and spicy outfit was made for my favorite three year old:  Chloe.  She is truly 'sugar and spice and everything nice!"  All the fabrics and ribbon were from stash.  Yay!  The black and white is a piece of treasured Mary Englebreit fabric and the multi-hued pink is a piece of unknown batik.  I used the PDF pattern "The Fairy Tale Dress" from Tie Dye Diva for the dress and adapted the blouse from  McCalls #6062.  I made size 2's for 3.5 year old Chloe.

The back is taken in with the ties inserted into buttonholes in the back:  no elastic!

Here is Chloe wearing the outfit on Valentines Day in her mother's kindergarten classroom.  She is sporting a pretty new haircut...to repair the one she gave herself earlier in the week!  (Sweet as sugar, spicy, and spunky, too!)  We all loved the way the handkerchief hem looks on this sweet little dress!

  (Guess why this shot is cropped!  LOL!) 

The outfit fit her beautifully!  Love that bow in the back!

Here you get an idea of just how tiny Chloe is in relation to her mom's classroom.  She is standing on a stool that lifts her up at least a foot off the ground.  The tables are set at their lowest height for the smallest chairs in the school.  The dress display dummy is a 9-12 month infant size and is perfect for the width of the clothing I make her.  Chloe is standing on the stool so that I would be able to get relatively still photos.  I did say "Spicy", didn't I?

She sure is a charmer!

She calls me "Mouse" and has me wrapped around her little finger!

Love this shot.  

This is a good shot of the front of the dress.

This is the shot before I cropped it!

Isn't she just beautiful?

Sweet as sugar!

"S" is for Sweetheart: A Valentine Pinafore for Emma

 Last week I had the pleasure of making two little girl's their Valentine's Day outfits!  This first one is for a little sweetheart who just turned six and is in my kindergarten class.  I've known her mommy since she was a little girl!  Her grandmother is my friend, Karen.  This little pinafore was made for sweet Emma to wear over a dress I made her last month.  I adapted the pinafore pattern from Love and Stitches #149 "Toddler Pinafores and Pantalettes" and used polycotton eyelet flouncing purchased at Jo-Ann's.  The ruffled butterfly sleeves are from a lovely Swiss edging I had in my stash.  I made the waist piece longer (Emma is very slender but tall.) and added the sashes.  Pink buttons close the back.

 This is the dress Emma wore the pinafore over.  Karen and I have a bartering arrangement.  She takes care of my puppy-girls (shih tzu sisters) when our family goes away on vacation and I make Emma pretties to wear.  I definitely get the best part of the deal!  My little girlies get the best care possible and I get to make a lovely little girl fancy clothes.

This is the dress I made for the pinafore to top.  It was part of the Winter Wonderland Outfit for the sew-along for Season 8 of Project Run and Play.  (See post HERE.)

 I appliqued a heart on the bodice and surrounded it with some tatting.  The little heart charm is pewter.

 More charms were attached to ribbons at the waist seam.  These go over very well with the little girls!

 Here is Emma at our afternoon Valentines Party in my classroom.  It was really cold for our part of Florida so she wore leggings and fancy socks.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day!  Our family's was full of events.  Our niece, Kelly, had a very romantic dinner and a proposal! We are so happy for her!   My husband's brother had emergency surgery to put stints in his heart valves.  (If you pray, please add Jim to your prayer lists. He is doing okay but will need more heart surgery because one of the blockages couldn't be repaired with a stint.)  And... Our daughter had a car accident on her way home that has rendered her car inoperable!  Victoria-Rose and the driver of the car she hit were unhurt as she was going less than 15 miles an hour but the ball hitch that was on the bumper of the other car really caused some serious damage.  However, we are very grateful here!  What a blessing that no one was hurt!  Needless to say, we didn't go out to dinner as planned!

 I will be linking this post up to Katy's No Big Dill blog for "S" week for her Sew All 26.  She has made the most creative things for her family to wear!  Check her out here.   I'll connect the link when Katy puts up her linking party.

I have also linked up to Sew Many Ways Sew Darn Crafty  February Theme Month linky party HERE.  Go on over and check out all the great things shared by other crafters!

Love & Kisses for Project Run & Play Week 4 of Season 6

As always, just click on the photos to enlarge them.

 I am having such fun with the sew-along challenges for Project Run and Play!  It is really motivating me to get some sewing accomplished.  This week's challenge is "Love is in the Air" for Valentines Day.  I decided to make a little dress that can be worn over a white knit shirt for beautiful little Chloe, the daughter of another kindergarten teacher at my school.  All materials, including the hand embroidered vintage linen napkin were in my stash.  I guess this counts as 'stash busting', too!

I used this McCalls pattern but made quite a few changes.  The pattern calls for shirring with elastic thread on the back bodice and doesn't have you line the bodices at all.  That doesn't work for me so I completely lined both the front and the back bodice pieces and made channels for elastic casings in the back piece.  I added at least 4 inches to the strap length and still feel they could be longer.  I also made the little loops in the back longer.  I added 5 inches to the sashes and lined them as well.  Next time I would make them even longer.  They seem very short to me.  Chloe is not quite 2 1/2 years old and I made a size 3 according to her measurements.  I feel that the pattern runs small and would size up next time.  This is a surprise because my experience with the Big Three pattern companies is that they usually run large.

As you can see, I basted a vintage napkin to the skirt front and put the entire front through my pleater making such nice little pleats for gathering it to the bodice.  I smocked the napkin section with red DMC floss in a simple heart design.  I appliqued two heart shapes in contrasting fabric and machine satin stitched around them in rayon thread.  The little pewter heart charm was in the jewelry findings box and was the perfect finishing touch.

You will see in the next picture that I didn't knot the straps after pulling them through the back loops the way the pattern shows the closure.  I didn't like how that looked so I tied them together.  The bow is big and pretty but I really would prefer the sashes to be longer.  We've been having some beautiful warm weather here lately.  If this weekend had been Valentines Day, Chloe could have worn this without a shirt!

This weekend was my son's 18th birthday.  I can't believe how fast these eighteen years have flown by!  Logan is a wonderful young man, an honor roll senior who makes us very proud of the good choices he makes every day.  That is my sweet husband in the picture with him.

I can't get over how much he looks like my Uncle Bill, my dad's younger brother.  He has his dad's upper lip and my eyes, though.  He has Uncle Bill's sense of humor and my dad's musical ear.  Logan plays the piano beautifully.

The last picture is of my daughter during the last week of December.  Victoria-Rose is 19 and is a freshman in college studying music performance and education.  She is a pianist and an opera singer.  I have two amazing children.  I am truly blessed.

Don't forget to stop by Project Run and Play to see all the other Valentine inspired outfits.  Next week is a challenge that I have been anxious to complete:  taking a man's shirt and making it into something for a child.  I am excited by this challenge and have been working on it off and on since the first week.  I have turned it into something for my "Grandmother's Hope Chest"!

Old-Fashioned Valentines

I had such fun making these old timey valentines for my family this year! I used my scrapbooking supplies, old Mary Englebreit (love her work!) desk calendar pages, and some heart doilies. Each one is different and made for a special person in my family. They remind me of the valentines my third grade teacher (in the 60's) had us make for our parents. It was the first time I had ever seen a heart shaped doily! I made some for all my small godchildren and their moms, too, but I forgot to photograph them.

This one is for my Tim. (All are clickable if you want to enlarge them to see any details.)

This one is for my beautiful daughter.

This one is for my handsome 15 year old son.

This one is for my mother.

Perhaps next year you would like to make some old timey valentines! Just give yourself enough time. I didn't and I was working until late Saturday night finishing up!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day! I hope you have had as nice a day as I have had. My sweetie gave me a lovely card that made me cry, a box of chocolate that had a recordable button that told me he loves me in his own voice, and a teddy bear with an 'I love you' banner'. I made old fashioned Valentines and a lovely brunch for my family. We plan on going to the movies after dinner tonight to see Percy Jackson and the Olypians.



It has been a month to the day since I have blogged. (Shame on me!) I have done precious little sewing but lots of Mom's Taxi Service and cooking. Both my teens have been very busy with performances (piano and theater) and my time has been so limited.



Since I have no sewing to share I thought I'd show you the little tree that stays up all year and is decorated according to the season. (I showed you the Autumn 'look' here:)

This is the little Valentine Faery tree topper that I purchased last month at Home Goods.

I made the doves for our first Christmas in this house 18 years ago. The butterfly faery ornament was just given to me by my heart sister, Jana. If you look closely you can see the little silver heart frame with the photo of our family when Rosebud was just 1 and I was pregnant with Logan. He was due on Valentines Day but was born almost three weeks early. The pink Ann Estelle valentine was made by Jana for me a few years ago. The cloisonne' heart in the background is one of two very similar ones that I received for Christmas in 1999. One from my mother and one from my Mickey (stepmother). I found it delightful and a little spooky that they both gave me the same gift without consulting each other!

This is another of Jana's valentines to me. Isn't she creative?

A companion boy faery purchased at Home Goods. I love his little smirky face! The crystal heart under his left hand was an ornament we bought to celebrate our first married Christmas in 1991.

Thank you for stopping by! I promise to do better with my blogging this month! Come again!