It's rather late, I know, but I wanted to share a few snapshots of the lovely day I had with my boys. 5 and I do a lot of stairclimbing these days and I never get tired of him asking to hold my hand (can't say the same of my legs...). Fred and 5 packed us a picnic lunch and we drove out to a new-to-us beach and spent a very sweet day on Lake Superior. Even amidst the angst and trauma of moving and packing etc I feel awfully lucky.

It's been a while, I know. We have some very big changes coming up very, very soon and, to be perfectly honest- I'm hiding.
Do you ever feel like that?
It's like there's an invisible sensor and as soon as I reach this predetermined level of stress/stimulation/responsibility/whatever, I just shut down. I find myself unable to answer the phone, paralyzed by my own to-do lists, I actually hid in the dining room the other day when someone rang the doorbell. Silly? Yes. Real? Also yes.
I've composed this post in my head a hundred times over the last week and a half, and yet. Well, I guess I am finally writing it. Yay me!

We're moving.
Not a happy, down the street move, but a hairy, grumpifying, 300-some mile move.
There are lots of very very good things about this move coming up, a few bad things, and of course, a few very sad things.

We are leaving our beautiful spot here, close to nature, and pretend mountains, and Lake Superior.
We are leaving loved ones and others who probably would've become loved ones.
We are also returning to Madison, where we have friends and family and international cuisines (among other things).
My husband will be going back to school. Exciting, terrifying, sleepless, etc.

Along with all of these other things, I will also be working outside the home again. With much trepidation. More on that later.

I'm going to adopt a slightly more relaxed schedule here, I think I'll return to Mon/Wed/Fri postings in an attempt to be reasonable in my expectations of myself (ha!). I have a bit of a backlog of lovely pictures to share with you!

Whew! After all that sewing, it's time to enjoy all the wonderful fashion statements we can make.
5 prefers to incorporate non-standard elements into his ensembles.
Here are the highlights:

Here we have 5's cereal box hat creation.
He doesn't limit himself to just cereal boxes, no, yesterday he attempted to don a butter box hat.
Alas, it was much too small for his head.

Here we have an excellent Mama-made outfit, combined with precision by you-know-who.
You can't tell from the pictures, but he even picked mismatched socks for himself.
The hidden one features soccer balls.
Of course.

I seriously did not think that I would ever be posting pictures of my underwear on the internet, but, I also did not think that I would ever have a son who needed to wear as many pairs as possible as hats and/or necklaces.
This happens every laundry day.
Please forgive me.

As it turned out, I needed to take Day 4 kind of easy. I had already planned on doing the smallest project that day, but then, I just couldn't muster up the energy to even write about it. Instead, I joined 5 for the last part of his nap. Mmmmm naps.

My day 4 project was a new sunhat for the big-headed boy. He still tries to wear his hat from last year and it's too small by about 2 inches. Comical? Yes. Effective? No. I used this pattern from Sew Much Ado with only one major tweak- I added an elastic chin strap. It's very windy here in the Copper Country and we like to be prepared...
I agonized for what seemed like forever over how to do a chin strap on a reversible hat and in the end, I'm super happy with my crazy easy solution. The chin strap just hugs the back of the head above the brim when the hat is inside out. Pretty simple.

The tank tops were a breeze and so fun to throw together. Each one only took me between 10-20 minutes from start to finish. Gotta love that kind of garment... Plus, 5 turns into an extra big ham when he's wearing one of these muscle-baring shirts. I think he just likes to let the pythons loose.

All three of these tanks are made from old T shirts and they were all made from an Ottobre pattern. I had so much fun choosing which shirts to repurpose for these. The top one refers to a local historic smelter that my husband has done some committee work on, this one is a local festival in my childhood neighborhood, and you may recognize the bottom one from an earlier post this week...

This dragon top may be my favorite. I used the sleeves for his cardigan from Day 1 so I ended up with just the tiniest pile of scraps from this shirt. I love a really thorough repurpose! I remember buying this shirt at a bag sale at one of our local thrift stores- it was way too short to ever wear as is, but the print was so fun I just knew the perfect project would come along.

Even though there are technically two more days in the KCWC, I decided weeks ago that I would probably only do 5 fast and furious days because I believe wholeheartedly that a weekend is a beautiful thing. If you want to see more inspiring handmade children's clothing you should definitely check out the elsiemarley flickr pool, there are some really amazing creations up there!

Woof! The week's not even half over and I'm already a bit tired....
I was super excited to try making shorts again though. As you can see, I did finally manage to get them shorts-length. I kid you not, the inseam is 1" long on these babies.
All three of these are made from Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants pattern.
I ordered this elephant fabric just after 5 was born I think, and have been saving it for just the right project. This was definitely it- as soon as they were finished, 5 started making elephant noises and wore the shorts as a hat for half the morning.

This was my attempt at being like those tasteful and refined ladies who like muted palettes, only sew with linen, and do things like handstitching. I didn't do any handstitching. The butt panel was handprinted in South Africa though. It's a precious scrap from my Skinny Laminx scrap pack. A perfect usage if I do say so myself.

It's funny, I didn't even realize until I'd sewn all three pairs that each of them featured animals of some kind. Which couldn't be more perfect, really, for Mr. Animal-Obsessed.

These might be my favorite. I love love love the birds and so does 5- he carried around a scrap of this fabric all day yesterday, talking to the birds. Plus, I finally cut into my stash of Lotta Jansdotter's Echo fabric- yay! The pocket was kind of a last minute add-on. After cutting out the butt panel, I had a pretty big scrap that I knew would get lost in the fabric abyss so it got turned into a bigger-than-I-imagined pocket.

Day 2 of the Kid's Clothes Challenge and we are off to a super great start! First, my houndstooth cardigan from yesterday was featured on Elsie Marley's blog today! Go check it out! Marvel at how it looks just like it did on my blog, but famouser! And then look at the rest of the amazing and wonderful things that Elsie Marley does!

Today, we did pants. Pants are a comfy, happy place in my sewing land- sometimes irritating, but rarely mystifying. Just right for day 2 of 7. This first pair are Big Butt Baby Pants from Made By Rae, a pattern I whole-heartedly recommend. I made 5 a pair of these, in this same fabric, in this same size, for Christmas, or his birthday, or something. Which leads me to why this pair was made. Originally, I cut out two right legs. Hmmph.
Luckily they're the cutest thing with two legs and they're still! huge on him, so I happily made him another pair today, un-flannel-lined, and with a butt-accentuating contrasting panel.
The main fabric is Echino cotton/linen blend and the butt panel is something out of print from my scrap stash.

This is the only repurposed pair of the day - GASP! It's true, almost all of my sewing is with repurposed materials, but I also have a slight fabric obsession so I've been trying to use some of my favorites that I've been (ahem) hoarding....
Made from one of his Dada's old concert Tshirts, normal baby 5 is transformed into hip, too-cool-for-school, Beck-loving 5! Kind of.
These are made from a pattern I made myself.

Finally, the fancy pants. I've been dreaming of making these pants since I bought this fabric. The fabric came from India and is a cotton silk blend. Aren't the selvedges gorgeous? I used Rae's BBBPants pattern for these as well, but I only had a half yard of fabric, so I had to modify it a little. They fit perfectly right now, but they're probably going to be fancy shorts by Summer's end.

Elsie Marley's KCWC begins today! I decided to start the week off with a pair of cardigans- something I hadn't tried before, but really the only thing on my list that 5 will be able to wear right now. It'll be a while before we'll be wearing shorts and tank tops...

So, I've seen this trick that bloggers use when showing a piece of clothing they've made where they tape it to the wall and I'd wondered why they did that. Today, after trying to get my little ham to stand still for even 1 second and only managing the surly above picture for our troubles, I realized, that's why they tape it to the wall.

I made this, the macho-est pink houndstooth cardigan you ever did see, from a big, shoulder-padded, ladies cardigan. I was able to cut in a way that preserved the existing trim (yay) even for the hood (double yay). The only thing I had to get rid of in the original was the buttons. They were big shiny metal ball guys and they just screamed out for mall-bangs somehow. So I removed them and replaced them with some saved Land's End pants buttons.

The pockets got really a lot smaller once I made it 5-sized, but they will still hold sticks, or pens, or something else sharp and pointy, and therefore beloved by my darling boy.

The other cardigan was slightly less successful, but I think I might be able to fix it. Somehow.

It's made from two different women's shirts and purchased ribbing for the trim. The orange one was actually a henley and I used the rest of the body on a project earlier in the year. After I cut the bottom off, I held it up to 5 and just knew it had to become a little jacket of some kind.

The only issue is that the neck is just too big. The original shirt was a scoop neck and I broke some synapses trying to un-scoop it with no luck. It's awfully cute on him though.

There's also hair, arm, leg, hand, knee, foot, bellybutton, and, most importantly, boobs.
Yup, we talk about body parts all day.
We also talk about animals, the sounds they make, and who is wearing a hat.
I am so loving this whole conversation thing.

We also have a lot of conversations on completely indecipherable subjects.
Sometimes very contentious conversations- this one is quite opinionated.

In the past, I have totally dreaded the sound of a sniffle, mainly because it means I will have to choose between hearing my child choke on his own snot and using the bulb syringe.
5 would always cry with that mixture of anger and betrayal that makes me feel like such a horrible mother even though I knew I was helping...
With the onset of this cold, however, when I pulled out the bulb syringe, I did have to trick him into letting me do it the first time, but after that he offered up his nostrils willingly! He even brings it over to me in the morning. I'm a little confused as to how two obstinate, non-lesson-learning people such as Fred and myself could possibly have produced a child with the capacity to understand that the discomfort of the bulb syringe is cancelled out by the regained ability to breathe.

I could be over-thinking it though, maybe he just decided it was fun. He certainly delights in attempting to use it on me.

Please pardon my brief and unexpected absence- 5 and I caught the bug going around and I kept thinking I could still get everything done. Turns out I couldn't. We are starting to feel better and consequently, my to-do list is getting shorter!

Last week, I made this little experimental pouf. I had been inspired by something similar on etsy a few weeks back, and when I revisited it, I thought perhaps I should just give it a go. It's the body of an old cotton sweater with the armholes sewn shut, stuffed and then gathered at the top and bottom. Nice use for an armless sweater I thought.

It still needs some tweaking- I couldn't gather it tight enough to get the bottom hole all the way closed and the armhole seams are a little lumpy. The other unfortunate thing about this project is that my husband hates it. Hmph. He says pillows should be "regular-shaped". Hmph again.
I'm currently brainstorming ideas to fix all of these problems (and more)! Any suggestions?