Family Jammies Pictures!

It didn't go too badly. Our appointment yesterday was for 2:30. In normal weather, it would take us about 1/2 hour to get to the mall where we had to go. Because of the forecast, we left our house around noon ish, hoping if we got there early, they would take us and we could be home before the bulk of the storm.

A couple of flakes started to float down as we got into the car. Drive not even 5 minutes to the post office to mail a package, snow is really coming down. Debate, do we chance it, or try for another day? Call studio. No other times that would work for us. Drive a little more. Decide to go for it. Takes us about an hour and a half to get there. Still early for scheduled time, and they take us early! Yay!

Little man had napped in the car and was in a great mood, and didn't try to run away when I changed him into his jammies. All is good, until he sees the camera. Wow...he was not a happy camper. Felt a little bad for the kid trying to take pictures, he went and got someone else after it was clear that Nate wasn 't going to stop crying for him.

After 2 girls try, the manager came in. She was able to distract him enough that when he looked at the camera, he at least wasn't crying! Maggie and Cassie were super while all this was happening.

And even though Nate had a meltdown, we were able to get 2 nice pictures out of it all!

So, after we pick out the pictures, we went to the food court, the girls and I were super hungry. Most of the stores and food places had closed at this point (about 3:30)

Get to our car about 4:30, and wow the snow. Lino had already decided that we would take a back road home, which thank goodness he did. Yes, it took about 2 hours to get home, but if we had been on the highway, it would have been much much longer. The 11 oclock news was reporting that the traffic was still so backed up that there were schoolbuses with elementary kids on them....52 kids still not home at 11 oclock at night!

The kids are super excited about the snow, so today we are headed to the store to get snow boots for all and snowpants for Nate.

Success....cookies and jammie shirts

Leftovers, the girls took these home from my dads.

Finished shirts:

Sneak peek:

T-shirts and cookies

Argh. The shirts for the family jammies are not going as smoothly as I would have liked. I am frustrated by it, too. I searched for a design, found a cute one we liked, spent a bunch of time getting it set up in the machine. Struggled with hooping a small t-shirt on the biggest hoop. Lino was able to get that done.


Great. Start stitching. It is looking super cute, yay! The design gets to the outline part, and oh no, it is somehow shifted! Boo! There were some puckers, too, but I figured that I could work that out with one of the bigger shirts, as they would be easier to hoop. Try Lino's shirt the next morning....argh! The outline goes wonky on that one too! Got some advice from the sewing boards I visit, and make a trip to Joann's to stock up on stabilizer. Try again, using the messed up shirt. Still no luck. Try yet again. It came out ok. I could live with it, but, I have to try and get it to come out ok on 5 shirts. So, now I am trying to think of an alternatative. I wanted these to be done already....

Cookies. Thanksgiving is tomorrow. We are going to Lino's parents house for the meal. His mom is a great cook. We will go to my dads for dessert time.

In the past I have made cheesecakes to bring, and cannolis. This year I just don't have the energy to do cheesecake. (I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a 'perfect' one, without any cracks...) So, I am going to whip up some meringue cookies, using my aunt's recipe. These were my absolute favorite cookies when I was little. My mom never made them so I only got to have them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. (keep fingers crossed that these turn out nice and puffy!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Jammie pants are finished!

Hooray! I finished the jammie pants with only a few snags. The girls pants wound up being really big. I was surprised by that but decided not to cut them down a size. I figured I could just double up on the cuff and then they could get an extra year from them. Sounds easy, but the extra fabric made it bulky and I kept getting wrinkles as I would sew.

I had thought ahead and was using a basting stitch (figuring it would be easier to let out next year), thankfully, because I had to redo the cuffs on Maggie's pants no less than 6 times! (I love my seamripper, lol) Cassie's weren't as bad.

Nate still wouldn't try his on, so I measured his from another pair of jammies. (Sneaky mama...)

So now I am just trying to figure out what kind of design to do on the shirts.

Nearly completed jammies! (with pictures)

Had a great sewing day yesterday, and the jammies are almost finished. I need to get more elastic and drawstring for the waistbands and once I have that, I can hem the legs and finish them! Everything went together smoothly (which is always nice) I did discover, though, that the childrens sizing on the pattern runs big. The pattern just had sizing, 2, 3/4, 5/6 so I went with 5/6. So, when I had the girls test try theirs on, they are long...very long. I opted not to take them apart and cut them down a size, I figure, it is an easy fix now and they will be able to wear them for a few years! I was a bit surprised that it ran that big. Most of my patterns size by measurements (chest, waist, etc)

Some pictures of Nate's pair:

Here is the fabric cut, with the pattern still on. I cut 2 pieces at the same time, being careful as the print on the fabric has a top and bottom! This is such a nice fabric to work with, it is a good weight.

Next, you fold and pin each leg, with the right side of the fabric facing in. I pinned both sections first, and then sewed next.

A close up of the seam allowance: (5/8th of an inch, in case any one is curious !) This picture doesn't show it, but I did another stitch (double seam), probably at 3/8ths in.


This next picture shows how easy making pants is! You turn one leg right side out, then put it inside the wrong side out leg. Line up your seams and pin together.


Here they are, sewn together in a double seam. The first is at 5/8th, the second is probably 3/8th.


Pull one leg out from the other:



Turn rightside out. All that is left is the casing on the waistband and hemming the legs. Nate wasn't in the mood to try them on and be measured, so I put the other 4 pairs together!

Fun, right? Lino even suggested that if I can get them done soon, we could have our picture taken in them for our Christmas cards! Can't wait!

Jammies

After our fun adventure in Target on Saturday, we went to Joann's. I love the fabric store. (I love it even more when Lino is with me to watch the kids, or when I can go by myself!!) The purpose of our trip was to pick out fabric for Christmas jammies. Maggie spotted some she liked, and tried to describe it. We wandered around the holiday fabric section for 10 minutes before Lino spotted it. Sparkly, sheer striped fabric; not quite jammies!

So, we looked at some more, and then found a good one that we all like! We wound up getting the whole bolt (8 yards and a few inches)

I also found some super cute bear fabric for a project!

Now I just have to cut and sew it all to gether for our family Christmas jammies. The fabric is just for pants, we will have white tshirts that I will paint? or somehow decorate Similar to last years for the kids:

Those were from fabric I had in my stash. I had enough to make pants for the girls and the top and pants for Nate. Green background with white snowmen heads. I was able to paint the snowmen heads on the girls' shirts. They picked the scarf colors. Green for Maggie and pink (surprise!) for Cassie.