catching fireflies…

…and letting them go.

Spaghetti monsters! Noodle aliens!  Spaghetti squid! Whatever you call them, they are ridiculous. But summertime is about ridiculous food, like fried dough, things on sticks, and candy floss. Why not stick some uncooked spaghetti in hot dogs and cook them up for dinner? Your kids will think you are the best!

That’s Mr. Muscles up there kissing his giant biceps and wearing his new shirt and shorts. I almost got two shirts and two pairs of shorts done for each kid, but the last pair of my daughter shorts refused to happen. Still, 5 tee shirts and 5 pairs of short is not too shabby.

And this whole outfit is self drafted!  The binding on the tank is not perfect, but it was the first time I had ever done it. I used a strip of jersey like it was bias tape to bind the neckline and sleeves. It’s very narrow and I liked the look of it so much, I used it for most of the tops I made this week. I might even feel compelled to write a tutorial, because it looks so nice when you use it with Rae’s Flashback Tee pattern.

The shorts I drafted myself because I liked the style of running shorts, but I wanted a waistband. The blog-o-world has not embraced the separate waistband and I really can’t figure out why. It’s not that much more work and it ends up looking so much nicer. Plus it makes adding pockets super easy.

Obviously, my boys like blue.

This one requested and ice cream shirt and he’s the youngest, so an ice cream shirt he got. I used the Flashback Skinny Tee pattern and bound the neckline like the tank.

I really love Bobo Choses (a kidswear clothing line) and their printed shirts are extra good. I was going for that look with these two shirts (and a few more waiting to be finished). I did them with freezer paper stencils and fabric paint. Remind me next time though to get the good paint, because the cheap tulip brand stuff is crapola–the black is really charcoal gray and it turned a muddy brown in spots when I ironed it. Lame! At least he doesn’t mind.

The shorts are, boring boring, the pattern I always make from Happy Homemade vol 2. But super exciting news: Happy Homemade vol 2 is coming out in English this November! Woo Hoo! I smell a sew-a-long.

Did you sew along this summer’s kcw? Follow along? Either way stop by the kcw blog to see today’s featured clothes. Happy KCW (and later this week for the big wrap up)!

I don’t have any finished clothes to show you today, but I do have a bunch of stencils. I’m not a big fan of Things On Shirts, but my kids are. Freezer paper stencils to the rescue!! I’m worried the ice cream will look weird, but I’m excited for the beetle. Any freezer paper stencils in your plans?

My youngest is my pickiest when it comes to clothes. I get a little nervous making things for him because I don’t want all that effort to go to waste. I’m happy to report this outfit was so well received it was worn for the rest of the day!

Thank goodness because this shirt was a ridiculous amount of effort. First I cut it out all wrong, then I tried to iron on the tiger and it was a one giant fail.

See those little shiny, gold bits? Yeah, the whole tiger was supposed to look like that. What you are looking at is tiger shaped glue. Eh, well it kind of works. The project seemed so cursed–ever have one of those?–that I was too nervous to actually hem the shirt. I just sewed a band on the bottom instead.

aaaaand the band kind of sucks anyway. The shirt is too long (arrgh! curse of the shirt!) so I may chop it off and try to hem it for real. The shorts though, they turned out pretty cute.

They are the same Japanese pattern I used for the other stripey shorts. I forgot to add the drawstring again, so this time I unpicked the waistband and made it happen–two very uneven buttonholes later.

I found this awesome drawstring elastic in my stash. Have you ever used it before? It worked out so well, I’m thinking about writing up a tutorial on it. Yes? No?

That’s it for day five. There are only two days left in this summer edition of kcw. I have a lot to finish and a busy weekend to boot, but I’m going to try to at least do an hour a day–that’s what kcw is all about, right?!

You can see all my kcw projects on the new website! happy sewing!