My daughter has never been much of a girly girl. There was a brief princess phase, but for the most part all the frilly and fussy girl things are of no interest to her.  Not that she is all for boy things, either. She just wants to like what she likes and not be told what that should be. A while back she said, totally exasperated, "Arg! why does my toothbrush have to be pink?!"

Exactly.  So what is the awesome dress that isn't too girly, but still has a tiny bit of twirl? The Skater Dress pattern by Kitchy Coo.

Amanda has hit the nail on the head with this pattern. Even the name is perfect. The skater dress is comfy and stylish, just right for puddle jumping in the spring, throwing on over your suit in the summer, and of course going to the skate park.  She designed it to fit for a few years! And this dress will indeed fit my daughter through the fall--a lifetime in kid years.

The original pattern is a crew neck, but I couldn't imagine it without a hood. Luckily for me, Rae recently posted a hoodie tutorial that was a perfect match for this dress. I made the placket a little shorter so I wouldn't have to add buttons or snaps. She does have to wear something under it, but I expected that.

The fabric is from Joann's if you can believe it. I couldn't. It is a lovely knit: not to light, not to heavy, and so soft. The best bit is that one side is stripes, the other polka dots! The color could be less Primary! Blue! but I'll take it.

The pattern is well written and Amanda guides you through the trickier parts of sewing with knits. She convinced me that I should use stretch needles when sewing with knits. And she introduced me to the stretch stitches on my machine, which I'm now in love with. Amanda also tried to get me to use a double needle for the hem. I did buy one, but then wimped out when it came time to using it. My hem is of course wavy and now I regret not listening to her.

The moral of this story is, listen to Amanda and buy her awesome pattern! Be sure to follow along with the Skater Dress blog tour to see everyone's variation of this fantastic dress. See you at the skate park!

I wasn't going to make my kids anything for christmas (what a horrible mother!) but then dammit, all my friends were making these beautiful robes for their kids. Basically I am 33 and was peer pressured into this sewing project.

Of course I'm glad I did sew them, because my kids look pretty adorable in their cozy flannel robes. The robe pattern came from Sewing For Boys, which I reviewed here.  The pattern comes together very quickly. Leave off the pockets and you could have one finished in a few hours. Make your own fiddly pocket pattern with contrast piping and it will take you a lot longer.

There is one mistake in the book. You must connect the two front pattern pieces before you cut your fabric, but that important step is missing from the directions .  I only realized this after I cut out all my pieces from the PLAID FABRIC! Oh, what's that, you can't tell? That is because I'm the master-plaid-matcher!

The fit of the robe is straight up old man robe. So sizes don't matter all that much. I made the size 6/7 both for my 6 year old daughter and almost 5 year old son.  The fit is great on both. For their 2 1/2 year old brother I made the 2/3 size, but I should have gone a size up. His robe did get a little shorter because of the plaid matching I had to do, but a bigger robe would have fit him better and for longer too.

A few other things I would do to the pattern if I make it again:

• shorten the sleeves a bit.  They are meant to roll up, which is why they are so long, but they roll up a little too much for my taste.
• make the ties a least a foot longer. Makes it easier for little hands to tie (around those big bellies).
• lengthen the pattern a bit--especially for the smaller sizes.

A couple things I did right the first time:

• I made a hang-y up-y loop that I sewed inside each robe. It makes clean up time a tiny bit better.
• I skipped the belt loops and just sewed the tie to the back of the robe in one spot. That way the belt cannot be used as a leash or a jump rope or weapon.
• I read the fabric requirements. Each robe, each one, takes about 4 yards of fabric!

I made a bunch of potholders recently. I thought this little project would help me get my sewing mojo back and also make the kitchen a more welcoming place.

My intention was not so much "buy a cute and funny little scrubbie so washing dishes is SUPER FUN!!"  I'm trying to respect the job it is I do. Motherhood, housekeeping, much of anyone's time really is errands and tasks and doing the damn laundry again. We're told, especially as young mothers, that scheduling "me time" is supposed to erase the stress and monotony of our daily chores, but forced relaxation isn't going to change the fact that there is laundry to be done.

It's not that I'm horribly uptight and unable to relax--most evening you will find me on the couch--it's that all of these things are a huge part of my life. I can't put them all in the category " things that need to be done before I can live my real life." Some people, as Stephinine said, "border [...] on poetry when they write about doing laundry or mending clothing." I will never truly feel enlightening scraping oatmeal out of the bottom of the pan, but I can respect my roll as a caregiver and bring some joy to the tasks that come with being a mother.  My gnarly ass potholders told me my job as a mother was secondary; this silly star potholder says otherwise.

On a completely different note, elsie marley now has its own Facebook page. I know lots of you use Facebook to keep up with blogs, so now you can follow me there too!

This may look like a quilt, but it's really only like a quilt.  It's two vintage sheets stitched together and bound it quilt-like.  Most of the summer my kids were using their winter duvet covers as light blankets and it was bothering me to no end. So the quilt-like idea came about.

After too many trips to the thrift store, I finally found two quilts that would work.  I cut them to fit the weird ikea bed we have and pinned them together. I knew I wanted to quilt it in long slightly uneven lines--actually just like this beautiful quilt. So I contacted the maker and grilled on her quilting techniques and thread choices.

Then I picked up two different spools of variegated thread (wow, that stuff is expensive): a blue, magenta, and purple one for the flowery side and a more rainbowy one for the purple side. After what seemed like 400 hours of sewing straight lines, I moved onto the binding. I found this awesome Japanese polka dot bias tape in Frances' beautiful shop, miss matatabi.

I sewed the binding on at the beach (and got many weird looks) and ta! da! Quilt-like thing! Now to start the next like-a-quilt for my son...

I am sadly and just ridiculously behind with the one quilt project.  You think, "it's one square a month, I can handle that."  And then it becomes another thing to actively blow off while making other things or trying not to think about while camped in front of the tv. I am very good at procrastinating, but crap at coming up with excuses. Of course once you start you realize: 1. it's not that hard and 2. it doesn't take that much time at all and finally 3. why did I blow this off in the first place, I like it.  The pale yellow that Beth sent for October's block did actually throw me off; it's just not a color I ever choose. I tried bright purples and oranges with it, but it looked too football, too Minnesota Vikings for my taste.  So I went with blue and gray, which is what I always do and damn if pale yellow doesn't just look good to me now. I used this for inspiration because it is just so awesome. And even though mine is not as awesome I'm pretty okay with how it turned out.

I knocked out a square for Leah as well, but this one was much less go with the flow and more rip and swear real loud. I saw this pattern on the internets, neglected to read the instructions, and had a hell of a time making everything at least almost match. I need a lot more practice when it comes to quilting and I hope Leah can forgive me, this is as good as it gets right now.  I think the picture makes it look a little worse than it is (or maybe it looks better in my head). The concept is good (though not mine) but triangles are hard.