Seen in the City

We haven't been up to too many outings recently.  We've been so busy with homework, school activities, church activities, and illness that we don't get out to any different very often.  We did see at least a few fun things, mostly while we were already in Provo for Molly's dance class.

For example, we saw this really neat art exhibit about birds at the Provo Library.  They're a mixture of painting and cut paper and they also had a bunch of found objects from where the birds were painted.  There's also a lot of little words in the art.  My description doesn't do it justice and it was gorgeous in person.

 Miles had pack meeting at the new Pleasant Grove fire station!  I don't typically enjoy pack meeting but I was excited to see inside the new station since they just barely rebuilt it.

 All the boys were obsessed with this pole.  When you pull on it, it opens the hole in the floor above.

 Elliott and I went to an art class at the MOA.  This project was really cute...they had the kids make one glove monster for themselves and another to give to a kid at Primary Children's Hospital.

 I almost always go to Molly's Friday dance class by myself because it's late enough that Miles can watch Elliott for a short while before Gerrit gets home.  Miles had a play date one Friday so Elliott came to wander the BYU Bookstore with me.

 He loves this giant Cosmo.

 They redid the bookstore to have this big Y Mountain slide.  Elliott is a little afraid of it.

Come, Follow Me in Real Life

I don't get pictures of so many different parts of our life.  Just this one time, I got a picture of our family Come, Follow Me scripture study in action because Elliott stole my phone :)

There we are, sitting on the couch, looking at something in the Friend magazine that fits with our scriptures for the week.  He even managed to catch us at a peaceful, calm moment and not one of the common moments where someone is arguing! We've loved having this program of family scripture study on the New Testament this year and are thrilled to keep it going with the Book of Mormon for 2020.

Fall Sewing

I've been doing a ton of complicated projects this semester!  I tend to think in semesters because my work shapes a lot of the rest of my life schedule :)  It ended up being a ton of projects for me since I did so much sewing for the kids over the summer.

Project One: Butterick workout leggings.

This is Butterick B6295, a pair of exercise leggings with colorblocked sides and yoke and side pockets.  I had originally thought I would make a lot of pants this year.  That did NOT happen, but I did at least make the leggings!  I needed to do some alterations for size...I might have cut too big of a size to start with in fear of them being too small.  It's also possible it was a byproduct of my fabric having a different stretch percentage.  This is why I'm terrified of pants making!  There's so many ways the fitting can go wrong!


Project Two:  Liesl + Co. Neighborhood Raglan

I've made the other view of this pattern twice, which is a pullover sweatshirt.  One of those is my favorite shirt so I had to try to the hoodie!  I used a very drapey rayon sweatshirt fleece.  It's fantastic to wear but I'd probably make a hoodie (which needs structure around the zipper) with a less drapey fabric next time.  I'd had the idea to do some seam flat piping.  That failed miserably!  I do love how it turned out but I definitely had some weird false starts with this project.  My favorite is the line where the twill tape meets the hood lining.


Project Three:  Liesl + Co. Camp Dress

Technically, this is the fourth thing I made, but the pattern was released to the public first so I got to publish this before a different one :)  Isn't this so cute?  It's a shift-style shirt dress that hits right around the knee.  I made the long sleeves for a fall dress and also added a self belt so I have the option of some more waist definition.  It's made out of a rayon-blend corduroy so it hangs better than a stiffer all-cotton corduroy would.  The camp collar doesn't have a stand so it's faster and easier

Project Four:  Oliver + S School Photo Dress

This dress has been on my mind for a LONG time.  I've wanted to try some embroidery but I needed to find something that was both easy and small :)  I found this embroidery pattern in a book at Jo-Ann and I knew Molly would love it AND I would be able to do it.  That being said, it still took several tries!  The first time, I wasn't pulling the thread tight enough.  The second time, I realized that I was also going to need to interface the fabric if I didn't want it to pucker.  Third time was the charm :)  The actual dress is the best.  It has a kangaroo pocket, a darling little roll collar, cuff sleeves, a full lining, and an invisible zipper.  I made it out of pale pink linen to showcase the embroidery and lines of the dress.

Embroidery progress photos.  First up is the back of the yoke, then the front before it went in the dress.

Project Five:  Liesl + Co. Chaval Coat

This is technically project three!  It was my very first time testing a pattern before it actually went to press.  I made it in early October but couldn't show it to anyone until late November.  It was pretty fun to test the pattern, although it did mean I had to pack it on vacation with my parents so I could finish by the deadline.  I LOVE this coat.  It's got some traditional menswear details like the double piped pocket, the two-piece sleeve, and the double-notched collar.  If you look at most men's suit jackets, you will see all of those details.  It also has an emerald green lining (my favorite color, sewist's prerogative!).  It's long enough to be warm and I feel like a boss when I wear it.

Project Six: Liesl + Co. Saint-Germain Dress

This is Gerrit's favorite out of all my sewing projects.  I used a pretty slippery rayon that was challenging to cut.  It was possibly more challenging to cut because I cut it with a head cold.  I don't recommend that.  The sewing wasn't hard at all, though.  It's super secure because it has two buttons on the inside, five buttons on the outside, and a lot of overlap in both the bodice and the skirt.  That's not always necessarily true of wrap dresses or shirts!  I added a snap to the neckline because otherwise the neckline was a little low for me.

Elliott Loves a Project

Elliott is at his very happiest when he has something to work on.  It's nice to take all of that energy and channel it towards something productive!  

We found this little foam fire engine kit at Jo-Ann and he loved putting it together and driving it all over the house.

He was especially happy to make dinosaur eggs out of sand and dirt with little hidden plastic dinosaurs inside.  Miles was even nice enough to hide them in the neighborhood sandbox so Elliott could dig them up like real dinosaur eggs.

Elliott made his very own Forky at the preschool Halloween party.  Unfortunately, it got lost pretty easily so I felt like we were living our very own Toy Story 4 (not in a good way).

 This was his favorite, favorite project.  It came in one of our Koala Crates and it's a dinosaur hat and feet.  He wore it everywhere for weeks and took it preschool for letter "D" day.  He even wore it to Molly's dance recital.

 He's also pretty happy to do a project with his siblings.  Here he is with Miles and Molly making their own goldfish crackers from our America's Test Kitchen box.

Fall Family Photos

I love getting yearly photos of the kids taken.  We don't really do yearly family photos because I feel like Gerrit and I don't change that much, but the kids change a ton year to year!  I like taking them at Camera Shy because they take a lot of kid photos so they are used to pretty much any weird things my kids might do :)  In this case, that involved Elliott yelling "Chicken butt" a lot.  You guys, I don't even know.  Luckily, we got a lot of really gorgeous pictures of the three of them together and also great individual shots.