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My enthusiastic models!

This year’s Easter outfit designs for my daughters were inspired by a yarn sale. We were in Michael’s checking out a sale, when I saw some bright cotton Lily Sugar and Cream yarn on sale! The colors were perfect shades of pastels and pinks for Easter and just looked so cheerful. This kind of yarn is not typically used for garments but I had successfully used cotton yarn before so I thought I would give it a try. The sale was 4 skeins for $5 so I decided to pick up 4 skeins of each color and make something that used just that much yarn.

For both sweaters, I did not use any formal pattern and just started knitting, inventing the pattern as I went.

The first sweater started bottom-up, from the lower ribbing. I knit it in a circular tube until I guessed I would have just enough left to finish the neck and sleeves.

Bottom-up start. I added the length first and then the neckline and sleeves.

All was going well until I had my daughter try on the garment in progress and realized that I had severely miscalculated the shaping for the neckline and sleeves. The whole sweater was really big and puffy and the armholes and neckline gaped in an all-too-revealing fashion.

Oops! Not the fit I was looking for!

I was tempted to unpick the stitches and start again but decided to see what I could do first to remedy the problem with a little crochet.

For the neckline, I gathered it in with a decorative ruffled crochet.

I gathered in the huge neckline with an improvised crochet ruffle.

For the sleeves, I did a simple gather in chain stitch.

Gathered armhole.

In the end, the garment came out a little more shapeless, bubble-like and shorter than I originally planned but I ended up liking the design.

For the second sweater, I decided to see if I could stretch the yarn out a little further to make a dress if I started at the neckline and knit downward. To make the design work, I had three skeins connected at one time for a while.

Knitting from the top down, starting at the neckline.

I knit it down and was thrilled to see that it seemed to be hitting my daughter just above the knee. But then she tried it on and the fit was entirely too body conscious for a 7 year old and not very flattering.

I wasn’t quite going for a body-con Easter dress.

So, I sadly had to unpick hours of stitching and start again, changing the pattern and adding more of a flare to the skirt portion. The extra stitching wasn’t too painful since I needed a distraction at that time to keep me focused on my diet and exercise routine.

Starting over — painful but necessary!

The new design was far more flattering but also ended up being too short for a dress. It was more like a tunic.
After some thought, I paired the sweaters with some white leggings and they made quite a statement! The girls enjoyed wearing them and didn’t ask to take them off as soon as photos were done….a first!

So, it wasn’t a perfect knitting experience but one thing I have realized is that age brings wisdom — not necessarily the wisdom to avoid the mistakes in the first place but the wisdom to know how to change a “mistake” into a design choice!

Do you select special Easter outfits for your children? Did you have any memorable fashion choices this year? Please share in the comments.

Vast racks of baby clothes at the Weecycled Wardrobe Sale

Here in Fredericksburg, the buzz in the parenting community is all about the Weecycled Wardrobe sale — a large consignment sale of children’s clothing held twice a year. I have never been before but boy did I hear about the sale and all the great bargains to be had, by just about everyone.

So, this spring I decided to check it out myself. I like a REALLY good deal, so I waited to go until the evening of the last day of the sale when much of the inventory was 50% off.

The parking lot was jam packed. People were walking in with large baskets and walking out with racks full of clothes. As I walked in, the greeter advised me how to navigate the sale and lamented that there was “nothing left” and I would get a better sense of the sale if I came on the first day. She said most of what was left were baby clothes.

Still, I knew that there were still treasures to be found so off I went. The first section of the sale was clothing and it was true that all sizes for children older than 5 were thoroughly picked over. There were still some good finds but nothing that caught my eye.

It has been a learning experience for me how rapidly clothing prices increase as children grow from babies to kindergarteners and older. There are a lot of cheap baby clothes out there but not so much for older children.

In the school uniform section, I spied a cute khaki skort that I thought would work well for fall with sweaters and tights.

Then it was on to another section of toys and baby furniture. Most of this section was gone but there were still several toy kitchens, bouncers and playmats to be had. We didn’t need any of this so we ventured on.

We got to the shoes section which was still quite stocked. I know many people are turned off by used shoes but they make a lot of sense for kids. Most kids outgrow their shoes before they wear them out. This is especially so for baby sizes. Shoes are also one of the more expensive clothing items kids need. So, I found quite a few bargains here.

Cute flowered clogs.

Skechers light-up sneakers. They will probably be last season’s trend by the time my kids wear them but they will enjoy them just the same.

A second pair of Skechers for my younger dauhter. We’ll find some cute laces to dress them up.

Baby converse-like shoes. I agree with the “cute” label on the tag.

Baseball shoes! Barely worn.

Next, it was on to the toys section. I had one objective here, to find my eldest daughter’s current obsession, Littlest Pet Shop. These toys generally cost a few dollars per pet. I was hoping that someone might have outgrown their collection and I was in luck! A huge mixed bag of pets was $15 and a second set with 3 pets and an arctic scene was $4.

We also found some little cars for my vehicle-obsessed son.

Browsing the book table, I came across a complete set of the Paddington Bear books for $5. I had just placed these on my daughter’s wish list! We will save them for Christmas as we are already working through two book sets from last Christmas.

When we got home, I tossed all the shoes into the washer with some soap and a little bleach. They came out looking bright and clean.

My son also helped me wash the LPS collection with soap and bleach.

Fortunately, there were quite a few pets in the collection of “stuff.” The pets are the most important parts to my daughter.

They also fit quite nicely into our plastic Easter eggs and will make quite a surprise for her when she finds them on Easter. There are even plenty to share with her little sister.

There were many “accessory” toys in the bag as well and I grouped those into eggs as well.

There is still a ton of stuff to go through in the LPS bag. I can’t quite figure out what some of the stuff is. Some of it looks like toppers for a birthday cake so we’ll stash those away until her birthday in the fall. There were some cute pet strollers and dog beds so we’ll have to figure out how to work those in. I might save some for Christmas.

My daughter is so creative in making her own accessories and toys for the LPS collection that I don’t want these toys to dampen her creativity. So, we may dribble the pets and accessories out little by little.

My daughter, the LPS enthusiast and one of many LPS creations she has made. Using shoeboxes and paper, she made everything from a house with a swing, a shower and even a computer!

Overall, I am very happy with my purchases and think I scored some great deals. I’m not sure I would go earlier next time. My shopping expertise tends to be more about finding hidden gems rather than battling for the few best treasures.

How do you feel about consignment sale shopping? What shopping strategies do you employ? Please share in the comments.

*I am not affiliated with the Weecycled Wardrobe sale.

For the past several Easters, my tradition has been to make Easter dresses from the stockpile of material and yarn I have lying around. You can see my work from 2011 here. This year, I modified the tradition slightly by purchasing material.

We were shopping at our local Wal-Mart a few months back and I noticed they re-opened a crafting/fabric section that had previously been closed. There was a large table with $5 bolts of fabric on it. Most of them were outdoor types of fabrics. I didn’t really need outdoor fabric but I peeked through the stack anyway and came across a beautiful, shimmery material in a bluish grayish tint. I wasn’t sure what type of fabric it was and the label only indicated it was “various blends.” “This is a gorgeous color!” I thought. “It would make a great dress.” Thus, the idea was born.

Originally, I wanted to make Christmas dresses but Christmas was just too busy for sewing. In a rush, though, I did manage to squeak out the skirt portion of the dresses. My daughters wore the skirts to the Nutcracker along with their leotards, tights and wrap sweater warm-up tops. It was perfect for the ballet.

When Easter rolled around, I was again short on time so I needed a way to quickly finish the dresses, preferably in a way that didn’t involve sewing buttons or zippers. I invented a quick halter-style pattern with long ties and they finished in just a few hours. I added on a little bling from a small piece of beaded trim, again from Wal-Mart!

My daughters tried them on and thought they were fun but had to add their own style to them too!

“Where is the flower?” my older daughter asked.

I explained that there wasn’t a flower. It just had the sparkly trim.

“It needs a flower,” she informed me. Then she found a hair clip her chic aunt sent her that is made out of a Tab soda pop can. She clipped it onto the neckline of her dress and it was fantastic! Plus, the fact that it just clipped on instead of pinned on meant that it didn’t poke any holes in the fabric.

Then my younger daughter wanted one too so we found another flower hair clip sent from another wonderful aunt.

Voila! The finished dresses, which remind me a little of Betty Draper from Mad Men.

My son had an outfit too that I didn’t make but purchased. His outfit will be featured in an upcoming post.

While my design suffers a bit in the fit department, I am pleased with the overall look and for about $5 a dress in materials, it’s great for the pocketbook too!

Any Easter fashions or fashion tips to share? Please let loose in the comments.

*I have no affiliation with Wal-Mart other than being an avid shopper.

Green donuts for St. Patrick's Day. Life is sweet!

This month’s investing theme is certainly about bringing more green into your life. As a reminder that green is sometimes about money but more often about the people we love, I wanted to share these pictures from our early St. Patrick’s Day celebration (following the preschool calendar).

A great day to be a strawberry blonde.

...or a blonde with hints of red.

Green eyes. The best green to wear on St. Patrick's Day.

Green boots and green legs.

An impish grin.

A lucky smile.

And a great time to be "green" at life too.

 Sláinte!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 
**As a side note relating this to organizing, I have written before about my shopping weakness for holiday outfits for my children.  I am happy to report that I was able to restrain myself and spend only $4.50 on St. Patrick’s Day attire (two $1 hair bows and a clearance pair of striped socks at $2.50). All the rest was scavenged from our existing closets.

My Halloween outfit impulse buys this year.

In the spirit of discussing closet minimalism this month, I have had to confront my Halloween clothing issues. You see, each October, in addition to buying/making Halloween costumes, there is always this wonderful supply of inexpensive black and orange or purple and black Halloween clothing for sale. “Oh, that’s so cute!” I exclaim and start tossing things into my shopping cart.

So, my kids end up with 2 “costumes”: a Halloween costume as well as a black and orange “Halloween outfit” that gets worn to fall festivals and other October events.

When I had just one child, the Halloween oufit purchase was no big deal. I would pick up a pumpkin shirt and be done. With two kids, I could sometimes recycle the prior year’s shirt to my younger daughter and buy just one new shirt for my older daughter. With three kids, where my daughters are getting older and wiser to the fact that it is fun to buy new (or match each other) and now a child of a different gender who can’t always wear what his sisters wore, the situation is getting out of control!

Is this Halloween outfit buying really necessary? Probably not. But it is hard to resist cute “pumpkin patch” shots like these:

We are not talking about a huge amount of money (about $30 for everything) but when you are trying to live with less stuff, the Halloween outfits are something I need to think about. These outfits are a particular extravagance in the clothing department since they are worn only a few times and usually can’t be worn after October–except perhaps as pajamas. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from the problem of buying a special outfit for every holiday season (Christmas/Santa outfits, Valentine’s, Easter, etc.), but I do seem to have a weakness for red, white and blue outfits for the 4th of July (which are also wearable the rest of the summer) and the black and orange Halloween outfits.

We can probably squeeze out another year’s wearing of this year’s outfits for the girls (plus I would love to see those hilarious black and orange striped legs again) and we will see if we have a gender neutral hand-me-down for next year for my son.

Where do you stand on holiday outfit shopping? Which holidays tempt you with outfit shopping? Are you a disciplined minimalist or do you adopt a “they’re only young once!” mindset and splurge when you feel like it? Please share in the comments.

It was a personal challenge to use up every last inch of the cotton yarn.  The Easter dresses and tunic ate up most of it but there was still a bit left.  It’s always tough to know what to do with little bits of yarn.  I get a bit nervous that I will start something and not have enough to finish.

In anticipation of our pending arrival, I decided to make a unisex striped baby hat.

I was sort of following a pattern but I made a huge error in the gauge along with so many others that I won’t embarrass the real designer with a credit.  The resulting hat is not really at all like what the pattern said it should be but I was too jaded to unpick it and start over.  I just finished up the best I could and ended up sewing it inside out because it looked better than the front pattern.  I guess this is the danger of forcing yourself to use something that you are not really inspired to use.

There was still a smidge of red and white yarn left at this point, so I made two more little flowers.

And that was that!  There was literally nothing left.  It was a relief to be done working with the cotton yarn.  I now have some fun summer clothes instead of some stale yarn sitting in my cabinet. I also gained a better sense of how much yarn I need for a given project.  I still have TONS of yarn to work through in my stash, including a particularly large cone of pink chenille.

I will need a lot of inspiration to get through this one!

Happy Earth Day!  May you find new ways to use and transform your own clutter into treasures!

Two years ago, I started the tradition of making Easter dresses for my girls.  At that time, I had a bunch of leftover white satin.  I invented a pattern on the fly and my tiny girls looked like little angels.  The dresses came out so well, helped me get rid of excess fabric that would otherwise be thrown out or donated, cost nothing and exercised my creativity that I decided to try again the next year.  I didn’t have any traditional Easter fabrics last year so one daughter was in a Victorian-style dress made from leftover yellow satin lining with white puffy sleeves from scraps of white linen and the other daughter in a dolman-sleeve khaki knit dress with a red fabric rose.  Again, they were unique dresses and I had a lot of fun making them while continuing to get rid of excess fabric.  (My husband calls this uncluttering very, very, very slowly.)

Since today is Earth Day where we all focus on the tenets of reduce, reuse, recycle, I wanted to share the results of this year’s dresses.

This year, my oldest daughter made a request.  “Mom, I want you to knit me something.”  she said.  I had not done very much knitting recently but this request reignited my interest.  In keeping with my Easter decluttering tradition, however, I decided to use yarns that I already had on hand.  I settled on some large cones of cotton yarn that have been sitting around for years!  I had four colors: red, blue, yellow and white.  Since I had to make two dresses, I needed a pattern that would work up quickly.  I found a great free pattern on the Lion Brand Yarn website for a simple knit sundress with pockets.  The pockets sold my daughter.

The pattern worked up very quickly and was really simple.  I made one dress red with yellow accents and the other blue with white accents.  After all the knitting was done, however, I discovered with horror that the dress would not fit over my daughter’s head!  it was too tight.  So, I made a little adjustment to one of the side straps to make it into a button tab.  Voila!  Problem solved.

For the second dress, I altered the neck shaping to start earlier so that I didn’t run into this problem and didn’t need the tab shoulder.

At this point, the dresses were done and were really cute, but they needed a little something to make them look more like Easter dresses.  Easter dresses generally have pinks and pastels.  My primary colors were a bit bold.  So, I did some thinking and again took a clue from my daughters who were thrilled with all the spring flowers coming up in the yard.  Knitted flowers!

There are a million patterns out there for yarn flowers.  A few are knitted, like the red rose above that came from Nicki Epstein’s wonderful book, Knitting Over the Edge.  But the really extraordinary (and quite frankly a little silly) flowers are crocheted.   The blue pansy above, the white “bluebell” below and daffodils came from Flower Garden Afghans by Carol Alexander.  Knitting purists may shudder at the combination of knit and crochet in these dresses but my girls LOVE the results.

Since the flowers are a bit over the top, I put all the flowers on safety pins so they can be removed if we want a plainer look or for washing.

It was a bit hard for my oldest daughter to wait for her dress to be done and she became impatient wanting to know why I wasn’t finished yet.  But she was a very willing model.

My other model was unavailable due to naptime so we present her dress below.

It was a ton of fun making the dresses and the look on my girl’s faces was worth all the effort!  At this point, I still had quite a bit of yarn left.

What to do with all the excess?  Read on for phase two!