jennanddave.com

Henry is very big into whales right now. I'm not sure what triggered the obsession, probably something he noticed during the 1 millionth viewing of "Finding Nemo". Since talk of Halloween generally kicks off in our household sometime in mid-August, which is when all of this talk of cetaceous creatures hit a fevered pitch, Henry was very emphatic about wanting to go as a whale. Then, approximately three seconds after I hit the "Place order" button on the Costume Express website, Henry informed me that he wanted to be a kettle drum. Naturally. About a week later the costume arrived on our doorstep and became Henry's best friend, thus proving my point that Henry is big into whales right now, which meant that when I came across fabric at JoAnn Fabrics that had blue and green whales swimming all over it, I had to buy some. Today I made him some pants with it. You could feel the excitement in the air. Henry watched the entire process with fascination.

Okay. Here's the thing. This entry is getting really long and I'm waxing verbose and at this rate it'll be twenty years before I get to the point so I'm just going to say it and get it over with. My mom and I started a pirate duck bathrobe for Henry when my parents were here visiting in August. I finished it about two weeks ago. Henry refused to wear it. Ever. Then, for whatever reason, while I was making the whale pants, Henry was suddenly very interested in the bathrobe too. He wanted to wear both of them together. So he did. And I took pictures. Here they are:

He refused to take off the robe so all you get is a little glimpse of the whale pants sticking out from underneath the bathrobe. This is the outfit he wore this evening to walk the dog. In public. I really, *really* wish that I'd brought the camera along for that expedition.

Posted by Jenn at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

When my dad saw the lounge pants that I made for Henry he told me he wanted a pair too. I asked him what fabric he wanted and he said he didn't care, so naturally I told him that left me with no choice but to go with pink camouflage. He said "That's great! Whatever!" Honestly, there's no getting a rise out of him. Well, except for that one time I told him the clock on the old State House in Boston was 20 minutes slow because it was keeping Revolutionary War time. That he bought. Me threatening to make him pink camouflage pants didn't make him break a sweat at all.

So I looked for pink camouflage (which I really need to stop typing because I keep misspelling it and having to go back and correct it) but couldn't find any that would have made decent pants. All I found was stiff cheap cotton. But then I found orange camo in flannel. I thought it was pretty awesome. I personally love orange and here it was in camo. Cool! So I bought three yards. Then I showed it to Dave and he was all "Uuuuuuhhhhh. It's nice?" Then I got nervous.

The more I worked on them, the more I became convinced that I was making my dad the World's Ugliest Pair of Pants. And I began to feel kind of bad about it. He's my dad. He deserves a nice pair of lounge pants. I thought about making a last minute trip up to Joann Fabric to see if I could find something more suitable and less hideous but then Henry got sick and there was terrible weather and since we're giving them to him on Friday it was meant to be. Yesterday morning I took a picture of them and sent it to my mom to see what she thought:

She responded, saying "The fabric is pretty funny." That's when I realized the fabric is pretty funny, and now I can't look at the picture of the pants without laughing, which means whenever my dad wears them around me I'll be laughing. With him. Maybe.

Meanwhile, since Henry was indisposed on the couch yesterday I went ahead and used the leftover fabric to make a pair for him. For the record he hates the original pair of lounge pants I made him, which I personally believe to be made out of the coolest fabric ever printed in the history of fabric. When I pull them out he always says "NO YELLOW PANTS!" which, I mean, hello, they're not even yellow, kid, get it straight. So I didn't have much hope for the orange ones this morning when he finally decided he was ready to emerge from the cocoon of safety he's been living in the last couple of days (aka: his pajamas), but much to my surprise, he was all about his new "orange pants". Didn't fight me at all. So go figure.

Henry still looking under the weather and, amazingly, trying to escape his totally cool shirt and not trying to escape his relatively flashy pants. Like I said: Go figure.

Posted by Jenn at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My seersucker arrived in the mail earlier this morning. This is especially ironic timing considering what it's doing outside: snowing. School was cancelled today because we're supposed to be getting 3-6" over the course of the day. I don't think there's been a full week of school since sometime in January. Snow is something I never get sick of. Cold weather, yes, definitely, but throw some snow into the mix and it's all good.

Back to the fabric: I forgot that I had ordered an extra 1/2 yard of the seersucker after my mom mentioned if I ordered a little extra, I could make Henry some pants with it too. The question is, will we wear them at the same time, which also leads to the question of whether I can handle being openly mocked by my friends. (And possibly strangers.)

Henry woke up with a fever this morning. He hasn't eaten very much. So far I've tried to entice him with pumpkin pancakes, Cheerio's, crackers, even stooping so low as to give him a glazed donut leftover from last night's trip to Dunkin' Donuts, all to no avail. Spurned donut? He's definitely not feeling well. He did guzzle some orange juice and has since perked up significantly. For a while he was looking as though he might face-plant into the coffee table despite the shrieking and cackling emanating from the speakers in our TV courtesy of Elmo. It's going to be a big movie day over here I think. Right now he's sitting on my lap watching this on youtube over and over again. He loves it. It's got clocks, birds, drums, trains, and ferris wheels (actually gears) in it. What could be better?

Posted by Jenn at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

...he didn't put up much of a fight when I told him that I'd heard at playgroup a local sewing store was closing the branch near us and were having a big sale on machines and that maybe since I have a slight interest in learning how to sew perhaps we could go and peruse what they have to offer with the possible intent of maybe just maybe coming home with one. Maybe. So we went. And I came home with a new sewing machine. And I was giddy with excitement. Then I was hugely disappointed when on Jan 30th (a Sunday) I unpacked it and discovered the foot pedal didn't work. Then I was even more hugely disappointed when I called the store and discovered they were closed on New Year's Eve and that I'd have to wait two whole days to talk to somebody about returning it. Then they gave me a whole new machine and it worked and I was happy. The first thing I made was my version of the shirt I linked to on the left sidebar over there. I don't think they sell the shirt anymore, that's how long it's been, but if you don't remember or never bothered to look, it was a shooting star. Here's how mine came out:

Henry also got some sewing love from my friend Karen. She made a fleece pullover for her kid Thomas that was absolutely amazing and I couldn't stop gushing over it. A few weeks later she surprised Henry with his very own featuring none other than the much beloved Lightning McQueen. I think both Dave and I briefly pondered whether we could fit into it ourselves, but alas, we are not toddler-sized. Henry loves it and wears it all. the. time.

And finally, I decided that since I don't know how to sew and haven't read a pattern since I made jams (remember those?) in sixth grade that I'd start off with something simple, so I settled on making an apron. After much hair-pulling and machine-wrangling I actually finished it on Monday night. It came out great, but you'll have to take my word for it because I forgot to take a picture of it. When I finished cutting out the pattern, I realized I had enough fabric leftover to make a pair of lounge pants for Henry. That's what I did after lunch this afternoon while Henry rocked out to Sesame Street in the living room in between exhausted fits over V8, naps, and the unfairness of life in general (we're still pretty sleep-deprived over here). Here's the finished product:

Not a great angle, but you get the idea. I stole the general pattern and fit from a pair of Atomic Mama pajama bottoms that I got Henry before the woman who made them retired, and I also used this page as a reference for how to go about things. I made them long so he can wear them for a while. Of course there's the very real possibility they'll fall apart before "a while" even has a chance to get started, but we won't think about that.

Posted by Jenn at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)