Tractor Outfits for Everyone

 I did not finish everyone’s Easter outfits this year. The 4th of July outfits were finished 3 weeks late. I’ve already decided not to attempt to make everyone’s Halloween costumes and just buy those instead, however. . . 

The annual Steam Engine Show featuring old tractors and farm equipment? Yeah, I decided the week of that I was going to make alllllllll the kids (the 4 in my house plus my two nieces) matching outfits for that occasion.

As I obviously wasn’t going to have the time to make 6 complete outfits from scratch, I decided to start with a short cut - plain black T-shirts and tractor fabric pre-cuts from from Walmart. (Yes, I’m really feeling the loss of Joann’s. Half yard pre-cuts from a very limited selection does not satisfy the way picking just the right fabric and getting yardage cut does)

I picked up a plain black t-shirt in the correct size for each big kid, a plain black onesie for my baby niece, and 4 half-yard cuts of red tractor fabric. (We tend to be John Deere family, but I decided to go more generic this year to match the theme of the show.) I would cut out tractor motifs to applique onto the front of the boys' T-shirts, and I would do the same for the girls' shirts and onesie, along with adding skirts to turn the shirts into drop-waisted dresses.

The first thing I did upon unfolding and washing all the fabric was identify the best tractor motifs near the edges of the fabric cuts. From there, I figured out how much fabric I would have for the girls' skirts. If I cut everything just right I would have about a panel and a half of width to work with for each big girl's skirt, and the skirts should come out right around knee length. There should be just enough left over for a little skirt for the baby too. I cut the girls' skirts first then cut out each individual tractor from the remaining fabric. 

Next I picked a tractor to go on each T-shirt. I decided I liked the big rectangle patches best on the boys' shirts and the appliques cut closer around the tractors on the girls' shirts. The smallest applique still looked pretty darned big on the baby's onesie. 

Once each applique was picked and placed I began the long and tedious task of zig-zagging around each one to attach them to the shirts. The cat offered his assistance.

By contrast, making and gathering each skirt onto the girls' shirts was a breeze! But then there was the ribbon. Ohhhh the ribbon. The entire project almost failed with the ribbon, or rather the pursuit of acquiring the ribbon.

Upon gathering all the skirts, I decided to top stitch them with a zig-zag stitch onto the bottom edge of the shirts, just above the hem. I figured I'd cover the raw edge with ribbon and add off-center bows to finish everything off. Alas, my ribbon stash failed me. I did not have the correct color and width ribbon to do even one dress, let alone 4. So I did what one does and went to Hobby Lobby - their ribbon was on sale that week! I dragged my sister along for the outing, she and my mom were in town that day so my mom could attend the grandparents' day event at one of my kids' schools.

All started off well, I found some lovely gold ribbon that would work just right and my sister and I took our time browsing the store. The nearest Hobby Lobby to me is a good half hour away, so I rarely make it there these days and I try to make the most of it when I do. Upon making our selections we went to check out. As the person right in front of us in line was getting rung up the computer system for the entire store shut down. They couldn't do any transactions what so ever. We waited around for 20 minutes or so in hopes the system would be quickly restored. It wasn't. The poor employees were so stressed. We were told it would probably be a couple hours so they had us leave our phone numbers with our cart full of merchandise and said they'd call us when the system was up and running again. Thus, I left Hobby Lobby without the ribbon. And this was the day before the Steam Engine show. I had to get the dresses done that afternoon during nap time or they just wouldn't happen.  

My mom came to meet us when she finished at the school and we stayed in the area visiting a couple other stores to kill time. (I did manage to find 3/4 of the kids' Halloween costumes at one store, so the time wasn't an entire loss!) Not knowing how long it would take Hobby Lobby to call me back since they had a lot of customers to call once the system was back up and running, I tried calling the store after every stop we made. The phone just rang and rang. It was connected to the computer system, and obviously the system was still down. Finally, after we went to lunch my call went through - they were back up and running and we could return to get our stuff!

There was only one problem, it was time for me to go pick my kids up from school - I had no time to go to Hobby Lobby anymore, and once everyone got home from school it was unlikely I'd have a chance to sneak down to the basement and finish the dresses.

My mom came to the rescue! She offered to swap vehicles with me and go pick up the kids from school while my sister and I returned to Hobby Lobby. So that's what we did - now hopefully I'd find a bit of sewing time that evening.  

Thanks to my Husband getting home from work earlier than expected and taking care of the kids and dinner I did!!

The next morning the kids were thrilled to have new tractor clothes to wear to see all the tractors!

And oh did they have fun seeing the tractors! We arrived just in time for the tractor parade and the kids loved sitting on the hill, eating their picnic lunch, and watching all the tractors drive by!

 Once that was over it was time to explore!

The great big old steam engine tractors are great fun to see. . . and climb on!

Going even more old-fashioned than the steam engines, there were the draft horses - which my kids loved getting to see and pet!

We toured the old 1870's farm house, which is always one of my favorite things. Most of the kids found it a bit boring, and the one who found it interesting didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to play with the old toys on display. . .

Good thing there were more tractors to admire after that!

Through out the day we got so many compliments the kids outfits! And on a more practical level, having all the kids dressed alike made it super easy to do quick head counts to make sure we had everyone as we moved from one exhibit to the next. 

My parents took us kids to the Steam Engine show almost every year growing up,

And it was super special getting to share that with the next generation!

The 3 Week Late 4th of July Outfits

 Hey look! I made my children adorable matching 4th of July outfits!! 

. . . I only finished them 3 weeks late.

No problem, right? The kids can wear them to church one Sunday looking all matching and adorable!

Only on the Sunday where I got everyone dressed up in these cute new outfits, and we were actually going to be on time for once, and I actually got the girls' hair brushed and braided, our only vehicle large enough to transport the whole family decided to break down. So we didn't even make it out the driveway, let alone all the way to church. Maybe next weekend??

Turns out life, especially life with kids, rarely goes as expected. (For us even acquiring kids didn't go as expected). I've spent years of my life at this point dreaming of having kids and making them special matching outfits for alllllllll the holidays. I figured after years of nannying and fitting in sewing while watching other people's kids I'd have no problem still managing to sew once I became a mom. LOL.

Turns out, as I'm sure anyone can tell you, having children 8-10 hours a day is VERY different from being responsible for multiple little humans 24/7. Also, going from 0 to 4 children over a 9 month period is a HUGE adjustment. Add to that all the foster care stuff that goes with this particular brand of parenting - meetings, trainings, paperwork, and more appointments than I ever could have imagined. (Only 2 this week? Woah, that's nice!) Yeah, making those adorable matching outfits in time for the specific holidays? That's a goal. Maybe one day I'll reach it.

In the meanwhile, here's what went into those 3 week late adorable matching 4th of July outfits.

I decided it would be easiest to use the same pattern for everyone so I could sew the boys' shirts and the girls' dresses assembly line style. The lucky pattern was McCall's 6548. Since Joann's and their $1.99 pattern sales are no longer a thing, I traced off the different sizes I needed. For the girls' dresses I just cut the shirt body pieces off at the waistline mark and added a gathered skirt. The one change I made to the pattern for all 4 garments was to make a back neckline facing rather than finishing the back neckline by sandwiching it in between the collar layers and hand sewing. The facing just hurried up the sewing a little bit.

The red, white, and blue cotton plaid came from the city sewing room last winter. I *think* I had about 5 yards of it, and that was just enough for all 4 garments! As you can see, I didn't stress about pattern matching. . . I made a loose attempt, but it turns out I didn't have the fabric folded just right. (I know, I know, you're supposed to cut plaid as a single layer to get everything lined up perfectly, but I don't have the time and patience for that.)

In an effort to be able to tell all the very close in size garments apart without too much trouble, I used big buttons sewn on with blue thread on my big girl's dress and big boy's shirt,

And smaller buttons sewn on with red thread on my little girl's dress and little boy's shirt. (I betcha my husband will still dress the wrong boy in the wrong shirt though, lol.)

All those buttons got sewn on as I waited in waiting rooms at appointments, sat in front of the computer for a Zoom training, and sat on the bank of the creek, watching the children playing in the water.

That last location is definitely my favorite of all the options. I need more time at the creek and less time in waiting rooms!

And with that, those outfits were done! 3 weeks late, but better late than never, right???

Even without the outfits, we had a very good Independence Day. I managed to make my traditional American Flag fruit pizza (Though it took me almost all day, rather than just an hour or two in the morning like it has in years past.) and we all had a very nice time at the family gathering that evening.

The kids enjoyed the fireworks, only requiring a few reassuring hugs when things got loud.

Maybe next year their plaid outfits will still fit, or maybe by then I will have figured out time management a bit better and I'll actually get new outfits made for the,

One can dream, right?

Meanwhile, I still need to finish the boys' Easter outfits. Once again, better late than never, right????

The Green Taffeta "OOPS" Off-the-Shoulder Christmas Dress

 "On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me Twelve Drummers Drumming. . ."

Ok, I think I'd rather pass on that particular gift. I'll take the 3 french hens, the 5 golden rings,  the 6 geese a-laying (my chickens are on their winter strike right now, so any laying birds would be useful), or even the 8 maids a-milking (Although since all of my goats are currently dried off and pregnant, and even when they are in milk I rarely have 8 needing to be milked at the same time, 8 milk maids *might* be over kill.), but please - not the 12 drummers drumming. That sounds rather loud, and I have enough noise in my life right now, thank you very much!

It's been 5 months of silence on this blog however, so on this twelfth day of Christmas I have come to finally do some "drumming" so to speak and share about. . . Christmas? My Christmas Dress this year? Life? Maybe all three? I honestly can't tell you where this blog post is going to go (the intro has already gone very differently to what I've been rehearsing in my head the past week), so I suppose I'd better just start writing and we'll see where this goes.

I did make myself a Christmas dress this year. I finished it at about midnight, or a little after, the night before our first family Christmas gathering of the year. I made no Christmas gifts this year - but I did make Christmas outfits! Boy did I make Christmas outfits! 

After more Christmases than I had wanted where it was just my husband and I, this year that all changed. Our house is now much fuller and much more noisy than it used to be - and Christmas was much more exciting! 

This year there was a massive pile of toys under the Christmas tree to be unwrapped Christmas morning. 

This year we had kids (or atleast one kid. . .) singing "Joy to the World" in the kids Church Christmas Program.

This year there were more than two stockings hanging from the mantle (though the kids didn't know about their stockings until Christmas morning, because, ummmm, I didn't finish sewing those until Christmas eve - just in time for Santa Clause to fill them)

This year was a whole lot more hectic than last year - and contained a whole lot of answered prayers.

We don't know how long these kiddos will be with us, but we love them - and as I regularly tell our eldest whenever he asks - they'll have a home here as long as they need it. Be that only a little while, or forever.

This year the kids Christmas outfits were all done with days (or even a whole week in one instance!) to spare before they were needed, it was only mine that was done truly last minute - and my incredibly sloppy back zipper application is a testament to that.

Of course, the Christmas outfits were all planned months in advance! I started day dreaming about them probably in September or October (once I'd wrapped my head around the "instant family" situation in our lives and started thinking about the months to come).

I quickly decided that the dresses would be green - because our little lady would look darling in green - and they would be accented with some sort of festive plaid - so the boys could have matching plaid shirts. 

With that in mind, I picked up 4 yards of a Christmas-y cotton and metallic plaid from Hobby Lobby. Then I went to my fabric stash to pick out a solid green green fancy dress fabric to pair it with. After considering multiple options, I finally settled on the remainder of the green taffeta I thrifted years ago and used for the vests my brothers wore in my wedding and one of my sister's prom dresses. It was about time I used this beautiful fabric to make something for myself! 

Now all that was left was to pick a design!

As far as that went, lots of different ideas flitted around in my mind, but I wasn't in love with any of them until I noticed a 1950's style dress on the cover of an audiobook I was listening to.

That wide band framing a bateau neckline, the 3/4 length sleeves, and full skirt - yes! That was exactly what my Christmas dress should be! And I had the perfect pattern for it already in my stash - Butterick 6129.

View C looked like it would be exactly what I was wanting if I made a couple small adjustments.

Slightly longer sleeves, slightly fuller skirt, and slightly lower neckline. Totally doable!

I cut the dress out of green taffeta being careful to add my sleeve length and skirt fullness. Then I used an old flannel sheet to line the whole thing - my flannel house dresses (and this Christmas dress from a couple years ago) are my very favorite things to wear in the winter, so I decided to incorporate that coziness into this year's fancier Christmas Dress. (Honestly, I was tempted to skip the fancy dress this year and make my Christmas Dress out of the green herringbone flannel in the fabric photo a few pictures back, but alas, Joann's did not have enough yardage for me to be able to do that - probably a good thing since using what I already had saved me money.)

I used the thinner, more worn sections of this worn-out flannel sheet to line the parts of the dress that I specifically did not want to be bulky - such as the sleeves.

As for that neckline I wanted to lower, well I made that cut late one night as I was sewing the dress - and I think I was a little over-zealous.

This was not supposed to be an off-the-shoulder dress. Ooops.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I finished my Christmas dress some time after midnight, the night before I had planned to wear it. (And these days with little ones in the house who get up first thing in the morning, me staying up past 10 pm - or even until 10 pm - is quite a feat!) I tried it on. And I hated the neckline. Oh well, too late to fix it now. I hung the dress up and went to bed.

I put on the dress the next morning, and paired it with the red bow belt I made to go with my red scalloped dress a few years back (I'd intended to make a matching plaid belt, but I ran out of time and wanted sleep, lol) I didn't hate it as much as I had the night before (Amazing what a few hours of sleep can do!), but I was still rather insecure about my bare shoulders. So I threw on a black cardigan to wear over it for church. 

That afternoon at our family Christmas gathering however, I decided to remove the cardigan and see what happened - and you know what? The more I wore the dress, the more I liked it!

Off-the-shoulder still wouldn't be my first choice, but I love how elegant this dress feels! 

Honestly, I'm just happy I managed to make myself a Christmas Dress this year - off-the-shoulder neckline, recycled belt, sloppy zipper, and all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I will try not to let another 5 months pass before I post again, but no promises. My life certainly got busier in 2024, and I can't wait to see what 2025 brings!