Please, Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em!

Call them what you will: Hammer pants, genie pants, harem pants, parachute pants... but I think we can agree that these pants are controversial, at best, when worn by fully grown adults.  

But on a toddler?  Dooooood:

Photo from Suburbia Soup

So cute.

So when I saw this brand new, free pattern from Suburbia Soup to make toddler sized Hammer pants, I downloaded, printed and sewed it up pretty much right away.  

Maybe it's misplaced 90's nostalgia (remember those genie pants I made you sew me when I was in middle school, Martha?), maybe it's a version of Stockholm syndrome after living in Southeast Asia on the Banana Pancake Trail for over a year and a half, constantly seeing harem pants clad backpackers romping around (a good drinking game while on the SE Asia tourist trail: chug every time you see harem pants, white person dreadlocks, or a Bintang/Beer Chang/Beer Lao/333 singlet), maybe it's just because they're freaking cute, but I love them.

Made from some machine-printed batik I had in my stash, but I can see this pattern working quite well with many of the batiks I've got.  Can't wait to see Zoe in them!

Flowered Baby Romper

I can't get enough baby rompers.

This one is from an old school pattern (Simplicity 8812) than Martha gave me... it dates back to 1970 and it looked like someone had used it before, so perhaps Jennifer or Michael had a matching romper back in the day.  This one is for Mr. Ben and Erin... Tim is heading to Bangkok next week, hence the spate of baby sewing for those two.  Tim will act as our handmade baby clothes mule.

The legs were supposed to be elasticized at the bottom, but I ran out of narrow elastic and was too lazy to make the trip to Toko Maju for more.  Instead I took a cue from the Bubble Pocket Shorts I just made and sewed on a cuff, gathering the leg holes to fit.  I used flowered fabric leftover from this dress I made a few months ago.

Batik Bubble Pocket Shorts

Another list item, checked off:  Bubble Pocket Shorts.

Another cute pattern from Elegance and Elephants, made with navy batik (leftover from this Scout tee and the bandana I made Scuba Steve... I am getting my money's worth out of this piece of batik!).  I used the batik's border print for the cuffs.  I alllllllmost got the batik to match up across the seams, almost.  Completely inadvertent.

Here's a side view of the bubble pocket:

These are for Mr. Ben and Erin's baby, due in a few months.  I made the 6-12 months size and it was quite easy to put together.  The only problem I ran into is that the leg cuffs were a little large for the legs, but I am pretty sure that's due to a late night measuring error on my part.  More of these to come, for sure! 

Batik Ruffle Tunic

One of my to-do list items, check!

 

This is the ruffle top pattern from Elegance & Elephants, the tunic version... for Zoe, of course. 

Quite cute, very easy to put together...  I made it with some bright pink batik left over from the Grainline Tiny Pocket tank that I made before Christmas.  The batik had a border print that I left off the tank top because it was a bit twee for an adult, but it worked perfectly here for the ruffles!

I could definitely see lots of variations for this top.  I love the versions with contrast side panels that I saw on imagine gnats, as well as the ruffle-less piped version at StraightGrain.

Lincoln tried it on... he thinks it's cute and comfortable, but not his color:

Batik Beach Cover Ups!

I wanted a new beach cover-up for our diving trip to Bunaken (photos here, here, here, and here, plus more coming), preferably one that covered my shoulders and chest (most commonly sunburned areas) and that was made from woven fabric, since all my knit cover ups got super stretched out after many beach and diving trips over the past several months (not having a dryer exacerbates this, for sure).

I decided to dredge up the Burdastyle Anda dress pattern (which I used somewhat successfully here and more successfully here) and grab some batik fabric from my stash... ta daaaa:

I busted this out over the course of a few hours.. using packaged bias tape helped, as did making the entire waistband elastic rather than making a tie. The dye in the fabric ran a little bit during the trip because I didn't pre-wash it.  Oops!

Colleen was digging my cover-up, so I told her I would make her one.  She picked up some beautiful batik while in The Big Durian and I rocked this out this week:

And finally, so that Scuba Steve wouldn't feel left out of the handmade party or leave Indonesia without any batik (god forbid!), I made him a bandana with some navy batik leftover from a Scout shirt I made my friend Brooke before Christmas.  Hopefully it comes in handy on his round-the-world travels!

Chocolate Ricotta Pie

Mmmmm... this pie is good.

Tim and I had some leftover ricotta after making lasagna over the weekend.  I wanted to do something sweet with it (visions of cannoli dancing in my head... but that's too complicated for a weeknight), so I did some Googling and found this well-reviewed Giada recipe for chocolate ricotta pie.  I made a couple substitutions... almonds instead of pine nuts [much cheaper], milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet [it's all I had at the house] and I decreased the amount of simple syrup in light of the milk chocolate substitution.

Tim and I really liked it... the filling is creamy and light and the crust has a nice nutty crunch from the almonds and cornmeal.  Good stuff.  This would make a good fancy looking but not actually hard to make dish for a dinner party or holiday.

Outfits in Action

It's super fun for me to see my handiwork in action, particularly when modeled by such a cute kid. 

So much better than just looking at it on the hanger!

Here's Miss Z, rocking (quite literally) her goose fabric dress (from the free Junebug pattern at Craftiness is not Optional) on Mother's Day.  Adorable:

And here she is in her flowered overalls, mixing, matching, playing, pigtailing... I may have to make another pair with longer legs! Or perhaps a shorts version?