The last pair of Poofy Pants

For the time being, this will be my last pair of Poofy Pants. After all, how many pairs of pants can one baby wear before she outgrows them. I've made them in two different sizes, but still ........
So, here is the last pair for a while:

 And the inside: an interesting batik with farm animals.

I've mentioned before and again how much I love this pattern. Today, I checked the clock: it took not quite 75 minutes to sew these. Cutting out time was extra, I did that several days ago, but even that didn't take long. So, I think this is about as close as it comes to instant gratification.
I am linking up with randi of i have to say for Show 'n Tell Tuesday.

More Poofy Pants

This will be an (almost) wordless post. I've been busily sewing Poofy Pants (details can be found here.

Blue puppy dogs.

Green birds.

Sock monkeys, from my stash.

Owls.

Red puppy dogs.

Cuff detail.

This was meant to be the inside.

Floral flannel.

I love this pattern, the pants were a lot of fun to sew and I can easily see myself sewing many, many more. But how many pants can one baby wear?
I am linking up with Randi of i have to say for Show 'n Tell Tuesday.

Still translating

A long, long time ago - I often refer to it as BC - Before Children - I worked as a translator in a large engineering company that designed and oversaw the construction of projects pretty much all over the world. The ones I remember well were the plant for spirally welded pipes in Italy (tubificio alla saldatura ............ (forgot the rest), a sugar factory in Biafra (yes, that long ago) and plenty of projects in Russia. The two Russian translators had the largest office, they needed two typewriters and the ones for Russian were kind of prehistoric, huge and manual. Can you imagine, a manual typewriter? The rest of us had electric ones, those old IBM Selectrics to start with.
I spent many happy hours chained to my desk and my typewriter surrounded by dictionaries, typing away. The norm was 1 page an hour for translation, 4 pages for typing. There were no computers. I translated bids, specifications, contracts into both German and English, with the odd French letter thrown in.
When my first child was born, I spoke English only with her, not wanting to stick out in any way. When the second child came along, I felt more confident and spoke only German with him and it was quite cute hearing the little guy speak German. But, when he started pre-school, his English language skills were behind those of his peers and we switched to English only immediately. Bad decision in hindsight. As a teenager, he made sure to let me know that we should have toughed it out because, according to him, it is so much easier to learn a foreign language when you are young and even for a teenager it isn't easy. Really? Try that in your 50's - that's when I took Spanish classes.
Anyway .......... trying to get back on track here. I now have an adorable little granddaughter and sorting through all those children's books I had saved, I found our all-time favorite:

It's in English, but I remember well reading it to Henry in German with him cuddled into my side. I remember his little face lighting up when that book came out. So, I translated it into German this morning and sent my daughter the file (she has a copy of the book).
I happened to find another favorite book, this one in German and plan on translating it into English later today before sending everything off to Colorado.

Funny, I seem to have come full circle with the translations. And I have to admit, I enjoy translating children's books much more than those dry technical papers I used to work on.

Solder hearts

Bumming around on pinterest this morning, I found a link to a tutorial for making hearts out of solder. It looked interesting and it works, although, I adapted it. I used my torch instead of the soldering iron.
I admit my hearts are definitely rustic, organic and definitely not beautiful, but it was fun to make them.

They are easy to texture and it's possible to stamp on them and I see them being used dangling from a bracelet. As usual, I made components rather than a whole (bracelet or necklace).
The tutorial can be found here.
And I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture on the bottom.

Finally sewing again

It seems the sewing mojo is back, finally. I've missed it.
Here are some reversible pants for my little grand daughter.

And here's a close-up of the cuff detail:

The pattern is this - poofy pants, reversible, found on etsy.
I loved everything about this pattern: it comes in several sizes and the individual sheets are very easy to assemble. There are only 2 pattern pieces and the instructions are excellent.
I used the 9-12 month size for these thinking that the flannel would be appropriate when the weather gets colder in Colorado where baby and parents live. My next pair will be made from quilting cottons for more immediate use.
I am linking up with Randi from i have to say for Show 'n Tell Tuesday.