Cast Iron Birdy Arrived in my Mailbox!

A little birdy flew all the way from Arizona to Japan to come live with us.

This sweet little additon is from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were so sweet to think of my blogsite. The little bird is made out of cast iron and has such a great patina.
I let Barnsley and Lilly look it over since they are always super curious about packages. Barnsley seems to be wondering what the thing is.

My favorite picture. Barnsley stooping down to give the bird a little kiss. The outtakes were of him trying to see if he could pick it up and play with it. He decided it was too strange and heavy to be a toy.

Lilly just humoring me with her shot because a grandma and auntie to the dogs want to see the cute little faces.

chocolate and sprinkles

I have been enjoying recycling clothing lately. It is so much fun to turn the items into something new and fresh. I forgot to take a before picture this time. This started out life as a size 22 womens top and became a size 3-4T dress. It has a great vintage feel to it.

The original top already had these pleats and the yolk trim. I was also able to reuse the sleeves by cutting them down. I just had to thread new elastic into them that was more child size appropriate.

I also kept the little back detail from the original back. It is higher than waist level but it looks really cute. The dress has a simple one button closure.

The fabric is chocolate colored with silver and peach screen printed polka dots that actually melt off when ironed with the temp set too high (whoops!). Thankfully I figured this out on the bias trim first. I hemmed it with some wonderful Japanese ribbon. I love to cheat this way with my hems.

Lemon Drop Shirt to Recycled Skirt

I am still getting over the jet lag from my 2 week trip to the U.S. but I was itching to do some sewing. I decided to keep it simple and do a refashion to this yellow cotton shirt. (This is actually quite bright yellow and not cream as it appears).

There is great detail on the bottom edge of the shirt and it is completely lined.
This was as easy as it gets. I just cut off the top of the shirt and made the casing for the elastic.

Little finished skirt.