A "Cat in the Hat" hat for Dr. Suess' birthday

Making a hat

My son's school is celebrating Dr. Suess' 107th birthday on Monday. The parents were asked to make something Suessian for the kids to wear to school. Being an over-achiever I decided to make a red and white striped hat. This is actually not the first hat I've made, but I am amazed at how well it came out.

It started with 3 pieces of red felt and 4 pieces of white. I edged stitched along the short side two pieces of red and two pieces of white for the stripes. Mason's head is 20 1/2" around so I needed 21 1/2" with seam allowances. I also edge stitched two pieces of white along the long edge to use for the brim.

Edge stitching:

Then I flattened the seams to make the rest of the process easier.

I cut two 3" x 21 1/2" strips of white felt and 1 of red felt. The other red felt strip was more of a art than measurement. I sewed them wrong sides out and then flipped them over and satin stitched them from the outside. This was mostly to give the hat a little structural integrity, but it also looks good.

Satin stitching:

I didn't get a picture of the top red strip and I wish I had. It was 21 1/2" across the bottom, 24" across the top, 3" tall at the center and 4 1/2" tall at each end.

After stitching that together, I sewed the opposite seam of the hat making it a tube. I flipped it over and shaped the top edge the way I wanted it and traced and cut a piece for the top.

Top piece:

I sewed the top and the brim on (sorry, no pictures) and then trimmed the brim, freehand, flipped it over and sewed a bead around the edge of the brim.

Finished hat:

Making a maker.

Making my daughter into a maker.

Maddie wanted to do something special for her class for Valentine's day. I suggested making candies. Just pouring chocolate into molds was a little mundane for me. After all, with a moniker like "Maker and Fixer of Things," I had to go the extra mile. I knew we'd be make something cool, but what I didn't expect was to make a maker.

We started with a lump of scrap polymer clay and a foam heart as a guide.

Then I helped her a little to add an embellishment she made.

The finished form, after baking. I had to add a little clay to the bottom to flare it out so that when we made molds the finished candies would be easy to unmold.

Next the original art went onto the vacu-former and we pulled four molds by heating plastic from gallon water jugs until they were nearly transparent and then placing them over the vacu-former and Maddie turned on the vacuum. It takes less than a second to suck the air out, cool and harden the mold.

I melted some white (pink and red) chocolate Witman's candy melts and let Maddie fill the molds.

The first batch and the rest! Now we just need to wrap them in foil.

A red heart still in the mold.

She was so excited to make something from scratch that she can share with her friends. I was very happy to see the excitement and energy in her eyes. So of course, Mason had to get in on the action too. :-)

Making monsters

This morning I had the kids draw monsters for me. Then we cut them out of fabric an while they're "napping" I sewed them up.
My 3.5 yo son drew a big slug. He wanted his monster to be like Roz from Monsters Inc.
My 5 yo daughter drew something simple.

Here are some pictures of the outcome.