Community helper vests-part 4 Construction worker

I love the bold colors on these vests.  I actually made 10 of them because I miscalculated the amount of material I needed and was indecisive on whether to make the vests orange or yellow.

You might have noticed that these vests look a little big on Camille and huge on Meghan even though they were made for children their age.  We held Camille back from kindergarten this year (turning out to be an excellent choice, in our opinion...but that's another blog post...), but she is still the smallest kid in her class.  I made the vests with the largest preschooler in mind.  Also, we live in Minnesota so most kids go to school wearing bulky sweatshirts and sweaters.  Meghan will use these vests in the fall when she starts preschool, but she does not actually plot on a growth chart for her age yet, which means that 99.9999% of all children her age are larger than her.  I figure, as long as she is not tripping over the bottom hem on the vest, they're not too big.  Finding an "average" sized model in our house is not easy!

Both the yellow and orange vests were made with felt, as stated before, purchased at JoAnn Fabrics and 100% washable and dryable.  The stripes on the vests were also made with felt.

Orange store-bought binding was used for the trim on these yellow vests.

I just used a 1/2" hem on the orange vests.  Standard pre-made yellow trim available at our fabric store is not as bright as the yellow I used for the stripes, and I couldn't find a good match.

I used the following as inspiration for these vests:

Source:  Suble Tee Blog

Community helper vests-part 3 Paramedic/EMT

For my friends in the medical community, yes I know that a paramedic and an EMT are not the same ;-)

 Camille and Meghan's poses seem similar in all of these photos, but they wanted you to know that they're administering shots in this photo.

These vests were made out of black fleece.  The stripes on the bottom are made from grey felt.  The patches were purchased from eBay.  Instead of using binding for the trim, I just hemmed the edges 1/2 inch.

 

I used this for inspiration:

Source

Community helper vests-part 2 Mail Carrier

The girls handing out some imaginary mail.

The mail carrier vests are made entirely from felt.  The good news is that felt from JoAnn Fabrics is completely washable and dryable (on a low heat).  I made my own binding on these, which was really difficult because the felt was too thick to pin.  I ended up using binder clips to hold it on until I could sew it.  I do not think I will ever use felt for binding again.

 



These vests are probably my favorite.  They look very sharp and I was able to buy real USPS patches at this website.

 

 

 

Of course, now the girls are prompting me to make mail out of felt for them, too!

 



Community helper vests-part 1 Firefighter

In October I started making community helper vests for the preschool.  I finally finished them and am excited to share what I made!  I will try to share a new one each day.

The original inspiration for this project was this vest I saw on pinterest.  I was tired of my girls dressing up as princesses and thought something different might be fun.  Around the same time, our preschool was looking for parents to sew some items for their dramatic play area.



Source
 

Of course, I was raised in a family where nothing is done small.  We tend to get a little carried away.  So, one little sherriff vest turned into 30 vests of various types.

The first vest I attemped was a firefighter vest. I made my own vest template out of one of the kids' old t-shirts and got started.

I spent a weekend at my parent's house cutting out vests of various colors while my mom started sewing the vests together.  Here is the picture I used for firefighter "inspiration".


Source



 

Here are my beautiful models!


The girls thought it was a good idea to act out a firefighter holding a hose.

 

 

After visiting the firestation in town, I discovered that obtaining patches for the vests was going to be difficult.  I pondered making my own, but I really wanted the patches to look authentic so the kids could identify the various community helpers.  Thankfully, eBay came to the rescue and I found some inexpensive patches for sale.  The patches are not from our city, but they are authentic!

These firefighter vests were made with red fleece.  I made the black belts myself with black fleece.  The trim around the edges is simple black binding found in the fabric store.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another community helper vest!


 

Blog Readers?

I was just checking the Traffic data on my blog to see where my readers were coming from as I noticed that I only have about 4 views per post if I don't post the link to Facebook.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed that I'm getting traffic from a porn site!  How does that happen?

Learning Letters

Camille learned her letters very quickly when she was a toddler and accepted each letter as just a letter.  Meghan had been working on learning her letters, but the names and sounds just did not seem to stick with her.  I thought maybe she was just overwhelmed by the volume (26 is a lot for a little kid), so I decided to scale back and removed all letters in our stash that were not in her name.  Very quickly I discovered that she is not opposed to learning all the letters of the alphabet, she would just like to see that each letter has a purpose.  An "A" is just an "A" until you make it part of her name.  Suddenly "A" is the coolest letter on earth!  Just like that, Meg has not only learned all the letters in her name, but she can also spell her name.  Now, I have to dream up other words relevant to her so she can learn the rest.

Numbers seems to work the same way for Meghan.  She knows 2 because she is 2.  She knows 3 because she will soon be 3, and she knows 5 because Camille is 5.  She is happy to discard all other numbers because they have no relevance to her.

I have to keep reminding myself that every kid is different, even if they are siblings.

7 Quick Takes

-1-

We made it to 33 weeks today.  If this baby has the same schedule as its older sisters, we have a little under 5 weeks left!  I have not reached the uncomfortable stage yet and am keeping busy around the house.  I think this baby is going to be small based on my weight gain and measurements at the doctor's office.  (Watch...this baby will be the 9-pounder!)

 

-2-

I managed to order Meghan's medication in under 15 minutes today, which is about 1/3 the usual amount of time.  Success!

 

-3-

Meghan saw her endocrinologist yesterday.  Since November she has grown 1.5 inches and gained 1.5 pounds.  Her height actually almost reaches the first percentile on the growth chart now!  She still needs to make some progress in the weight area, but I have started giving her a milk shake for a snack every day made with full-fat ice cream, whole milk, and Carnation instant breakfast.  This extra treat seems to be helping.

 

-4-

I am almost done with my "little" project for Camille's preschool:  25 community helper vests.  This sewing project has helped me pass the time this winter, and I think I am becoming better-skilled with my sewing machine.

 

-5-

We had some plumbing problems in our basement bathroom and laundry room, so we have had numerous contractors and plumbers coming over in the evenings to give us estimates on the repairs.  We were not planning to remodel the basement for 5-10 years, but I guess we will have a new bathroom and laundry room (with two washing machine hook-ups!!!!) by summer.

 

-6-

Camille is a budding artist and has drawn on pretty much every piece of paper in our house.  Her grandparents joke about her "traveling art exhibit" because when she goes to Fargo, she replaces her old drawing with new ones and then takes the old ones home for someone else's fridge.  Camille's drawings have gotten quite elaborate, but we cannot figure out what to do with all of them!

 

-7-

Meghan and I have been stuck in the house for a week and a half with a terrible cold.  I would love to go to the gym and stretch my muscles a bit, but I have this thing about children with green snotty noses being dropped off in the daycare...  Hopefully a good rest this weekend will make us better.