When old is new again

Having a new baby does that. What was put away for years resurfaces again and for the new baby, everything is new.

The first blast from the past is this little tutu skirt. Tulle was layered, then machine gathered followed by ribbon being folded over and stitched in place. I made a few of these as gifts for the little girls in my life probably six or more years ago.

The next is the tiger costume. This was a major undertaking for the mom of a young toddler. It got a lot of use 10 years ago and was the perfect choice for a chilly Halloween night for the newest toddler.

Fleece poncho and leg warmers

Long ago when Sydney was a baby, I wanted to make a fleece poncho for her. It works so well with baby carriers and in and out of the car.

The Same Fleece Poncho for Toddler

I started with a circle-like shape and cut a small hole for the head. It just wasn't right, but I wasn't sure how to fix it. I added a hood and called it quits. It was functional, but nothing special.

With new baby, Kessa I get to try everything again and this time I had a store bought poncho to use as a guide. The poncho was a 7/8, but I thought the dimensions would not be that different for a baby. I just made the hood a little smaller.

Fleece Poncho & Leg Warmers for Baby

The key to this pattern is four equal sections that are smaller at the top and flare out at the bottom. I also learned along the way to cut the hood with the stretch going side to side. It makes it easier to put over the baby's head too.

I had extra fabric and made legwarmers to match.

It fit great when she was 9 months and still is great at 18 months!

Hoop castle

The kids learned about hula hoop castles in gym class. You only need four to make it work, but if you are seven years old and have tons of hoops at your disposal, they ALL can be used!

When not used in castle construction, you can see us all hooping in the yard and inviting our neighbor friends over for hooping fun!

More Hooping!

My whole family is hooping! I finally decided to go ahead and make myself the exercise style hoop that I wanted to make more than a year ago.

Back to Lowes. This time buying 100 feet of 160psi 3/4" black irrigation tubing. I wasn't sure how many hoops I'd be making, but knew I wanted one or two and maybe these would make perfect gifts.

More cutting, heating, connecting and taping. I have become more proficient and confident in my taping and tried out some different patterns and mixing wide and narrow tape. The wide tape I just tore in half and the other half just stayed stuck on the roll.

My daughter had a birthday party coming up and I thought, why not! Hoops for everyone! Back to the Lowes, ordered more tape and more hoops were made!

I also decided to work with the mini 1/2" 125psi tubing for hand hooping and performance hooping. I see a potential talent show act in our future.

Hula Hoops

Well I guess we're not calling them "hula" hoops anymore, but it's sometimes hard to remember.

I learned about this style of hoop form a friend of mine who very successfully changed her lifestyle and lost more than 100 pounds.  Hooping started it for her.  I thought why not?

But it took me more than a year to actually make my own and the first ones weren't for me at all.  My little Brownie Girl scouts come down to the cafeteria on Friday afternoons after a busy week of school.  They would like nothing more than to race around the cafeteria for an hour, but that is not on the agenda.  I wondered if these new, improved, exercisey hoops would help.

I headed over to Lowes for black irrigation tubing.  I found what I was looking for and perplexed the staff.  They had never heard of making hula hoops out of irrigation tubing.  I started with 100 feet of 3/4" 100psi tubing.  I learned about making hoops form the many tutorials out there.  I read about different options for tape and decided to order the gaffer tape.

Both Jason Unbound and Karen Tiede have helpful tutorials and information on hoop making.

My husband already had a pair of cutters for the tubing and also a heat gun which made the connectors slide in easily.  Taping went pretty well.  I certainly got better as I went along.

Ten hoops later and we were hooping!  I made 9 smaller ones for the girls and one big one for me.

The Brownie Girl Scouts LOVED the hula hoops!  It made the transition from school to scouting go much more smoothly.  We also used the hoops at the end of the meeting when kids are being picked up.