Crafty mama

A'salaamu alaikum ya'll. Pre-Aaminah I used to do alot of little crafts; nothing too involved but fun for me and my friends or family. Since her birth I've not done so much for obvious reasons.

I've been wanting to be more creative again for a while but I have this rule: No "fun stuff" til the chores are done. So I told myself, ok you can do a project once the house is EXACTLY the way I like it. Which, my dear readers, hasn't happened since I've been married. :-)) Before A, I lived alone for many years and even after Aaminah, it was just she and I for almost her entire first 18 mo. Not too difficult to keep my house just how I like it. Neat, everything in its place, clean, sweet-smelling, etc. etc.

Now well let's just say there is always a pile to be sorted, laundry to be done, papers to go through... it's never ending. :-) So last Saturday while the big kids were in Bukhari school I said (to myself) "Know what? I think you can just ignore all that other stuff. Cause even if you clean it, it'll just be dirty again tomorrow!". Masha'Allah, how liberating it felt to give myself that permission!

Anyway here is what I chose to do: make a long denim skirt for Aaminah. The older girls had outgrown a super-cute (and not yet worn-out) pair of pants, below. Sorry for the cut-off legs; I realized afterwards that I wanted to take pics so I just laid them back in place.

OK great. So I cut the legs off and opened them up on the seam. I used the hemmed botton of the legs to make the hem of the skirt so it has that nice finished look.  Now I would like to say that I did a perfect job but I had 2 factors working against me: 1. I didn't plan it out, just kinda cut and threw it together and 2. I couldn't find my pins to secure the pieces so I just held them as I sewed them. Hmmm yes.

I learned with cross-stitching that the backside should be as neat as the front but this ain't happening with these! See I just kinda took off, spur-of-the-moment, and whipped it up. So the inside seams aren't finished. :-( Really that's a shame for me but I'm just being honest here. I wasn't sure how it would turn out so I was a little lazy with those details. Double shame. :-)

Anyway it turned out super cute and I would love to say that Aaminah adores it but I had to bribe her with a Hershey's white chocolate and peppermint kiss to get her to model it. No joke. And this girl is a clothes hound, she loves pretty things. I said, "Mama made this just for you. Don't you like it?" 

Never ask a toddler for an honest opinion. You get it. ;-)) Anyway I love it and when I marketed it as being supremely modest and therefore pleasing to Allah swt she was happier. Alhamdulillah. lol

Well here are the pics of little miss reluctant model and the (in my opinion, not humble at all) cute skirt:

Here she is, eating her ill-gotten gains. :-)

Close up of the skirt itself

Please tell me you love this little pocket as much as I did. I needed this extra panel to make the skirt A-line and I had the idea to use the back pocket area. I think it's super cute. :-)

What a cute fake-attitude face. Funny girl. :-)

I wanted to show the back of the skirt, and the little opening I left for ease of movement. Then she just struck a pose. I'm not very diva-licious so I don't know where THAT move came from. lol Beautiful hair though masha'Allah!

I wanted to show the side of the skirt with all of the embroidery. She asked to take it off and I told her, no just a few more pictures. LOL She was game but put on a nice pretend pout.

Well at least she did like the pocket, as I predicted. :-)

This just looks so quintessentially India I had to include it. I asked her to put her hands on her knees and she oh-so-gracefully sank down, like a good bhabhi serving chai. lol

Ma salaama ya'll!