One of the cousins (4 years old) wished for a Stål-Arvid superhero costume for Christmas. And “Stål-Arvid only wears gold”. Challenge accepted! (Waistcoat with cape, with golden everything.)

I sewed Poke balls for Adrian, so he can throw them at imaginary Pokemons to catch them all.

Meanwhile, Ingrid is looking for a new phone. The old one is sort of broken (she has to put it in loudspeaker mode to hear anything) but almost more importantly it’s too old for playing Pokemon Go.

Our Pikachu project is progressing – we’ve sewn all the details onto the front and back parts, and now only final assembly remains.

Adrian is in a sewing mood. We’re making a Pikachu plushie, and we bought a book about sewing other Pokemon figures (that Adrian saw online and couldn’t stop thinking about). And while we’re at it, we’re making small mittens and a hat for a soft doll of his.

The Pikachu plushie is small and fiddly enough that us “sewing together” mostly means me doing the actual sewing. Adrian opines on design questions, and cuts. But for more straightforward seams – such as the mittens and hat – we’ve started working the sewing machine together. I navigate and Adrian presses the foot pedal. He doesn’t dare have his hands anywhere near the sewing machine needle.

He’s very cautious about the whole thing and quite worried of making a mistake of some sort. I push him a bit, and he does more than he dares, and enjoys it.

Ingrid and her friend sewed plush toys.

They have a very different approach to organizing a crafts project than I do… There is stuff everywhere, scraps mixed with pieces they are working on and with unused material; pins and needles loose on the table and the floor. Everyone else stays far away.

Ingrid is leaving for scout camp tomorrow, and I’ll be joining this year as part of the kitchen crew. The theme for this camp is sort of fairy tale/medieval (forest spirits and trolls and such) and everybody is encouraged to bring medieval clothes, so I decided to make Ingrid a medieval-inspired cloak.

A 59 kr fleece blanket from IKEA and some silver ribbon and about an hour of work later, here’s the result, proudly modelled by Adrian. He loves the cloak and now wants one, too.

Ingrid made a Totoro hoodie. It came out really nice. (I helped a bit with machine sewing the large white parts onto the hoodie, and making openings for pockets.) It is now her favourite.

Ingrid asked if I could sew pyjamas for her Yoohoo. No way, was my first thought – how can I sew pyjamas for something that consists of two balls of fur and a tail? But then I became intrigued. She had a very clear design in her mind: footie pyjamas in fleece, with a hood. I thought I’d give it a try.

It was actually easier than I had expected, once I found the right way to think about this kind of sewing project. The right way was to abandon any idea of using a pattern and assembling pre-cut pieces. Instead I approached it more like a fabric sculpture. I cut two pieces of fabric, sewed them together, snipped off excess fabric here and there, attached yet another small piece, and continued piece by odd-shaped piece until the Yoohoo’s body was covered. (It later got two buttons as well.)

I’ve sewed fiddly dino toes this evening.

Ingrid’s bed curtains, messy bed, and favourite cuddly panda.

And the colourful dinosaurs I’ve drawing and cutting.