Something new

So, I decided it would be fun to make a dress for the baby girl for my friend’s upcoming wedding.  I figured if it didn’t work out, I still had a couple of nice dresses that would serve as back up.  Originally, I wanted to make the oliver+s bubble dress, the same dress I made for the baby girl’s first birthday.  I saw a number of bubble dresses in silk dupioni on flickr, and they were just beautiful and perfect for a wedding.  But I ended up changing my mind, because I had been thinking I wanted to try a pattern I had not made before, and then I saw this dress pattern.  I imagined it would be lovely in silk.

But wait, there's more!

 

More ruffled aprons, that is.  :)

Hmm...I only have one post for the month of May.  Must rectify that with a post--or maybe two.  You thought you saw a lot of ruffled aprons in my previous post.  And you thought you were done with ruffled aprons.  But wait, there’s more!

Ruffles, ruffles, ruffles!

This is a project I worked on in February and March, but I couldn’t blog about it until now.  A friend of mine is getting married, and her bridal shower theme was 50s housewife.  When her sister, who was planning the shower, told me the theme, I immediately thought: aprons!  And I immediately thought of this Amy Butler fabric line called “Love” (how appropriate, no?), because it had a lot of rose prints (she loves roses).

We picked out a couple of fabrics, and I got to sewing!  I ironed hems while watching my TV shows and sewed while listening to my podcasts and audiobooks.

 
As a slight aside, I used to poo-poo audiobooks.  As a literature major, I still want the book that I can touch, with pages I can turn and dogear.  There was something sacrilegious to me about listening to a book.  But, hey, my kids love it when I read to them.  I decided I'd give it a try, because it would allow me to multi-task.  Another first for me: I’ve never read any Stephen King, but I recently heard about his new book 11/22/63.  Time travel stories always intrigue me.  (In my next life when I’m a college English professor, I plan to give a course on time travel stories, but that’s an aside to the aside.)  So, I got 11/22/63 on audiobook and listened to it while working on these aprons.  I enjoyed it so much, every night when the kids got into bed, I would quickly pull out the sewing stuff so I could get back to the story and find out what happened next.

So, these aprons got finished thanks to Stephen King!  Or maybe it’s the guy who was narrating the audiobook.

Back to the aprons.  I used this pattern from Sew Sweet Patterns, but changed it a little.  I made ties for the neck strap instead of the strap and button, and I created a border for the bib.  I made the full apron for the bride-to-be.

Two!

Baby girl was due in May, but she decided she wanted to be an April baby and came three weeks early.  As soon as she was born, she cried out to let the world know she was here, and then she started rooting around for food.  Two years later, she is proving to be just as feisty as ever.  She knows what she wants and has no problem letting us know, too.  She wants to do everything her brother does and loves to play with him in his room.  At one point, he drew a sign that said “no babies” to keep her out, but the next day he took it down, and she was back playing in his room.  I figure she must have charmed her way back in somehow.  And, oh, how she can charm you.  I mean, who could resist that face?

 
We didn’t have a party for her birthday, but since I made her a dress last year, I thought it’d be fun to make one for her second birthday.  She wore it for all of 30 minutes, but it was cute while she was wearing it.

 

More hopeful sewing..

We’ve had rain and stormy weather here lately, so I’m continuing my hopeful sewing series by sharing this little butterfly dress.  I made it a couple of weeks ago, so the baby girl could wear it to the butterfly exhibit.  (I actually got this butterfly fabric last year in hopes of making a dress for last year’s butterfly exhibit.  Hey, I’m only a year behind!)

Sew Lisette Patterns

I don’t have that much interest in sewing for myself.  BUT Liesl Gibson, who designs totally adorable patterns for children’s clothes, just came out with a line for women.  They’re on sale this week at Joann Fabric for $0.99 each.  So, why not?  I got all 4 pattern sets.