Birthday Gifts

I have made several birthday gifts for my kids' friends over the past few months, but am terrible about remembering to take a picture before wrapping them.

This was a quick picture with my cell phone after gifts were opened:

 My typical gift, the first time one of my kids is invited to a friends' party, is to make a beach towel with the child's name on it.  This is one that I made, but there were two others that I didn't photograph.  Hopefully, the kids like using them all summer.

This is a shirred owl dress I made for a little girl's first birthday.  I guessed on size, but based on pictures I saw of her, it seems to fit.  Yay!  I always worry when I guess, but this style is pretty forgiving.  I love this fabric a lot (the colors are so fun) and have enough left over to make a dress for Dorothy.  It's on my list for next year since she has so many outfits for this summer.




Last, is a towel and bag combo I made for a school friend.  Normally, only one of my kids gets invited to the party, but since they both were invited, I decided to add a bag to my normal towel gift.

 This little girl is monkey crazy, so I went with a monkey theme.  I had the towel first, so then found fabric for the bag that matches.  Actually, Dorothy found the plaid fabric for me.  She loves to go fabric shopping!

Hopefully they can use the bag to tote her things to the beach or pool (or dance and gymnastics class).  The towel fits great in the bag too.

 I usually do some type of "beach" animal on the towels, but love how the monkeys turned out.  I might have to experiment with other animals.

 I've been wanting an excuse to try out this design.  It took me three attempts to get it right because I hadn't noticed that the design was just a touch too large for my hoop.  Once I resized it, it stitched out wonderfully.  It took almost two hours of stitching, and had a ton of thread trimming once it was complete, so I'm not sure how often I will do this one.  Malcolm wants it on a shirt; we'll see if I managed it.

 The bag wanted to flop open a bit, so I added a small snap right in the middle, and that helped a lot.

I love the banana lining fabric I found!  It's so cute, and it matches the bananas on the monkeys' bed perfectly.



I have one more towel and bag combo I'm working on; in a boy style (Batman!).  The towel is complete, and the bag is getting close.  I broke my last needle though, so I need to get some more so that I can finish it before the party on Friday.