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.

Swim Towels

So, I did these months ago (in time for my kids' swim lessons this past summer), but I never shared them.  I'm playing catch-up and will try to do a few entries of things that have been long finished.

Last year, we had a towel walk off while we were in the pool for swimming lessons.  It was just a plain one from Target, but I'm pretty sure someone took it on purpose, possibly assuming it was theirs, because it was on the bottom of our stack.  Next year, I won't have to leave the towels unattended because Dorothy will do lessons without me in the water with her.  This past summer though, I still had to go in the pool with her and leave our stuff on the deck.  To possibly slow down any sticky fingers, I wanted the kids' names on their towels in a way that they would not come off.

Dorothy's has two clown fish and Malcolm has a trio of surfboards.  They each want a second towel as a back up since we use a lot of towels in the summer.  I'll let them pick their new colors and designs a little closer to warmer weather.

Holiday Catch-Up

I made a few things for gifts this past holiday, but I was terrible about blogging about them, so I'm going to dump them all into this one post.

First up is a set of kitchen towels that I made as part of a wedding gift. 

I made a hand towel for each of Malcolm's teachers at school and the the director of the school.  They also received some home made jam.  The towels and jams were all different so that they could each pick their favorites.

A reversible dress for a friend's one year old.

What it reverses to.

I had a few issues with the reversible dress, like sewing closed the arm holes; twice.  Then I sewed the buttons on (it buttons down the back) much to tightly and could hardly get it to button at all, let alone on a wiggly child.  Once those issues were fixed, I was finally able to send it off to her.  I hope they like it.

I don't have any photos, but I also made two Kermit shirts for my cousin's sons.  I think mom was more excited than the boys, but hopefully they like them too.  One of them put it on while they were here having dinner, so that's a good sign.

Lastly, I was also busy making jam which I give out to friends, family, teachers, and just about anyone who teaches or takes care of my children in some way.  This year, I made two batches of cranberry peach and one batch each of blueberry peach, blackberry, and blackberry merlot.  A butter cracker, goat cheese, and blackberry merlot jam has become my favorite snack.

Birthday Gifts

I have not blogged in well over a month, but I promise that I have been very busy.  I'm a bit behind on showing my new projects, but I have also been doing a lot of mending which isn't very exciting and I don't take photos of the mended stuff.  I'll try to do a post a day (I hope) until I catch up.

Word of warning, if you might be inviting one of my kids to a birthday party this year and you want to be surprised by the gift, quit reading now. If you don't care, read on.





My son started preschool last year and the number of birthday parties we went to exploded. What I learned last year is that I am terrible at selecting a birthday gift for 4-6 year olds that I don't know very well and my son is no help at all. We enjoyed having a party with his school friends for his birthday, but were a bit overwhelmed at the volume of toys that resulted. So, I got to thinking, and while it may not be the most exciting gift a young child has ever opened, I decided to make personalized gifts this year. So that I won't get confused, I decided that everyone would be getting the same thing and this year it will be a beach towel with their name on it. I know I have done towels in the past, but I had only done them for family or friends where I thought it might be something they would like. I have no idea how these will go over, but I know that lots of the kids in his school do swimming lessons and I always loved stuff with my name on it when I was a kid.

We have already had two parties and here are the towels.

I love the color combo of the royal blue towel with the lime green turtles and orange letters for the name.  It's so bright and cheery.

My spacing could have been better, but it is a little hard to hoop it three times and get the spacing right each time.  I should have planned to have the turtles about an inch or so farther out.

I'm not as crazy about the turquoise color towel, but since I'm doing these out of season, I have to use what I have or can find.  I'm happier with my spacing on this one though.

I probably won't do turtles on all of the towels I make this year, but these little guys are quick to sew and were ready to go from the last time I did them.  I had planned on some cute little clown fish, but was running short on time and they take forever to stitch out.

I hope the kids (or at least the parents) liked them.

First Birthday Gifts

I know I haven't blogged in forever, but I promise that I have been creating new things.  I'm just really, really bad about documenting my work.

Anyway, the little girl next door had her first birthday and I knew exactly what I wanted to make.  The problem was that I didn't even get started before my parents came to visit and we had the crazy birthday extravaganza for Malcolm. I managed to get one outfit completed just before her party (and by just before, I mean that the party had started and I was sewing on the buttons before we could go over there). Too bad I forgot to take a picture before wrapping it up. Maybe I'll see if her mom could take one or let me come over and take one. You will just have to trust me that it was a really cute deep purple with lime green and aqua elephants with polka dots and the bloomers had ruffles on the butt. I still have a lot of fabric left, so I might need to make something else for Dorothy (but Malcolm is next on my list, so she will have to wait).

A couple of weeks later, I finally got around to making her this beach towel.

Yes, you can see the hoop lines. If I don't take a photo right away, it will probably never happen. I have done several towels in the past and have found that the cheap towels in Target's dollar section work the best. Most towels are too thick to hoop easily, then I get all sorts of other issues, but these are thin and cheap. I did a couple last summer and was kicking myself for not buying more while they had them. This year I bought a whole bunch, but the only colors they had were pink and turquoise. I liked the royal blue and orange from last year better. I hope they have them again next year because I think I might start doing these for the 1,000 birthdays that seem to happen now that Malcolm is in school.


Last night, I finally finished the final project for Rowan. It's a good thing she is only a year old so that she doesn't know how long it has taken me to get her gift to her. In fact, they are currently out of town and have still not received it yet. I'm so excited about how it turned out though that I'm blogging about it now. Ruthie, if you are reading, stop now if you want it to be a surprise!

I love this one so much that I'm a little sad to see it go. I saw it sitting out this morning and thought about putting it on Dorothy, but didn't. I saw this fabric a few months ago, but didn't buy it because I wasn't sure what I would make with it. I just love the color and the vintage feel of design and it works great for a project like this.




The front. I have made a similar set before, but this time, I tried some new things. Usually, I use ribbon for the shoulder ties, but I couldn't quite match any of the colors, so I had to make them. It isn't hard, but it is time consuming. Instead of whipping this out in one or two nights, it took me three. I don't spend a huge amount of time each night in my sewing room, but it probably took and extra couple of hours with the changes I made. That, and I had to re-iron a lot of things once I realized that it wasn't hot enough. I should have known something wasn't right when I wasn't burning my fingers while rolling the hem.



back



Just the bloomers, front.



Just the bloomers, back. Note the adorable ruffles. Again, they weren't hard to do, but they did take some time. I have done ribbon in the past, and that goes much, much faster.  Instead of gathering them by hand, I tried a trick I had read about.  I used the same shirring method that I used to make the top, then just stitched them down  on the butt before sewing the sides of the bloomers together.  It worked great and is much faster than basting then gathering.  I'm glad I didn't use ribbon on this piece because I think the matching fabric is a nice look with this pattern.

I also have plenty of this fabric left over and Dorothy might need a little something too.  At this rate she won't have to wear the same thing twice all summer.  I probably shouldn't make her any more clothes.

Kitchen Stuff

Hooray!  I have several small completed projects to share!  I still need to take photos of a couple for shirts I appliqued for Malcolm, so I'll start with an apron and kitchen towel I made for a friend.

The apron is reversible, with a ruffled bottom. I'm hoping to use the same techniques on a dress for Dorothy very soon.



reverses to:


You might notice that the trim for the ruffle and the ties is not the same color. I managed to add the ruffle inside out and did not notice until the apron was completed. I am so accustom to putting the wrong sides of the fabric together that it didn't even occur to me that the ruffle was not actually going to get turned when I turned the rest of the apron right side out. Lesson learned, however, I sort of prefer the lighter shade with the other fabrics.


The towel was just a regular applique.