for the babies

Wow, an entire month and a half have flown by since I've updated this blog...but I have been doing some creating here and there squeezed in between all of the general business of life...especially for some new babies. I knitted the following booties for the newborn daughter of a close family friend.

It was my first ever pair of booties that I knitted and it was a relatively easy pattern to follow from the book Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick. Next, we welcomed a new nephew on my husband's side of the family and although he was born earlier in the summer, we didn't meet him until this past September. I made him some fabric balls and a taggie tactile blanket toy.


And finally, in October we welcomed another new nephew last month on my side of the family so I got a chance to try out this really cute pattern for kimono booties that is generously offered for free by Homespun Threads.

Babies are so much fun to create for...everything just looks so cute!

Birthday gifts

Wow. My daughter turned six this week. Six! I've been wanting to make her a birthday crown since last year and I finally did it (pattern from The Creative Family by Amanda Soule). I also made her a fabric dollhouse using this wonderful tutorial, and, while most of it is finished, I still need to applique some windows and doors onto it (so no finished project photo yet).

My cousin's daughter's fourth birthday was just two days before my daughter's birthday and I made her some Indian outfits for her Groovy Girl dolls. The one on the left is a lehnga (a short top with a long skirt) and the one on the right is a salwar kameez (a long tunic top over pants). Both of them include a dupatta or chunni, which is the long, light scarf usually worn with these outfits. My daughter liked these so much that I had to make her a doll lehnga outfit, too!
And look at the lovely doll outfit that my daughter received from her grandmother. So cute!



For the Lady Grey coat sew-along, I'm still at the "altering the pattern stage" before I make a muslin. Also, sewing for gifts has not allowed me to have time to really do much kids clothing week challenge sewing except for tracing out one pattern and choosing some fabric. Ah well, I'll just extend the challenge for myself to next week (and likely beyond)!

something small for a new beginning

My daughter started Grade 1 in a new school today. It feels like such a momentous new beginning for her to be going to full-time school. I know she's nervous. I'm nervous for her, too. Or, is it for myself? Anyway, as I shopped the aisles for her school stuff, I did not find just the right pencil case for all of her supplies. You know...something that would be big enough and appeal to her aesthetic sense and interests. So, being the good little seamstress Mom that I am, I decided to make her one as a little special handmade-with-love back-to-school gift from me. I used this lovely tutorial but the first one that I made (following the sizes in the tutorial) turned out cute but just a tad too small for those pencils. So I increased the the size of the rectangles to 12" by 9" and made another, bigger one. And it's lined in pink (of course):

And you just have to love the sleeping beauty fabric from Heather Ross' Far Far Away 2 collection.

It's a small thing, really...just a little zippered pouch for her pencils and eraser...but I hope it serves as a reminder to her how very much loved she is and no matter what new and scary and exciting experiences await her, she'll always have a soft place to land.

beach blanket to go

I sewed this beach blanket at the end of July as a gift to my family to mark the occasion of my 10th wedding anniversary. The project is from the book Handmade Home, by Amanda Soule. We're already enjoying using it and I'm looking forward to its presence in many more family picnic, beach or park adventures in the future!