Tiny Dancer Geranium

I've actually been doing quite a bit of sewing here, I've just not been really good at getting pictures. I took a bunch of recent projects today, so hopefully I'll have more to show here soon. Especially since the closer I get to that due date (July 21st!), the harder is for me to lean over a cutting table, the less sewing I'll be doing. Today, I (just about) finished up the first thing for my baby girl. I still have to put some fasteners of some sort on the back, but other than that, I'm calling it done.

This is the Geranium dress pattern by Made by Rae. For awhile she was offering the 0-3 month size pattern for free, so I snatched it up, since that's the first size I was going to make anyway. I also thought it would be a good way to try the pattern. Well, I think it's adorable and so easy, so I'll definitely be buying the whole pattern soon.

I made the tunic option, thinking that would be the most useful for a newborn. Won't it look cute with a purple diaper cover peeking out? The fabric is Cotorienne Can-Can in aqua by Anyan for Yuwa, which I picked up from Pink Castle when it was on sale. I loved the print and knew it would make the cutest girl clothes without being over-the-top GIRL.

I almost left those pockets off thinking they would be a) useless for a newborn and b) too much on such a little piece of clothing. In the end, I decided to put them on as I really feel the pockets are the cutest part of this pattern and what makes it different from other dresses out there. I'm so glad I did, because I think they really take the top up a notch.

As you can see, I still need a method of closure on the back. I was going to do buttons, but they'd have to be tiny, and I think snaps will be easier to maneuver on a wiggly newborn. I've never done snaps before, so it'll be a new skill learned, too.

I can't wait to see some chubby little legs sticking out from this top!

Mother's Day pillows

I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile, but originally it was meant to be a full scale quilt. Since I had sort of missed my mom's birthday and Mother's Day was looming, I decided to jump in and just make a couple of pillows instead. I'd still like to do a quilt this way, but I'm pretty ecstatic with how these turned out.

My original idea for a Hawaiian shirt quilt included collecting thrifted and donated old Hawaiian shirts. I do have a basket that is collecting shirts for that purpose, but I didn't have enough for these pillows. So I rolled on down to my local Jo-Ann's (which is much more local now, hurray!) Who knew they would have so many different kinds of tropical shirting fabrics? And there were even more in their on-line store, though I stuck to the ones at my store here. By the way, the 100% cotton shirting fabric was so dense, I had to use a denim needle to sew these - anything smaller just pushed the fabric into my throat plate!

I thought the best way to put all of these crazy fabrics together in one place would be a giant log cabin block, so that's what I did. I wanted the two pillows to be slightly different, so I fussy-cut the centers from 2 different fabrics and then followed the same order of the logs. I ran out of fabric at the end, it was just short of the size I needed, so I pulled some Kona black from the stash to sort of frame it all in. I actually love how the black fabric kind of grounds all of the craziness going on.

The palm tree fabric really reminded me of my parents' beach house (where these are meant to live), so I bought enough extra of that fabric to make a nice envelope back. I also thought it would still work if they ended up turned around on her green couch. The pillow forms were leftovers from Christmas sewing. They are down and I got them from fabric.com for a great price. I love how squishy they are, but they still have a little firmness to them since I made the covers a 1/2" smaller than the form (my favorite pillow making trick!).

Unfortunately, I was so excited to give them to my mom, who happened to be visiting over Mother's Day, that I forgot to take any pictures before they left. So Mom graciously snapped some shots pool side. Thanks, Mom!