I.LOVE.SPRING!

I absolutely love living in Irvine during the spring time. There are jacaranda trees lining the streets and I LOVE them! I wish it lasted all year ... but then I guess they wouldn't seem as special. I decided to have a photo session with my 5 year old daughter and the jacarandas on Friday ... enjoy.

I just realized she's wearing her shirt dress. Looks like she never changes, but it's really only the second time she's worn it!! Funny.

The Shirt Dress

I recently ran into a fantastic blog called Made. There is a great tutorial on how to make these darling little girl dresses out of a man's old dress shirt. I LOVE the idea that the girls can wear their Daddy's old shirts. My friend, Lindsay, and I decided to tackle the challenge and spend the day making our first "shirt dress". It's an easy dress to sew, but it took us a while to figure out how to draw the pattern and to sew it for the first time. I'm happy with how it turned out, and Reha is SO excited that we cut up Daddy's shirt and made her a cute dress! 

To make your own just follow the tutorial. I've included the sketches from her blog on this post, but she goes step by step on her blog. Have fun!!

Reha showing off her new dress.

She started having a little too much fun posing for the camera ...

Really, where did she learn these poses? I swear I don't do this ...

A view from the back.

My mouth is WATERING ...

Check out these yummy mellon popsicles I found while I was looking at a blog called Party Perfect. It's a super cute blog with some great ideas. She found them on Martha Stewarts Craft Dept.  Now just to figure out how they made them ... !

Close Your Clothes!

I can't get over how cute  this Close Your Clothes book is that I found on forty-two roads ... a super cute blog I just ran into. She used some old clothes with different clips, buttons, zippers, etc. to teach her daughter how to dress herself. I'm so impressed and think this is a project I might do in the near future. Thank you, forty-two roads, for the wonderful idea!!

     

     

Charly's Crib Quilt

My mom made my 13 month old, Charlise a twin size quilt, and I LOVE the fabric. There was quite a bit extra, so I decided to make her a crib size quilt using the same fabric so that I don't have to wait until she gets a "big girl bed" for her to use it. While I've made quite a few baby quilts in the past, this is my first attempt at machine quilting. I really like how it turned out. It's actually opened up a can of worms because now I want to make her a crib bumper and skirt to match ... both of which I've never made. I just hope I can do it without messing up. We shall see ...

The journey ...

Laying out the squares and beginning to piece it all.

The first look at a completed top.

I bought this purple-ish polka dot fabric a while ago because I liked it, and decided that since it was in the quilt I would use it as the back. Only thing ... it was about 5 inches too short. I had to go buy 1/3 of a yard more. I hate almost finishing something and having to stop because of lack of materials.

My friend, Lindsay, was nice enough to let me use her sewing machine to quilt it. I was just going to use a straight stitch and "stitch in the ditch", but I thought this wavy line was so cute ...

A look at the back after I was done quilting it.

Sewing on the binding. I have never used black in a baby quilt, but I really like it. 

After the binding was sewn on and before the hand stitching to complete it.

The long and tedious process of hand stitching all the way around the binding to finish it off.

And three days later I finished. I've never finished a quilt in three days! I'm proud of myself and happy that it actually lays flat ... this would be a first for me!

More of the finished product ...

and another one ...

And one more!