Charlotte's 1st Birthday

So time really does fly when you have kids - Charlotte is now one year old! Seems like we just brought her home from the hospital. On Saturday we had a birthday party for her with family that came from out of town. We all had fun - especially the birthday girl!




The theme was hard to come up with... she LOVES Curious George, but I couldn't figure out how to girly that up. Fortunately she also loves her Potato Heads, so we went with a Mrs. Potato Head theme. We had the party at lunch time and had a baked potato bar,
we had a Potato Head Photo booth with props,
and My mom made some great cakes which we all devoured!



I had a budget for this party, and since I have a ton of crafty stuff, I only ended up spending about $20 on the day (other than the food). I bought some tissue paper and pipe cleaners for flowers and made a "Happy Birthday" banner out of scrapbook paper. Since decorations for Mrs. Potato Head are hard I just did springy things. I used a flower wreath I had on the front door, cut pieces of scrapbook paper for a message board and made napkin rings out of more scrapbook paper. It wasn't extravagant, but I had fun making stuff.





The day was a great success - fun had by all!

A new summer dress!

So since moving I've been thinking and longing for the summer time. I hear it's warmer here for longer and I'm SO excited! Of course this line of thinking led me to clothes, and I began thinking of making a new summer dress. I literally have several totes full of fabric just waiting to be used - so I dug through and found a table cloth that had been given to me, but didn't fit any table I had. It was an antique with a fun floral pattern.
So, I did as follows:

I had a general idea of my design - I wanted it fitted on top with straps and gathered at a high waist. I wanted it about knee length with a gathered hem.
1. I held it up to myself to determine how much of it should be the skirt and cut it in two (roughly 3/4 for the skirt and 1/4 for the top).

2. For my top I used the draping method by cutting off the white border and hemming what would be the "neckline", then fitting the bust to the form. In the past I have always used the flat pattern method for designing, which is precise and involves using and moving darts - basically your design is done in pattern pieces first and then cut and sewn. This time I decided to try the draping method, which means you use a dress form and fit, cut and pin it in place, and then sew.

3. I sewed the outer edges of my "skirt" together.

4. I gathered the top of the "skirt" and fit it to the bottom of the "top".

5. Remember the white excess I cut off of the top before hemming it? I used that plus the white off the bottom and gathered it to make the ruffle for the hem.
6. I put in an invisible zipper
7. I used scraps to make straps with little cap sleeve ruffles.
Viola!

A tablecloth dress... I'm so excited to wear this dress when the weather gets a little warmer!