Jessie's Outfit & New Stuff

Elora's made-by-Mama birthday gift is a Jessie costume to wear at her party, and any time she wants to play dress up.  

I took a cotton knit shirt from Target and a pair of jeans and added to them.

The binding on the collar, the red loops, and the cow print on the jeans were added by hand.  The rest was machine stitched.   I wasn't trying for an exact duplicate of Jessie's outfit, just an approximation.  For example, I didn't even try to bring the yellow panel down to points on the shirt.  She already has a little pair of brown boots, and I ordered a hat from The Disney Store to complete the look.

Edit:  Ack!  I just realized that I forgot the gray buttons on the shirt.  Should I add them, or just let it go?

So excited for the party---this weekend!!

Kaylie's Towel Hoodie

  Kaylie will be getting a hoodie towel for her birthday!  Elora has had one since she was an infant, and we have always used it.  I've been meaning to make one for Kaylie since she was an infant.  It only took me a year, but it's done!

I'm so tempted to just start using it, rather than wrapping it up and waiting for her party.  She's not going to know the difference, right?  But I will wait.  We've made do without it for this long, we'll make do for another few weeks.

I used one full sized bath towel and two hand towels.  I almost chose pale baby colors for it, but I picked super bright colors instead, and I'm loving it!  And I just happened to have a perfect coordinating ribbon at home, which I didn't know until after I bought the towels. 

It was meant to be.  The K on the front ended up being larger than I'd intended because the towel stretched as I sewed it on.  And I didn't have matching thread when I started the project, so the orange K is outlined in pale pink.  It looks ok, but it would have looked a lot better if I'd used orange thread.  You will notice that the yellow K is outlined in yellow. 

This is my current project.  Can you guess what it is?

Father's Day, and Other Stuff

 We spent most of Father's Day just lazing around, because that's what Brandon wanted to do.  He did want to go out to dinner, though, and since he was in the mood for seafood, I poked around online and found a few local seafood places.  We ended up at Rose Bay here in Chesapeake.  The food was good, if a bit over-priced.

 

 Elora smiles and says "cheese" for the camera, now.  It's an hilariously awkward, fake-looking grimace, but I love it.

It was my idea to get a little dressed up, and good man that he is, Brandon humored me even though it was his day and not mine.

Cool story:  On the way to the restaurant, Elora saw one of these:

and she said "S-T-O-P, stop!"  Brandon and I looked at each other for a moment in stunned surprise, then started laughing and praising her.  I'm telling you, my girl is crazy smart. 

 As I mentioned before, I made Elora's blue dress longer than I meant to, and when she wore it on Saturday, I realized it was too long.  Yesterday, I hauled the sewing machine back out, chopped 5" from the bottom of the dress, and added a yellow ruffle.  I'm liking the results.

The ruffle doesn't exactly match the yellow ribbon I used for the belt, so I'm chalking this up as another experiment.  I'm not sure if anyone else will even notice.  Maybe I shouldn't have pointed it out?  I also wanted to show a size comparison between the dresses I made last summer, and the ones I made this year.

Both were made to fit Elora, and to fall at mid calf. The green one, made for Elora at 17 months, now fits Kaylie and falls to her ankles at 3 months.  I wonder if Kaylie will continue to grow so fast???

Another Dress, and the Christmas 2010 Series

I made another little dress for Elora!  This one came out a lot better than the other one, because I learned from the mistakes I made on it.  Overall, it's the same design.  This time, though, I included the belt in the construction of the dress instead of just tying it on her afterward, and I was a lot more careful about my hems.  (It's amazing the difference that ironing makes, and I knew that!  I have no excuse for not doing more ironing on the first one.)  I did mix up the measurements, so it's longer than I'd intended it to be, but that's no big deal.  All in all, I am thoroughly pleased with my results.

 Anyway, I also got straps put on the green dress that I made last summer. Elora didn't exactly cooperate with me when I was trying to get pictures, but Kaylie did!

 

Both girls got to wear their new dresses yesterday, as we went to another cookout hosted by one of Brandon's friends.  Sadly, I have no pictures from this event. There were a bazillion great photo opportunities, but my battery died as soon as we got there and I didn't have the charger with me.  I didn't get to take even a single picture.  I must be obsessed with taking pictures; I felt naked and incomplete without a functioning camera.

This morning, I finally got the last of my Christmas 2010 scrapbook pages done.  I got the Santa page done 3 or 4 weeks ago, but I've been putting off the rest because of the sheer volume of pictures.  In the end I decided to do a different spread for each portion of the family.  When I print the books, Bran's family will get the Gager spread...

...my mom's family will get the Wright spread...

...and my dad will get the Buckner spread.

   My book will have all 3.  If I ever get around to printing one for myself, anyway.

I Still Love That Website.

icanhascheezburger.com

Fantastic Friends

This is the purse and wallet set I commissioned from Lizy and Katelyn, respectively.  I chose the fabric, and they did all the work.  Don't I have incredible friends??  Seriously, you guys are awesome.
  As a bonus, we got some awesome little charms in at the shop, and one of them just happened to match my new set perfectly.  So I brought one home and promptly made it into a zipper pull.

Perfect, right?  Man, I love it when that happens.  Double yay!!  More of the zipity-do-da-ness.

As a side note, this is what happens when you forget to adjust the white balance setting on your camera:

And this is what happens when you correct it:

Printers and Cameras, Oh My!

I got my new printer and my new camera yesterday.  I LOVE them!  The printer is actually a printer/scanner combo.  I got the Canon Pixma MP620, and I've only played with it a bit, but it is definitely waaaay better than what I had.

I took a picture of Brandon setting up my new printer, with my new camera.  As you know, I got the Canon Rebel XSi, and it's amazing!  It keep giggling or squealing or jumping up and down when I take a picture, and I've already taken a ton of pictures!  So Brandon keeps laughing at me, but he's taken at least as many pictures as I have so I know he's excited too.

 

I didn't do a very good job cleaning the mirror, did I?  Oh well.  This is one of the ones that Brandon took, and I think it looks really cool:

Snow Baby

I took Elora out to see the snow after that first good snowfall.

We got all bundled up, and headed out to our little front yard.

She didn't much like it, and I certainly can't blame her!

Snow is pretty to look at, when it's fresh, but other than that, it's just terrible.

Quilt update: I got the embroidery finished on her name, and I got the backing pinned on.

Then I folded it up and put it on my table, and every time I see it I tell myself, "I'll get to it in a bit." The truth be told, I'm rather intimidated by the idea of hand quilting it, and I'm procrastinating. Now, I'm working on jewelry. I'll try to get some pictures posted.