Birthday Sewing - Over And Done

My little girl's 1st birthday was on Saturday! Yay! I'm very happy and proud of my sweetie, and also happy and proud of myself that I accomplished everything I set out to in preparation for her party. It's very rare for me to get that much done at one time, so I feel really good about it. The biggest accomplishment by far being the baby quilt I started for Bear when I was around 5 months pregnant. I intended for it to be finished in time for her birth, but as usual, things didn't work out quite as I planned. Better late than never, I suppose. My hope is that she'll get attached to it despite the delay. I've been putting her down for naps/for bed with it everyday since her birthday. It's a bit different than the previous baby quilts I've done in the past. This is the first time I've used Minky in the solid blocks (for those who aren't up on fabric types: Minky is a super soft, furry-feeling polyester fabric with a good amount of stretch) as well as the first quilt I've tied instead of quilting since the dread polyester-double-knit quilt I tied for my grandma about 10 years ago (Which was a nightmareish quilt, by the way. There is a reason we left polyester-double-knit in the 70's!). All in all, I'm pleased with the results. My mother did contribute one block to this quilt.
After completely the quilt I set my mind towards creating the decorations for Bear's cake as well as a fabric party hat. The design for both came from an adorable flower invitation I purchased at Target for the party. I loved that they were feminine without being all fairy-princess-diva which is ridiculously prevolent when shopping for anything for a female child. The hat turned out great, I think. And the cake also looked really nice when it was all put together. I purchased a completely plain cake from my favorite bakery and then added sugar cookies that I had frosted and iced to match the invitations. I also had plain red, turquiouse, green, and yellow party assecories to do with it.


At the last minute I decided to make a small stuffed toy also. Obviously very Yo Gabba inspired! I filled the little fella with dried split-peas so it's got that nice beanbag feel. I would have liked to make something bigger (my goal is to make at least one handmade gift for her birthday each year...and by the way I'm not completely counting her quilt because it wasn't intended to be a birthday gift, I was just really really slow), but all-in-all I'm happy with what I came up with. We also gifted her a nice set of wooden ABC blocks and a ride-on-toy that we purchased.


After the birthday was over, I turned my attention back to diaper making. I'm currently making a medium-long for Bear with the Daribum's pattern. So far I'm liking it. Lots of butt-coverage and the snaps are more towards the back of the diaper which makes changing a run-away baby much easier. As soon as I order some FOE I need to make some covers...I'll most likely also need to order some poly-resin snaps in the near future.

A current snap shot of my works in progress: