easter finery

Several months ago, Mom offered me a pair of ruffled yellow gingham pillowcases, and I was happy to say yes!  I had given them to her for Christmas probably 15 years ago, back when her bedroom was yellow and hunter green.  She had repainted since, was cleaning out, and I was having visions of making matching little girl night gowns, like the one I made for Gemma last year.  It's a darling little pattern!  So, I started them a few weeks ago, fully intending for them to be nightgowns . . . go ahead and laugh, but as I finished them up, John and I agreed that they could pass for dresses!

We aren't usually the type to get new dresses for Easter every year, mostly because we've been so blessed with hand-me-downs that I usually pick out something special and spring-like for each girl and that's that.  There's something quite sweet about matching, though.  It was when I settled on the Beatrix Potter buttons from my button jar that my mind was made up, I think.  

Back when Mom and I were fabric-shopping for our wedding, we bought a yard of lovely lace (or is it embroidered netting?) without any concrete plans for it.  It ended up saving the day on the morning of the wedding when my dress was too low-cut in front, so a piece of it is still in my wedding gown.  Then, I took out two more little cuts to fill in the necklines of the bridesmaid dresses Heidi and I wore for Derek and Liz's wedding.  I'm not sure what brought it to mind again, but I decided to put the remaining bits to some use.  First I cut strips from the plain netting end and stitched some simple puff rosettes for our girlies' shoes.  (We're slowly transitioning to minimal shoes for our children, and I decided that leather ballet slippers would be preferable to anything with a heel for this summer!)  Then, on Saturday night, I cut some more strips, this time including the embroidered edge, and zig-zagged them together on my machine until they were long enough to make into bows.  Somehow my finicky hot glue gun cooperated, the zig-zag seams hid just perfectly and they are just the sweetest bows I've ever made!  Gemma had already "made" a bow with her friends for Easter, though, so I wasn't about to deny her the pleasure of wearing her own handiwork.

This may be the best photo of the two of them together . . . Ruthie had a little Easter Basket to take home from her Sunday School class, and Gemma did not, so she was very very interested in sister's.

And what's an Easter photo without Thumper, our new pet, enjoying his Sunday carrot?  :)

So, nightgown dresses, haha!  One more thing!  Since the original tutorial is only written as a size 4, I had to draw up my own pattern pieces for size 2, and I'm more than happy to share them if there's interest.  Let me know!

Pillowcase Nightgown!

Well, we can check this project off!  Except that I loved it so much I may make some more sometime. . . :)  A couple of years ago, I pinned this free tutorial, where the author made some precious nightgowns from upcycled vintage pillowcases.  Then a friend at church came upon a lone flannel pillowcase in blue toile and thought of her toile-crazy friend gave it to me!  

At first, I used it as a bassinet sheet on Ruthie's bed in our room, but I'd always had this project in mind for it!  When in September I finally was at an Ikea which had the right size blue toile duvet cover I'd been eyeing in stock, our room suddenly got an abundance of toile, so I didn't feel too badly about cutting this up. I'm so happy I did!  The tutorial only gives a pattern for size 4.

The directions were pretty straight-forward, but I would note one thing:  one of the first instructions is to cut the pillowcase straight across, 21 inches from the opening, and then to cut the pattern pieces from the remaining fabric.  I had a feeling that my pillowcase might have been a little smaller than a standard size, so I held up the pattern pieces first, and, sure enough, I only had enough fabric to cut 20 inches off.  It's certainly not too short, but I'm so thankful I checked!

The author also leaves the finishing of the back and neck kind of up to you.  I ended up using a bit of lacy hem tape along the back slit and doing a rolled hem around the neck, and was very happy with the result.  Since my beloved ancient machine doesn't have a button-holer, I just used a heavy-duty sew-on snap.  

Of course, the advantage of using a pillowcase is that the side seams and hem of the skirt are already finished for you.  This took me three short sittings, and was really easy and fun!  I just love how pretty my big girl looks--and feels!--in it.  :)

Their Sunday Best

My family has loads of pictures of my sister and me as tots in our little dresses on Sunday morning.  It must have been a tradition for a little while. :)  I've recently started trying to do the same with my girlies, partly because of all the pictures of Heidi and me and partly just because they look so sweet in their dresses and wear them for such a comparatively short time!  

I have found, however, that it is much, much easier to get one girl at a time, however! (Who is surprised? heh.)

On this particular Lord's Day, I happened on Ruthie at the little play kitchen, unnoticed at first.

Loved the light!  And yet her face was in a shadow, so I tried luring her over toward me, and eventually just moved her around a little bit, trying to get her face in the natural light.

Perfect look!  Too bad Bio Bio Bio had to do a photo-bomb . . . 

Suddenly it feels like spring!  With daylight savings time yesterday, we were able to do our first outdoor lunch of the year.  It was a very odd day, because all the families near church and the church itself had an ice storm and lost power, but we only had a very soggy day of rain.  Church was cancelled due to the outage and some of our friends gathered in our living room with us to worship and eat outside together afterward.  It actually turned out to be quite special.

Year of the Hat

I thought it was time for a "knitting lately . . ." post.  :)  Funny, but my last, hrm, six projects have all been hats!  I did a newborn icord beanie for Derek and Liz's little sprout (41 weeks and counting! We can't wait to meet you!).  Then the twin toddler nieces got red Christmas pilot caps, finished just in time for our family celebration. Both of those patterns have just about become old favorites of mine!  (Ruthie's currently wearing Gemma's pilot/pixie hat, as you can see in this little post about her coat.)

The new patterns I tried this year were Esme (for Gemma) and Rikke (for mom).  Rikke was a pretty pattern, but I adjusted the gauge wrong (again, *sigh*) for the pretty wool I had chosen and it came out a bit too tight.  Esme is my current favorite.  :)

I have to give credit where it is due--the tam with a bow was completely inspired by a hat Elizabeth from path-less-traveled made for her daughter a year or two ago.  If you see this, love your ideas, Elizabeth!

Gemma's wearing her hat in the picture above.  :)  She just loves it, which makes my heart so happy!  I had yarn leftover from making Ruthie's (too-big) coat, so Gemma wears them as a set and looks just . . . English and 19th century and darling!  I did "yarn-overs" instead of "make-one's" for the row of increases because I wanted to create eyelets for the pink bow.

I had enough yarn to make another, so I decided to make one for our niece turning 11.  11 seems so long ago these days, but I wanted to make it a tad more grown-up looking than the version with the bow.  I considered adding just a button to fasten the brim, as the pattern calls for, but ultimately decided to play with what I had at home and make a felt flower.  There are plenty of tutorials on pinterest to consult!  I stitched a pin-back behind it, and think it looks quite sweet!

Still playing with the new camera, as well. :)

New ear pretties

This is kind of a random post, seeing as I've kind of passed over the holidays and you haven't seen any photos of my little darlings lately! But I actually (finally!) remembered to capture this photo, albeit on my phone, and thought I'd share the story of my new earrings.

I don't have many earrings anymore since they were all stolen when our house was burglarized two years ago, but it almost doesn't matter because my ears have become so sensitive! Usually I wear my favorite little posts which John bought me for Christmas last year and just keep them in all the time. Still, back in the fall, I remembered loving these earrings by Lisa Leonard:

http://www.lisaleonardonline.com/cream-freshwater-pearl-earrings-P132C124.aspx

I had a partial strand of freshwater pearls from a Michaels purchase a while ago and figured I could make some myself! So, I went back to Michaels and picked up some earring hooks and head pins. 

That evening I attempted to put them together, and, would you believe it, the pearls would not fit on those head pins! Aargh! So, I found a few crystals leftover from making my bridesmaid gifts and made up the pair of purple and gold earrings in the picture above. They are very amateur! I haven't made any jewelry in at least four years, and at the time of our wedding I was borrowing the tools from a teacher-friend. This time, I was using my husband's tiny needle-nose pliers and another pair of big pliers to hold them still...my wrapped loops aren't very pretty and one earring is longer than the other by a little bit! But they are fun because they are new.

After a day of pondering, I had an "aha!" moment when I thought to try some ordinary pins from my sewing basket in place of the pins that were too big for my pearls. It worked! The wire is kind of flimsy and snapped off as I attempted a wrapped loop on the first one, but it still worked. I am loving them (just can't wear them for too long, or my ears get irritated!)

Fabric Scrap Tutu

I'm filing this post under "sewing," even though the sewing truly is minimal!  A while back, my sister Heidi (aka Hockey by Gemma Grace!) pinned this idea on her adorable "muskrats" board:




Well, a blogger came up with her own copycat tutorial and Hockey picked up some cute fat quarters to recreate it.  She ended up leaving them at our house at Christmas, and I in turn brought them to my mom's in July to use her pinking shears on them!

Though I liked the pointed strips of the original pin, I ended up following the tutorial pretty closely and decided they were fine as-is.  :)

Little one was getting sick when I took these photos . . . poor thing . . . 

"How are you going to keep it from fraying when you wash it?"  Excellent question . . . I'm intending it to be a dress-up tutu and am going to try hard not to have to wash it!  But I suppose you could spray some fray-stop or something on it.  

Another fun thing is that I cut the elastic out of one of my cami's to make it more nursing-friendly, so the entire project cost me nothing!

She loves it, Hockey!  Thanks for the idea and the supplies!

Monday Recently

How quickly the Mondays fly by! I've had this little post in mind for weeks...

It was a Monday recently when the gloriously beautiful weather drove us outside. And while someone was doing this: 

And someone else was doing this:

I trimmed the wild-looking vine which grows against the fence and finally mustered up the courage to cut back our rose bush. It looks much healthier now!

Just for fun, I twisted up the long pieces of vine,

And hung them beside the front door.

And the sprigs of green I trimmed off the rise found their way to the kitchen windows. :)

That's almost it for the gardening this year! I have to keep things small--I am not a green thumb by nature. I must have missed that gene! But some friends have us their leftover tomato plants, so I put those in. And I actually did a bit of an experiment inspired by something I saw on Pinterest! Each plant has a whole raw egg under its roots. I cracked the egg under the first of the four, and it's presently thriving the most. Perhaps we'll have some tomatoes this year!

The Party

On Gemma's actual birthday, we had some friends over for lunch and a playdate.  Four little girls 2 and under, with peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches shaped like snowflakes and Christmas trees, and carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting . . . yes, it was fun!  That night, we also let her open her gifts from Mommy and Daddy and the Grandmas and Grandpas.  But this past Friday we put up the balloons, family and more friends came, and we had the actual party!

Gemma opened a new baby, a bathtime book and an ABC puzzle, and loves them all!  We took a picture of the decorations the next morning when the lighting was better.

Aren't they lovely?  I made the garland back in April for a bridal shower outside, and it just happened to be the perfect length for the wall and four windows in the dining room!  My inspiration came from the path less traveled . . . once again . . . and, anyway, you can buy similar ones from her etsy shop!  

It was such a fun time that I could hardly sleep at night!  (Usually I'm a very hard sleeper, too!)  Thanks so much to our family and friends for coming to celebrate with us!

It was an evening of mixed emotions, too, as we had just heard the sad news of the shooting in Connecticut that day.  Yet another shooting.  This time at an elementary school.  We are especially thankful to have had our darling Gemma Grace for two years, and grieve with all the families up north.  I've found comfort in the words of Psalm 27:13-14.

"I would have despaired unless I had believed that I wouldsee the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD ; Be strong and let your heart take courage ; Yes, wait for the LORD."

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Gemma's New Skirt

 

These were my favorite pajamas in college.  They are the softest, comfiest cotton, and in such a fun pink print!  I wore them until they ripped, then patched them (look closely!), and wore them until they ripped again . . .

 

Before getting married, my mother tried to make me throw them out, but I think John overheard the conversation and intervened.  :)  I did promise not to wear them as a married lady, but I wasn't ready to trash them yet.  And now I'm glad that I didn't! 

 

Source: every-little-day.blogspot.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

I've been thinking about making Gemma a skirt from it for about a year now, but it's really best that I waited until she was a walker!  After finding this fun pin on pinterest, I chose skirt tutorial #13 . . . the Layer Cake Skirt from Prudent Baby.  :)  It was easy and fun! 

 

I do like how the tutorial suggests using three different fabrics, but I only used the one this time.  And even though it says to cut 44" long strips of fabric, the pieces I got from the pajama pants were only 34" long, and they still made the skirt plenty full for a little girl Gemma's size!  It only cost me $.99 for the elastic waistband . . . and after I'd purchased that, I wondered if I could have just reused the elastic from the pajamas! 

 

So . . .

 

Isn't it sweet?

 

 

How do you get in?

 

 

We've had so much rain this summer that the grass has been surprisingly green.  :)

 

 

Need I even bother saying it?  The skirt is pink, so of course Gemma Grace loves it, too.  :)