Shower Gifts Pt. 1

Bibbity bibbity (that's a Family Guy reference)

So for my first shower gift I made these patchwork baby bibs.  I found the tutorial on the Sew She Sews blog here.  It's a great project to use up scraps of fabric (of which I have multitudes).  I used a flannel for the backing which made it nice and soft.  Once you download the template it's a really easy project with lots of room for improvisation. 

More baby stuff to follow!

It's Raining... Babies?

Not quite as catchy as the Weather Girls version but whatevs.

Hallelujah!
I'm here to report on a baby shower that a few of us threw for our good friend Christina.  We had a really fun time planning it and since we decided to have it at someone's house and do the majority of the work ourselves it was extra rewarding.  We think everyone had a really fun time and that the mom-to-be was happy with it.  Here are a few highlights:

Our color theme was green, yellow and grey.   Sara got the flowers from a florist friend and they turned out to be so pretty. 

We had a storybook theme so everything centered around that.  Sara made up some games for people to play.  We got the alphabet cards on Amazon and gave them to Christina after.

And everyone brought their favorite childhood book for the new baby.

We also had a craft for people to do since Christina, and the two of us of course, love crafty things.  We supplied plain onesies that people could applique their own design on. 

I was in charge of most of the food.  For apps we had a little table with cheeses, fruit, rosemary nuts and spinach cheese squares.

Aren't the flowers gorgeous?  Sara made the yellow runners out of a shower curtain.  Artsy craftsy!

For the main course I made chinese pasta salad with peanut sauce and a shrimp and mango salad in endive.  The highlight was the samosas that I bought from Christina's (and my) favorite Indian restaurant.

  Yes yes yes!

For dessert I made a baklava and carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  I got these little paper wrappers off of Etsy.  

Wrapped but with bare heads!

Frosted.

I could just lick the screen.  But that would be gross.

I decided to top off the cupcakes with little storybook flags. I got some old children's books from the book shop in the public library.

Then I went through them picking out the illustrations that would fit in my hole punch.

It's the Poky Little Puppy!

 I love Richard Scarry.

So I just punched them out.

 Until I had a whole slew of 'em.

Then I glued them onto toothpicks. I had a picture on the front and text on the back.

Here is how the dessert table looked.

Sara made up the sweetest little favors for everyone.  It was a mini Envirosax bag with an Orla Kiley notebook.  Then she got pens with each guest's initial on the top.  

A good time was had by all but I think the best part was in the planning and doing.  Christina's friend Kara supplied her house for the festivities and our other friend, Christina (aka as "other Christina") helped get supplies and prizes for the games.  We had so much fun coming up with ideas and bringing them to life.  And I guess it worked because Christina now has a beautiful, healthy girl. 

More on my gifts to her in an upcoming post.

Byeeeee!

Birdie

Good morning!
In a previous post I mentioned a quilt I had made for Ruth's baby, Babs.  This was made two years ago before she was born but, hey, better late than never to post it, right? 

The pattern I used was one by Barbara Brandenburg.  You can purchase the pattern on her website here.  It's called: Birdie Big Blocks.

I had to find a bunch of different fabrics for all the birds and their various parts.  It was quite a task picking them all out.  My favorite fabrics came from a collection by Heather Ross called West Hill.  Her stuff is just so cool.

Heather Ross's frog fabric in the front.

From the same collection: tadpoles and froggies in jars!

The retro dots are from Amy Butler.

I have a fabric problem.

So anyway, the quilt was very easy to make because most of it was done by making appliques.  No cutting of a bajillion little squares.  I brought it home with me and my mom helped me finish it and put the binding on.  I ended up just tying it rather than quilting it because a) I'm lazy and b) I didn't want to quilt over the cute birds.
And here it is!

I really like how the pinks and grays stand out on it even though there is a lot of yellow. 

Here are some birdie detail shots.

tweet.

tweet.

tweet tweet!

I hope this quilt stays with her for long time and that she loves it as much as I loved making it.  

Byeeeee!

Chili Champion

How is this fair? I'd say I do about 90% of the cooking in our house. I love to cook. I cook for parties. I've even baked a few wedding cakes for friends. One thing I've never done is enter any sort of cooking contest. Oh, I've had my fair share of fantasy Top Chef daydreams but never anything tangible.
Today was the local YMCA's chili cook off. My husband decided to enter with one of the TWO dishes he makes at home: chili. (the other dish is pasta bake btw)
He even made his own apron for the occasion.

He called his recipe: The People's Chili. I told him his communist edge would probably not go down too well with the Y crowd but what the hell do I know?  Turns out he won "best dressed chili chef".

And the most competitive category, "best traditional red".

 

AND the "golden pepper" award for BEST CHILI OVERALL. 

He did get a bunch of his college co-workers and students to go so it may have been a tad one-sided, but I guess the people have spoken. Chili for the masses!  And one light-up sombrero for him. 

Adioooos!

Tea Party!

 

Haha, not that kind of tea party!

This kind:

This is the tea party sundress pattern from my favorite (albeit only) pattern company Oliver + S.  I made this a while ago for Babs, my cute little kinda-niece.  I thought this teacup fabric was so adorable and I matched it with some pink fabric I had leftover from a quilt I had made her (she can match her blanket!).  I chose a brown print for the piping in the dress. 

I love these teacups!

The thing I really like about Oliver + S patterns is they don't assume you have extensive knowledge about sewing, which is good since I don't.  This is actually the first real article of clothing that I'd ever made using a pattern.  Even the piping, which was optional and intimidating, turned out to be pretty easy to do. 

Piping up close.

The pattern included this nice finishing detail for the hem.  In my world, you finish a hem by folding the thing and sewing it up but the pattern had you make something called a "hem facing".  I thought it was a tad extraneous but after I made it I congratulated myself on my own brilliance.  It really made the hem look professional and super cute.  

Super cute hem facing!

I was also able to employ my wonderful serger to finish the seam allowances.  This made it look super duper professional.

Mmmm.... serged seams...

 

 

Found these buttons in my button collection.

 And they matched pretty well!

I think making the buttonhole was the most stress inducing part since if you screw it up, what the hell do you do then??

Buttonhole in the right place.  Phew!

 And...voilà!

 Pardon all the glamor shots.  I was pretty proud of this one.

More posts to follow, hopefully before the next millenium.
Byes!