Stella

 My wonderful sister sent me some really cute pictures of Stella wearing her gifts. I made that cover-up! Look at some previous posts.
I'm so happy that we had girls around the same age, because I love her hand-me-downs and I love getting to dress her up.

Showing off the cute vintage style swimsuit I got her.

Love this kid!

So stylish. I hope you don't mind Meliss.

Gifts

 Remember the pillowcases I did in the beautiful Alexander Henry wedding fabric a few months ago? Well here is another set for the beautiful couple.  Kally and Joe got married on Sunday June 24, 2012. I was unable to make it to the wedding since that was the day of my niece Stella's 1st birthday party. But from what I've seen and heard they had a beautiful casual outdoor wedding.
For the pillow cases I stuck with the french theme since that is her favorite and made a his and hers.  I found the fabric with help from my mother at Olde City Quilts in Burlington, NJ.

I was a dummy and cut the fabric for the pillow cases that I gave them for the shower wrong. So I decided to use it for place mats. This was another part of their gift.  I used a log cabin style quilting design that originally started out as a very different design for fabric napkins, found in the Quilting in No Time book.  After a few tries, I came up with this design and basted it with a square design. I made a few sample place mats for my own dining table. One followed the napkin pattern ( just enlarged) and the other similar to this design. I used a cross hatch pattern to baste mine, but I like this a lot better.






My 2 nieces on my husband's side have birthdays very close together. So every year they do a joint party.  My sister in law really seems to like the swim cover-up's I've been making so I made her girls their own.  I didn't want to use the same fabric for both of them, but there wasn't much to choose from in the jersey material section.  I had to change the pattern a little since they are more grown up.  I included in their gifts 2 more really cute bathing suits from Janie and Jack.

My baby girl just turned 10 months old.  From 6 months on, it has been going so fast, but we are enjoying every minute.  It's so much fun watching her learn new words and tricks every day.  She laughs at the silliest things and chases me all over the house with her super fast army crawl.  I love that we can give her more varieties for food now also. Tonight at the birthday party we gave her some pound cake, she grabbed it right off the plate and shoved a huge handful in her mouth. Now we have an idea of what her birthday smash cake is going to be like.  Speaking of her birthday I have started making her owl invitations and they are turning out very cute. 

Savannah is turning into a little fish, just like her mommy was.  She loves the pool in our backyard and prefers not to be in the float. She would rather swim around in the arms of someone else.  The birthday party we went to today was at the beach house Jake's family owns.  She loved going in the ocean which completely surprised me and she also loved the sand, which was not the case 3 weeks ago when I took her.

Poppy Flower Tutorial

 This is my first tutorial and I was in a rush when I was doing it, so give me a little break if it is confusing or missing pieces. Here is the tutorial for a fabric poppy flower.

 Cut 3 roughly cut circles out of fabric in different sizes. I used jersey t-shirt material.

Cut out 3 circles of approximately the same size out of  featherweight fusible stabilizer or interfacing, and iron to the back of coordinating circle, following directions provided with your interfacing.

When cool, pull fabric away from interfacing just around the edges of each circle to create a semi-ruffled edge to the petals. Trim the excess interfacing.





Connect your 3 petals by sewing through all 3. I tried to make a tutorial of the bead work I did in the middle but it was very complicated, so I would suggest using a button or I have seen other interesting ideas using tulle and small puff balls.

Connect the flower to whatever you want. I made a swim cover-up for my niece and added one flower to the hood and a few to the waistband.

Here is the swim cover-up with the super cute bathing suit I found on sale at Janie and Jack. I hope she liked her gift!



























I hope you found this easy to follow. Please leave a comment with advice, or any questions.

Mens apron

I've been working hard in my sewing room lately.  While Jake and I were in Cape Cod he suggested we go to a fabric store (yes he actually suggested it) in West Barnstable called Tumbleweed Quilts.  They have a very large store with a great selection, especially the Alexander Henry collection. While there, Jake pointed out some fabric with Lobsters on it and hinted that fathers day was coming up.  I made him and his dad an apron, which again I made my own pattern for. I made my own bias binding using red, white and blue star material.

Courtesy of Tumbleweedquilts.com

Jake and I started taking a class at church called Love and Respect. We are only in 2 weeks and have already learned so much. The class helps people learn to talk and listen and realize what each other needs to keeps things going smooth.  I can't say we needed the help right now but I am always looking for ways to better our marriage especially since divorce rate is so high. You can find more info here: http://loveandrespect.com/conference-preview/

p.s Savannah is sick AGAIN!

Mashed squash

I gave in for a few weeks and gave Savannah store bought baby food because the doctor said to give her more meat to help her gain weight.  I tried a few times to make my own baby food with meat in it but the consistency was just gross, and Savannah agreed. Well, the meat did not help her gain weight, she is 15 lbs 10 oz. at 9 months, which puts her in the 5th percentile, she is 28 1/2" long which puts her in 75th for height (yay!), she is still wearing most of her 3-6 month clothes which is good because her cousin was in that size last summer. I love hand-me-downs. So I'm back to trying to make more fattening baby food again.  Jake and I have this new grocery store by our house called Bottom Dollar Foods and yes it is a little ghetto but has extremely good prices and they send lots of coupons in the mail.  He was able to find an acorn squash (which is a winter squash) and I finally found a great recipe to make with it.
Mashed Winter Squash: The Joy of Cooking
for every 1 c. mashed squash
1 winter squash
1 T. butter
1 t. brown sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/8 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. ground cinnamon
approx 1/2 c. orange juice

Preheat oven to 375
Pierce squash 4-5 times then place in baking dish and bake for 45-90 minutes (until skin is tender).
Cut in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Scrape out remaining squash and mash. Add all ingredients and blend, add orange juice until soft and creamy.

I made this as baby food and let me tell you, Savannah LOVED it. The next day we found out that she is allergic to orange juice so now I get to eat the leftovers.  I LOVE it, the mashed squash is so delicious, I just wish Savannah could have some because now I have to go and make her more food. Very time consuming, especially when my baby happens to be allergic to most of the stuff I give her.  The doctor said to start trying yogurt and cheese with her and so far yogurt seems to be ok but I'm starting very slow since she is allergic to whey protein ( it's a family trait).

She is crawling very fast and getting into everything, trying to pull herself up with no success still, and holding her own bottle! I love the age that she is at now, some things are harder but for the most part we have the acid reflux under control and she is finding everything entertaining. I also have her sitting up in shopping carts now which works as long as nothing is within reach and I don't take too long. My grandma helped us grocery shop today, she really enjoyed pushing Savannah around in the cart, and I really enjoyed having a helper./

Cape Cod

We went to Cape Cod last Sunday to Tuesday. It was a short vacation so I apologize for not visiting the family Jake and I have in Massachusetts. We stayed in Jake's aunt and uncle's house on Buzzards Bay in Pocasset. It is a beautiful house right on the bay.

 We visited a few lighthouses and beaches. It was really cold and rainy on Monday, so we spent most of the day in the car.

 Savannah had a great time. She learned to hold her own bottle and she finally figured out how to get out of a sit position onto her tummy so she can roll around. Once we got home Tuesday night she started scooting on her tummy. It's tough to come home from vacation and immediately have to start baby proofing the house.

While there she got to, go in a wagon for the first time, wear a bike helmet, drive the car (not really), and go in a kayak. We should have done more if the weather had cooperated and we didn't have a bike helmet or life-jacket that fit her.

Swim Cover-up

Savannah got a new present. Handmade by mommy (me) is a new swimsuit cover-up.  

I recently bought her one from Kohls and was thinking that I could probably figure out how to make one. I had leftover jersey fabric from her quilt. I measured a shirt and drew my own pattern! It took about 1 day to make, but I just started a second one and it's only taken about 2-3 hours. I went to Janie and Jack yesterday while waiting for my mom and grandma, and got some really cute ideas for making this pattern even cuter.

Here is the front. It has a hood and a zipper. Now you've seen 3 of 4 of Savannah's bathing suits, they are so cute it's hard to resist. She has at least one more that is a hand me down from her cousin. It's a good thing we have a beach house, and just bought a blow up pool for our backyard.