Lil' Liberty

Tomorrow is Lois' first birthday! I'm so excited I feel like it's Christmas eve! Cupcakes, check. Candles, check. Bubbles, check (must have bubbles). Party hat and dress, check, check! I made her dress from lightweight denim with Liberty print accents for the pocket and tie. I think it turned out pretty cute.

For beginners, I wouldn't recommend denim, especially denim with stretch to it, which this one has. I really just liked the wash of this denim and wasn't looking for it with stretch, but the wash I liked had stretch to it. I messed up the hem 3 times. With the stretch in the fabric, I couldn't get the tension right and it kept pinching a bit, arrrgh! I really wanted to do an especially good job on this one since I plan to keep it for Lois. I didn't want her to look at it later and think, wow, mom was a sloppy seamstress! My mom used to make our clothes and gave away everything except one dress, a beautiful dress, and I've looked at it often and am always impressed by how perfect it is. That dress is much more elaborate (maybe I'll take a picture next time I go home), but I hoped Lois would feel the same way about some things I've made.

Ah well, this dress isn't perfect, but it's a good go at stretch denim, and it's her very first brithday dress, so I hope she'll think it's special one day despite its imperfections. I can't wait till tomorrow. Party girl pictures coming soon!

Ava's Tea Party

Meet Ivy. Isn't she the cutest? Earlier this week she celebrated what would have been her sister Ava's 6th birthday in pink tea party fashion. Ava flew to heaven before she had her first tea party, so her incredibly talented photographer mom, Sheye, threw a tea party birthday for her. Do you recognize the party hat and dress? I was so happy to have made a party hat and dress for Ivy in honor of Ava. Sheye and her family intended to have a small tea party at their house with close family and friends and make Ava's Tea Party a bigger event in the future, but after Sheye mentioned Ava's upcoming birthday on her blog, people all over the world celebrated with their own tea parties and wrote letters and sent pictures of their wee tea gatherings. When I get home I plan to make more vintage tablecloth dress and party hat sets and call them Ava's Tea Party sets and donate a percentage of the profits to Paradise Kids, the organization that helped their family during an extremely difficult time. Maybe that red balloon I saw last night in the pink sky was on its way to Ava.


Photos by Sheye.

Party Girl

I made a dress and party hat set for my friend Lauren's niece, Lennon, for her 2nd birthday. Lennon's mom picked out the fun skeleton key fabric from Superbuzzy. I think it turned out really cute! The key print is dark brown and I didn't have any ruffle ribbon that would look right, so I made my first ruffle and ruffled the fabric myself! I bought a ruffler attachment for my machine, but it's not working for some reason (I think I'm missing a little piece that keeps it from wobbling). So my mom taught me how to make a ruffle over the phone (make a basting stitch and pull the thread, like this). Once I learned, I wanted to ruffle anything that wasn't nailed down! Ruffle, ruffle, ruffle. I went easy on the ruffles and just made one for the hat. I did make a pocket though, which was fun too. I don't think I did it the right way, but it turned out pretty well anyway. And, for the seams inside, I made French seams, which are so cool. I will miss my sewing machine while we're gone. What a cutie, don't you think?

My Martha Daydream

If I'm ever on the Martha Stewart show making party hats with Martha (yeah right, I know, but it's my current daydream while I'm not suffering from party hat making fatigue), I'd like to wear this cute shirt and these shoes. Too matchy-matchy? Too party hat or clown-ish? Maybe I should order them and keep them just in case. Like Jim Carrey, who wrote himself a check for 10 million dollars dated for 1995 and then received 10 million for a film in 1995, maybe they will bring me Martha luck. Andrew thinks I need a new name for "party hats"--they do sound corny, don't they? Maybe "party hat" in French would sound nice. What would that be? Chapeau de fête, I think. Much better.

Pin Tea

I sold my first dress and party hat set this week (yay!) and celebrated by buying myself the most adorable pincushion from Sew That's It on etsy. Mine is the one pictured just below this paragraph. I love it! Who needs to take a tea break when you have this delightful cup sitting next to you while you sew? I've also been poking around KT's blog, where I've been drooling over some things like her great metal baker's rack. I finished a few more hat and dress sets, which I'll be listing in the next few days--keeping myself busy so there's no thrifting temptation! I'm getting over a cold, so it's been slow going. Time for some real tea and then bedtime for me.

What Would Fraulein Maria Do?

I've been hunting around for some cute vintage fabric on etsy and ebay for party hats and dresses. I was thinking about the barkcloth that I like so much that my mom gave me, which were curtain panels in a previous life. So I thought I'd search for curtain panels, and I found so many great prints, like this carnival print above that I made into a dress and hat set that's now in my etsy party hat shop. The print is so cute, and I love the orange and brown colors. It took me 2 days to finish this set, and I'm glad it's done. Lois is crawling now and she's all over the place, so it takes me forever to do these things if she's awake!


Here are a few other panels I found on etsy. Of course my top favorite of these is the bright floral print, below from shop at moxie, which look so much like the ones I have in Lois' room.

These are really great too. The first one from here and the second here.

Party Hats and Dresses

It's been a while since I made any party hats. I got a little burned out and have hardly made any the last few months. A long time ago I wanted to make some things to match the hats like bibs and dresses. Last year, after an etsy seller requested I make a party hat to match a dress she made for a customer of hers, I knew it was time I started making my own. It took me a while to get motivated, but last week I finally got started and now I'm sewing like a mad woman! These dresses are really simple, but I still had trouble with a few things like the arm holes, and my machine kept wanting to eat the fabric. I almost threw my machine out the window and gave up, but I got the hang of it after a while. I love the little dresses I've made and have a pile of more fabrics cut and ready to sew. You'd think 10 people were sewing here all day if you looked at the mess I've made.

My favorites so far are the two sets pictured here. The first one I made using the quilt top I bought recently at the flea market, and the second one below I made using some great barkcloth my mom gave me a while back. I think I'll have to make Lois one from the quilt top, too. I just love all the cute prints on that quilt top.




More dress and hat sets coming soon, that is until I burn out again! If you know a baby girl with a birthday coming up, these are for sale in the party hat shop now. I have some more bibs for boys in the works, too.

New Party Hats

I added some new party hats to my etsy site. All of the new ones are made with fabric I bought home from Japan! I think they turned out really cute, but I need to re-take the pictures since some are a little blurry, and I want to make a better background for them as well. Still, I think they look cute in the shop.

Easter Basket Party Hat

I flipped a few party hats upside down and made them into Easter baskets. I think they turned out pretty cute! They're a good size for Easter baskets, too, since you can't fit an insane amount of candy inside them.

This is a new party hat--Apples and Pears.

Another Sweet Treat!!

My party hats are featured in today's Daily Candy Chicago Kids birthday party guide!! Two pieces of Daily Candy in one week--sweet!

Adorable!

Katrina, Sugarsandwich on etsy, ordered this party hat I made to go with the dress she made for her daughter, and she sent me this picture! How cute is she? I love that little dress! Check out Katrina's other little girl's dresses. So cute.

Yee Haw!

I added some new party hats to my etsy shop. Rodeo girl and boy are my new favorites. Here's rodeo boy. The little doggie howling to the tune is so cute. I was especially happy to find some twine like rick rack ribbon. I wanted something that looked similar to lasso material (not that I really know what a lasso is made of). I got the last of the twine like rick rack--about a yard, so once that's gone, I'll have to find a good replacement.

New in the Shop

I added a few party hats to my etsy shop, and this one's my new favorite. I love the mocca fabric.