Baby Clothes Bonanza for Blondie's little girl

Much like I did for Vino, I stitched up a bunch of clothes for Blondie's little princess. Even though I love pink, I specifically shied away from sewing pink clothes for her figuring that she would get more pink stuff than she knew what to do with at the shower. Let's just say I wasn't incorrect in my assumption. ;)

First up, my favorite baby gift of late - a minky blanket and coordinating Bedtime Story Pajamas from Oliver + S. I fell in love with this ladybug minky fabric last year and bought a ton of it for my stash. It was nice to use some of it for my bff.

I chose a coordinating red and black quilting cotton for the pajamas. While I thought it might have been too loud at first, it got rave reviews from my co-workers, and Blondie liked them as well.

Blondie and Chaz are huge Chargers fans and I thought it was only right that their little girl have an appropriate outfit to wear to help cheer on the team next year. I've made Butterick 3782 before and I still think it's a winner. This particular version was made from a mid-weight white stretch denim and Chargers quilting cotton. I cut everything on single layer to get the patterns situated just so, although I miscalculated a bit on the back. Oh well, at least I made sure to get the logo right on the booty of the diaper cover. ;) Blondie reported back that this was Chaz's favorite gift. I can't imagine why....

Lastly, I wanted to make a quintessential summer dress for the little gal. I stumbled across Heather Ross Mendocino Swim Class fabric in Pacific and absolutely fell in love with it. It screamed summer, but also felt chic and not too childish. The problem, of course, is that this fabric is now discontinued and only sold on the secondary market. Hmph. I really tried to find something else, but I kept coming back to the Swim Class fabric. I finally just bit the bullet and ordered 2 yards from an Etsy seller - one for this dress and one for my stash. Hey, if I was going to go to all the trouble to get this fabric, I wanted some for me, too.

Can I just tell you that not only is this print adorable in person, but the fabric itself is amazing. It's a beautiful crisp cotton with a slightly brushed feel. Even after a tumble in the washer and dryer, it maintained it's character. I really wish I had been sewing when this line was first released. I think I would have bought the entire line, no joke.

Anyways... the dress. I knew I wanted a classic sundress - round neck, sleeveless, big gathered skirt - and ultimately settled on Simplicity 3854. When I first cut out and sewed up the skirt portion, I really thought I had made a mistake. I could have worn the thing as a (very short!) skirt, it was that wide around. However, once I started the gathering and got it attached to the bodice, I fell in love. LOVE! You guys, I think this might be my favorite thing I've sewn to date. Like, I've already warned Blondie that if we ever have a daughter, I totally want to borrow this back from her. I made sure to finish everything with french seams or bias tape so there isn't a raw seam to be found. I really love the juxtaposition of the formal dress shape with the casual quirky cotton fabric. The deep machine hem on the skirt also adds to the balance. This really feels like something that would be sold in a baby boutique, so I was pretty much thrilled to be able to give it as a gift.

One last touch was adding a baby bolero (from the same pattern) in aqua cotton. I think a bit of piping might have dressed it up, but I was very under the gun, so self-bias tape had to do.

Not clothing and I had to break my "no pink" rule here, but I did make her a set of flannel-backed burp clothes. I knew that the nursery was pink and brown and thought she might appreciate that at least one thing that I made matched her theme. Again, this is becoming a favorite baby gift item - easy to make, useful and super cute!

So, it is a damn good thing we had Blondie's shower when we did. The following Saturday morning, at 36 weeks, her water broke and by lunch that day, she was cradling her daughter MJ in her arms. :) I was able to go and see her after Thanksgiving and OMG, she is so teeny tiny and absolutely precious. Blondie and Chaz are smitten and I can see why. Blondie is a trooper and we still made it out for a bit of Black Friday shopping with Sporty where she was able to get a bag of tiny little clothes for MJ. Needless to say, they didn't have a whole lot of newborn stuff on hand so now she is all set for winter. I figure it's only a few years before Blondie's daughter will start to join us on our crazy after-Thanksgiving shopping excursions. Puts a smile on my face just thinking about it. :)

It's a baby shower for Blondie!

Last weekend was the second of two baby showers that I've helped to plan this fall. This one, a Beatrix Potter Tea Party for Blondie, who is due with her first baby, a little girl, in December. I've been working with Blondie's sister, Sporty, throughout the fall to get things coordinated for the shower. While this one was a bit more stressful to get together and resulted in little sleep for Sporty and I, it was still a great event.

I headed down to San Diego after rehearsal on Friday and found Dressing Queen and Sporty hard at work on the food prep. Thank God for Dressing Queen - she generously volunteered to help with the food at the end of Vino's shower and we quickly took her up on the offer. While Sporty and I had a good outline of what we wanted to do, it was great to have Dressing Queen offer her expertise and to clean up the final menu. I love to cook and all, but things have been so crazy this fall that it was a blessing to have someone else really pulling the food stuff together.

After a yummy dinner from Sporty's mom, we got down to business putting together the favors and tissue poms. Oh, the tissue poms. Yes, they're adorable and in the end, I'm so happy we used them, but oh my. They took for-ev-er to assemble. We we're punchy by the end and it looked like the kitchen table had exploded with tissue paper balls. Heh.

The next morning we were up super early to get everything ready. Vino, Dressing Queen and their mom Crafty joined us as well and between the 6 women (including Sporty's mom) and the two guys we recruited for brawn, it all came together right as the first guests were arriving. Nothing like cutting it close. ;)

Sporty's mom has several sets of beautiful china that she has collected over the years. She happily let us use them for the shower. Each table was set with a different pattern and I think that they fit the theme beautifully.

Hard at work in the kitchen!

Appetizer Table

We also had a full spread for lunch - 2 tea sandwiches, chicken salad in cucumber cups, spinach salad, but I completely neglected to take pictures of it. Oops. :/

Dessert was mini NY-style cheesecakes with strawberries and pumpkin spice cheesecakes.

The happy grandmas-to-be

Games and gifts

Group Pics

It was a such a fun afternoon and I think Blondie had a great time. Blondie, I'm so excited for you and can't wait to meet your little girl in just a few weeks. :)

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Our group has now planned almost a dozen parties together for one another - baby showers, bridal showers, birthday parties, etc. The moms always joke that we should just go into business together already. We all just laugh it off, but I think that after planning these two showers practically back to back, it was a thought that seriously crossed my mind. Realistically, we all just live too far apart to ever consider it for real, but I've never met a group of women who are able to plan events so efficiently and without any drama. We all just seem to feed off of one another's ideas and visions and the events develop and grow in ways that always appear to be more than the sum of their parts. Sure, we all put in a ton of work to make the parties beautiful and special, but it's always more fun than it should be and I look back after all of the hard work and am so happy with the final product. I love these girls so much and am so happy to consider them all friends and partners in crime. It'll be nice to have a bit of a break, but let's get back on the party bandwagon soon ladies. Anyone up for starting to think about 1st birthday party themes for the wee ones? ;)

Ramble, Ramble

Life is hectic this week. Well, technically, it's been hectic for several weeks and it's going to continue to be nutty until November 21st, but this week is particularly bad. Rehearsals and baby shower prep and mother-in-law's birthday all falling right at the same time. I'm pretty surprised that I've been able to keep it all together so far, but my head is just a jumbled mess of thoughts and to-do lists. For example:

* I'm like the queen of flat tires recently. I'll take full responsibility for one of them, but I've had like 5 or 6 this past year and the rest were so not my fault. Another one this week in the middle of everything else that's going on about set me over the edge. Thankfully, the lovely techs at the dealership got everything fixed quickly and free of charge, right before I lost my mind.

* Love that the holidays are upon us, but don't have much brain space to enjoy the season just yet. Soon though. I'm already planning what goodies I want to bake/assemble later this month. The list is long. Like that's a shock to anyone.

* Starbucks red cups are back!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!!!

* I'm knee-deep in rehearsals (more on that later this month) and while it's a lot of extra time and stress on the body, I'm loving it. I love the people that are on the team, I love the work that we're doing and I love being reminded of my high school days where practices and rehearsals were a common occurence. Even the small act of pulling out my old beater dance bag has put a smile on my face. I think we're all feeling a bit worn out at this point, but I'm making sure that I sit back and really soak it all in and enjoy the process right now. I know that once it's over and it's back to "normal" life, I'm going to miss it so very much.

* Since I don't have time to go to a spa right now, but could really use a little extra zen in my life, I picked up some lavendar bath gel and lotion. Wish I had bought it weeks ago. Perfect way to unwind after a long, long day. Hot shower, lavendar bath stuff, comfy clothes - yup, perfection.

* Putting the finishing touches on the gifts for Blondie's baby shower and I've absolutely fallen head over heels in love with one of the dresses I made for her. Like, if we ever have kids, I'm totally asking her to borrow it. How sad is that?! It's just a perfect marriage of pattern, fabric and finishing techniques that add up to one kickass dress. Pictures soon. Once the shower is done though, I'm taking a couple of weeks to just sew for me. Me me me me me. ME. And the projects that I'm wanting to tackle first are somewhat boring, but that's okay. At least they'll be for me. ;)

* I really need more hours in the day. Even just one or two would be fabulous. I'm guessing that I'm not the only one that feels this way.

* Haven't had a real conversation with Jim since sometime last week. Why, you ask? He's away at his first real trial and has been just as stressed and over-run with work as me. At least I've been getting 5ish hours of sleep a night compared to his 2-3 hours. Eeek! He's home this afternoon just in time for his mom's birthday dinner. I miss him, but at the same time, it's probably good that both of our hectic weeks happened at the same time. At least I know I'll see him tonight and at Thanksgiving. Heh.

Okay, well after that brain dump I feel better. And now, back to the never-ending to-do list. Wheeee!