skirt

My
friend, Jill, has two cute little girls and she always has them dolled
up to the nines.  (And she's the best hair-bow-maker around — a new
bow for every outfit.)  Jill watched Charlotte a couple of
times a week last year.  During that time her girls became like sisters
to Charlotte — and Jill really did a great job of keeping them all
busy and entertained with swimming, carousel-ing, park-time, etc.  So,
as a heart-felt thank you to Jill, I designed her girls some matching,
skirty outfits.

The tee shirts — Talk
about a high impact-to-effort ratio, decorating tee-shirts can be
easy-peasy.  I fused floral elements from my Rose Bouquet print from
Pop Garden to each store-bought tee shirt using fusible web.  I then
stitched around the edges of each fused piece (with a ball-point needle
installed in my machine to prevent holes from forming in the knit
material.)  There are at least three or four flowers in this print that
make perfect appliques. 

The two skirts — I had a lot of fun putting the fabric combinations together.  I wanted them to match each other, but not really match.  I didn't draft a pattern as they're just sewn from various
rectangles.  I probably should have jotted down some measurements as I went. 
However, my friend Jona does have pattern for a similar skirt all
ready to go – The Edith Twirl.  (Check out the embroidery on those
Edith under-skirts.)

The floral print in the skirt above is probably my favorite print from Pop Garden.  It's
soft and romantic, yet electric and sassy.  And the ziggity Zag Stripe to the right is entirely too fun to sew
with.  I still need to bind a quilt in this print and see what it does.
Fussy-cut quilt blocks made with this fabric could result in some
interesting effects too.  More sewing, more sewing.

I'm not sure if I
scratched that dern sewing itch well enough with this one project, but
I expect to do more sewing once my next fabric collection is off to the
mill here soon. And OH, it's pretty.  And sweet. 
Sweet and pretty.  That's all I'm going to say.  Like that
housekeeper-lady says in The Parent Trap, "I'm not saying a word."

What else, what else?  OH!  I should have mentioned this first —
yikes.  Tara's baby girl, Grace, was born this week!!  And she's
stinkin' beautiful.  Which is really unfair to the other bruised,
swollen newborns in the nursery.  I mean, come on — tilting, exotic
eyes, high cheekbones, a perfectly-shaped head covered with beautiful,
dark hair.  At three weeks early, we were only caught slightly
off-guard.  Isaac's been phone-interviewing for a new Office Assitant
this week and then final interviews are next week.  Tara will be back
in a few months in a new position.  We'll miss her while she's away
smooching on that sweet, new baby.

We're really overlapping about five or six projects at the
moment.  And as I'm not so great at falling asleep when I'm excited
about a project – or six projects, imagine my self-satisfaction at
rolling out of bed on time this morning for my 8 o'clock tap class —
jazz hands!  : )

And then there's the yard.  Wednesday
was Fill-the-Raised-Garden-with-Dirt Day.  Thursday was
Move-the-Big-Rocks-Around Day.  (Isaac might as well have been at
Disneyland.  He wouldn't climb down from that bulldozer for anything.) 
Yesterday was Rake-the-Dirt-All-Smooth Day.  And today has been
Form-the-Perfectly-Curved-Curbing Day.  Isaac's ready to move onto
Install-the-Five-Valve-Sprinkler-System Day, but I'm entirely ready for
a break, so we've pacted to give ourselves a week of
Avoid-the-Yardwork-Alltogether Days so we can celebrate
Get-Back-to-What-We-Should-Have-Been-Doing Day – which may evolve into
a week-long celebration in the end.

And
I'm looking to do March of the Tools again this year.  One more day
till March.  There are a number of gizmos, gadgets, thing-a-majigs and
who-z-whatzits I'm excited to share.  I'll have the badge back up in my
sidebar later today.  I'd love for you to join me – yes, please join
me.  Infact, email me to let me know you're doing March of the Tools
too and I'll post a link to your blog on the March of the Tools page so we can all see who is playing along and get some leads on new, must-have tools.