Six!

My little girl turns six today! Here's a snapshot of little Abner at six:

Her two lower front teeth show signs of being almost ready to come out but that's about it. Still a full set of baby teeth flashing every time she smiles.

She learned to read last year and has never looked back. Her favourites are Ivy & Bean, Junie B. Jones, Judy Moody, Clarice Bean and just about anything she can get her hands on. She read her first Judy Blume book last year - I don't think I read my first one until I was a teenager! One of my favourite things in the world is to hear Abner giggling from her room as she reads her books before bed.

She has the slightest of Kiwi accents but pretty much still sounds like a Canadian through and through.

She started getting pocket money (an allowance) at the beginning of the year and she has so far spent all of her money on stationery products. Seriously. Every thing she's bought can either write or be written on. It's an obsession.

She loves, loves, loves listening to music. Her tastes range from John Denver and James Taylor (yup. really.) to the Village People and Queen (that's my girl) to Walk Off the Earth and Avicii. Oh, and of course, Frozen (so much Frozen!)

Happy birthday to my sweet little girl.

Birthday round up

It was party time for us this weekend. Abner chose to have a small party taking just a couple of friends to the  Discovery part of the Otago Museum (it's a bit like Science World/Centre for those of you back home). We've held off on going since it costs a chunk of change whereas the rest of the museum is free/by donation. So, it was extra special for her to finally get to go for her birthday with her friends.

It was a perfect choice since the weather was miserable for the party and we got to stay cozy and warm playing with the displays and checking out the butterfly exhibit. We even got to watch the day's first flight (where a batch of new butterflies are released into the exhibit). The kids also got to experience butterflies landing on them...Abner only freaked out once.

Once we'd had our fill at the museum, we headed back to the house where the parents joined us for tea and cake, we opened gifts and, I handed out this year's handmade party favours. This year I hand stitched motifs onto long sleeves shirts for each kid. For Abner's shirt, I used one of her own drawings as inspiration. She's been doing these swirly flowers for a while now and I absolutely love them. She loves having one of her drawings on a shirt.

Other than that, Abner spent a good chunk of the weekend practicing riding her new big girl bike - a gift from The Dear Sweet Husband and me. It's borderline too big at the moment, but at least it will last a while and she's getting the hang of it quickly. Her run/balance bike was awesome and all, but it didn't do much to teach her about brakes. Ah well...falling off your bike a few times is all part of growing up, right?

A handmade birthday

Call me crazy, but I let a group of preschoolers colour on the pillows today. Don't worry - I haven't completely gone off my rocker. The scribbling was part of the craft/party favour we did for Abner's birthday party today. I wisely prepared the pillows in advance with the initial for each little guest and left one side open to pop in the pillow form and sew them closed during the party. (Yes, I actually planned to sew during a party - I'm that hardcore about handmade.) I taped each girl's empty pillow case to the floor in our basement and let them loose with a couple of packs of fabric markers. They were beyond cute with all the polite sharing and 'ohhhs' and 'ahhhhs' over each other's work. The girls seemed to love their pillows and I'm sure ours will be a treasured item for years to come.

The other little item each guest received was a little lunch bag with a few goodies inside. I couldn't resist giving a few store-bought items along with the handmade. It's all about balance after all. The idea for the packaging came from Pinterest (though it seems I never actually pinned the link). The girls looked super cute heading home with their little bags and pillows. Another handmade birthday success!

Oh, and the fabric is Clifford's Puppy Days in ecru by Quilting Treasures in case you're wondering.

four!

happy birthday to the sweetest little goofball I know!

Buddha bowls

Are you a bowl or a plate kind of person? Me, I'm a bowl kind of gal. There's just something so comforting about eating food out of a bowl - especially the new Buddha Bowls The Dear Sweet Husband got me for my birthday this past weekend. Suddenly every food feels like comfort food.

The force is strong with this quilt

Behold -- my first Star Wars quilt!

Well, okay, it's actually Clone Wars, not Star Wars. Whatever. Meet Commander Wolffe - the leader of the 104th Battalion's famed Wolfpack squad (never having watched Clone Wars, I'll have to assume Wookieepedia knows what its talking about). All I know is that he is my nephew's favourite Star Wars character and I had to find a way to immortalize him (Cmd. Wolffe, not my nephew) in quilt form.

After staring at this image for an hour or so, I sketched out this pattern for a 40 x 50 inch quilt:

The design is simply the Cmd. Wolffe helmet pixelated in 2-inch squares -- over 500 of 'em. I managed to piece the entire top in a single day and applique the accents a day later.

To quilt, I opted to tape out each colour area and outline each area in complementary handstitching.

The back is a Clone Wars sheet taken from the bedding set my brother bought ages ago for my nephew. I love how the quilting can be seen quite well on the back so it's kind of like Cmd. Wolffe is on both sides of the quilt.

The whole quilt came together so beautifully. I can't wait to make another one. Wouldn't Boba Fett or Yoda  look awesome as pixel quilts? No, no...wait...R2D2! Oh man. I think I may be addicted to making pixel quilts.

Anyhow, my family Skyped me in for the big reveal after Easter dinner tonight. I gotta say, I think my nephew really likes his new quilt. Auntie of the year, I am.

Party favour pouches

Saw a cute little tutorial to make little treat bags on Prudent Mama a while back and filed it away to try out for Abner's birthday. I can't tell you how wrong it felt to sew paper on my sewing machine! But, the results are so adorable!

I filled each pouch with a small handful of Mike & Ikes (and then proceeded to eat the remaining enormous bag I'd bought all by myself!). If you're planning to try this out yourself, be forewarned that you don't need much to fill each pouch! These were great for the little kids because they can easily open the pouches by themselves and you can use any paper that tickles your fancy!

The gift of a name

Life is a bit crazy at the moment, so just a quick pop in to show you all a little handmade giftie I whipped up for our little friend Cole who recently turned three. I love this idea for decorating with a name. Besides, any sewing project where I get to use a hammer is a winner in my book!

The idea was borrowed from a friend [who I think borrowed it from somewhere else...my apologies if you originally created this idea...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.]

Birthday and letter bags

We celebrated Abner's birthday this past weekend. With all the crappy weather we've been having, it was a gamble whether we'd be in the park or in the party room (again). Thankfully, we had fantastic weather and the kids were able to run around like crazy chickens before feasting on nummy lunch and cake (carrot cake made by TDSH, of course!) and opening gifts (sort of).

True to form, I chose to make party favours for each of Abner's little friends rather than buying things from the dollar store or wherever. I used this great little tutorial from Kim of Retro Mama that I found on Craft Snob to make up custom monogrammed tote bags for each party guest.

I'm not going to lie...it took a while to prepare all of the bags I needed (thank goodness some kids weren't able to make it!) Choosing the corresponding fabrics for each bag was the best part, especially since all of the fabrics came from my scrap bag.

The finished bags were each stuffed with a colouring book and a few little treats and hung from a tree. They looked beautiful hanging in the bright sun and were as much a decoration as they were a party favour.

I'm not sure about the other kids, but I know Abner has already been getting a lot of use out of her little "A" bag.

Birthday pillowcases for the anniversary quilt

A couple of weeks ago my mom turned sixty-mindyourownbusiness, so I took the opportunity to make up some pillowcases to match the anniversary quilt I made for my parents this summer. I knew they were something she wanted, so it wasn't a huge surprise for her.

The pillowcases themselves certainly weren't hard to make, but did take an astounding amount of fabric. Actually, getting the fabric was the hardest part of the whole project. Knowing that several months had passed, I wasn't optimistic about finding all ten of the fabrics I'd used on the quilt. For the past few months, every time I went to Fabricana, I'd keep my eyes open for the various fabrics I'd used in the quilt. In the end, I managed to get my hands on six of the fabrics, plus the same extra-wide fabric I'd used on the quilt backing.
The end result is lovely, don't you think?

By the way, this is actually how my parent's bedroom looks most of the time...seriously. I didn't stage this at all. It really does look like a showroom ready for a photo shoot. Yeah, it's hard to believe we're related sometimes.

From us to you: Another pillowcase dress

Ages ago - back when I used to actually do some sewing - I wisely pre-made a number of items to give away as birthday gifts. It's nice to know that at one time, in the not-so-distant past, I was smart enough to think ahead like that.

Anyhow, one such item is this adorable little pillowcase dress. I didn't follow any instructions like I did on my previous pillowcase dresses and I think I actually like the result a bit better.

All I did was chop off the closed end of the pillowcase, cut some armholes with my rotary cutter, hem the armholes, fold over and sew down the cut top edge to make a channel for the drawcord, and feed in the bias tape I used as a drawcord. Okay...it sounds like more work than it was. Probably a 30-minute job at the most.

This little dress was given away just last weekend to an adorable little three-year-old. I hope she gets many years of use out of it - first as a dress and later as a top - that is the beauty of a pillowcase dress!