My first wearable item!

There should be a rule that you can't live or work anywhere within a fifteen mile radius of a craft store. That way you aren't tempted to go there on your lunch break and wonder aimlessly for an hour, picking out items that you don't really need but simply can't resist because it's cute/onsale/your lunch hour and you have nothing better to do!

I picked up this pattern for a steal at Joann a little while back.

(Simplicity 3835)

Simple, versatile, and cheap. Just how I like it. I fell in love with this weird bark-looking fabric and voila! My very first garment.

I am so darn proud of this thing, too. Even though it was probably the easiest thing anybody could ever make. I'm currently working on another shirt using the 3/4 sleeve with the tie. And I have plans to make one of the dresses with the same bark fabric. Overkill? I don't care. I just love it! This could very easily become an addiction.

Somebody got woken up from their nap and is not happy about it.

Birthday boys

I have two nephews with birthdays later this month. Andrew is turning two, and Reed will be one!

For Andrew I made this cute little crayon roll.

This was made using the tutorial from Skip To My Lou and some scrap fabric. The closure is just a hair tie. My sister, Nikki (Andrew's mom) is due in August with her second little boy and I figured the rubber band would be the easiest thing for her to manage with her hands full of precious boys!

For Reed I made this big-boy hooded towel, modeled by Oscar the Ikea lamp.

The towels are from Target. They are super soft, reversible, and they have really cute stripes: no embellishments necessary. Now the problem is... this thing is huge. HUGE! I'm really not looking forward to taking a seam ripper to these plush towels so I keep trying to convince myself that A) he'll grow into it. I mean, my brother-in-law is nearly 7 feet tall and Reed already seems to be taking after his dad. And B) he'll look really stinkin' cute being swallowed by this enormous cloak.

Not convinced, huh? Ok, I'm going to have to make some edits.

Now, this probably wasn't the smartest idea, but considering that my entire to-do list consists of items to make for other people, I figured it couldn't hurt to work on a little something for myself...

Drool.

I've had these fabrics for about a month and I finally started to cut into them last night. I think I spent a good three hours picking these out on sew, mama, sew! and that's exactly how many hours a day I spent staring at these longingly. It was so hard to cut into them, but I just had to keep reminding myself that I'll still get to stare longingly when it's a finished quilt on my lap.