Gifting Season

There is time in a year when everybody surrounding you more than a couple of my friends have babies. I try to make things in advance but this year everything seemed to roll on to me and I fell behind. By the time I sent off the gifts the babies were already 3-4 months old. I am getting slow and lazy.

My friend likes to dress up her boys into handsome things and so I made this Prudent Baby vest but just scaled it down a little. The tutorial was pretty straightforward and took me not more than an hour to make it. I paired it with the floppy tie onesie. Tutorial from here. I also made some bandana bibs but did not take a picture of those.

Then another friend had a baby and I started making another gift. This time I made the cardigan onesie. I saw them popping up on Pinterest and thought they were adorable. As I don't have any boys I decided to try my hand on one for a friend's baby boy. I used this tutorial. It was a great tutorial and the project went quite fast. To add to that onesie I made some interchangeable bow ties. I drafted my own pattern as I couldn't find a baby sized bow tie that kind of looks like it was tied.

Oh, and I threw some bandana bibs in there too. I really like how these bandana bibs look on baby boys. And they should be pretty practical when the baby starts drooling.
I am also finishing another baby boy gift for another friend of mine but cannot show it yet as she does read this blog. Masha, just so you know you will be getting some bandana bibs along with another thing. And I really hope I'm done before G turns 10 years old.

The Story of an Unfinished Dress

This dress waited for its destiny for a couple of months. I cut it out during the April's KCW but never got to finishing it. It laid there on the cutting table untouched for quite a while as I lost my sewing mojo and did not even go to my sewing room. When this happens in the middle of a project I tend to not even finish unfinished things. They just go straight to the to-be-finished pile where they die from the slow and shameful death. I could not do it to this dress, however. I remembered how I promised to Alyssa to finish it and how excited she was to get a new dress. I got to work. It took me a couple of hours to finish it and I really like the result.

The dress is a dress R from this book (Happy Homemade Vol.2). Size 110cm. I used some shirting fabric from my never ending stash.

All the time I was making it I was thinking about reinforcing the front panel with interfacing but when I got to it I totally forgot all about it. Thus the panel is a little bit floppy. The instructions don't say to reinforce the panel which is weird as usually Japanese patterns are very well thought through. Overall, I enjoyed making this dress as I always do with making things from Japanese patterns. It was easy and very straightforward.

Alyssa likes it and it should last her through the summer. It is longer than any of her things and I like it that way. So now onto my long list of things to mend and make/finish.