whooooo's back at the sewing machine?

muahahahahahahaha.  yup, i managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing time in the last few days.  with the excitement of the teen's birthday, all the junior league crap, and cousin r's birthday behind me, i was finally able to work on a couple of projects i've had sitting around for a while.

my friend mrs. client is about to be a grandma for the first time, any day now.  her beautiful daughter is due to deliver what will most likely be an equally gorgeous baby girl, and i wanted to send a little something from us.  after an quickie surprise visit with the soon-to-be granny, i decided to get a little matchy-matchy and bought some super cute girly owl-patterned fabric since that's the nursery theme.

i turned to my tried-and-true newborn itty-bitty baby dress from my friend rae.  and this time, i decided it was time to learn how to get that darn piping sewn in properly at the bottom of the bodice.  after checking out this video, i finally got it right.  yippee!  and i threw in a matching blanket too, which took me literally 15 minutes to cut, pin, and sew.

after checking my stash of trumpette socks, i was stoked to see that i had a pair that went perfectly:

cute, right?  i'm throwing in a copy of goodnight, moon and putting it in the mail to phoenix pronto.  i'm so proud of myself for finally getting a baby gift sewn and mailed before the baby is born.  it's a first!

when i bought that owl fabric, the bean was with me (and actually helped choose it).  of course, she begged for me to make her a dress with it, too, so i made sure to buy enough yardage to cover all three projects.  and after perusing my superlong list of bookmarked links for cute dresses, i settled on this one - the yorkshire mini.

and failed.  miserably.  BAH!  even the bean thought it was hilarious.

son of a... those sleeves are a freaking disaster.  but only because they're so damn big - at least now i can say i've done them.  i'd always tried to stick to sleeveless or strap-style tops before.  i was pretty terrified of sewing sleeves, and now i can try other stuff.

now let's see if i can salvage at least the skirt and make something actually wearable with it.  send good thoughts.