This, that, and a whole lot of sewing.

I've been simultaneously working on so many projects that now that they're finally finished, I'm excited to share!

I'll start with Neely's football-season-is-coming dress. I bought this New Look dress pattern with the intent of making a dress like the one with the tulip applique in the picture, but I wanted to do orange and white and put her initial on the front. What do you think?

It turned out pretty well, except I think I needed some heavier-duty stabilizer under the applique. It's a bit puckered. Oh, that and the thing is huge. I followed the pattern for her height and weight, but it looks like a two-year-old could wear it. I need to try it on Neely.

Then, I had to do bloomers to match. I bought some already made, embroidered her name on them (as you saw the other day), then added bows. I adore the bows!

What's that? You want to see more? Okay. I also made my first attempt at a pillowcase dress. I found this funky pillowcase among the clearance stuff at T.J. Maxx last Christmas. I had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time, but for $2, I couldn't resist. Here you have the $2 pillowcase dress.

Here's the back...or the front if you prefer. It could go either way.

Do we have bloomers to go with this dress? Of course. Here's what I embroidered on them.

And then, because that leftover pillowcase fabric was so cute, and I stock up on little tank tops and what not when they go on sale just for occasions like these, I did a little reverse applique for Maddie.

Then, THEN, we have the piece de resistance. Some of you got to hear me gripe about this little lady. It took me three tries, holding my mouth just so, and the moons aligning to get this applique done without my machine jamming. Minnie requires a heck of a lot of stabilizer. She's on that funny piece of fabric, because she's meant to go in a mug as a gift for our Disney travel agent that I've been running in circles over the past week.

I have a Mickey design, too. I'm going to do Minnie and Mickey t-shirts for the kids for our trip. I know, I know. It's MONTHS away, but I'm giddy with anticipation nonetheless. And there you have it. On this rainy, stormy, tornado-ey day, I've decided to pull out all the stops and blog about all my projects at once. Sorry if I've bored you to tears. Hopefully I can get some extra things done soon and start adding more to my Etsy shop.

The Bloomers

I've finally ordered bloomers to personalize for Neely. I also bought this adorable font and voila! Bloomers. And yes, I'm aware that the name is off-center, but it's very tricky to get elastic-y bloomers into an embroidery hoop. I had to hold onto it while it sewed to keep the opposite side out of the way. I'll get the hang of it soon. This pair is to match a mystery project that I will share soon. :D

Encouragement

For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

~ 2 Corinthians 4:17, NLT

I need to print this out in huge letters and post it in every room of my house. Anybody with me?

Creative Boy

Rather than use them for their intended purpose, Aidan was doing this with his train tracks yesterday...

Making faces! Very creative. Of course, it was right where I was trying to sweep and mop, but we took a picture, relocated them, and he was happy.

Aww...

They're so adorable when the play together.

Neely Lately

I realized earlier today that it's been a little while since I've given a good Neely update. She's getting so big! She's fast approaching 19 pounds. She's a champion crawler. She definitely holds her own against Aidan now, and she loves to explore our house. She's awesome at finding fun things to put in her mouth!

Neely is also trying to stand pretty frequently now. And when she's feeling really brave, she lets go for a few seconds. I'm not really encouraging her to learn to walk just yet. I'm not ready for it! I want to prolong baby phase as much as I can.

She's also started to eat table food. I haven't given her a single thing that she didn't like yet. So far, she's eaten blueberry muffins, oatmeal, a cinnamon roll, strawberries, grapes, mandarin oranges, biscuits, crescent rolls, lasagna, chicken pie, green beans, cheese, lunchmeat, and baked chicken. She already has a longer list of approved foods than Aidan, and we've really only been doing this for a few days. It's so exciting to have a child that eats!

The only other big thing I can think of that's happened lately is talking. She's been saying Mama for a while, and something that sounds like "Yeah." But lately, she's starting saying "baba" when she wants her bottle. She can say "Dada," but she doesn't very often. Once or twice, I thought she said "Hanky." And she's said "bye bye" a couple of times. Cutie cute cute.

Tis the Season...

...for sun tea! Don't have one of these handy jugs? Get the the clearance aisle at your local Wal-Mart. I just got mine today for $3 and immediately put it to work. I haven't made sun tea in YEARS, and I'm anxiously awaiting perfectly brewed sun tea. Yum!