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Wednesday, 26 December 2012

My baby is 1!

Hannah's birthday was 2 days before Christmas, yep the 23rd.  I hardly had time to put the birthday party left-overs away before Christmas was here and it's gone now too.  Where does all the time go??

Anyway, this Mummy has not enjoyed admitting the fact that my baby is now 1 year old.  And to top it off, the week before her birthday she went from cruising the furniture and taking the occasional step, to full-blown walking.  This left Mummy a little shell-shocked, but she does look so totally adorable when she's walking, so I guess I'll cope!  The cuteness is topped off by the fact that she's a petite little thing, and still has hardly any hair, so she really does look too tiny to walk ... cute factor to the max!!

To help Mummy cope with the birthday and the walking, what better than to put all that emotional energy into making a little birthday dress for the birthday girl?  I used this tutorial, but instead of doing the stripe match-up thing (which I also love) I used this cute spotty fabric, and just cut a 1 piece bodice-front on the fold.  The best thing about this fabric was that I got it off the "clearance table" at Spotlight a few months back for $4 per metre.  Gotta love a cute and inexpensive little birthday dress.

Anyway, in this project I learned how to make a lined bodice (never done that before), and how to use piping.  I was pretty happy with my attempt, but I will admit that I made the bodice twice ... the first time I forgot to add seam allowance when tracing a T-shirt to make a pattern ... yeah, the poor girl could barely breathe when trying it on, and almost needed to be cut out of it ... was a little small ... oops!  So I made a new one, and it fits pretty well.  She looks so cute toddling around in this little darling of a dress.

Then when Bethany saw Hannah's new party dress, she announced that she needed a new dress for Hannah's birthday too, and it should be the SAME!  Was a good thing I bought 2 metres of this fabric ... phew!
Now I really don't love the matchy, matchy, sisters in matching dresses thing all that much.  But I'm also aware that poor Bethany is feeling a little fragile at the moment with so much attention on all the new tricks Hannah is learning, then with Hannah's birthday as well, and all at the same time as pre-school finishing and all her other activities finishing or changing as she prepares to start Big School in February.  So I decided that it would really do no harm to give them matching dresses, and help Bethany to feel special too.  To keep Mummy happy though, I decided it would be a matching, but not TOTALLY matching dress.  I saw this tutorial recently, and decided to give it a go.  I found a cute white fabric, complete with ready-made pin-tucks, ruffles and lace, so all I had to do was decide which direction to cut it in, and try to get the details matching on the front and back of the bodice, and centred too!  Yay for pre-embelished fabrics!

This was probably the trickiest dress I've made (in terms of sewing techniques) to date.  But having said that, it really only took about 1.5 hours including making a bodice pattern by tracing a T-shirt, cutting out the fabric and sewing.  Not bad really.  This one taught me to do a curved bodice, a totally different lined bodice technique and gathered straps / cap-sleeves.  I really love it, and Bethany just looks so beautiful and grown up.

Oh, and do you like Bethany's new modeling pose ... boy that munchkin can be hilarious ... every time we ask her to pose for a photo now, this is what we get with her ankles crossed and hip stuck out ... oh, and the dress is just perfectly matched with those pink gumboots she decided to wear so she could jump in puddles as we watered our new plants!  Funny girl!  Love her!!
I would love to see any pics of other people's matching, but not totally matching sister outfits!!

Then, of course came the cake.  Now with the silly season upon us, and basically no time (I had 1 evening to get the cake decorated), I decided I wouldn't try to be overly creative and come up with my own design, as this was sure to fail as I pushed to get the cake done quickly.  Instead I went with a tried and true design by my amazing friend Jo, as per her book Fondant Fun (available here)!  My absolute fave are the Owl cupcakes ... so simple, yet so effective.

So that's how Mummy distracted herself from celebrated Hannah's 1st brithday!  Happy birthday to my sweet, cheeky, clever and ever-so-cute Hannah! xx

3 comments:

  1. Adorable dresses! Love the fabric. Thanks for linking up!

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  2. These are SO cute! I'm signing up to follow you RIGHT NOW--I have twins born in July 2011 so we have babies in common ;-)

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    1. Thanks Tara, and thanks for following ... oh my goodness, twins ... my hat goes off to you!

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