Becker's First Birthday

  Guess who is 1 year old now!

  This cutie is:

  One whole year ago, she was born in the car on the way to the hospital.

  She's the sweetest and happiest of little girls, and loves to snuggle.

  She's always been able to sleep by herself, as long as she has her fluffy blanket, but she will squeal and laugh with joy when I pop in her room to pick her up.

The car behind her is the one she was born in. =)

  Beckers adores her family and loves to be talked to and held, but is quite shy and won't let many other people hold her. She just sneers at them, and at the world in general.

This is a half-sneer. It's usually more pronounced

  Once she gets used to having you around though, she will babble (real sentences, if you can decipher them!) and squeal at you.

  And you might even get some smiles, as long as you don't get too close.

  I just love this little girl!

  For her birthday, I made her a little tee dress, upcycled from a shirt I bought about 5 years ago for the very purpose of upcycling.

  Her sisters both received upcycled tee dresses on their first birthdays too... but I think my skills in that respect have improved, as evidenced by Booper's dress:

  And Gaiw's dress:

  I didn't have time to draft a pattern, so I used shirt pattern I won in a giveaway a couple of years ago. I used a size 6 month width (Beckers usually wears a 9-month or 12-month width in ready-to-wear), and added the fullest a-line skirt I could eke out of the small tee. I also shortened the sleeves. I wasn't impressed with the directions, which would have led to excessive bulk at the point of the neckline, so I did it my own way and I am pleased with how it turned out.

  I'm not so happy with my twin needle top-stitching, but that's mostly because my sewing machine has a difficult-to-control foot pedal, which results in either not stitching at all, or flying along, and isn't great for detail work.  I also added lace at the waistline and sleeves:

  And I hemmed the skirt with lettuce-edge serging to balance the white accents out, and preserve as much length as possible for my tall girl (18-24 months in length in most clothes...)

  I also made her a pair of Natty Janes! Instead of leather on the soles, I used some soling material, in hopes that she will be walking soon. The shop I bought it from doesn't have the exact stuff I used right now, but they have other soling materials that look like they might work even better.

  I added bows on the toes and altered the sewing order so I would end up with no raw edges on the interiors. It worked decently, but I think that for it to work well, I'd have to use a wider seam allowance on just the lining, to account for the bulk of the seams and turning. I should probably have clipped the curves a little better too. ;-)

  
  Once again, I'm not pleased with my top-stitching, and my sewing machine skipped quite a few stitches on this thick leather, so I had to sew over the same areas several times.... I feel like I definitely could have done a better job on these, but they are cute anyway!

  They fit perfectly in length, with just a tiny bit extra width on my slender-footed baby:

  The dress also fits slightly better than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise!

  It's still not perfect, but it's miles better than all the store-bought clothes she has! She's just too tall and skinny for most clothes!

  I also made her a cake- classic white cake, torted to 4 layers, with pastry cream filling two of the layers and balsamic cherry filling for the center layer. I used a basic buttercream to frost it. Other than being too sweet from the frosting, it tasted amazing!

  I tried out piped ruffles to decorate it, and I think they turned out really well considering the kind of time crunch I was in (such is my life). Next time I'll draw guidelines on first, as in this tutorial (which I found after the fact, of course), but it was really simple and didn't take long.

  Beckers was quite happy to try it:

  She thought about it:

  and decided she liked it:

  The balsamic cherry filling was adapted from this recipe... I doubled the vinegar, halved the cloves, and reduced the thickeners for a jam-like consistency. It's pretty amazing stuff...if you ever get the chance you MUST try the pie in that recipe! It's without question the best pie I've ever tasted.

  Some of Becker's relatives came over to help us celebrate her birthday, and gave her gifts that she loved.

  My sister-in-law knit her a darling sweater with a heart on the front, and my mother-in-love gave her blocks, a counting book, and a doll that she has been dragging around everywhere. =)

  I've heard that she also has a gift coming in the mail from my mom. =)

  Her favorite toy is still my phone though. ;-)

  Happy birthday, little Beckers! I love you!

  Thanks for stopping by,