3rd Birthday Hooded Dress

This little girl turned three the other day.

  For her birthday, I made her a knit dress using the pre-made-t-shirt method. I used a store-bought shirt in her size (though strangely the sleeves are too long), cut it at about waist level, added a circle skirt of dotty knit, and added a tier of flowered knit to that. Then I picked out the neckline binding and added a fully lined hood with a slight crossover in the front.

  The hem is finished with lettuce edging (of course) and the hood is framed with a doubled strip of the floral knit, which is also lettuce edged.

  I didn't have enough of the floral fabric left to make it circle-shaped and had to use straight strips, so I though the skirt might not hang well, but for the most part it seems fine.

  Gaiw was very pleased with her dress. =) The dotted fabric and the floral fabric are both from Girl Charlee, and I've used both of them before.

  Then, in addition to the dress, I made a knit hat. =)

  I used this free pattern from Heidi and Finn, but cut three inches off the base of the hat to make it less slouchy, I used the size 3T-6Y size, but I should have used the smallest size as this one is several inches too big for Gaiw. She still loves it though, and looks like an adorable little thug in it. This fabric is a reversible (and oddly fraying) knit from Joann's... it's super soft and almost pillow-y with both layers. I originally bought it to make a shirt but I haven't had time for it yet.

  Gaiw is a very quiet little girl when there are people around.

  She watches everything we do very intently, and learns quickly what is going on.

  Gaiw is extremely stubborn, and will repeat the same activity for months in spite of any discipline.

  She is a sweet snuggler who loves being held, but wiggles all over the place if she sits on your lap.

  She adores sugar in any way, shape, or form, and will literally run in circles if she's had too much.

  Gaiw will very firmly and loudly protest if you do something that she doesn't like, but she's quick to say that she loves something and will proudly tell you that the food you made is 'delishish'.

  She loves clothes and shoes, and often changes 5 or 6 times a day just because she wants to wear a new outfit. I'm looking forward to seeing her grow in this next year. We love this little girl!

I love this photo. =)

  Gaiw requested a 'black' cake with purple frosting for her birthday, which turned out to mean chocolate. I made a basic chocolate cake with a ganache filling. The ganache was more than a little bit difficult... normally it's just two ingredients, cream and chocolate, but I was short on chocolate pieces and spent about an hour figuring out how to make enough for both layers while having it thick enough. I finally got it almost thick enough, but it still oozed out between the layers until I left it in the fridge for a few hours.

  I frosted it with vines, shells, leaves, and pathetic drop flowers. The house was, as usual, way too warm for the frosting and even when the frosting was fresh out of the fridge it was too soft for the flowers, even though it was so thick it was difficult to pipe. I think next time I'll use half as much butter in the recipe so it will be less melty. That, and I'll figure out what is causing my hands to shake so much. Maybe then my drop flowers will actually look like flowers instead of blobs. ;-)

  I still think it turned out cute as long as I squint a bit! =) And it tasted good.

  I still have a couple of Christmas-y things to show you, but I haven't made any new gifts since my last post, and my sewing machine broke again last night when I was trying to sew some channeling closed... I just hope my backup machine doesn't break or I'll really be in a bind! I still have 9 gifts to make, 8 of which are supposed to be sewn. Speaking of which, I'd better go work on those. =)

Thanks for stopping by,