sometimes I make stuff

We have a baby coming in April! No, not ME; my niece is having a baby girl. This weekend I made a dress for her and I have to say I am pretty damned proud of it:

It's the Comfy Jumper Dress from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones book, using Amy Butler fabric, which I'd originally bought to make a bag for my dear pink-loving friend Christina, but then I decided it was waaaay too girlie for her. So I've been waiting for the perfect project; I think I found it.

I'm going to make bloomers to match this too, just as soon as I can make sense of the pattern. Also? Notice the lack of button holes? That's because I can not for the life of me make button holes and the sad thing is, I have a machine that supposed does it in "one easy step!" But I'll be damned if I can figure it out. Luckily this baby's grandma (my sister) is seamstress, so if all else fails I'll send it as is and let her do the button holes. Hey, I did the hard part.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE making clothes for babies and kids. It is almost instant gratification (which appeals to my gnat-like attention span) and also, you can have more fun with fabrics and patterns.

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Last weekend, Christina came for a sleepover sans kiddos, a first! We spent the entire weekend crafting: she had a bunch of felt that she sewed into beautiful colorful flowers and I sewed. It was just like in college, where we became friends spending late nights in the art-studio on campus. She'd hauled her paint-splattered radio up to the studio and we'd set up shop: music, a bottle of wine and we'd spend HOURS working side by side on our projects for textile class. We bonded over fabric and art and creativity, and it was so much fun to get to do it again, 15 years later. I mean, how many friends can you just sit and do something as nerdy as sewing together and have it be totally fun?? It felt like we'd come full-circle.

And over the table covered in bits of fabric and felt and thread and scissors, we began to talk again, as we had in college, about doing something with our creativity. We work in very different ways: she is loose and wild and creative. I am more structured and need patterns. But we have the same sense of style and LOVE to create things for children. And so, we are going to start building inventory and see if we can sell our wares. Christina will paint furniture which she loves to scour the thrift-shops for (step-stools, little desks and tables, lamps etc.) and I will sew. We'll have an etsy shop, but we'd also like to get involved in some craft fairs. We'll see what happens. It's not a novel idea, to be sure, but it will allow us both a creative outlet that we need and will maybe bring in some additional income. I'll keep you posted.