{a first wedding}

We're back from our weekend of wedding fun in Oklahoma, with great memories and new confidence in Tilly's ability to survive on little sleep. We're thinking of changing her middle name to "Party Animal". 

Luckily, her party dress was finished just in time, and Miss Rufflebottom even had a chance to practice her dance moves in it before we took off. (Good job I snapped a few pics then, as I forgot my memory card for the trip, and so am sadly lacking in photos of the actual wedding!)

What you can't see, concealed by layer upon layer of ruffle, is that I skipped out on using buttons altogether. Instead, we've got snaps. Yes, maybe poor Fiona Bell (the pattern designer) is preemptively rolling over in her grave. And yes, maybe we did have to hastily resnap poor Tilly up a few times during the wedding when she popped open. But it worked in a pinch. 

Much eating, dancing and meeting of family was had. Tilly even tried the wedding cake -- which, it turned out, was an excellent way to give a tired baby a boost of energy at 10pm!

Hope you had a great weekend, too. And that you got a little more rest than our little Party Animal!

{a year in felt}

The tales of Tilly. The fables of felt. Here it is, all ready for her first birthday: a collection of her favourite things, touchy-feely edition.

Care for a peek inside the finished book?

We've got button closure to keep everything neat and tidy when not in use.

There's a little wooden Tilly at the door, out playing in her summer dress.

Tilly's tree is growing well, and the lavender is in bloom.

Bella is drooling over her toys.

The instruments are out, ready to make music noise.

Tilly's first love, the sheepskin she sleeps on, seems destined to be a favourite page.

Kermit, the green hippo who plays musical notes when you bop him on the head (a favourite at bath time) is playing with bubbles.

While ducky floats by, unaware.

And, to mark the occasion, a little embroidered note to the birthday girl.

And what's lovely about a felt book is that after reading, you can simply lay your head down and use it as a pillow. Good night!

By popular request, I will be putting together a kit for a felt book that you can make for your little one. It will include the felt cover and felt pages, templates and instructions for cutting the fun pictures to go inside your book, and a touchy-feely packet of pom-poms, buttons and charms. Watch this space!

{inspiration: photo booth}

Loving this idea of props on sticks from Oh Happy Day (they even have free printables over there for you to make your own). And what's cuter than adults and tiny fluffy dogs all dressed up? Why, babies all dressed up, of course! 

Yes, I'm thinking about having a few props on hand for Tilly's birthday party, for a few laughs. And, for any older children, it might be fun to have some plain white outlines (of bows, for example), so they can colour their own.

P.S. The party dress for Tilly, which is supposed to be worn to a wedding this weekend is no, not made yet, but yes, looking possible. A bit of topstitching here, a join in elastic there, and we'll be made. Fingers crossed that it fits!

{inspiration: grow grow grow}

I've often seen beautiful handmade growth charts for children, though most seem to require a good deal of skill with a hacksaw and a good deal of patience with sandpaper. Neither of which I have. Then this caught my eye -- a patchwork growth chart, quilted, and embroidered with dates, heights, and ages. Much more my cup of tea.

You can find the tutorial over at The Student Teacher -- yes, lots of rather exact cutting, and lots of homemade binding to make, but I'm so excited to pick those 72 patterned squares (each of which represents an inch of height) that I'll overlook the work side of it for now.

What might be really fun to try is matching up fabrics from Tilly's life with different ages. For example, a square of the print from her party dress could be at the height of her first birthday. Favourite newborn outfits or blankets could lend themselves to earlier heights.

Now, how tall do you think Tilly will be by the time I get this finished?!

{it's a date}

At last, the lovely old linen calendar tea towels are taking shape... as strings of bunting. 

I'm thinking that it'd be fun to hang them up for celebrations throughout the year, from New Year's Day,

to Valentine's Day,

to April Fool's Day,

to the 4th of July,

and, a touch of orange for Halloween!

Yes, almost every date is covered! It almost makes me want to find something -- National Fish Finger Day, Cadbury's Appreciation Day -- to celebrate every day of the year.

{make it work}

I have new respect for Project Runway contestants.

A whole day to make a dress? That doesn't sound too hard, I'd always thought. It's not like they need to feed the kids, do the washing, and clean their fabric off the kitchen table afterwards.

But, this one little baby dress has had me up at night poring over the instructions, has had me in tears of frustration when I thought I'd sewn the armholes closed, and in tears of joy when I realised I'd actually done it right and wouldn't have to chop Tilly's arms off to fit her into it.

So far, the top of the dress is done, complete with ruffles, and I'm just trying to work out how to sew buttonholes so I can proceed with the undergarments. Any tips?

(No, unfortunately, my machine won't just do it...)

On second thought, maybe it's good as it is -- it can be her belly-dancing shirt.

In case you're wondering, the pattern is by Fiona Bell, of British kids' label Their Nibs. Here is the same dress in a lovely rose print in their online shop, (going for 28 pounds, if I might add). Beautiful.

{get fresh}

Today, I made something practical. (Shock! Horror!)

Reusable bags for our fresh fruits and veggies, from white tulle. With a little stamping for personality. 

Yum.

{tilly tuesdays: volume one}

Every Tuesday for forty-eight weeks, each week since she was born, I've been taking a portrait of Tilly.

And creating a little handmade book for this year of Tuesdays couldn't have been easier. (So easy, I couldn't possibly bore you with photos of the process -- i.e. blank paper. Instead, you get a peek at Tilly's book of Tuesdays!)

Materials: 13 sheets of white cardstock, a sheet of patterned scrapbook paper, 52 photographs, a glue stick (or however you like to stick in photographs), a hole punch, string and a black pen.

Isn't it the best feeling when you already own all the supplies?

Each sheet of cardstock was simply folded in half, and then punched with the hole punch about 3" from each edge.

The pages were numbered by week, the photos were glued in on the centre of each page (and cropped slightly if they happened to be landscape).

The finished pages were stacked together and placed on top of the sheet of scrapbook paper. I drew around the pages, creating a cover which was about 1/4" wider than the card on every side, and then cut out the cover. Using the holes in the card as a guide, I marked where to make holes in the cover, and then punched them both.

String was threaded through the holes, starting outside the cover and going through to the middle, then up to the top hole and through back to the outside. I put the string through twice, and tied a knot so that it sat in the middle of the book. (But outside, on the spine, would work, too)

At the bottom of some pages, I marked special things that happened that day. For example, on week thirty-six, Tilly tried her first IKEA meatball. A major milestone in our family.

It's been a great way to see how she's changed over the year, and a wonderful way to display those "everyday" photos -- the ones that aren't always astounding quality (ahem, iPhone effects), aren't always of special events, aren't particularly memorable moments, but sum up daily life at that age.

The one thing that many of the photos have in common is Tilly's expression -- an expression I now recognise as a concentrated, determined effort to get her hands on the camera!

Yes, I'll need to work on getting a few more smiles in the future!

Today, Tuesday, is forty-eight weeks. What a shock it was to see a mere four blank pages left in this year!

{kid's clothes week}

If you've been following along with kid's clothes week over at elsie marley this week, you'll be aware that it's already day seven. As in, finish up. Scissors down. The end. I would love to have a beautiful finished something to show you. Or even an ugly, badly-sewn finished something to show you. 

But no. Instead, this is my progress, after a week:

The book has been opened. The pattern has been printed. The pieces have been cut. The end. Not one stitch has been sewn, so far, on the designer baby bubble dress that is to be Tilly's party outfit. But all eight -- yes, eight -- of the ruffles have been cut out, and I have a feeling this will either be the most impressive thing I've ever created, or the most impressive thing I never create...

{on the needles: patchwork cushion}

Cool sea blues, lime-in-a-Corona greens, whipped-cream whites. 

Perhaps there is such a thing as summer knitting.

[inspiration: below the red kite}

Textile artist, Janet Bolton, seems to agree with my theory on colour: every piece of art needs some red!

This beauty, "Below the Red Kite" makes me so excited for my parents, who are just about to move back to the English coast, and for our upcoming family holiday to the sea in Denmark. Oh, to walk along a sandy beach in a loose red dress!

{may's wreath}

Maybe it's all the hotdogs I've eaten lately, but mustard yellow is top of my colour chart at the moment. Barbeques, sunny afternoons, shorts and flip-flops.

Well, with a bit of ketchup red in there too, of course!

And knitters, don't worry about using up your precious yarns -- the wool is wrapped around the wreath in one long strand, so it is still useable afterwards. Just unwrap it, and replace with different yarn when needed!

(Inspired by this tutorial)

{a love story in two parts}

As our third wedding anniversary approaches, I'm planning a little book of us -- a handmade little collection of memories of how Justin and I met, our first date, our trips together, our story.

The problem with writing our story is that there are many details that we remember differently. Justin would say that we met on my birthday, a week into the fall semester; I would swear that we met four days after my birthday, the weekend before classes started. Maybe you and your partner are the same way?

So, I thought I'd try to come up with a way to tell the story from both points of view. How he tells it, how I tell it, next to each other. The whole truth.

At the moment, we're still in the data collection phase. I've jotted down a few prompts -- when, where, favourite parts -- and packed one copy up for Justin to take off on his next business trip. Yes, complete with a pen, so there's no excuse for him not to fill them out!

How exactly it'll come together, I'm not sure yet. Hand-written, printed? With photos, souvenirs, and maps? I've been itching to try binding books -- any advice, for a complete beginner?