{the signature tablecloth: year one}

You saw Tilly's birthday tablecloth when it was just a bit of fabric. Then you saw it getting drawn on with black Sharpie by our friends and family at Tilly's first birthday party. Now, here it is, fully decked out in many many stands of white embroidery thread. 

As I said, the idea is get everyone who celebrates Tilly's birthday with us to sign the cloth. And each year, I will embroider over the names in a different colour, creating a record of all our lovely guests for Tilly to look back on.

Yes, ALL the guests... Bella was included, even though she spent the entire party in our bedroom feeling sorry for herself. (Don't be sad for her -- she got to have Tilly's uneaten Cream Bomb cake!)



As a last touch, I drew around Tilly's hand, and added her age to the centre of it. I'm sure she'll enjoy signing in her own way in the future (I know I loved to practice my signature when I was little -- so much so that I still use the same juvenile star shape now. Yes, I've had cashiers laugh at me. No, I'm not changing it).

And, of course, her friends will start signing by themselves, too. We're not going anywhere anytime soon, so I'm hopeful that we'll see many of the same names next year, too.

I'll admit, some of our guests put my sewing skills to the test. I just hope I did their artwork justice!

Recently, someone asked me if I'm already planning next year's party, to which I replied that, no, unfortunately, every year will most probably be downhill from here. But, as I think about it, much of the work this year is going to be reused every year. Tilly's birthday crown will be worn again next year (and hopefully won't be falling down over her eyes), as will her felt envelope, and the growth chart. As for the birthday badge and party dress -- they're for the next little Slagle!

And, I think that officially marks the end of all things birthday. Hurray! (Although we seem to have bought the world's longest lasting balloons -- two weeks later, our living room is still full of them. I can't bear to pop them... perhaps there'll be here to reuse next year, too!)

{in a bind}

Patchwork binding. What was I thinking?

I cut out hundreds of 2x4s, but still had to go back twice and cut more. Stitching them together was the fun part, but attaching the binding was an absolute nightmare. I'm a total binding noob (as my brother would say) anyway, but trying to do mitred corners with a four inch wide strip of patchwork was actually impossible. Not just messy, but standing up like a basket. So, snip snip snip, I cut the whole strip of binding in half, and traded in bigger squares of patchwork round the edge for corners I could live with.

(Plus, I now have a bonus strip of 2" wide binding to use on something else. Score!)

So, what actually is it, you ask? Well, it's a birthday table runner for Tilly.

But there's a twist. 

I'm going to ask all of our party guests this year to sign it, and then I'll stitch over their names. And then I'm going to ask everyone who celebrates her second birthday with us next year to sign it, and on and on for every birthday, until we have one piece of fabric with every single birthday guest's name embroidered onto it.

I'm thinking I'll use a different colour of thread for each year, or perhaps have a different section of the runner for each year. The exact details aren't worked out yet. But the binding is, and after that, everything will seem like a piece of (birthday) cake...