Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Party Planning

My son turns four on Saturday (can he be that old?) and has requested a mermaid party. OK, he actually asked his Papa, who is the chef in these parts, to make him a mermaid birthday cake, and Mama sort of took the idea and ran. He is a mermaid-loving boy, so tonight I made him a special birthday shirt. (I'd love to credit where I first saw this idea, but for the life of me I can't remember...)

This shirt is one of my first attempts at machine applique using a satin stitch and I think it turned out all right. The four was pretty easy - lots of straight lines, but outlining Ariel was considerably harder, so she 's far from perfect. But I know one little guy who will love it anyway and that's all that matters in the end.



I also made another pants bag recently. This time out of a size-four capris I picked up at the thrift shop for a quarter. A quarter! How could I leave them there? They had "Make me into a bag," written all over them. When I told my friend Miranda about my plans she said, "Oh good, I was worried you were going to actually wear those."

I decided to make longer handles this time so it's more of a tote and I am really happy with how it turned out. (The handles are black fabric and turquoise gros grain ribbon.) I have a zipper to sew into the top, but it is going to have to wait until all the merpeople (A.K.A. grandparents in from out of town) leave early next week. For now the party planning continues. I'm heading upstairs to work on the napkins. Have I mentioned how much I love having a serger???

8 comments:

Shannon said...

ahh... cute bag!!! And my lil' guy loves the mermaid too.. Too. Much. Fun.

Anonymous said...

The little birthday shirt makes me want to have my own birthday shirt w/o the real number though :-)
Lovely tote too. A quarter for such nice fabric is hard to pass up.
I didn't notice about the reply emails but at least you found out.

Maggie said...

VERY cute sweatshirt! Do you have a satin stitch foot for your machine? It makes all the difference.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of the pants bag! Did you have a pattern from somewhere?

Tara said...

I bet the party will be great. We did a mermaid party around that age as well. I remember one happy kiddo. I love your pants bags. They are adorable.
Totally jealous of the serger!

Marcia said...

Cute shirt. He's got an eye for a cute princess. Has he seen Mulan yet?

Mum-me said...

The t-shirt looks great! Hope the party is a huge success.

I love planning for my children's birthday parties, and I love to try and co-ordinate everything. I might have more success at that if I coud sew better.

What's a serger?

Jeanette said...

Happy birthday to your little DS. You did a great job on the party and your DH rocked the cake.

I also love the bag, that fabric is darling for a bag. For pants...not so much LOL