What We Made Today-Batman And Ruffles Edition

We have a bunch of April birthdays in our family, which means I usually end up scrambling to find birthday presents for everybody without going totally broke. Thankfully these people appreciate handmade gifts, so I like to take some time out of my work schedule and make at least one gift in addition to the purchased ones(and typically a cake! Pics to come...).

Today I worked on gifts for my mother-in-law and my daughter.

For the Mominlaw(I like saying it as one word. I'm lazy.), I decided to go with a new(for me) style of ruffle tote in pretty shades of blue new and vintage cottons.

I hope she likes it, but if she doesn't, I definitely won't mind keeping it!

I also had the pleasure of working on The Kid's birthday dress today.

Some people have "princesses" for daughters, but I was given something a little different to work with. My daughter isn't into frills and fluff, tiaras and tutus. She likes Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Scooby Doo and Hot Wheels. She does like Dora the Explorer and the Disney Fairies, but we did a Dora birthday last year, so we decided to do a Batman birthday this year. Well, sort of. Her cake is Batman, Scooby and Superman, her dress is Batman and, her party cups are The Avengers while her goodie bags are Dora...

The Husband and I were walking through JoAnn's one day a couple of months ago, when  we came across this really cool Batman fabric and I just knew we needed to make her dress from it.

I started with this little sketch-

And ended up with this little dress-

There is also a little bow that goes with the dress. I'll post a photo of it later. (I told you, I'm lazy.)

Batman fabric is new, black fabric is from Granny's stash and yellow fabric is upcycled off a pillowcase.

I have such a free-spirited sewing style, that it is always a little bit hard for me to follow clothing patterns and get those perfectly perfect seams and hemlines, especially since I don't have a serger(and I am lazy), but  my patience and skills improve with each garment I make. And I am really starting to actually enjoy  garment making and expanding my pattern collection. I always love learning new skills that I can use when the zombie apocalypse arrives...

You know, it's funny, but sometimes people think that because you can sew one thing, you can sew everything, and it just doesn't work that way all the time. I mean, physically, yes, if you can sew one thing you can probably sew most things, but I think for some of us, there's just a mental block that gives us trouble when it comes to certain categories of the craft. I mean, I know some quilters who only quilt, and some seamstresses who only make garments, but because they are so proficient at their craft, you would think that they could many AN-Y-THING. But they don't. Because, for whatever reason, making something outside of their chozen category bores or frustrates or confuses them.

Life is weird, isn't it?

And thank goodness for that, otherwise there might not be Batman dresses for birthday parties.

Who would want to live in a world like that?