Sneak Peak at Mari's Birthday Present

Mari loves accessories. She will keep sunglasses on for hours. She likes to wear tons of jewelry, play with hats, socks, and anything else that she can get to stay on her head or around her arms. So, Daniel and I want to give her some dress-up clothes for her birthday. Given her love for "capes" (blankets draped around her shoulders), I thought it would be fun to sew her a real cape. Even though she doesn't turn 2 until November, I wanted to sew it now, in case I don't feel up to it later. Yesterday, I went to the fabric store and picked out the pinkest fabric there. Originally, I was going make my own pattern, but McCall's patterns were on sale for $1.99, so I bought one of those too.

Since Daniel stayed home with Mari, I enjoyed taking my time choosing fabric and browsing the fall decorations. With 20 people in line at the cutting counter, it's a good thing I wasn't in a hurry! Deciding whether or not to make it a pink cape was tough because they had this sparkly, navy fabric that would have made a really great magicians cape. The green and purple fabric was really nice too. In the end, I just couldn't make up my mind, and I was afraid Daniel would think I was never coming home, so I went with my original idea and bought pink.

This picture shows the sparkles!

This project was definitely my speed. The pattern was super easy and it took about 2 hours to make. We are not going to use grommets and ties, because our grommet maker is rather large, and Mari wouldn't be able to put it on by herself. We'll figure something out with velcro, but I still need to buy that, so it's not officially done yet. Now that it is made, I with there was some kind of collar or hood at the neck. Maybe next time I'll modify that...

Almost done!

The length is long for Mari. It'll probably touch the floor. I haven't tried it on her yet because I don't want her to see it. Even if it trails along a bit, she'll grow into it.

Michael's had some dress up clothes on a major clearance sale over the weekend, and I picked up come pink slipper-style dress up shoes to go with this.

I'm so eager for her birthday in November!