Rose's Birthday #2.

Cupcake gnome. Would you like some of my lovely cupcakes?

Rose turned 2 yesterday. My goodness, she seems so grown up. Well, as you may know, I planned a food theme for her birthday this year. As you may also know, my husband, son and I made gifts for her ourselves. Well, in addition to the whole market bag full of wool veggies, she got a few other things.

The cupcakes here are from my mom, and are HABA toys from Germany. My mom also found her a kid's apron with cupcakes from Williams-Sonoma. A half-hour of hemming and it was short enough for Rose. My dad got her a wood sandwich playset, also some other lovely wood toys. Her Grammie and Grandpa Bob are 1440 or so miles away and had us get some toys for her - wood trains, a LEGO, and some stuffed animals (characters from favorite story books.) Her great-grandparents sent a cute cat card and some birthday money - she picked out more LEGOs. She is a very happy kid to have so many people who love her.

Her brother Badger made her some lovely rice-filled bean bags and a bag to keep them in. I found some fruit fabric and some coordinating leafy fabric. Badger helped design the bag and bean bags, Mama sewed, Badger filled them. Badger also picked out the really bright ribbons and threaded them through for drawstrings.

One last minute gift was a green gnome hat. I figured that she might also like something special to wear for her birthday, seeing as her brother got a full suit of chain mail and some armor. I adapted the pattern from an adult size witch's hat pattern I found on sale for less than a dollar. Like the helmet, I sandwiched a layer of heavy interfacing between two layers of wool felt (only one layer, not two like the helmet.)

I thought she might like some flowers on it, but might want to change flowers or add other decorations; so I made the flowers removeable. I found the pattern for wool felt rose hair clips at the Purl Soho blog: purlbee. I made Rose one at the same time I made two rose buttons for her hat. The leaf is my pattern, though.

A nice simple button on the back - securely stitched on.

Buttonholes cut and stitched in matching pearl cotton embroidery thread. Now she can put on whatever she wants. Her comment was "It's so nice." Balm to my sleepy heart.

Her dad and I conferred on his gift. He was originally going to carve her a bowl and spoon out of wood. However, Rose as a tendency (being 2) of hurling her toys around the house with glee. For her brother's sake especially we decided to make her a bowl and spoon out of wool felt. Dad did some of the design work, Mama made the pattern and did the stitching. I think I will put this up as a tutorial in the next few days.

Here is my next project this morning. Rose currently really likes pink. She had her own piece of the pink fabric on the right and she likes it so much that she takes it to bed, and wears it folded around her wrist as a bracelet. I got some more yesterday to make her a skirt that she can twirl in. The fabric on the left will be gathered pockets. I will be sewing a lot in the next 2 weeks. I designed some knitting needle cases, and a local store will display them during a yarn crawl. I will show off the fabric next week (It is full of birds and trees.) I am also thinking of doing more with some lovely dressmaker themed fabric I saw the other day - hmm.

And because 11 veggies seemed like an odd number (literally and figuratively), I made Rose a chili pepper. Also, because it was funny. Again, I am easily amused.