Birthday Girl

Today is my daughter's birthday.  She has the misfortune of having her birthday trailing right after Christmas so she's always felt her birthday was a little anti-climatic.  Her oldest cousin was born two years after her to the day.  She, too, has  felt her birthday was always usurped by the earlier holiday.  Last year, the girls got to celebrate their birthdays together after many years of living apart.  Her husband and I had t-shirts made with their pictures on them, took them out to eat, and generally celebrated in style.  This year the two are continuing the joint birthday observance with a trip to their favorite restaurant and getting to spend the day together.

After Thanksgiving my daughter and I were buying fabric at Joann's for Christmas gifts when she spied the brocade fabrics.  "Some day," she said, "I ought to buy some of that and make a robe for myself."  A week later, the brocades were on sale.  She was gone for the day so I made a quick trip to purchase a turquoise and magenta (her favorite colors) fabric and pattern.

Over the next few weeks, whenever she was gone from the house for a few hours, I worked on the robe.  This was the first time I had made a robe with a shawl collar. I'm not a novice seamstress, so this should be easy, right?  Is it just me or have sewing pattern directions gotten more and more incomprehensible. The directions were brief and the picture showed only the back   It took me three days to figure out how the collar went together.  Finally it came to me.  After that the robe went together easily.  Here is the result of my labor.

I also made her a purse for Christmas out of fabrics having the same teal and purple theme.  This actually was the first attempt at making a purse. Earlier I blogged about a brown bag that I made for her cousin.  But since M reads my blog, I couldn't show it. Since then I added a small matching bag that can be used for keys or cards or tissues and carried inside the larger purse.

I think I'm finally caught up on UFOs and sewing for other people.  Now it is my turn.  A year ago I was in a wonderful fabric store in Newton, KS.  The walls are hung with gorgeous quilts and they carry a glorious array of beautiful fabrics.  There hanging on the wall was a sampler quilt with which I fell in love.  Sampler quilts are a favorite of mine because each block is different so there is no boredom--always piecing a new block and the same goes with the quilting.  How interesting to figure out how to quilt each block.  So I bought the pattern and have spent the year collecting fabrics.  At last I'm ready to begin.  I will enlarge the pattern to make another king-sized quilt.  You may have seen the pattern.  It is "Wing and a Prayer" by Tonga Nature.  I figure I'll be working on this for the next year.

A new project for a new year.  Happy New Year everyone!