Birthday Tea Party

The party has come and gone, so here is a promised picture of the matching dresses along with a doll sized party hat.

The kids enjoyed drinking pink lemonade from tiny demitasse tea cups while the adults had hot tea and pink lemonade.  I was fortunate to have some help in making dainty tea treats.

I started making this bunting before our 1 year old's birthday this summer, but had to hang it without letters because I ran out of time.  I should have finished the letters right after that instead of waiting until two days before this party...long night.  It is triangles cut from t-shirts, overlapping slightly, and held together by two rows of stitching and fastened at the end with narrow strips of t-shirt tied in a bow.

                          

We had a tea pot cake made from two bundts, one cup cake, and paper covered cardboard spout and handle.  Unfortunately our camera battery was running low, so my camera didn't get a shot of the cake before it was cut, but we saved the tea cups and I got this picture later.  They are shaved off cupcakes with chocolate piped on top and frosted, broken mini pretzels for handles.  The white things are rose buds...you could tell right?

And after the dainty little tea party, our newly 4 year old had to go out with her dad to shoot balloons with her new BB gun (what a Daddy's girl).

Matching Doll Dress

I made a little jumper so Glendora the Cabbage Patch Girl can match Z at her birthday party.  Glendora is hard to get away secretly for a fitting, but I managed to be sneaky when Arena the teddy bear was sleeping with Z instead of Glendora.  You will have to wait until after the party to see pictures of the models actually wearing their new attire though.

I thought I would document how I put the waistbands together in case I ever decide to make a flat front, elasticized waistband again.  I've seen tutorials for flat front pants, but I haven't looked enough to find a tutorial for a gathered skirt...so here's what I did.  These pictures are from the doll's jumper (on the big girl jumper, I did a better finish than just pinking the edges).

I took the waist measurement...lets call it "w".  The front piece is w/2, the back piece is w/2+5".  Make sure to make the pieces tall enough to allow for your cassing relative to your elastic width, and still allow about 1/2" below to attach your skirt.  Sew your cassing in place on both pieces (on the short piece this is mostly for looks).  The top stitching along the fold is optional, but I like the way it looks and I think it might keep the elastic from twisting as much.

Insert your elastic in the long back piece and gather the material so that the front and back are now the same length.  Pin elastic in place and trim excess elastic if you haven't already.

With right sides together, sew front to back along sides.  (Gives a new meaning to nice threads, huh?)

Now you are ready for the rest of your skirt!

I can't wait to show you my soon to be 4 year old and her baby doll in their new duds, but it will have to wait a couple weeks.