Gifts for McKenna and Keaton

For the last few weeks I’ve been putting together some gifts for my neice and nephew, McKenna and Keaton.  McKenna is 3 now! and Keaton is almost 5 months old.  I can’t wait to meet him – I’m tired of hearing how cute he is from my in-laws and I just want to squeeze him for myself!

Front of Keaton’s Quilt

Back of Keaton’s Quilt

Since before he was born I wanted to make him a sock monkey quilt, and collected the fabric for that a while ago.  I was able to find an adorable (classic) sock monkey to send along with it to complete the package.  For his quilt, I did a simple patchwork, and the quilting was just straight lines running ~1/2″ inside each edge of block.  The back was simple as well, just nine blocks that coordinated with the front.

For McKenna I was undecided, not wanting to be too baby-ish, and not wanting to be too mature.  Then I remembered this quilt top that I had started on a while back, and thought it was perfect!  For her this would be a birthday present, accompanied by two dresses and a couple cute toys .

I apologize for these dark photos!  I’m still learning PSE  :)

The dresses were fun to make.  The white one was was actually a project I did with Heather Ross and Liesl Gibson – my objective was to “re-purpose” a tank top.  This was a brand new white tank from the Gap that I had bought about a year ago, and never got around to wearing, but I thought it would make the perfect little dress with all those buttons and the eyelet.   They really helped me.  Liesl with the obvious children’s clothing expertise, and Heather’s fearless “just cut it!” attitude.  The back was shorter than the front, so Heather had the brilliant idea of adding the little pleats.  It came together beautifully, and now I just hope it will fit!  The other dress is with Heather’s Mendocino fabric, and the addressed the other thing I learned that weekend – Heather loves elastic.   This quickly broke my fear of using it, and this Mendocino dress was born   :)