:: the one about Red-Riding Hood ::

My sister-in-law G casually mentioned that my niece H would loveity-love-love her very own Red-Riding-Hood cape for Christmas.

Now, H is a girl who loooooves to dress up.  Can't stress that enough.  Wigs, shoes, accessories, the whole bit.  There are many awesome photos that I would love to share - but Vee and I don't even put pics of our own kids onto the blog, so you will just have to imagine a 4 year old girl rocking a Rapunzel wig, sunglasses and a Cinderalla dress on a normal day at kindy, with an awesome attitude of  "nothing to see here, leave me to my painting and don't get caught in my long, blonde wig". 

Anyway, now that the Christmas holidays have started, I thought I'd get onto the cape.   I had already found an excellent tutorial thanks to Allie's Freshly Completed blog - I had googled until I found the easiest-possible tutorial, since I am not blessed with garment-sewing-skills of any kind.  Can't stress that enough.  

I then made Allie's tutorial even easier by leaving out the lining and button.  I hemmed the cape and hood, and sewed in some cute candy-cane striped binding tape, so that G can tie a bow to close it.  

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Please go check out Allie's blog, as her how-to pics are excellent, AND she has a gorgeous tiny girl modelling her completed cape!    

So once H's cape was done, I thought we should find a little basket to go with it, since everyone knows Red was carrying a basket to grandma's house.  

But then I saw the cutest little 9-patch tote on Chase's Quarter Inch Mark blog, so I thought I would just copy that idea.  I already had some sweet red-riding hood fabric in my stash (that I had bought with H in mind), AND some cute basket fabric too (that I had bought with me in mind ... ), thanks to Frances' gorgeous Miss Matatabi shop on etsy.   

{{I love that it says 'walking in the forest with friends' ... ahhhhm, watch out for that wolf!!}}

{{the basket fabric is gorgeous}}

{{what big ears you have, grandma ... }}

{{Red is looking sweetly determined, and is surrounded by friends ...  }}

H's favourite colour is purple, so I used Lizzy House's pearl bracelets for the lining, and Heather Ross' Far Far Away 2 moon dot print along the bottom on the outside of the bag (scroll back up again to see the sleepy moons). 

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And here they are together.  I really do need to work on my photo-styling skills.  Particularly when capes are involved.   

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Very happy with this pressie, particularly since I'll be adding in a little name-star that just arrived in the mail today from Jeannette.  Her Wordz of Life shop on etsy is beautiful.  Jeannette repurposes old quilts and makes them into stars, hearts and other shapes and then hand-sews words onto them.  Every piece comes with a little bible verse and heart attached to it.  I ordered a name-star for my children, and one each for my niece and nephew.  So happy that they've arrived in time for Christmas.  

{{love}}

Hope your week has started well.  xoxo cat