What a difference a year makes!

Well folks, it seems like I enrolled in graduate school and forgot all about my poor lonely blog!  So here is a quick update on important events in my life!

March 2011 - Finished my first sewing project, a maternity shirt for my sister!

May 2011 - I started graduate school at James Madison University (JMU) through the Roanoke Higher Education Center.  I am getting a Master's in Public Administration and look forward to graduation in May 2013!

September 2011 - My sister, April, and her husband, Andy, had perfect twins - a boy and a girl!!  Addison Morgan and William Andrew Jr. were born on September 1, 2011 and have been the highlight of the year!

February 2012 - I found out my beloved Kenzie had osteosarcoma and was terminal.  Her cancer was extremely advanced when we found it and decided to lay her to rest two days later.  That has been one of the hardest weeks of my life, but I know she is running free over the rainbow bridge with Brandy and Snickers waiting for the day I will join her!

Madi is now enjoying the life of an only child, even though I know there are days both of us feel like the house is a little quieter without Kenzie barking demandingly for dinner or a bone.

I have almost two weeks between spring semester and May-term and have been busy finishing up a few of my summer sewing projects.  Tonight I want to share the dresses I made for my sweet Addy.  I have to give a shout out to The Mother Huddle for sharing this wonderful pillowcase dress tutorial as a free pattern!!  The directions were absolutely fabulous and had some great links to help make this dress look very classy for a beginner sewer!  I loved being able to learn how to make the edges look more finished with a zig-zag stitch and then lay flat with a nice topstitch.  I feel like this pattern and tutorial has definitely helped expand my sewing skills!

Of course, the sewing was the easier part.  For me, it's always picking out the fabrics that takes five years!  LOL  I found a very good owl pattern I liked in pastels and then I found a white and fuchsia zebra print.  I was torn between the two.  So, of course, I went ahead and found coordinating fabric for each!  So Addy is getting two pillowcase dresses - one girly and one spunky!  Here are the final products!!

I am so excited at how they turned out and I can't wait to see how they look on our little princess!!  Trust me, there are several more projects for the twins yet to come!  I'm going to work on doing better at posting more regularly, especially with some of the cool projects I have coming up.  Next week's post will be another project I've finished, but since it's a mother's day gift, I have to wait until mom gets it first!

Hope everyone has a great week!