Brookie Pookie Lemon Cookie

Brooke's Easter Dress

This dress is my favorite for many reasons.

I saw a beautiful crochet and knit dress at Aravore Babies. I searched everywhere for a similar crochet top pattern and couldn't find one.

Coincidently, weeks later my friend and neighbor let the cat out of the bag her mom can crochet. She showed me dresses and blankets her mom made for her daughter and I realized how good she was. The dresses and tops she made her granddaughter, Charley are amazing with intricate lace designs knit with fingerling yarn. Beautiful.

I am sure she was sorry that cat got out. Soon after her mom was making beautiful crochet squares for my daughter's Pay it Forward project.

I knew I was pushing it, she didn't really know me. I had to ask ~ is there any possibility she could look at the photo of the dress and crochet a similar top? I got a quick YES!

I sent along a bag full of Organic Cotton Yarn by Lion Brand in Vanilla. Thinking the dress would be perfect for Easter she whipped it up in no time! It was perfect ~ exactly like the photo. It fit perfectly ~ and the little bell sleeves ~ so sweet!

Obviously not a 'whip it up' kind of knitter, after four or five attempts I finally got the shape of the skirt nailed. A pretty green ribbon and green shoes and we have ourselves an Easter dress!

Thank you so much, Marcella!!!

As you can see from the photo at Aravore Babies , she nailed it ..... beautifully.

    

I wish I had the talent to knit dresses from photographs! I purchased a pattern for a dress thinking it would be easy to size it down ... not! I realized how talented I am not.

Here is the dress from Vogue Knitting ...

I did find someone who looked at the pattern and knit it in a smaller size for her granddaughter. She told me she just whipped it up. Hmmm.... maybe I will get lucky one day and someone can give me pointers .... this would be a very cute dress for any one of my daughters.

Easter Goodness

Trying to think of a fun Easter project for my girls to do and of our need to send off Easter baskets to their cousins in PA, I ran into Angry Chicken's Blog on Cupcakes in Jars. How cute are they? We were off the very next day buying jars and ingredients to make our own. We filled two cases of jars with lemon cake, quick to seal the cupcakes after coming out of the oven to retain moisture. 

We learned many people like to make bread in a jar to send to the troops overseas. I can only imagine how nice it would be to receive such a thoughtful, delicious gift from a stranger.

My sister had the cutest vintage bunny card. How cute is this bunny? We used her on our cup-i-cake labels.

We thought it would be fun to include sugar cookies in a jar. The girls and I set aside some of the sugar mixture to dye a dusty rose separating the flour mix from the sugar mix for appearance only. We attached a tag with directions on how to make the cookies. Included in the basket were easter cookie cutter shapes tied with ribbon.

We thought of including icing mix in a jar however maybe the kids will have a limited amount of baking patience. Making sugar cookies surely would be their limit.So we went out an purchased icing and re-labeled it Cup-i-cake Sugarcookie Icing.

In the basket we included fun, colorful sprinkles in vintage looking bunny and chick egg holders.

After leaving UPS I was kicking myself for not taking photos of the baskets before I sent them off! Shopping in Santa Fe I ran into little Easter Limogues, old fashioned rubber band airplanes, and books. Included were Easter cake molds and for the girls, pink rolling pins and gagie pagie pudding pie's vintage inspired aprons for little girls I found on etsy.com.

The girls and I are going to start another project for grandma and their aunt to give for Easter. We all agree Easter is one of the most fun for making special gifts.

Little Cotton Easter Rabbit

I‘ve always wanted to knit a little cotton rabbit however I couldn’t find a pattern. I planned on making little cotton rabbits for  Easter baskets this is why I was so happy to finally find a very cute pattern!The rbunny was fun and easy. I used cotton yarn left over from my daughter's blanket (still unfinished after oh, about 6 years) I plan on knitting two more …. we will see.

The pattern was purchased from Debi Birkin on etsy. She also has the cutest little mouse knit pattern I plan on knitting for my daughter.