Last month our family received a most precious invitation in the mail:
You remember Gavin, don't you? I wrote about him here in 2010, & here in 2011. He is such a fighter! It's been a blessing to follow his progress through his mama's blog and facebook.
What to make for the little guy, though? I started "shuffling" through my Pinterest boards and came across this pin
which caused me to do a Google search until I found this tute
Perfect for a young man's birthday!
So... here's how I accomplished it:
I cut out fabric (3 layers) to cover a baseball. I embroidered "Gavin" on one side and 3 dots to represent bowling ball finger holes on the other. I hand stitched it around the ball; then trimmed & clipped it to be a little raggy along the seams (so the lil' man could get a good grip...)
I embroidered bunny faces
cut out 36 ear pieces
pinned 36 ear pieces
& stitched together twelve bunny ears...
The most difficult part of this project was stitching the neck area without catching those ears in the seam. It was a little tight! (I did try sewing one leaving the top of the head open then hand-stitching the ears -- but that was not much of a time saver...)
After sewing together the body and stuffing it almost full with Pollyfill, we added about 1/3 cup rice to weight the bottom of the pin. This was the second most tedious task! (Well, it was a toss-up between that & hand stitching the bottom without getting rice all over...)
My boys might, or might not have enjoyed a bowling game or two.
I decided Gavin would probably need a bag in which to store his bunny bowling set. I covered all the seams & boxed the bottom & added drawstring ribbons.
Those pins sure look cute in there, don't they?
We had a lovely time at the party!
Here's a glimpse of a pretty tired, just about over-stimulated, almost overwhelmed Gavin.
We made an absolutely yummy pasta salad for our Easter dinner. We cooked about two pounds of penne ziti rigate. To this we added:
pound of fresh broccoli florets
box of grape tomatoes
half a pound sliced white mushrooms
fresh red bell pepper slices
sliced Kalamata olives
feta cheese
We tossed it all together with a light vinaigrette I made that included rice wine vinegar, fresh basil, garlic, fresh-cracked black pepper and some dried onions.
I'm eating some of the leftovers for lunch today...
