Look At Me, Planning Ahead...Who Am I?

With a baby due in late March (or possibly early April)

Who's sick of looking at my growing belly yet?  Wait - don't
answer that question!

and a very energetic toddler turning three in early May, I figure that the next couple of months will be just a wee bit hectic and so I've been trying to get a few things done now in an attempt to make life easier down the road.  Like working on O's birthday present, which I've decided is going to be a dress-up chest that will hopefully keep her well entertained in the months to come.  I've been keeping an eye out at stores for little things that I think she'd like but I've also picked out a couple of things that I'd like to sew for her gift and amazingly, I've finished one of them already - the Play Cape from Growing Up Sew Liberated.

When picking out the fabric for the cape I knew that I wanted atleast one side to be red (because who doesn't love Little Red Riding Hood?) and I originally thought that I was just going to go with some red uncut corduroy but when I went to go buy it I realized that it's not a particularly drapey fabric and that it probably wouldn't be the best choice for a dress-up cape.  And then I came across a huge bolt of red velour and I was immediately sold. 

The velour is incredibly drapey, but even more importantly, it's incredibly soft and O is obsessed with soft fabrics (in fact, every time I take her into a fabric store she yells out "minky!" and heads straight towards that section where she proceeds to rub her face on every bolt).  So I bought a yard of red velour for the Little Red Riding Hood vibe and a yard of black velour for something perhaps a bit more sinister.  I'd never sewn with velour before so I didn't quite know what to expect and I'm happy to report that all in all it was fine to sew with (if you ignore all of the fuzzies that it leaves everywhere).  You should probably know though that this pattern was incredibly easy to sew and was very forgiving so perhaps it was not the best test of how much of a pain in the butt velour is to sew with.  In any case, the cape came together incredibly quickly and I sewed it exactly as directed except that I rounded out the point of the hood, a la Dana. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to convince this very grumpy child that the hood is actually for somebody else and to hide it out of her sight until her birthday comes along.