Girly Gifts

Finished up two girly gifts for Scott's niece today:

A sheer poncho (to wear over t-shirts; we're giving her two in coordinating colors from Old Navy)...

...and a purse made of glittery pink fur, lined with hearts, and a pink chain for a strap!

The poncho is Butterick #4545--incidentally the same fabric as on the little girl in view D! I made view C, which is a little longer, using french seams and a serger rolled hem (after a couple of hours of fighting with my serger, which was doing a perfect rolled edge until I rethreaded it in pink). The neck I did with single-fold bias tape as instructed, but I think it would have looked nicer with a self-fabric binding (the tape is a little heavy). Of course, I didn't want to work that hard, so it was a trade off. The bias tape actually looks nicer on the wrong side, so if I ever do this again, I may just put it on the outside. I'll be making this one more time this week, in a variegated fuschia fur for Scott's other niece.

The purse has to be the single cutest thing I have ever sewn! It's from McCall's Fashion Accessories #4727, view C. I pretty much followed the instructions on this one, except I used the pink hearts lining fabric on the inside flap instead of making it all fur, and topstitched it to make it nice and flat. I substituted a pink chain for the strap, and attached it by making loops out of coordinating bias tape (from the poncho-making stash), passing them through the last link in the chain and sewing them in where the strap ends would have gone. Naturally I forgot to leave the opening in the lining for turning, so I left an opening on the front edge while attaching the lining, and edge-stitched it closed. This had the desirable side effect of saving me from hand-stitching the inside lining! I skipped the butterfly embellishment on the flap, so now it just needs a big, fat, glittery button.

Now, whatever am I going to do with all this leftover pink glitter fur??