sew crazy

i have had a few questions about carter and ruthie's matching outfits from our dinner at the american girl cafe.

it all began with this shirt i saw in the mini boden spring catalogue. i thought the style was adorable. i even liked the big flowers. i was not so fond of the large green gingham fabric. yes, it did come in another option-purple gingham. ummm, no thanks.
so, i made one. i know, i am insane. with my extremely limited sewing knowledge, i sketched out an idea using a peasant top we already had. i then asked my mom if she thought it would work. my dad pointed out, "carter is tiny. why did you make it so wide?" so, i took out several inches and started stitching. i whipped it up pretty quickly and i had extra fabric. carter is always asking for ruthie to have another matching outfit. remember this one??
so, i decided to make ruthie a dress using the dress i bought from just ducky last year. i guess i forgot that the people who made ruthie's dress are professionals and i am not. did i mention it is lined? ha! of course, it is. i could have made carter 4 more shirts in the amount of time it took me to figure out how to make that dress. but, i figured it out and so we decided they should be used for our very special birthday dinner. (it didn't hurt that spencer had a bubble in the same fabric . . . that i did not make!)
i can't wait to make another one. one day. i have a list a mile long of things to sew. did i mention i am insane? to show you how i usually get from conception to completion, i will post a tutorial tomorrow.