Quick! Make a shirt for the birthday girl!

What with all the baby knitting, bike trips, article submissions, piano practice, meetings, cake baking and the never-ending piles of laundry, I kinda forgot that it was the Tyger's birthday in little over a week. Gulp!

Actually, let me clarify - I hadn't forgotten forgotten per se. After all, her presents have already been bought and safely stashed away in the cupboard, but what I did forget was my tradition of making her a special gift from my own hands. It wasn't until she turned to me the other day, and politely inquired if I'd created something for her birthday that the alarm bells finally went off. I patted her gently on the head, assured her that it was all in hand, and then excused myself to race into the bedroom, her parting line of "Cos it wouldn't be a birthday without something made by Mum!" ringing in my ears.

Boy, does that kid know how to lay it on with a trowel! In the privacy of my bedroom I flung open the doors of my sewing bureau/stash cupboard and sat there, rocking on my heels and gazing in desperation at the fabric. The fabric, darn it, chose to remain silent, offering me no hope at all. But then I remembered a purchase of yesteryear. Praying that it was still in there somewhere, and that I hadn't just imagined it, I began to scrabble about in the fabric like some sort of desperate textile junkie looking for a fix. Finally I found it - 1.5m of lovely soft tencel denim. Phew! Combine that tencel with the above Ottobre Design Magazine 4/2010 shirt pattern plus a few hours of my time, and we'll have one home made gift whipped up in no time! Well, hopefully by her birthday, at least. I sense some late night sewing coming on...