A somewhat overdue baby gift

I'm not sure how many of you remember around 14 months ago, when I was going crazy with trying to finish up DIY preparations for this wedding. Well, guess what? A week ago Saturday, the bride had her first baby. And this past Saturday, I finally finished up her baby gift that I started, oh, back in January. (Sheer laziness on my part, as all I needed to do was sew on four sets of snaps!)
A shared love of all things Lord of the Rings was pretty much what got our friendship started, so I thought it only fitting that her baby gift would be connected to that. You know, so she can start raising their daughter properly in all things geeky right from the beginning. So there's a white horse on green (for Rohan), a white tree on black (for Gondor), and since her favorite race is hobbits and her favorite color is cobalt blue, two appropriate hobbit quotes from the movies. Um, yeah, I should probably iron these before I mail them to her...

And a closeup of the Gondor/Rohan bibs. Which I actually made twice, since I sent those to another fellow LotR fan friend who had a baby back in January. (I've also had a couple of other friends tell me that they'd like me to revive this project for when they start having kids! Not that I blame them...should I ever be lucky enough to get married and have kids myself, I'm so making another set for me!)

It hasn't all been geekery around here...I also had some fun with fabric shopping over the weekend while visiting my friend Nicole in Philadelphia. These are only two of the four pieces I bought. The floral print is destined to become this dress, which I picked up the pattern for recently since I've been wanting a maxi-dress. This particular pattern looked like a good bet for me, since it's fitted with darts in the back and therefore won't be so baggy all around the waist. (Also debating whether I should reduce or eliminate the front gathering, since that tends to make me look somewhat pregnant. And whether to make the neckline/empire waist bands out of the same fabric, or make them black.) I'm not sure what to do with that blue stuff yet--it's 2 yards of a sheer, shimmery blue/gold. It was just pretty, and only a dollar a yard!
And remember this fabric? 

I was originally thinking of using it to make this jacket-looking shirt thing. But the more I was thinking about it, the less satisfied I was with that idea. So I found this pattern, which I think will be a much better use of the print. I wasn't sure what to use for the band and ties, but I found a seafoam green fabric at that same store where I got the print and sheer stuff. (It's just currently in the dryer, so no pics.) I'm also going to use it inside the shirt, as the fabric is just a liiiiiiittle bit on the see-through side. I'm just trying to figure out from the instructions whether it would work better to use it as a lining or an underlining...

I did get one other small piece of fabric, which I'm going to use to make straps for this great dress I found at Buffalo Exchange. (No pics of that yet either, as it's still hanging up to dry.) Figures, that the day after I buy fabric to make a maxi-dress, that I find one at the thrift shop! Found a couple of other fun things there... I think I'm going to have to do a thrift store update soon!

I'm almost done with the skirt--fixed the fit of it yesterday, and just need to finish some handwork. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow. And then I think a little bit of refashioning is in order...trying to figure out whether to make that Simplicity top next, or a pair of pajamas....discovered this weekend that the elastic in a pair of mine kind of bit the dust, and honestly, it'll be a lot easier to just make a new pair than to replace the elastic in the shorts of this one!