a blog about sewing and quilting…mostly…
Tonight was UFO night at the Thread and Fabric Crackhouse, and I started sewing Alice’s bedquilt together… Here it is up on the design wall before I did any of the sewing…
It’s about halfway sewn together now. Once the main part of the quilt top is done, I’ll put two borders around it to make it the appropriate size, and then I’ve got to figure out what to do on the back of it. 🙂
The girls’ Easter dresses are almost done:
They are dresses with piped collars and sleeves (because I can’t do it the simple way, of course not) and full linings in the bodice. The pinafore is a full dress that will be able to be worn on its own this summer.
Here’s a closeup of the piping on the collar and sleeves:
and a closeup of one sleeve — kind of strange to make — the pattern is sort of tooth-shaped with roots — but I think they turned out well:
The fabric is very Mary Engelbreit in style, and made me think of my friend, Stacy the entire time I was working on the dresses. She loves Mary Engelbreit stuff.
What remains to be done? Both dresses (well, all FOUR dresses, I guess) need to be hemmed, all dresses need buttons and buttonholes, and I’d like to put pockets on the pinafores with both fabrics, more of the piping, and fused appliques of the flowers made from coordinating fabrics out of my stash. Not sure if I’ll get to that last one, but I’ll give it my best shot. 🙂
That, and I need to take Helen to get some “tappy shoes” (black patent leather shoes) to wear with her dress. Alice has a pair and LOVES to put them on (even with pajamas) and tap all around the house. Helen is jealous.
Yesterday, even though Helen was puking her guts out (It’s The Second Annual Barf Extravaganza at our house. I’m growing to HATE this time of year), I went to my doctor for my annual checkup. Coincidentally, I switched makeup to a new foundation and concealer last week and my skin went a little nuts, so the area around my eyes looked like raw hamburger. I stopped wearing makeup on Tuesday (even the old kind, which doesn’t do this to me), and it was still all angry-looking yesterday, 1 week after the switch.
Doc checked me out, said everything looked fine otherwise, and recommended that I put cortisone cream around my eyes and take some Benadryl at night so that I wouldn’t scratch and make it worse in the middle of the night (which is what I’ve been doing).
So I took 2 Benadryl last night around 8pm, after making sure that this was okay with Jerry, because any further episodes in the Barf Extravaganza would be totally his to deal with. This morning, it was SO HARD to drag my butt out of bed. I slept like the Dead.
But my eyes look better.
I’m thinkin’ I’ll just take 1 Benadryl tonight. I did NOT enjoy being that out of it.
It was a spectacular spring day today, so after the girls’ naps (I use this term liberally, because Helen did NOT nap, thankyouverymuch) we went to Kids’ Space, a HUGE community-built playground that’s about 2 miles from here.
Both girls were climbing all around, having a wonderful time on the walks above the ground, and Helen found a great slide (a “twisty slide!”) at one corner. Alice tried to follow her, but is still a little too short-legged to be able to get to the slide without help. Helen raced past her little sister 4-5 times, ignoring my requests from the ground to help Alice find the slide.
I stayed on the ground so that I could keep track of both children, so if one had a problem I could get to them reasonably fast.
Well, I was tired of Helen ignoring my requests to help her little sister. So I told her as she went down the slide that time that she needed to help Alice, who had been stuck in the same little area for about 10 minutes (not upset about it, but definitely stuck). And if she did not help her sister the next time, we’d be leaving.
Helen flew past Alice and went straight to the slide. As she sat down at the top, I reminded her: “If you come down that slide right now, we’re leaving. If you get up and help Alice, we get to stay.” She came down the slide.
So I picked up the diaper bag, climbed up to get Alice, and headed to the exit. Helen got hysterical, screaming and stomping ahead of me, towards the parking lot. As I put her in the car, she flung her arms all around, slapping me, enraged. When I sat down to drive, Helen kicked the back of my seat, crying.
It was a hard lesson in Mommy Does Not Bluff 101, but this was a small battle. There’s a whole war in front of us, and I gotta win the little battles in order to turn this little person into someone I want to be around when she grows up.