Teeny Tiny Zoe Dress

So, on New Years Eve my brother and sister in law were blessed with a second baby girl who they named Zoe. Due to some medical issues/complications, I didn’t get a chance to meet her until today, so I channelled my excitement into a teeny tiny dress for the teeny tiny little earlybird. (If you follow me on IG you got to follow along a bit on my progression on this thing.)

Sorry for the iphone pictures taken in the basement at midnight, ha. Naturally I was so excited I had to take pictures as soon as I finished it but then didn't think to take pictures with my DSLR this morning in daylight before I gave it to Zoe’s mom. Hopefully I can get some pictures of her in it and HOPEFULLY it fits as well as I hope it does! She is so very teeny tiny, I can’t get over it, so hopefully she can get some wear out of this little pinafore. And really, her big sister can use it for a doll afterwards! So small. (note: It fits her perfectly, and her mom says she doesn’t think she’ll be able to bear giving it to the kids to use for dolls afterwards. So I guess it’s a hit!)

See my new tag there? Yay! Washing instructions are on the inside. It’s a bit big looking on this dress, haha, but in normal garments it will be fairly unobtrusive. I will have to test it out by making a matching skirt or top for Zoe’s big sister, I guess! (;

If you’re curious and would like to make your own, the dress is a mashup of these two tutorials:

Click on the images to be brought to the tutorials. Except I didn’t actually follow the tutorials so much as skim them ahead of time and I’m seeing something in the second one which makes me think I make things way too hard sometimes, so maybe do read them at least right before you start drafting.

I chose to make the ruffles a bit less ruffled than I would have on a bigger dress, just because it’s so tiny and for such a little bitty that I didn’t want to overwhelm her with volume. I’m definitely planning to make this again in Olivia’s size and flounce it right up! Possibly also a tunic for Nicole, I think it would be quite charming on her, almost more so than on Olivia.

Little Circles Skirt

So after seeing Dana at MADE’s post about the little bitty baby skirt, Nicole decided Olivia needed one. No problemo, her tutorial makes it so easy you can pound out a few in an afternoon. Or, if you decide to do one with two layers, just the one. I’m afraid it’s going to wind up on the short side, since I was working with some fat quarters, but I did what I could to add length by using some vintage lace trim I had in my box of embellishments.

I used some of the scraps to make this flower embellishment for the waistline, which will shabby up a bit in the wash.

The under layer is actually the wrong side of a fabric that matched just spectacularly. Since I wasn’t really keen on the right side, voila! Perfecto. This is also my first time using lace to hem something, and man, it could not have been easier. Especially for a circle skirt.

So now that I’ve proven that I actually do do things in my spare time, other than stare at my children and pick my toes, let’s have a story.

So, yesterday the girls were being very well behaved and Olivia had slept well the night before, so I was feeling quite benevolent and decided it would be fun to go out for a family dinner at a local family-friendly restaurant. It was, and it was fairly uneventful, except for some major drama while we were waiting for our meal. Chris and Nicole were playing X’s and O’s on spaces provided in the kids menu, and twice he started and won. She wasn’t excited, but no big deal. “She’s not great at this game,” he pointed out. The third time, she started and had two little O’s lined up down the center, and Chris cut her off with an X. 

She literally BURST into tears.

“Why would you X me, Papa?!” she wailed loudly. He tried to shush her, looking around with absolute mortification while I shoved my face in my hands and tried to stifle my laugher. I unsympathetically pointed out to him that he Does. Not. Always. Have. To. Win. I’d say letting your four year old win round three kind of goes without saying, but let’s just say Chris learned the hard way yesterday. He quickly drew up another chart and let her win.

“I feel better now,” she sniffled. “Let’s play again.” “No thanks,” he mumbled into his Pepsi, while Olivia tried to eat a yellow crayon.

Well, tonight he challenged her to rock-paper-scissors right before bed, which I didn’t even really realize she knew. Apparently she’s a champ and a con, a poor con but a con nonetheless, because she clearly waited until after he’d produced ‘paper’ to victoriously sign ‘scissors.’ He looked baffled while she cackled her ungracious-winner victory, and I cracked up.

“Looks like she’s pretty good at this game,” I pointed out.

untwinned

 

When they were little babies my girls were basically twins but now, at six months, Olivia has quite definitely deviated from the previous Baby Blueprint we seemed to have going on there.

Nicole at six months:

Olivia at six months:

I know, I actually have a nice camera to take pictures of Olivia with yet somehow the Nicole picture is much better. Go figure. This is the most similar picture that I’ve got, and it’s from my Ipod. Olivia actually has much lighter eyes than Nicole, who has really dark moody blues. Olivia’s are more like her daddy’s. Olivia is also much chubbier, but with a skinnier face. And the moral of the story is, we make pretty babies. The end.

KCWC summary + Rufflicious Skirt Debut

Okay, so my kids have been tag teaming this whole getting sick/being miserable thing. I’m all about nurturing, nurture cuddle nuture, that’s me. But I wish they could just get it together and both be sick at the same time. Then I could lie about in bed with them both and listen to them moan and groan and make soothing noises back and them, and then slip off to Get Stuff Done when they both drift off to sleep. But no, one kid gets sick and gives it to the other kid and then that kid gets another thing while their immunity is down and gives THAT to the first kid… you know how it is. Anyways, I’ve moaned on about me being sick or them being sick for I dunno, a month now, off and on. It’s been grand. I’m sure you’re as sick of us being sick as we are. ITS SUMMER WEATHER OUTSIDE. I think it will all go away soon.

ON TO KCWC. My goal was to complete a sister set for my girls and at least one other thing. I completed the sister set (okay so the skirt was finished a day late and a dollar short) and called it good.

Olivia:

I want to do surgery on this yet. My calculations were a bit off and I did some past-midnight-sewing, as I mentioned, so there are some oopsies. Also my first applique attempt in a long time, it was kind of poor, to put it mildly, but oh well. I hope to put a waistband over the waist part and bring it in a bit, it’s a bit loose thankfully so I can afford to do that, and hopefully that will fix the ‘situation’ at least a bit.

Nicole’s outfit… well, I could just put it on her and then go skipping through a field of daisies with joy. Heck, I could skip through my yard full of dandelions with joy. LOVE. IT. I learned from my mistakes (look ma! Finally! It took 24 years but darnit, I’ve started learning from my mistakes!) and moved on to victory.

As long as you don’t examine Olivia’s too closely it still looks pretty cute. She’ll wear it. They’ll wear it together and Nicole will be pleased. Every day she says, “I want to match Olivia!” See, it’s not just me enforcing a rein of terror upon my children. THEY WANT TO MATCH. Well, the baby has no say, but whatever. She’s happy if she can chew a ruffle, so we’re golden.

left: Um, yeah, applique… suuuuuuper. Homemade? right: Nicely done! Still room for improvement, but definite learning curve. Handmade!

left: homemade, definitely homemade. It looks like the dog ate it, but really I just had a bit of a learning curve with the serger. right: yaaay! There’s still a few wonky spots on the skirt but I definitely have if not mastered then at least intermediate-ed the rolled hem stitch on my serger.

Dreamy sigh. I call this the Rufflicious Skirt. At first I called it Rufflemania but discarded that promptly because in my excitement I named it like it was wrestling related or something. No. Rufflicious it is. I’m going to grade it and make a pattern of sorts (it’s going to be diagrams and not printable pattern pieces, because it is a series of rectangles.) I’m trying to decide if I’ll do a tutorial or a .pdf for sale. If I do a pdf it will be size 6mos to 4/5, most likely. A tutorial I will do size 4/5 and size 6mos because I already did the 4/5 and I’m going to do the 6mos anyways. What say you? If you say paid pattern, how much would you be willing to pay? I’m thinking like $6.99CAD or something?

Look guys, look how yummy. LOOK. I didn’t pose this, she sat down to play Princess Dress Up on my ipod and the skirt did this on it’s own. I love it so bad. SO. BAD. It’s a little hefty but she loves it, seems comfortable, and the fact that the tiers are rufflier as they go along makes it so the middle tier holds in the bottom tier in such a fashion that I haven’t seen her panties ONCE today, despite no leggings. That is major, folks. She acts like a little lady sometimes but she rarely sits like one. (gets it from her mama, unfortunately. Sorry ma, I learned from my mistakes but I still sit like a boy.)

Gratuitous Baby Pictures

Olivia is a GroVia and/or GroBaby baby, if anyone is curious. I cloth diaper like 60% of the time and feel no guilt whatsoever about the other 40%. NONE. I also feel no guilt when I have extraordinarily long, hot showers. Since I have that new-baby-mom haven’t-showered-in-three-days funkiness to me at least once a week I feel like it evens out.

(edited March 1st – we’re at 100% of the time because I got stubborn and decided not to buy any more disposables. As a result my hubby is no longer assisting with the diapering but we’ll see who lasts longer – diapering Olivia is pretty hilarious. She gets ridiculously excited when you take her pants off.)

This next shot is my ‘sweet shot’… I am SO pleased with it.

I don’t know about you but I could spend like an hour nomnomnom-ing on those cheekies. Do you notice something different about these pictures? I’m using an old Yashica 55mm lens attached to my camera with an adaptor. Manual focus, whatwhaaat! It’s tricky, but I’m super in love and I go on to Christopher about how much I want to buy one actually made for my camera so I can have autofocus. Daily. And show him lots of pictures. And go on about bokeh in a really annoying voice.

We can’t be smiling all the time. Life is stressful when you’re a baby.

Juuuuuust kidding, no it’s not.

We’re getting our family pictures done this weekend, I’m pretty excited. I’ve been avoiding baking cookies all week in preparation. And doing exercises. Like baby lifts. And rocking back and forth with a baby. And walking around with a baby. That kind of stuff. *flexes*

Baby Giggles

Some baby giggles to brighten your day. I know they sure brightened mine!

Which witch is which?

That tongue twister is actually a terrible title for this post. I take it back. Neither of my daughters are witchy. (Thus says Laura when both of them are sleeping. Ask me how I feel when they’re both wailing for funsies.) Anyways, those of you who are friends with me on facebook – not the page but me the person – have seen these side-by-side pictures of Nicole and Olivia already. They tickle me pink, though, so I’m sharing them with y’all too.

Nicole at one month, Olivia at one month

Nicole at two months, Olivia at two months

They aren’t identical but they are definitely sisters, that's for sure! And I think Nicole is quite a pretty little thing, if I do say so myself, so it’s nice to know that Olivia will be, too. In my totally unbiased opinion, winkwink.

Coo over my babies. Coo, I tell you!

This one, by the way, weighed in at 14 lbs. at her two month appointment the other day. She’s also in the 97th percentile for height. My two month old is too tall for most of the 3-6 month dresses I have for her, they look ridiculous. 6-12 is of course far too wide even for this little meatball, here. So… to the batmobile! Wait, no. The sewing room! I have visions of a slew of little peasant dresses dancing in my head. If things go nicely I shall prep some tutorials. It’s been a long year, but I’m starting to rev my engines again! This year will be more craft, less reno. I say with drywall dust in my coffee machine. DO NOT ASK. TOUCHY SUBJECT.

Christmas Greetings!

Here are my Christmas and birth announcement cards for your viewing pleasure! I haven’t mailed out the mailing ones yet (guilty face here) but I handed out most of the local ones. Feel free to chortle at the fact that Olivia has. no. bum. All tum, no bum.

God bless you all this holiday season and in the new year as well! I might be posting in the next week or so. I just got back from visiting Grand Forks ND. I managed to singlehanded cost a hotel a giant wad of cash, to our mutual misfortune. Nobody was hurt, no worries. I just didn’t show my face around the lobby much after the second day. There’s a story coming, fear not.

A quick peek

Here’s a quick peek from this weekend… starting with my little meatball. This is the change table I reviewed for CSN Stores, by the way. I love it. Olivia loves it, too. She just stares at the bars happily whenever I put her here. If I need to put her down for a sec to go to the washroom or something when she’s crabby, I put her here. Keeps her happy.  Another thing that keeps her happy is her minkee lovie. A friend of mine makes them and gave me a great deal. Santa Olivia! My mom bought this dress for Nicole but Nicole outgrew it by mid November (she was a July baby and it is 3/6 mos… Nicole was a little chubster too, but not quite as much as my little meatball.) Me and my girls. Okay, the smallest one is a loaner. Believe it or not, she is only 8 days younger than Olivia! My sister in law was due at the end of December but her water broke a month and a half early, plus Olivia was born 11 days past her due date, so they wound up super close together. Cute though, little girl cousins and they’ll be in the same class! Note that I am not wearing a headband here. Yaay! No headband. Oh, I guess I should admit I gave up on being shampoo-free. I went beserk a few days ago and declared it OVER. I attacked my hair with shampoo and then slathered on the conditioner. No more greasy-looking static hair!

Speaking of going beserk… okay, where I am it is –20 C …ish. Depending on the day. It’s a dry cold, and the furnace makes it a dry warm, too. I WANT TO TEAR OUT MY FINGERNAILS AND MY HAIR AND GNAW OFF MY HANDS. I get this every year. And then I pull out the humidifier and continue slathering on obscene amounts of lotion. I don’t know if I’m the only one who gets this crazy over it or what, everyone else kindof gives me the crazyface when I bring it up. But I literally cannot stand to fold laundry or put on clothes or change diapers or anything that involves touching fabric when I’m this dry. I don’t even have my vents on in the car, I feel like I can literally feel the heat sucking the moisture out of me.

Does anyone else have any Wow-Crazy-Lady things? I have the dryness thing and I also go insane over certain textures of fabric. I won’t go anywhere near a damask-y looking couch, I just know the feel of the fabric will give me shivers up and down my spine. Like nails on a chalkboard.

Oh! Guess what! Stay tuned… sometime this week, I’m going to jump on the scale and share the results. Time to start getting fit again!

Cookies and milk

I give myself a blue ribbon for my multitasking last night. I was baking cookies/nursing/watching Gossip Girl something incredibly educational and non-trashy/blogging all at the same time. After 11pm. Actually maybe I give myself a blue ribbon for Batshit Crazy. Probably that. But you know what, I love my cookie scoop. Only with a cookie scoop can you nurse a baby and fill a cookie sheet with cookie dough balls at the same time. Mine is the size medium cookie scoop from Pampered Chef and I love it. Two scoops to fill a muffin/cupcake cup… one scoop for a generous meatball or cookie. I know some people prefer the smaller scoop but I like my cookies and meatballs to be HEARTY.

(click the scoop to be brought to the product page.)

I was totally going somewhere with this but then baby and three year old and hours passed and I watched a movie and I have no idea what I was up to. But somehow I still feel its important that the world know that everyone needs a cookie scoop. I used to get bored/annoyed halfways through making cookies because while I love the idea of making cookies, and the taste of cookie dough, and the smell of fresh cookies… when it comes down to actually placing a gazillion cookies on sheet after sheet with 8-12 minute pauses in between, snoooore. However, if you can’t find a cookie dough scoop or a Pampered Chef consultant to get you one, I highly recommend freezing cookie dough in a container when you get bored of devoting your life to scooping cookies, and pretend your endgoal all along was to have frozen cookie dough so you could enjoy fresh cookies whenever the mood hit. I recommend this MUCH more than I recommend polishing off the cookie dough you don’t feel like scooping. Trust me on this one. It seems like a good plan, but you will immediately regret that decision.

Actually I just decided you should give somebody a cookie scoop and a bucket of homemade frozen cookie dough for Christmas. Tadaa! I just went somewhere useful with this post. Merry Christmas. If I was a real blogger I’d have a picture of beautifully presented cookie dough in a bucket wrapped up with a cookie scoop and there would be ribbon and beautiful tags and it would be amazing. If you want a real blogger I can provide you with a good long list, actually… since I’m not a real blogger I’ll distract you instead with pictures of my adorable girls. Olivia was two weeks old yesterday!

  Olivia has some newborn rashyskin going on… Nicole still loves her super bad… I still am pretending Olivia might have my green eyes even though its definitely looking like she’s leaning towards blue like everyone else in our families… and yes, those are coordinating outfits. And I didn’t even leave the house with them today. I just do it because Nicole loves it. Okay, and maybe me too. 

 

So, back to the beginning… what’s the your best/craziest multitasking victory so far? Mine is pretty amazing for me because normally I can’t multitask AT ALL. Also, do you have a slightly unusual kitchen tool you’re madly in love with, like my beloved cookie scoop? I’m always up to try more, especially small ones that fit in drawers.

Also, I apologize to those of you who ‘got’ the title and are like ‘awwwwww that’s not even funny’.

Olivia’s Nursery

As you may or may not recall, Olivia’s nursery started off as our office/craft room. When we found out I was pregnant, my hubby built my beautiful craft room in our basement. Soon the room upstairs became a Room Where Crap Lives. It was pretty brutal. Straight out of Hoarders, no lie.

I had a few loves and likes in my head. I had a huge crush on  Young House Love John & Sherry’s gender-neutral color scheme that easily became a girl nursery that didn’t look the least bit neutral. (In my head neutral tends to wind up as yellow ducks and the like. I know there are gorgeous neutral rooms though!)

Once I found out I was having a girl, though, I went back and forth and eventually decided I wanted to use the same color blue that I’d used in the office. It’s just such a beautiful color! (Jamaican Aqua by Benjamin Moore.) Initially my intention was to accent that with hot pink, going with a funkier feel like Nicole’s room. However, once it was painted and I had a few things in the room, I decided I loved white and light pink and light lime green as accent colors. Without further ado, let’s get to the pictures!

The room is still pretty unfinished. No trim, the chair in the corner will get a slipcover instead of the blanket thrown over it… the swing in the corner is actually in the livingroom now that it’s being put to use… curtains would be awesomesauce, right now I have a sheet up. I need curtains that are insulated but not hideous. This will probably involve a lot of DIY. I sewed that cute little patchwork changing pad cover while I was overdue. Those baskets will be full of cloth diapering supplies when I start using them. Actually, I’d prefer getting other, cuter baskets by then. Three on each shelf, preferably lined. Mind the cluttery dresser in these ones… I had all her little shoes and hats there until she was born because I liked to look at them. A closer view of the changing mat. It makes me happy. It is good to have something happy to look at when you’re dealing with dirty diapers. Nicole painting some artwork for the nursery… I totally love this picture of her, she didn’t realize yet I had the camera, she was just thrilled to be painting something for her baby sister. She did this before Olivia was born. The artwork… the concept came from here and is basically stickers stuck on the canvasboard by yours truly to make the phrase, and then the kiddo gets to go at with the paint colors I provide. In this case, shades of pink. I felt it needed a little extra so I added on border stickers to the top when the first layer was dry, let her do more painting, and then sprinkled on glitter while the paint was still wet. The green gingham ruffle was already there, but I added the bottom pink ruffle. I just made a really long piece, did a rolled hem on the bottom with my serger, and ran it through my ruffle foot. I wound up doing a small amount of ruffling to the bottom of the green layer to make it smaller so the amount of fabric I was using didn’t get too ridiculous.  And a quick shot of Olivia in her cute little Woombie. She reminds me of one of those Glo Worm dolls from when I was a kid. This thing works wonders though, she loves to be swaddled and once she falls asleep she sleeps much deeper and longer when she’s in her Woombie. I recommend giving them a try, especially if you can get them at one of those baby half off sites. That is where I got mine.

So there we have it. The room isn’t done yet, but it feels like a pretty good start. I’m not done her quilt yet, either, but no biggie, I figure, since it won’t go in until the crib does. She actually only gets changed in here right now, the bassinette/cradle goes by my bed at night so I can reach a hand down and comfort her easily back to sleep or grab her and nurse her. Makes for good sleeping for both of us.