nine months!

Emma's nine month check up is this morning, and when its over, I am taking the babies to the Boise zoo! I am curious to see how big she is by the numbers, because she has sure seemed to slow down on the growing. She is pretty good at getting on her feet now, but hasn't moved to walking around the furniture yet. She is more interested in learning to climb because that's what Jesse has been up to. I have a couple big diaper boxes in the living room for them to scoot around and climb on and they both really enjoy it.

I feel like we have been super busy the last few weeks, but I cant think of anything that actually happened. There just seems to be a lot going on. Family reunion went really well, even though Emma had a rough time with all the activities, the drives both ways went well. We had one week before Jason's classes started once we got home again, and it was so nice to have a little time in the evenings together, and to spend the weekend just hanging out rather than scrambling to get homework finished. We had our first alone date since Emma was born last Sunday! Now he has a class every day and two on Thursdays and I am watching Jesse during the days so we are both feeling busy.

One more thing, I have been called for jury duty for the month of September. It would be just fantastic if I never had to go in. Really. It would be great. And if I do get called, let it be at the end of the month? So pray for me, I have never had to do this before and I have no idea what to do. Besides that I feel responsible for these babies and don't want to have to scramble for a sitter or two.

Okay, I had better get the diaper bag ready for two babies and lunch time, and get that double stroller of death into the back of my itty bitty car. Soon it will be time for the zoo!

super secret

i should also mention that i found a great old pattern in my moms stash to make something perfect for the soon to be one year old monster baby boy who is currently crawling around my floor saying "hu-uh-uh, hu-uh-uh" as he steals toys from emma. i had something else in mind, but this is way better. and will be revealed in a month after his party. so i guess i have been working on something. :)

in the works

i was home a couple of weekends ago, and scored two brown bags full of patterns (1962 was the oldest copyright date we found, but several patterns appear to be a bit older than that), a rubbermaid tub full of fabric, a snap press, and oodles more. in the pattern stash, there was a basic mens button down short pattern mccalls 5741 copyright 1977.

my mom made the long sleeve version of the shirt on the right for my dad, and had cut out a size 42. she never cuts out pattern peices anymore, but on this one she did. this pattern has five collar and cuff sets to mix and match with the basic shirt and sleeves. i found the "normal" collar and cut it out. jason needs a size 46, but the pattern only goes to 44, and mom had cut to a 42 in some places, so i had to add on the extra sizes, but i think i did a pretty good job of it. i am making a short sleeved shirt for jason out of this fabric:

but i have been busy, and have only gotten so far as to cut everything out, iron on interfacing, and stitch the front opening and pocket. i hope to finish this this week some time, so jason can ear it to work on friday. can you believe this is the first thing i have ever sewn for him? oh, and did i mention that he picked out the fabric? you never would have guessed that. :)

standing

August 11, 6pm, Emma stood up. And shes been doing it ever since. She first pulled herself up with the back of her bumbo, but likes to stand in her crib and showed off for Kris yesterday by standing up next to the coffee table. She really wants to be good at standing, now that she knows she can do it, and she gets really mad when she fails. She is also starting to show that she wants a certain person. Its cute when she crawls towards one of us to be picked up.

Tonight our family is headed to Oregon for my family reunion. We havent taken Emma on a long trip since she was three weeks old. unless you count McCall as a long trip then she was three months old. So tonight, we are doing ten hours in a car with, we pray, a sleeping baby. Monday when we drive back will be a whole different story.

shirt dress

i went pattern shopping several weeks ago when there was a sale at joanns and found a cute shirt dress pattern that i wanted, it is new look 6587. then i realised, i liked it because jenn and i had picked it out in may! it took several attempts to find it because i think they are taking it out of circulation. i ended up with the last one from the joanns in boise and it just happened to be the one in my size.

jason chose the fabric for me, it goes well with my new red hair i think. it also washes well, so that it doesnt need ironed when it comes out of the dryer.

so here is the dress, i only made slight changes to it. i added more buttons, twelve instead of eleven because i had several colors and i wanted an even amount of each color button. then added another button to the top because it fell just a little too low to keep me decent.



this is just a more accurate picture of the fabric. i dont have a good place to take pictures of things, so they are usually against white. that kind of washed out this dress.



the pink dress from several weeks ago had pockets in the sides, that i thought were genius, and snagged for this dress. it wasnt hard at all to fit then to the skirt, but i was short on fabric so the bottom inside of the pocket is pieced together. but youd never know that if i hadnt just told you. :)



and the collar. this was the first time i sewed a collar like this, but it was much easier than i expected. when i make this again though, i will trace the shape of a collar on one of my shirts that i like, and change the shape of this one. it seems a little 1970's large to me.



so there it is. i really like it. it is comfortable, and fits well. i do need to find a little brown belt to wear with it, because its much cuter cinched at the waist with a belt.

coles rocket ship

for cole's first birthday i tried out the rocket ship pattern from The Long Thread. i used some left over star fabric from zech's quilt more than three years ago, and vinyl that i just bought for a different project.





because it was for cole, i tried my hand at applique and put a contrasting C on the bottom or the ship. i wanted to use the vinyl and put it on the side of the ship, but my machine and i were not capable of making that happen, and by the time it occurred to me to use the other fabric, i had already sewn the body of the ship closed. this is the first time i have ever done applique, and i think it turned out quite nice.



i left a hole above one of the fins to turn later, and sewed up all the sides between the body pieces



then pin pin pinned the circle to the bottom and sewed it on. this was probably the roundest circle i have ever sewn.



then i turned the ship and stuffed the rocket through the little hole i left at the top.



i used a ladder stitch, or invisible stitch to close up the hole and cole's rocket ship is finished!

tie neck top update

i have been away from updating (not from sewing) because i just had all four of my wisdom teeth surgically removed and have been a little off thanks to the pain medication that got me through it. because of that, i have several things to post, and here is the oldest, the tie neck top (new look 6831), first try.



i used some really cheap fabric that i had made a summer dress for emma out of several months ago. part way through sewing, i realised a few things. first, i had cut the wrong size pattern. once i had all the darts, and side/shoulder seams i did another try on and it was too too small. i let out all the room i could on the seams (thankful i hadnt surged them off yet) then let out the darts too. it is still too small to fit with buttons, but at least it fits, and i know that the proper size will fit just fine.



the collar was not hard to figure out, i thought it might be, but directions were very clear. the pattern piece for the collar is an odd shape though. i was looking for a straighter tie than these turned out to be. (have you noticed yet that i must not have been paying close attention when i was cutting things out for this top? i wonder what emma was doing that had my eye on her.) the tie flares to about two and a half inches at the bottom, and the neck is closer to a little more than an inch.





the sleeves i happened to cut out in the correct size, so i had a bit of extra fabric when i was attaching them to the top. i didnt want to just ease stitch them, so i pleated the tops of the sleeves to give them a little more interest. (or, poof. :) i am quite happy with the way they turned out.



i tossed this on over the tee i was wearing so i could get a couple pictures of it quick last night, but i think it would be cute over just a tank top or camisole during summer. its very light and would be nice and cool, while still keeping a little sun off. this is how the collar lays too, it is a little awkward. it seems like the center front of the shirt comes up really high so when it is unbuttoned, it falls down really low.



and last, the darts and side seams that i ripped and let out to make the shirt fit. i think they still give the shirt a pretty good shape, even though they arent what they used to be. i am looking forward to making this again, in the right size, and maybe with a denser fabric that i could wear as a button down top.

little monster

Its her nickname right now. Little Monster. Emma got another tooth yesterday. Her second bottom tooth popped through and the tops are working even harder now that they have sharp little edges to rub against. She has been quite unhappy today.

And, I am still dreading having my teeth out in the morning. And hoping I can remember things, and function as a parent within a few hours. Pray for me? And for my face. :)