adventures in sewing

Every once in awhile I would receive accusatory glances from my idle sewing machine. It had been sitting on my desk for almost two years, and it was beginning to feel lonely. The reasons for its neglect are many and sundry. Too little time, too little knowledge, and no inspiration for an idea I could tackle. I had set a goal for learning about my sewing machine this summer. Do or die, you see. Well, yesterday I actually DID! And boy, it was an adventure.

The first time I threaded the machine, it took me forever! I couldn't get the bobbin thread to come up using the manual dial (which is what you are supposed to do!). Anyway, I got that sorted out and here's are the results of my adventure yesterday!

My learning set up. Easy access to internet help & the tutorials I was using. The idea I used came from Microbes of Unusual Size and some of the modifications of it from my cousin-in-law's blog Nothing, an inapt description of its contents.


The concept is simple. Buy one bath towel, one hand towel. The hand towel is cut smaller down to 16 x 26 in. Then, the cut sides of the hand towel are sewn together to make the hood. This just shows the two towels laid out.


One of the coolest thing about my machine is it has so many special stitches. This was a type of overstitching that apparently is similar to serging. It worked great for sewing up the rough ends of the hand towel!


I loved Jennifer's idea of making it a curved hood. I traced a round object on a piece of paper, then pinned it to the hand towel, cut, and then made that same overstitch. It worked like a champ!


When I started sewing the hood (hand towel) to the bath towel, I hit a major snafu! I think that word came from sewing. Doesn't this just look like a snafu? I think I was attempting to use too small of a zig zag stitch & the fabric just couldn't move through. Unlike Jennifer, I didn't have a lot of trouble getting the thickest part through.

boo - hoo!

I laughed when I turned the bath towel to the inside & saw the result of my stitching. Most of it was pretty straight, but hee hee. I guess I still have to learn a few things. :-) I did pin the hood to the bath towel , but I was trying to pin the hand towel UNDER the bath towel, so I couldn't really see where that pesky hood had gotten to. Anyway, I reflect, it's good that at least in sewing, what it looks like underneath doesn't HAVE to affect what the finished product looks like!


Ta-Da! Pending bathtime, you'll get a shot of this cute towel ON Kate. :-) Thanks a billion, Jennifer!
I think I'm going to take it to a place that embroiders and have Kate's name put on the back. Too bad I don't have Kelley's mom's sewing machine. :-)

katecam

Kate & I sat down in front of the webcam for another recording session. I didn't realize the software I was using to record was only a trial version, so now there are lovely logos right in the middle of the picture, but I think you can still get the idea.

Kate Says Thank You!



Kate Has Happy Feet


Kate Plays

memorial day

The annual Memorial Day Picnic is always memorable in its own way. Two years ago I was pregnant & sat inside most of the time feeling kind of yucky. Last year, Kate was a young'un and we still spent most of the time inside, although I had a MUCH better time than the year before. This year, Kate had a blast. The Howlands set up pools for the young ones to cool off & play in.

Per usual, Kate took a while to get "warmed up" to the idea of getting IN the pool. Once she did, she wouldn't get out!

Funniest picture ever! We forgot to pack a swim diaper, so we just left a regular one on. It just kept absorbing water until it was simply humongous. This was yesterday; today she had on a swim diaper, and I just couldn't get over the fact that they make regular diapers to absorb so much liquid & swim diapers to absorb so little. Diaper technology!

Sweet little AJ, one of Lauren's fellow summer o' '07 baby girls. Look at those eyelashes!

Ooh, someone splashin' me. Stop that!

Megan managed to enjoy herself even though she spent a lot of time baby watching.

First ice cream cone. (ice in Kate's language) She absolutely loved loved loved it!


We came home after the picnic & we had a nice time as a family on the porch! Our new deck furniture is helping us use our outdoor space so much more!

Even Josh joined in on the ice cream fun. Two scoops, of course. Kate was fascinated by Da-dee ice and Ma-ma ice.

Hiya! Kate loves to greet everything. This morning I heard her say, Hi Bee! to a spider. :-)

swimmin' times

Today we had a spontaneous play group in our back yard. We set up the pool & then I got out the "sprinkly" (according to Lydia). The girls had a real blast getting wet!

Laur just can't wait to grow up. All she wanted to do was stand up in the pool which made it a bit difficult for Jen to keep dry. She was thrilled to bits when we moved her over to the sprinkler.

The girls realized that you could DRINK the stuff AND play in it. They were so hilarious! We figured it was safer than them drinking the pool water!

Obviously, Emma just wasn't getting enough! Although it was a bit of a circus with all 4 girls, they loved crawling on top of one another. Kate took a special shine to Emma and wanted to follow her wherever she went.

Mom, have you been holding out on me????

this is why i don't buy toys

choo-choo

maraca (shake, shake, shake!)

snowshoes


water


She actually crafted the first two toys all by herself. Or, should I say, repurposed. The last is my favorite picture from the last few months.

Note: I heard back from the dermatologist's office today & Kate's growth was a calcification with a fancy latin name that I wasn't able to write down BECAUSE I was just walking into school & my phone was dying. They want to see her in 6 weeks just to make sure it's all gone, but it's a completely benign, non-worrisome thing! Praise the Lord & thanks for your prayers.

major milestones

A quick update from the Bailey residence. A couple of monumental changes have occurred in Kate's life over the last few weeks. A month ago (or perhaps a little bit more), Kate shifted seamlessly out of babyhood & into official toddlerhood! She stopped nursing. She had cutely begun to say "nush, nush" when she wanted or expected to nurse. I was reminded by a friend that we had always said that when a kid is old enough to ask for it, it's time to quit. In my mind, I was thinking ask for it would sound more like this. "Mommy, may I please nurse now?" So, when I heard the cute "nush, nush," I didn't think of this at all! Well, for this and other reasons, I decided to do it. Kate had absolutely no trouble. I think this really means she wasn't getting much milk really, and was just having a nice time cuddling with mom.

Related to this issue of nursing was the paci! At Kate's last checkup, I asked the pediatrician when a good time to take away Kate's paci would be. She said as soon as possible because the longer you wait, the harder it usually is for them to make a new pattern for going to sleep or soothing themselves. So, we started the very next day & removed it from her whole daytime experience . She didn't typically use it very much during the day, but if she happened to see one lying around, usually lying under the crib, she would pop it in & use it for awhile. She had used it for naps, but she seemed to be pretty content without it & didn't really brook a fuss about it. Two nights ago, we made the last move & I didn't give her one before bedtime. She went down like a champ! The only real distress this has caused us is some serious backtracking in our church behavior. The paci was a mighty convenient way to enforce silence during pray & sermon. So, now we have to train her to keep her own mouth quiet -- quite a different task. The pediatrician suggested replacing paci with snacks and still occupying the mouth with something different than talking. We had already started this fun idea, but the only thing about snacks during church is she eats practically her lunch's worth of cheerios AND it doesn't really preclude her from talking. We've made people chuckle several times by some of her outbursts. If she sees anyone she knows, she calls their name. "Hiya! I-A (Lydia)!" My favorite is that she loves to thumb through the hymnal, but now she likes to sing "Ho-lee" even after the songs are over. On the whole, however, I'm quite excited that she had such an easy transition & I'll be happy for her to learn quietness without a crutch at church, even if it means a few (or a lot) more Sundays sitting outside the sanctuary.

Lastly, for the past two months, Kate has had a growth on her ear. It started off quite small, like a pimple, and after a few weeks of rest, it began to grow. This was a bit alarming, so I eventually was recommended by the pediatrician to visit a dermatologist. My little research prepared me for the fact that they would probably remove it inside the office at that first visit. I dreaded Kate's discomfort and pain more than anything! At our visit, Kate was the perfect little patient! She didn't cry or wiggle ONCE! I was so proud or her and so happy that God had answered my prayers! A couple of tricks to getting her to be calm-- I did bring out the secret weapon PACI for this occasion, and they also let me hold her and had both of us lay on the table. Then, they administered a numbing gel, then some local anesthesia in a syringe, then the dermatologist removed the growth, which by this time had grown to be about the size of a pea. It was pinky/red most of the time. They took a biopsy to send to a lab, and we'll hopefully hear the results this week. I rewarded her immediately with lots of hugs & kisses and then I took her to Chick-fil-A for some lunch AND some ice cream. I kept thinking that she didn't even know why all these yummy things were falling into her lap, the whole doc's visit was so non-traumatic for her! Praise the Lord! And no, I haven't taken any pics of it, not really wanting to preserve it for posterity. The bandaid came off on Sunday and the wound looks okay. The dermatologist cauterized it, so it looks a little black (like a cigarette burn, said Josh). The spot was on the tragus of the ear. (I just decided that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to describe it, so I'd find the scientific term for it and YOU can look it up here! :-0)

All this means that Kate is growing up before our very eyes. Today I gave her a bath & I could just see Little Girl instead of Baby. I'm not really sure that I'm ready, but I'm so grateful that God has given me this bright eyed explorer to me and Josh.

One of her latest words is "tank-a-da" -- which means Thank You (maybe the da is dad, but she says it to everyone). Super cute. My favorite thing is that she now (sometimes) uses peeze & tank-a-da all on her own. This morning, I gave her a piece of my cereal and out she comes with "Tank-a-da." So cute!