McCalls 6420 Alice in Wonderland Cont'd. (Queen of Hearts)

I loved this patterns.  May be quilting made me a faster seamstress, I don't know, but this thing came together in three days, from cut to lace edging, and that is unheard of.  And I'm talking days, like, after Mr Snork gets home and takes the children so this:

this tension seems really tense..

doesn't happen.  Or this:

Bye bye bobbin

I shortened bodice an 1.5", and took it in 1.5".  Took skirt in 4", but should have taken in a foot.  This thing weighs 80 pounds.  And required a petticoat.  (Petticoat included in the 3 days, what?!)

The peplums and the skirt for the smallest size, at least, can be smaller.  My peplum fabric is gathered to the max, so it the skirt.  A couple needles bit the dust.  Basically, you're attaching something very small to something super giant, and at the some point, the extra fabric doesn't do you any good anymore.

But I'm not bitter, this is a queen dress, and queens have giant skirts.  Also, I'm secretely hoping that the sheer weight of this dress will tire out Mouse, and she only makes it to 3 houses before trick or treating is done.  I also used 4" horsehair braid in the hem.  That took it from this:

to this:

when you add the petticoat, it's queen material for sure.

Finished length from neck to center back hem is 30", (I took 4" off the shortest hem size, but because I used hem tape me hem allowance was only 1/4")

The most exciting part of all of this is that ALL the fabric came from my stash.  The fact that I had foresight to buy 3 yards of bright red crepe (whyyyyyy??)  for $2 at a rummage sale years ago just tickles me.  And black crepe.  And cream poly.  Because with the yardage requirement of this thing,  you end up in the situation where buying a ready made is cheaper.   But at $6, I felt like I could still go to JoAnn's and get some fancy gold trim for the front panel:

And the sleeves.

Apparently I have a thing for gold trim.  I stopped just short of the 21.99/yd rhinestone ribbon, cause that didn't seem cost effective..May be one day..

This is going to be my favorite pattern for any kind of queen, princess, whatever dress.  It comes together super quickly, and has a matching cape.  CAPE, people.  The cape set me back $20 in fake velvet and adorable card fabric, but I was OK with that in large scheme of $6 things.

Did I mention it has a train?  Because it does.

 And a giant bow.  

I kind of wish I had made it for myself, I never got to wear a dress with a butt bow. ever, and I feel like that window is closing fast.

eat all the candy

My plan must have worked, because not three houses down, all she wanted to do was sit and eat candy.  Score!

Game of Thrones anyone?

Living with Mice

She's almost a year old!!  I literally can not believe she's here.  I made (well, we made..) this little person, and I grew her, and she's strutting around now, with opinions and preferences that I DIDN'T make.  Last Tuesday she took her first two steps towards Mary Ann, our neighbor.  Then she took a couple more when her dad got home.  On Thursday, she took four steps towards Liz, our other neighbor.  Since then, she's decided it's overrated.

She walks holding  my finger, and RUNS if she can get both hands.  She runs around the block with her push toy.  But, when we try and trick her into more steps, she sits down, or goes to crawl.  She's even developed a spider type crawl - just feet and hands, no knees.  I guess she doesn't think very highly of walking.  If she's too tired, in protest, when we let go off her hands, she folds onto the floor entirely, head and everything and acts sleepy.  I'm pretty sure it's a ploy to get picked up.

Today, Mr Snork was feeding her, and every time I came by, she'd get irritated.  We thought I was distracting her from food.  Mr Snork thought it was funny, and had me come over again, to check.  She stared me down, and then let out a little scream/grunt, as she slapped her hand on the table.  The universal "get out of my face"??

Twenty minutes later, Mr Snork was putting her to bed, as I sat on the couch, feeling appropriately dejected.  Mouse came by to say good night, and was ALL smiles.  Even with the "LoL" face - where she opens her mouth wide, as if she's laughing, but not really.

I just told Mr Snork, how odd it was that she changed her attitude towards me back and forth so suddenly.  He said, "She knows she's gotta blow you kisses before bed time.  You're the one who gets up and tends to her in the morning".

On one hand, I don't think she could possibly be that crafty.  On the other, she probably already is.

I made her a couple of cloth diapers, for fun.  She tore them off immediately, and wanted nothing to do with them.

A friend of mine has totally punked me with Naartjie.  As in, introducing me to it.   I have, for the most part avoided buying new baby clothes, save a clearance item here and there at Baby Gap, or a tutu at Target.  I spent $130 at Naartjie this month.   The friend in question would suggest we stop by there every time we were at a mall, to buy clothes for her little boy.   Now, her "little" boy is close to 30 lbs at 8 months, and Naartjie baby clothes don't even fit him.   But Mouse looks ADORABLE in their stuff.   I don't even know how this happened, but she owns their spring line in 3 colours.  Mr Snork is in shock.   I should probably get to sewing a lot more cloth diapers, HA.

The Brilliant Mouse and Spring Swimsuits

I was getting ready to call Harvard earlier today.  Mouse can drink from a straw!   She didn't know anything about straws earlier today, or cups.  And now, she can drink from a straw.

I saw a baby sip water from a Starbucks cup at Sprouts earlier this week, and was overcome with baby development envy.  But, clearly, Mouse has been ready to sip from straws a long time ago, it's just that none had been provided.  (Probably even earlier than the show-off Sprouts baby.  Definately earlier.)

 She can also 'high five' me, and hand me things that I point to.  She can walk when I hold both her hands (she's tricky and won't step forward till she's got your other hand..). She can grab things with two fingers.   And now, she's can casually sip her Similac, well, her Kirkland-Similac from a Starbucks cup, if need be.  Take that, Sprouts baby.   I've been walking with my chest puffed the whole day.  

In a super unrelated story (except puffy chests), I am currently sewing a bathing suit.  Which means I'm not even done with it yet. Helpfully, I skipped away from a  glorious estate sale last weekend with a BOX of woolly nylon serger thread.   I estimate I have enough thread for 80 swimsuits,  give or take 50.  If I just wasn't so slow.

It took one night to make 3 muslins for the shorts alone, one night to set up the serger, another night to fix the serger after I messed with it too much, and a couple of nights of Half Marathon training zapping all of my will to move and just spacing out at PatternReview.com.  Despite all this, I consider this current swimsuit in the bag, and eyeballing my next one:

I can practically SEE myself in this, in Hawaii.  So, I have a month to finish the one I'm working on, confirm that I am, in fact a master seamstress of the swimsuit, hunt down this one, and also make IT.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

I was really committed to a Cupid themed photoshoot, but her 20 minute refresher nap didn't give me enough time to scrounge up feathers for wings.  (Or, I guess, less authentically paint some onto cardboard).  That and she HATED the fluffy halo headband so much, that my Cupid was going to have a decidedly un.angelic face.  With chewed bits of fluffy headband remnants all around.   I would have *really* wanted to go gather seagull feathers by the shore, for the most spectacularglued wings ever, but I started doubting their hygenic potential.  Can feathers transmit rabies?  Do seagulls have rabies?  Other skin deseases?  Fleas, perhaps?  These things keep me up at night.  Thankfully, because I never got off my bum, they don't have to this time around.

I'm trying to get back into blogging.  By which I mean, at least once daily I think very hard, "I should blog about this" but then I don't.  So, I'm 50% there.  There  are so many cool things I want to write about, and photos I want to share, but then I don't, and then other cool new things happen, and then I forget, and then it never happens.  It must be a time management issue.

It makes me feel like this:

(Those chocolate strawberries are downright heart breaking when they're rudely taken away).

I'm going to be better.  From now on, I will write once a week, for sure.  And then we'll see.  A similar approach to the gym has blossomed brilliantly, and I'm almost, like, a runner.  (Well, a waddling runner wanna-be, like my friends who actually are runners but let's not split hairs).  

Baby Mouse Wants to Play, Too.

She came to be almost 6 months ago, and if she knew she wasn't even mentioned in this blog, she'd be pissed.  Although, to be fair, nothing's been mentioned in this blog in about 6 months, give or take (give) the last two long months of pregnancy where I couldn't feel my ribs anymore and nothing seemed fun.  

She went from this tiny, unimpressed, lip pursing creature (that we were all scared of):

To this:

Still tiny, but a whole little person, with a personality, likes (Mr Snork, baths, her toes), dislikes (she changes these up frequently to keep me on my toes, but always greeted with a ridiculous for her size angry grunt), and all types of skills (that we're still scared of, but not as much). 

Like this whole foot in the mouth business.  She couldn't do this couple weeks ago.  I got probably 80 shots on my camera during this toe discovery business.  My hard drive at 6 months post partum is groaning with the weight of thousands of baby pictures.  Some taken in continuous action mode.  Which makes me think, I have a couple pictures of my great grandma.  Baby Mouse's great-grandchildren will be able to see her every day since birth, until Mr Snork confiscates my camera, like he's been threatening. 

She's amazing all over, of course, because I  m a d e  her (with some help from Mr Snork) but she has been particularly amazing in two respects.  One is her standing.  She started doing it at about 4 weeks old, she'd straighten herself  and we thought it was gas, until it turned out she just really likes to stand upright.  At about the same time we learned that she did not like being cradled, which to this day, makes for a feeding challenge. 

And the other is her face.   She's been giving us dirty looks from Day 1.  They say babies can't focus well the first couple weeks..  I'm here to tell you, if there's was a reason to focus (milk not in mouth soon enough) she managed to focus.  I read an article that said tiny babies don't know what hunger is, and they don't know when it hits, that their parents will be there shortly to relieve it, hence the massive freak out.  She may not know I'll be there to relieve it, but she looks at me like she KNOWS I could've been there sooner.  It's pretty amazing.  And, for Mr Snork, there are also looks of complete and utter adoration.  The first bunch of actual, real smiles were actually directed at Mr Snork.  Of course.  And his ribs didn't even feel a thing.  Typical.



Please welcome Baby Mouse (formerly referred to as Strawberry. Turns out she's less of a fruit and more of a tiny animal in person.)  My new, tiny, adorable, temperamental sidekick.  Who loves her Papa a little more than me, but I'm not bitter or anything.  It's probably a baby thing.