Rejection

Now that I have become a parent, many new fears and worries have appeared. I've talked to a good friend (who's also a mother and a camper) about my new found fear of the great outdoors, which I LOVE and grew up camping in, only now it scares me because I have two little ones.

Today I experienced another worry that I've thought about more frequently over this past year (since I no longer work and we're able to have more playdates)...my son being rejected by his friends. The hard part was that it wasn't during a playdate, where I would have upped and left once it occurred. It happened while watching my friends kids so she could run an errand. It was heartbreaking to watch. What do you do???

I ended up sending everyone to their room and kept my son in the living room and told them all that we needed to have some quiet time since we weren't playing nice. Afterwards I talked to my son about it and told him that when they are not playing nice, they need to have some quiet time and that it was time to play alone for a bit. His chin quivered when he said that he didn't want to play alone. My poor baby...he was treated unfairly and recognized it because he was trying to force them to play nicely right before I broke them all up. I have always worried about him being rejected by certain friends because there are a few that he is so loyal to when we visit.

What would you do??

Just a pic of my sons pretty blue eye and the Fresh From the Cauldron yarn in Bella Swan colorway that I custom ordered to knit a hat out of for him. Think they match??

I spy Friday...

I spy with my little eye....the "dino egg" from last Friday's I spy Friday post! :) It's kinda neat how super close up pics can throw off your scale of things.

Second Frock by Friday.....FAIL!!

Looks decent for being a FAIL doesn't it? There are several reasons it's a fail, though it is fixable. After having a friend over for lunch (who's way more fashion savvy than I am) we came up with some good ideas. (Don't look at my hair, I just combed it out and it was still drying.)
First off, I'm wearing the belt too low, it needs to be higher up on my natural waist, but that's not why it's a fail. And after posting all about it here, I changed the skirt back to the original pattern with the elastic in the hem instead of widening it, the A-line skirt does not look good with the top part. The entire pattern would need to be altered to get it to look good as an A-line skirt. That FAIL part was fixed. After finishing the sleeve caps for a second time, the armhole is still too gaping for me to wear it comfortably. FAIL!!
This pic shows the gaping armhole the first time I finished it. It also shows how the sleeve cap did not line up with my shoulder, so I had to cut the top pieces to a smaller size. The third time around...not sure when that will be....I'm just going to remove the sleeve cap altogether and line the whole sleeve opening with single fold bias tape made from the polkadot fabric. Wish me luck!
This pic shows how large the largest size is on me. I mis-measured the whole thing. I'm not sure what size the finished dress ended up being. Below is the pic I took to compare the largest size to a more fitted size (possibly the smallest). The first FAILURE I did was to mis-cut the button placket way back in the beginning of June because I didn't read the placket tutorial's instructions closely and was off by just a 1/4"!!! AND I READ THEM NUMEROUS TIMES AS I WAS CONSTRUCTING IT!!! I was so mad at myself for that mistake. It's a very well written tutorial by Rachel Writes and it was very clear on how to create the placket. Just be warned that it's a placket which shows the accent fabric on the front of the dress, it does not hide it inside as the one on Grosgrain's does. I ended up patching the bottom of the placket with the polka dot fabric matching up the pattern so that it blends right in.
See my lazy cat on the bed?? And the boys wrestling?? Well, I'm off to sew a friends dress for her cousin's wedding. I've got to redo the back pieces since they were an inch too small. If I'm on top of it, I may blog about it soon too!! Happy sewing!

I spy Friday...

I spy with my little eye...a dinosaur egg hidden in the gravel. HA! Just a picture of a rock can bring out your imagination eh?? Well, it brought out mine when I saw the rock while geocaching near the Columbia River. :) It was so blue...the pic doesn't show how blue it is.

Gnomies

Having been so busy, I realized I missed the last two I Spy Friday's...well, the last two I was out of town...I think...anyways...I'll have one for ya this Friday.

I managed to post about my Year of Enchantment gnome ornament on the SwapperSpot blog but not here...I made five or six of these little guys (after some internet inspiration) only to have ALL but TWO BREAK! Darn air dry clay....maybe I didn't use enough water to attach the pieces. I don't know... Here's how the only two that made it finished up with a bit of acrylic paint and a glaze that said it would take up to ten days to dry! Well, I only waited two until I mailed them. :) Here's the rest of what I sent......the two gnomes with three gummy army men, several teas, many perty pieces of paper (my swap partner is participating in a dress a month crafty-along here) and a yard of red and white check fabric for her Tumbleweed (here). In return, here's what I got...
VERY SIMILAR GNOMES!! There's a funny story behind these guys. I got her package before I even sent her my package. I was a few days behind because of playing with clay AND painting AND glazing...so there was some unexpected dry time that took quite a bit of time in between each task....well, I was approaching day two out of the ten days of drying for the glazing and decided that I was going to mail them anyways because they felt dry. Once I came back from the post office, I ripped open my package to find all those goodies and three gnomes and a gnome home with a baby in it and I cracked up laughing!! I title my other post Great Minds Think Alike cuz we were inspired (I'm pretty sure) by the exact same internet source!! Okay, okay....should I reveal our secret source?? FIRST...I have to say that I AM NOT reproducing this Etsy sellers creations for profit. I created the gnomes for a crafty swap giveaway. One time, that's all. IF YOU would like a cute little gnome of your own, and they're custom made, go visit HumbleBea's Etsy shop and you can find some of these adorable gnomes for yourself.

Long time no see...

Life has been a whirlwind in my neck of the woods. Even before my absence from blogland. Weekend after weekend of busy-ness, and not just two day weekends. Oh no...some as long as five days. But that's how summers are right?? I think we're making up for last summer of absolutely no traveling because I was pregnant. Well....here's what I've been up to...the 4th of July the boys were baptized. After a meeting with our pastor on how the ceremony will proceed and how to dress them, we decided on robing them after being baptized. A few days later I described over the phone what I designed after a little research and the pastor approved. SO...I set to work on my first ever muslin pattern....Here's toddler modeling his muslin while not being distracted from his movie. Believe it or not, this stripe fabric was cheaper than muslin. I had hit a 50% off red tag sale at JoAnn's. I was pretty stoked to work on my first muslin pattern to create a final product. After three days of stressing over both my toddlers and 10-mo-old muslin patterns, I finally got it figured out and got to work with the white linen. Here's the un-ironed finished product....
It's designed after the Alb. Why you ask?? I really don't know since that's the robe style of a pastor. (I do tend to create things on the costumey side...I'm not sure if this was truly okay or not though). They both turned out AWESOME and my craftsmanship on them are SUPERB!! (not to brag any) I used single fold bias tape on every seam and velcro to close on the top at the left shoulder. The finished pattern ended up being SO SIMPLE! Looking back I don't know why it took me three days to figure that out. Oh wait...because it was my first time and I've never pattern drafted before! haha!

Well, that's not all I've been up to...more to come this week...

I spy Friday...

I spy with my little eye....the light at the end of a pretty stressful week. Just two more days and my stress level will decrease by a million and I can show you all what I'm talking about.