Those long-awaited baby gifts

At last I can show you those baby gifts. You'd think it was some big deal or something, the way I've been leading you on about these things.

It all started with the food bag I made for the baby. I just wanted something nicer than a ziplock baggie to keep the spoon, bib, and baby food jars together in the diaper bag.

Of course, once that was made I decided we needed to improve on the baggie that was holding the diapers. I thought the diaper case should match the feed bag. So this is what developed and has become the baby gift we're giving everyone this year:







Why, why, why did these gifts take me so long? It took a while to develop and perfect the pattern. (And of course, the proto I made the baby still doesn't have it's velcro dots because the cobbler's children don't have shoes, right?) Both bags are fully lined with muslin, and the diaper case has a canvas interfacing to help it keep its shape, so there are many, many little pieces of fabric to be cut and pieced together. Plus the embroidery, clipping and pressing the curves on the diaper case, finding time to go all the way downtown to buy the velcro dots, then getting all the way across town to buy shipping boxes, and finding time to stand in the endless line at the post office. Whew!

But I'm working ahead now, and I have lots of these things cut out and started sewing. The goal is to have the diaper cases made so that I have just the embroidery and food sacks to sew when a baby is born. Hopefully it will save a little time and the recipients won't be potty trained by the time their baby gifts arrive.

Eating and waiting for spring

This time of year always seems to be the toughest, in my opinion: colds linger, spring fever starts breaking out, the weather starts teasing us with little bursts of warmth and sun, but we frequently have another month of winter awaiting us before we can really start saying that spring has arrived. I'm just tired of being sick, and I want the Vitamin C fairy to wave her magic wand at me and make me start feeling energetic again.

Bebe - who is very close to walking, at which point I suppose I will have to stop calling her Bebe and start calling her Kiddo - has gone on a food strike for the past week or so. It started shortly after the pediatrician told me she needs to start eating more. Of course. Every so often I can coax a little oatmeal or yogurt into her, but she mostly wants to feed herself. Yet nothing seems to make it into her mouth and stay there right now.

So at the advice of a good friend, I made some banana bread to see if Bebe might eat it. It turned out really well, and I think she may have eaten a little of it, but I think I ate most of it.

Today I decided to make the recipe again and tweak it to make it a little more healthy: replace some butter with yogurt, substitute some white flour with a little whole wheat and oat flour, etc. I made two loaves: one banana and one zucchini squash. And they turned out really well! I'm always happy when kitchen experiments go smoothly. Of course, here I sit eating the bread from the photo; I'd better save some for the baby.

In other very exciting food news, we were reading the book about yellow things the other day and Bebe got really excited when we came to the page with the banana. "Ooooh! Ooooh!" She was quite upset and confused when she couldn't get that banana off the page. It's fascinating to me to witness this little mind at work.

There hasn't been much crafting to show off lately, but I have lots of things in the works. So stay tuned. And I think the etsy shop will be opening very soon, too. Maybe if I stop eating and start crafting I'll get rid of this spring fever.

Wash day

Bebe usually gets one book and one goodnight song before bed - I borrowed this custom from my sister - and the other night I found myself singing "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush" to her. This isn't a regular chanson on my repertoire, and at first I thought perhaps I was remembering the verses incorrectly. But no, I had it right: each verse is about a day of the week and its accompanying chore. Apparently for many years this is how housework was done: Monday was wash day, Tuesday was for ironing, Wednesday was mending, Thursday was for shopping, Friday was cleaning, Saturday was baking, and Sunday was for church and rest.

Grandma was telling me, a while ago, that wash day became a competition between neighbors when she was growing up and even when she was rearing my father and my aunts. The idea was to be the first on the block to have your wash hanging on the line on Monday morning. I suppose it showed what an industrious, hard worker you were if you got up earlier than everyone else and did your work. In Grandma's neighborhood many rumors circulated about the Dutch neighbors who supposedly soaked their wash on Sundays to get a head start on Mondays. Sacrelig, apparently.

As if happens, Bebe and I usually do the laundry on Mondays. I just like to get it out of the way so I don't need to think about it during the rest of the week. If I let it go longer than a week between washings the piles grow too big and Bebe runs out of clothing.

I typed "this is the day we wash our clothes" into Google this morning and came across the site for The New Homemaker. It's an interesting concept, and I may do a little more exploring on the site, but the word "homemaker" and the sweet calico background really set my teeth on edge. It's all a little too 1950's June Cleaver for me. I'd rather be the Speed Queen. Busy.

Where did the week go?

This week passed so quickly, I needed to stop for a few minutes today to determine where my time went. Granted, taking care of Bebe all day does not involve sitting around eating bonbons and watching soap operas, but where did my blog/craft time go? I think I've uncovered the time-eating culprits:


I spent a lot of time cutting fabric for new projects.

However, these cutting activities did not seem to reduce my fabric stash by any measurable quantity,

nor did it reduce my yarn stash at all.

I managed to finish two of the baby gifts I've been working on for so long. More on this later next week, once they've been sent out to their recipients.


We also spent time trying to fight off Bebe's nasty cold.

I worked on sketching a few design ideas for the pillows,

and I caught up on a little reading.

On Thursday, Bebe and I sat for a three-month-old friend. The experience reinforced my tremendous respect for mothers of more than one child. And Bebe decided that she does not want to share her Mum with other babies. We all had a good time, but by Thursday night I was exhausted.

On Friday, after the sitter arrived for my once-a-week break, I went back to bed for some much-needed sleep.

Next week? Perhaps a little more sewing and knitting. And hopefully a healthy Bebe. It will be great to all be healthy at the same time over here.

On art, craft, and wearing the same dress again and again

I was planning to start this post with an old photo of my mom, me and two of my sisters. We were all wearing the same dress. My mother sewed the dresses for us, and I can only imagine the responses we got when we arrived at church looking like Photoshop gone haywire. Fortunately, I wasn't paying enough attention to people's reactions or I may have needed years of therapy to recover. (Then again, maybe that's what subconsciously drove me to work in fashion?) My poor younger sisters wore the same dress in different sizes for many, many years. Very cute dresses, but I'm sure they would have appreciated a little more diversity in their lives. Sorry I couldn't dig out the photo in time for this post; it's quite amusing.


I was thinking about those dresses over the weekend, in part because I just finished these hats: one for me and one for Bebe. I would have felt a little silly if the hats matched perfectly, so I switched the color placement on them and frankly still feel a little silly. But I'm happy with them and I don't mind having frogged and reknit my hat four times because it's a great fit now. The baby's hat took no time at all, since by the time I made it I was very experienced with the pattern, gauge, etc.!

Pattern: Kim's Hats from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay, colors Butane (33) and Cerise (47)
Started: too long ago (like maybe two months ago? I can't remember)
Finished: February 19

Here's a photo of us modelling our new chapeaux.

And speaking of wearing the same dress for a long time, this weekend I saw the Andrea Zittel show at the New Museum of Contemporary Art for the second time. I really like Zittel's work, and I think one of the reasons it appeals to me is the way that she has crossed the barrier between art and craft. Zittel's art involves her home and her clothing, and much of her work focuses on creating new ways to shape her living space and the functional items around her. I like the way her mind works. If you are not familiar with her work, here are a few links that may be of interest:

Zittel's website
Art:21 short bio and summary of her work. Be sure to view the A-Z Six Month Uniform link
New Museum of Contemporary Art website
Photos and a short article about a Zittel clothing show in Tokyo
Another Zittel show currently showing at the Whitney Museum at Altria

One of my favorite aspects of Zittel's work is the dresses that she makes and wears for six months at a time. Her crocheted dresses are really thoughtful, creative designs that cross the line between fashion and art. Now she's making felted tunics. I wanted to find some nice photos of the crocheted dresses to show you, but they don't seem to be available on her website yet.

Anyway, that photo certainly seemed to capture my mindset this weekend. Perhaps I'll dig it out in time for a Self-Portrait Tuesday post sometime soon. And Mom told me those dresses are still showing up at church periodically; they've been handed down many times. Andrea Zittel would be proud.

Postscript: ok, here it is. My sister, Christy, remembered that it exists in digital format. I hope it's everything I said it was.

Color

.

How to wear it

Here's a little something I've been doing for about a year now and have found to be very useful. Now that I'm not making an income, I really can't afford to buy many clothes. And frankly, I don't need more clothes; I've accumulated a lot of things that just need to be worn more often. To help me do that, I've been gathering tearsheets from magazines. Often when I'm looking through a catalog or magazine I'll see a photo that reminds me of something I own which is worn in a different way than I would normally wear it. I save those pages so that when I can't find anything to wear I can look through the photos and be inspired or reminded to pull out something I might have forgotten or overlooked.

Granted, these days you can almost always find me wearing the same pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but every so often I pull out a skirt or a pair of wool trousers again. Makeup? Don't push your luck.

That's more like it!

It's official; I like silicone. My silicone hotpads and new baking cups are pretty great, and I highly recommend them. But I'm a relative baking newbie, so take my recommendation with a grain of, what, baking soda?



Anyway, chocolate cupcake recipe #2 (found via Not Martha) turned out much better than recipe #1. We had some difficulty finding Dutch-processed cocoa, which wasn't available via my fabulous on-line grocery service (Fresh Direct is what makes living in Manhattan possible. Delivery charge: $4.95; Fuel surcharge: $.79; Tip to delivery person: $3.00; avoiding the surly cashiers at the local grocery store: priceless.), but after trying those nasty local groceries we were on our way down to Dean and Deluca's and stopped at our favorite coffee supplier. Lo and behold, they had it!

I chose to try the Magnolia Bakery buttercream frosting recipe for the icing this time, since their cupcakes are Todd's favorites. And I'm quite pleased with the results, although I probably should have kept adding sugar to make it thicker. It was late, I was tired. The frosting was a little runny. I popped the cupcakes into the refrigerator and prayed that the icing would solidify quickly before it created puddles on the plate.



While I was at it, and because I had some heavy cream to use up (and it's winter so we all need extra calories and comfort food, right?) I made my first creme brulee as well. Can't wait to try it tonight!

I have some crafty things ready to show you, but I need the help of a photographer (i.e. Todd) during the daylight, so you may have to wait a few days to see them.

And now I'm very tired of baking and really want to get back to more sewing and knitting and things. After I get a little sleep.

Mint chocolate chip

I'm so pleased with these little pants, which match the sweater Grandma made. Note to self, however: stop buying printed fabric in half-yard increments. When she grows into the next size I won't have enough length.

Fully lined with muslin. Next time I'll line them with the contrast fabric that I used as the binding at the hem and as the waistband. That way the legs can be rolled, since they're a little too long for her at present. I plan to make more of these little pants. In fact, maybe I'll draft some other sizes as well and sell them? We'll see. I have a few other children's items I'm planning, so this may be a nice addition to the bunch.

One year

Name: Little (for blog purposes, anyway)
Age: 365 days
Height: 2 feet 4 inches



Hobbies: cell phones, computers, feeding herself, crawling really fast, banging

Interests: people, cats and dogs, anything with buttons to push, being outside

Dislikes: diaper changes, sitting still, going to sleep

Favorite words: Ahdah, Ahmah, Uhh

Goals: walking, trying to eat cat food, doing things by herself

Best attributes: sense of humor, love of people