She's Crafty

For starters, how did we go from this, which I have titled "Galloshes Socks:"

Juniper at about a week old

to this in two months? 

Juniper at two months old

That onesie in the top photo doesn't even fit anymore.  The galloshes socks are too tight on her lymphedema leg!

Anyway, It's the little, stupid things that keep getting me with this whole lymphedema thing.  Like, how am I supposed to keep her little feet warm when she can't wear any baby socks?*  I guess she could, in theory, wear socks, but since she can't have anything tight on her affected leg, that makes wearing socks that might actually have hope of staying on her feet kind of difficult.  It's also summer and the sock thing is not super important all the time right now, but when Daniel and I go on walks and her feet are dangling out in the carrier, I want something on her feet to protect her from the sun and from bugs.  I'm pretty much terrified about her getting a bug bite on her bad leg (I need to figure out some other way to word that since it's not like I'm sending her left leg to detention) since that could make her leg swell even more or cause infection.

I tried putting some cute fleece booties on her that we got as a gift, but they're way big and there is something wrong about wearing fleece booties in July on a sunny walk.  Thus I was forced to actually use some of my insane fabric stash (I have a problem with collecting designer fabric) to make some cuteness.  Two birds, one stone I tell you.

Notice that the cutie booties are not made from any of this recently purchased fabric.  Hmph.

I ordered two sewing for baby books when I was pregnant, and the only thing I'd thus far made from them was a nursing shirt for me; whoops.  It was time.  I decided to make the cutie booties from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones.  I picked these instead of the booties in Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings because the cutie booties have no elastic, and because my friend had some for her son and they seemed to work well.  I've since read about using a seam ripper to take the elastic threads out of the cuff of socks so that they don't press in on the lymphedema calf/ankle, and I do plan on doing that to Juniper's socks in the future.  However, if I'd read about that trick a few days earlier the world would be lacking the following cuteness, and that would be sad indeed.  

Let me just say that while I've been sewing clothes since high school, these booties kind of intimidated me.  They're small, and full of curved pieces, and, well, I wanted them to be of better, more finished, quality than the stuff I throw together for myself.  Friends, sewing baby stuff is awesome.  It's tiny, so it is fast.  Cutting the pieces and ironing everything took longer than the sewing.  I want to make like ten pairs.  Remarkably, they actually stay on Juniper's feet, and since they adjust, they fit on chicken foot and puffy foot equally well.

I apologize for the blurriness of this photo, Juniper likes her booties so much that she insisted on bouncing non-stop

I think Juniper likes them, but she also seems to like eating the exact same thing every two hours every.single.day, so perhaps she is not the best judge.  But, I like them and think they are pretty freaking cute.  

Fabric is Dan Stiles for Birch Organics on the outside, Riley Blake Alphabet Soup on the inside.

*You have to be careful not to put anything on the affected leg that  makes an indentation and therefore tourniquet effect.  That would keep the lymph fluid down in the leg and possibly cause worse swelling.