{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{pretty}

Remember when I said that I'd done some sewing for Juniper over the weekend?  Well it's done!  A little jumper to wear over a onesie and leggings.

This was our 'fitting' session.  The straps cross in the back and are attached with buttons.  I needed first to see where to actually put the buttonholes.  
I got brave and even used the buttonhole foot and stitch on my sewing machine (which was kind of a pain to figure out, but I am glad that I soldiered through- there will be more buttons around here from now on). 

I love that this fabric is slightly gothic for Halloween, but is not orange and black and covered in jack-o-lanterns.  I am sort of borderline on whether I think it is truly appropriate for a baby, but it turned out so cute that I think it doesn't matter.  Fabric is Nightshade by Tula Pink in the absinthe colorway (see, so not baby appropriate, but if you don't make a Halloween baby jumper with this fabric, what then do you make with it?).

I had to take a picture as soon as I finished, even though it was 9pm and not the best light.  It just adds to its ghoulishness, no?

I actually think it might also work as a skirt (with the straps tucked in) when she is bigger.  I got the pattern here.  I was a little wary of the whole pdf pattern thing, but it was very easy.  The pattern was great (I got two others as well), but I will say that although these are billed for the 'beginning seamstress', I was glad for my sewing experience.  Yes, it was a simple pattern, but there were some details missing from the instructions about how to execute certain steps.  This wasn't a problem for me because I've done things like make a placket before, but if it was your first time sewing a dress, you might be a little confused.  Overall though, I'd recommend their patterns.  

{happy}

My cooking continues!  I am so glad that I can actually cook dinner again, and now I even have ideas for what to cook.  It's amazing.  

This recipe is the kale salad from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day. [I highly recommend this cookbook.  It is full of such good ideas for flavor combinations, and it is divided into sections by meals- including one for snacks.  It is great inspiration]. It is really not a salad (to me) since it is baked and served warm, but it is so simple and so good. It's kale and coconut ribbons (so key rather than shredded coconut) and I added tempeh, dressed with sesame oil and soy sauce, and baked until the coconut gets golden.  

You toss it with more dressing when you pull it from the oven.  Next time I'd do more dressing if I did the tempeh again, as tempeh tends to suck up liquid.  

The flowers were brought to us by our sweet friends who had them leftover from an event.  They just drive around town dropping them off at people's houses.  

{funny}

Juniper is sitting up supported pretty well now, so we set up her high chair and gave it a go.  

She loves it.  She is so stoked to be with us at the table, and I am stoked that I don't have to have her in my lap for the entire meal.  

{real}

This is what I walked into during naptime a few weeks ago.  What mom?  I just wanted to say hello to my animals

Today has been a rough day in the lymphedema department.  We had our first therapy appointment in about a month and a half yesterday and we figured out what our strategy is going to be for getting Juniper into a compression garment during the day.  Right now our plan is to meet with reps from different companies starting in February-ish so we can decide which company to go with, and we'll get Juniper into something by the spring.  We decided we don't want to wait longer than that for a number of reasons. Mainly we don't want to have any regrets down the road about not trying it sooner, and because we feel that by getting her into a garment soon, it will become her normal, and this way we [might] avoid some struggle than if we waited to introduce it when she is, say, two.  The appointment was great and all, and our OT did a good wrap on Juniper's leg, and I did what I do every time: I got my hopes up.  This morning, her leg looked great, so small in fact that I could, for the first time since she was a newborn, see some definition on her thigh.  Then I picked Juniper up after work and her leg looked as big as ever.  It is what it is, I know this, but it doesn't make it easier.  

This face, however, does make things easier

She's Crafty

I got some sewing done for the bug over the weekend (a little subversive Halloween jumper which I'll share when it's totally finished) and I realized that I never shared these pants.  

Fabric is Cocoon by Valori Wells: Cashmere on the outer, Shine on the bum, and Metamorphosis on the lining

They are the Quick Change Trousers from Anna Maria Horner's book, Little Stitches for Little Ones, and they were the number one thing I wanted to make from the book. They came together really easily, and they were fun to put together.  

 Since we cloth diaper, I sort of followed the modifications from sew liberated for cloth diapered babies, but sort of not.  She alters the pattern to drop the rise a bit, and since you drop the rise you have to lengthen the pant leg as well.  That was just too much for me, so I just followed her advice to use a smaller seam allowance.  For the next size up, I will actually follow her directions to modify them totally because they fit Juniper over her diaper fine, but the rise is still a little bit low, and I think in the bigger sizes it will be more necessary.  
My M.O. for baby clothes seems to be to buy the craziest fabric that I can, because if you can't wear circus butterfly fabric when you're four months old, I'm not sure that you ever can.  These pants are reversible, which is awesome because of the contrast you get when you roll the legs, but also because it makes them a bit warmer, and I think more durable.  I'm going to do a flannel lined pair next, and just the idea of that makes me jealous that I can't wear crazy pants.  

Sewing for her is just so fun because it's fast (so satisfying to have something mostly finished during a nap), but also because all the pressure of whether something will look good on is pretty much off: if the pattern is cute, and I've got good fabric, things are going to work out okay.  I've done enough sewing for myself at this point that following patterns is easy, it's the fitting and actual dressmaking part that is difficult for me.  There is none of that with baby clothes, since their bodies are pretty much all the same.  You're also working with such small amounts of fabric when you sew for littles that it's not a huge waste if you screw up.    

Yesterday we were supposed to have a therapy appointment, but I screwed up the time.  Luckily we noticed before we did the hour drive, but it was still an 'ugh' moment.  Going today though!

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.