sewing – mauter.com

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Can you believe this little runt turned 3 last week?

Ellie is full of laughs and energy, independence and compassion, nerve and courage. She loves her froggie, her big sister, and Rapunzel. She just moved up to a big girl bed and hasn’t had any trouble adjusting. Her favorite colors are green and purple. She’s a lefty. She eats at least two breakfasts, a decent lunch, and not much for dinner every day. She loves corn (all kinds including popcorn). She drinks way more than the rest of us (milk, juice, water, you name it).

ebed

We had her birthday party last weekend. Thanks for coming, friends! I thought the weekend was going to be a wash out, but it turned out to be perfect! We spent all day outside playing.

ecandles

On her actual birthday, we brought Krispy Kreme for her class. I intended to take her out to lunch, but we are a one car household these days (what is with all the drama in the Mauter house lately?) so lunch was a no-go. We had dinner on the porch, which is where we always have our birthday meals for Sam (October) and Ellie (early May).

Here are all three dresses that I finished just in time: Rapunzel, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey Mouse. Brian was thoroughly concerned about making a Mickey Mouse dress, but I knew she wouldn’t care. Sam wants one too.

dresses

rap

mickey

And the finale was the tent!

tent

We had her three year check up too. She didn’t get any shots, so we got out of there pretty easily. The doctor is somewhat concerned about her speech so we will need to see an audiologist and speech therapist soon. I’m not really that concerned because she has always been “delayed” on speech. She’ll get there on her own time, but if we need to have her checked out, that’ll be fine.

Lavender Jacket

So Lettie, here’s the jacket that I’m currently working on. I need to get something crossed off my list, and this is the easiest and quickest that I can do right now (as in, I have no control over selling my house, which is also on my to-do list). So for now, I focus on the jacket. And Ashley, I’m working on pictures from the park this weekend. There are a whole lot more of those to sift through.

The pattern:

The original dress I made last spring/summer:

And my work in progress jacket:

Early Morning Ramblings.

Samantha has done fairly well in her bed all week. Some days she takes a nap and some days she doesn’t. Last night, Brian and I were headed to bed and she comes waltzing out of her room! What on earth is she still doing up at 10PM?!?! I know she’s not getting nearly as much sleep as she used to, so hopefully, we can work our way back up over the course of the next weeks and months.

I do have a funny story to share about our first Saturday morning in the big bed. Early in the morning, I heard some scratching/shuffling noises. I hadn’t opened my eyes, but I wondered what the cats were doing. They tend to “paw” at the carpet in a playful mode and sometimes it’s during times when humans are sleeping. I felt around on the bed and noted that Molly was next to me, where she normally sleeps, but Maddie was gone. So I thought, that’s weird that Maddie would be pawing at the carpet by herself. At this point, I roll over a little bit, or lift my head, or something – I don’t quite remember. I see a little blond head bobbing around the bed. Samantha must have noticed that I was awake, so she came over to my side of the bed. The first thing she sees is Molly, so she proceeds to meow and try to pet her. Molly proceeds to get up and move to the other side of the bed. I look at the clock (6:32AM) and whisper to Sam, “go back to bed.” Amazingly, she walked off. I have no idea where she went or what she did, but she didn’t come back into our room. I know she must have spent some time in her room and some time in the living room based on the various noises I heard. I finally got up at 7 and she was very interested to tell me about her morning. Silly girl.

It was a beautiful day, so we stayed out for a good portion. Running errands, going to the park (more on that later), and playing with sidewalk chalk. Sunday was yucky and cold, so we stayed in. I sewed a little. Lettie introduced me to Jill’s blog, so I made the converted tee with 2 of my tshirts. They needed some help. I know I’ll be able to wear them post-prego too. And I must say, Lettie has a way with picking great blogs! And great snacks! Just what she wanted to be known for. 🙂 I also decided to make a little jacket for Sam. I bought a pattern and made a dress last summer. The pattern had a matching jacket, so I also bought fabric but never made it because it was too warm already. Now that it’s springy, I figured it would be a great time to make the jacket. BONUS – she still fits into the dress so I can use it for 2 seasons! I started to cut out the pattern pieces, but we are showing the house tonight, so I’ll have to put it all away. And along those lines, we have officially entered into contract (well, verbally at least, officially official maybe later today) on a house we’d like to buy. I’m not getting my hopes up because we still have to sell ours. Ours will be listed with a realtor soon.

What’s New?

I think Samantha has fully recovered from the croup. We have one more day of antibiotic, but her cough is mostly gone. She is still very thirsty, which I noticed started when she was sick. Or maybe it was just my asking if she wanted water every few hours when she had to take medicine (she learned the word “ew” which I still don’t know how that happened).

Last weekend on a whim, I bought some Hello Kitty panties at Target. I had a few extra minutes, and I knew we’d need them one day. To my surprise, she really likes them. She wants to wear them. So, we had LOTS of cleaning up last weekend. We stayed mostly in the bathroom, so it wasn’t horrible, but we went through 4 pairs in 1 hour. I guess it’s all that water… I know she just wants to wear them because they’re new and different, but she hasn’t put it together what happens when she doesn’t wear a diaper. I know she’ll understand soon enough. Speaking of such: she’s in her crib right now (supposedly sleeping) saying “change diaper change diaper.” I’ll have to check that out.

We showed the house twice this week and once last week!

I made the Buttercup Bag a few weekends ago, as introduced to me by Lettie. It’s too small for me though. I chose a fabric that was a bit thick so it wouldn’t be too flimsy, but it’s still pretty flimsy. It’s a red houndstooth, so how cool is that? It was fun to make.

I’m still in the market for a new diaper bag. However, I have seen several diaper clutches recently. I think I’ll try to make one. I definitely have the diaper clutch itch. And on top of that, I’ve started baby #2’s stocking. That’s right. I’m seriously not motivated though. I thought by starting it in January, I’d have a full year to complete it. Although that’s true, it doesn’t mean that I have any desire to sit down and work on it for a year (even though I know that is what it’s going to take). I worked on Samantha’s a lot during the last Olympics, so I thought this would be a good time. However, I think I had put most of the effort into it already, so I was in the final stretch and was actually pushing to get it finished. I pulled out my work-on-it-bag so I could store all my stuff without it being all over the living room. A cross-stitch work-in-progress was in there (forgive the foreign language, I couldn’t find it anywhere else). I knew it was there, but I hadn’t looked at it in a couple of years. I was surprised at actually how far I’d gotten on it! I thought about picking it back up too, but again, no motivation. I had stored it in the hoop, so now it’s all creased, but I think it should be ok.

So, that’s what’s new. No pictures. I think I took some on my phone this week, but haven’t transferred them to the computer yet. Sorry. Gotta go get Squirt up since she has decided not to take a nap today. Fun.

Finally, Happy Birthday, Alex!

Finished Curtains

I finished the curtains in the living room. I did the window first. I thought it would be easier. The instructions I had were for 3 triangles in one window, and I just wanted 1 triangle. They also instructed me to mount on a board (like a cornice I’m guessing) but I wanted to use a standard rod. So, that meant I basically had to design my own and it was not exactly easy. It turned out fine though. It took me longer to measure, think, measure again, and think again than it did to do the actual sewing. Brian helped me hang the rod. Thanks! Overall, it took an evening (after Sam went to bed). Not bad.

I was putting off the one for the door. I was nervous about making a rod pocket for the already existing blinds’ valance. I wasn’t sure I would be able to mount it back, but I didn’t really have another option. Magnetic rods are not made with a projection, so I couldn’t find one that would give me enough room to go around the blinds. I finally just did it. It didn’t turn out correctly, so I thought I would have to start over (luckily, I have about 1.5 yards of the material remaining). However, I had a stroke of genius and decided to bust out the hot glue gun. It was the best idea I had! It turned out great, and I should have thought of that long ago!

All in all I like them, although I think they look weird because they are 2 different sizes. However, the window and the door are different sizes, so I knew it would be like that. It just looks weird because everything on that wall is symmetrical except for the new curtains.

Here’s the door: