More Sewing

Another smock:

The recycled dress, from H&M sweatpants:

Front                                      Back

With strings tied at bottom to create shirring.

The Library, And The Smock

We're a month into it and I am tired of winter already.  We've been sick, all four of us, with a cold that leaves us coughing and hacking and lying awake at night to make sure the kids are still breathing.  And fevers, too.  What fun!  We're going on two weeks of illness here, and we've had to cancel all kinds of play dates, trips to museums, and other fun plans.  I have spring fever in a big way, and I find myself setting the kettle on to boil before my current cup of tea has even begun to chill, and moving my preferred seat in the house to whichever spot happens to have a touch of sun.  I am seriously considering the purchase of a light box, or a condo in Florida.  Probably the light box is a better idea. 
I've been taking Harry and Emma to the library about once per week, trying very hard to break up the monotony of winter.  They like the variety of toys, seeing friends, and meeting new kids.  I like the selection of different children's books and the chance to speak with other adults.  Our local library, Crandall, has been undergoing a renovation but for the interim they have relocated to an adjacent building.  We love the new location almost as much as we loved the old one, especially the big windows that allow sunlight to spill across the children's play area.  There I go with the sun worship again.  This cabin fever is all encompassing.
The smock Emma is wearing in the pictures is one that I made from a new book, Amy Karol's Bend The Rules Sewing (click for link).  I love this book!  It is inspiring with quick projects to jump start your enthusiasm, and tougher patterns to take on once you get into your groove.  I ordered three sewing books a few weeks ago and much of my spare time has been spent in another sun-splashed locale, my newly created sewing room.  I have more projects to share, including a dress I made for Emma from a pair of old H&M sweatpants.  Now that's taking recycling to a whole new and interesting level.  I am hoping to cut out more smocks this afternoon from $1.00/yard calico cotton that I happened upon in my travels.  I love the way the smocks take jeans and a onesie from boring to cute, and Emma is enthralled with the pocket.  I also have fabric to make napkins for our dinner table and also some new hand towels for the kitchen.  We're trying to lessen our use of paper towels and paper napkins, and I am hoping that sewing my own will make me more likely to use them. 
Maybe I just need a whole post about my sewing room/projects.  I'll work on that this afternoon.

Hello, 2008!

We have just come off eleven vacation days worth of tea drinking, holiday celebrating, lounging, movie watching, and merry visiting with friends and family.  While it was an enjoyable and much needed respite from work and a regular schedule, there is something so very comforting about returning to that schedule when the holidays are over.  Combined with a new year, that feeling morphs into motivation for me.

I am not prone to new year's resolutions, but we do have a lot of plans for the year ahead.  2008 will bring the finalization of Emma's adoption, a significant purge of our worldly belongings, a family vacation that may require boarding an airplane with two kids (I am sweating already), a new financial plan for our household, the beginning of preschool for Harry, and the exploration of the possibility of returning to work for me.  In between those larger elements there are a million smaller projects to tackle, ideas to work on, books to read, yarn to knit and crochet, and I am planning to put many, many miles on my sewing machine.  And yet again, we will try to grow a lawn in the backyard.  Ahem.  I think that one is three years in the running for yearly plans, but maybe the third time really is the charm?

Today I am off to the IRS in an attempt to get an ATIN number for Emma so we can file our taxes this year.  We were turned down at the social security office, even though we showed them every required document and even printed up the directions from their very own website which explained how and why to get a SSN for a non-finalized, non-citizen child who is in your custody for the purpose of adoption.  If the IRS turns me down, which they may very well do because the ATIN number is only for children who do not qualify for the SSN and Emma does qualify, I have to go back to the social security office and have someone else review our file.  The lady we dealt with was rude from the moment we approached the window and as the meeting progressed she yelled at us, told us she couldn't send a SS card to our daughter's birth parents in China, refused to even look at, no less actually read the documents of proof that we placed in her hands, and snarked with a co-worker over a Korean document, commenting that it could be a fake because it didn't look "foreign enough" and contained the English language.  Your tax dollars at work, my friends.  So you can see why I am going to try the IRS before placing myself in the midst of that particular brand of hell again, can't you?  Funny how the IRS suddenly seems like a beacon of hope in my life.

Coming up soon I have updates about both Harry and Emma (who are growing up so fast it makes my head spin some days), pictures of the living room arrangement I did not come up with but I love, and a few changes around my page, which I can hopefully figure out without Mr. WTD's help.  It's a brave new year.

Cheers to you and yours!