Purple Kappa

Things I am Working On

Some little dresses for the top. One is nearly finished, the other only a bodice so far. Using reproduction feedsack fabrics and a Japanese import

A dress for myself. This is taking forever, I'm so worried about messing up the linen. I had to enlarge the pattern quite a bit, it was from a Japanese book. It's just about done. I hope it looks good on my me and not frumpy.

A skirt for me. I love this linen, it's from Joann's. The warp is black thread with slubby bits, the weft is white so it looks almost a charcoal gray from a distance. It's just an elastic waist, very easy to make.

This linen

will eventually be this dress

Fairy House

Fairy House in the garden, using this tutorial at Duckyknits

In re-reading the tutorial, I realized I forgot about the step where you grout the stones. It does make it look more like a real stone house, so I'll probably go back and do that part, it would make it sturdier as well. I didn't use liquid nails, I used some adhesive from Joann's that said it was weatherproof. I used a different sort of moss for the roof and oh, forgot to spray seal that. Read the tutorial at Duckyknits, don't use any instructions I'm giving here!

Mine was also a lot easier to make because I found a birdhouse at Joann's that had a regular door opening instead of a round hole. The plastic door frame was part of the original birdhouse, I didn't need to add that. I had just painted it and put it in the garden last summer, both girls agree it looks much better with the stones and moss added.

Linen and Monkey Pants

This is from another of my packages, some colored linen from fabric-store.com. There's a yard of each color.

I like making my garments one of a kind, so I usually just buy fabric in half-yard and yard increments. This means however that often I take forever to decide what to use each piece for. It's not that I don't want to use my fabric, I can't decide on what would be exactly the right thing. I bought this linen with the intention of making pants, something that both boys and girls can make.  But now I'm looking at the green and thinking what a lovely smock it would make paired with the mushroom fabric I bought last week. And the bluey-purpley one would make a beautiful dress. Of course whatever I decide to make I can always buy more fabric, right? I don't know why I get so caught up with these decisions.

This is fabric for some shorts for Miranda. She chose it herself

I really don't care for either of these fabrics, especially the monkey one, and I've been putting off sewing the shorts as a result. Wouldn't some linen shorts with embroidery be nice? But this is what she picked out. Those of you who sew for your children, do you try and influence their choices at all? When they were younger it was easy, but now even Ivy has a pretty clear idea of what she wants her clothing to look like. I was sketching some ideas for outfits last night, I have some brown and white polka dot fabric that I want to make a sleeveless dress out of (well, maybe, haven't quite decided yet...) and loose linen pants to wear under it. I don't think she'd ever wear it, brown's not a favorite color so I guess it will have to be for the shop.

Fabric Tales Chapter Three or is it Four?

When I saw this tanuki fabric at Fabric Tales I knew I had to buy some, along with the equally adorable frog fabric.

I think I'll hoard the tanuki fabric for a while, but the frog one would make cute little bloomers to go with a linen kimono top. I'll also bought some quarter yard pieces to round out the order, I can use them as cuffs, pockets or even the bodice of a small dress

I made some fabric purchases online before Ivy went into the hospital, in hopes that their arrival would make that week go a little faster. This one I hadn't expected to arrive quite so soon--I don't know what the women at Fabric Tales do--bribe the postman?--but their packages always arrive from Japan in amazing time. It shipped on the 5th of May and arrived on the 16th, and that was with SAL shipping which estimates anywhere from 12-30 days.

Ivy's Home!

I can't express enough gratitude for all your comments. I told Ivy she was famous, that people all over the world were wishing her luck and hoping she felt better soon. She thought perhaps since she's so well-known now, maybe there'd be a movie about her. "At the theatre, on television and on DVD."

She's doing well, she isn't even taking any pain medication--she was refusing it at the hospital because she hated the taste so they figured they'd see how she tolerated things and she's been fine. The hardest part is getting her to slow down--she wanted to check out the new library and have her celebratory dinner out tonight, halfway through dinner we had to pack things up because her stomach started to hurt. She's a little unsteady walking around but that's to be expected. And she's very, very happy to be home.

Slow Progress

We're getting somewhere, slowly for sure but it's progress. Ivy got her gn tube out today so the gagging feeling that makes her think she's going to throw up is gone. She's on a new pain medication that works really well, she's been moving around the bed a little bit on her own. Unfortunately Monday I decided she needed to be moved for her own good into a more comfortable position, I did it without her permission and it hurt and now she's suspicious and angry over any attempts to get her to move. She yelled at me today "for crying out loud, it's my body!. Yep, it is. It's good to see her personality back, even if it's mad at me. One of the hardest things was seeing her lying there, and barely wanting to speak with a hoarse, squeaky voice.

She still can't eat anything yet, her intestines aren't moving enough but she's missing food. I don't think she's having actual physical hunger pains, but she wants to eat. We've started a list of foods she wants when the doctor gives the okay--brownies, drumsticks (the ice cream cone kind), jellybeans, sausage, hot dog, eggs and granola bars. Unfortunately, her first meal will probably be oh-so-tasty broth. But after that--look out.

Brian's got night duty tonight. He's so much better with thinking up fun things to do with her. He's the one who came up with the list of foods, they made a cat puppet together out of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner (chenille stem? Guess they aren't called pipe cleaners any more?). I'm better at reading books and giving foot rubs. I guess together we're a pretty good team.

New Day

Some food and a good night's sleep helped remarkably. If Brian is able to get more time off, I think we'll alternate nights rather than me pushing myself to do two in a row, that's what did me in. And not eating very well--I was trying to eat as little as possible, because buying all our meals is getting expensive. I'm going to make up some stuff to take in--there is a refrigerator and a microwave on the ward. Thank you again, all of you, those who commented and even those who didn't because I know sometimes it's hard to find the right thing to say, or you feel others have already said it, or it's a difficult subject for you. There is an activity room for the kids, and among other things there was a shelf of books. I was trying to find something to read and picked up a copy of Pollyanna Grows Up--figured at least I could find out what happened to her. So, here's my list of Glad things:

• we live very close to the hospital, about a 15-20 minute drive depending on traffic, so we can visit easily.
• Brian has a very flexible job where taking time off is fairly easy
• None of this is life-threatening, and Ivy's condition isn't potentially fatal. I can't imagine doing this sort of thing knowing that eventually my child is probably going to die anyway and I'm just making her life comfortable for now.

Miranda is staying with her grandpa for the day, and I have things to get ready before I'm off to the hospital.

Quick Update

I'm home for tonight while Brian takes a turn at the hospital, which is good because I'm about ready to drop from exhaustion. Ivy's surgery went well, but unfortunately they weren't able to do it laparoscopically after all--she's got a 6 inch incision in her belly, making for a longer and more painful recovery. She has IV's in each arm, an epidural for pain, a tube going up her nose and down into her stomach to drain it and a catheter. She's really just miserable and so am I. I'm hoping Saturday and Sunday are the worst of it--once they start hearing activity in her bowels, they can remove the tube up her nose (a gn tube I think?) which I think will really help, it makes her feel as though she's going to gag and hurts her throat.

I really appreciate all the kind words and well wishes you guys have left, really I do. Reading them after spending the weekend at the hospital brightened my evening. I will update again when I can, probably in a few more days.

Getting Ready

Tomorrow's the big day. We are due at the hospital at 8:30AM.

There's a new nightgown

A kitty friend to bring along--there's one for Miranda as well since I'm very conscious of the potential for her to feel overlooked

And a box with scissors, markers, glue and other fun things, as well as books for reading aloud.

When Ivy was in the NICU for her first surgery, I would visit her but really didn't know what to do, I couldn't hold her and she was too young to talk to. So I would read books. I started with little kid picture books, and then moved on to chapter books. She heard all of the Harry Potter books while lying in the NICU and reading them took my mind of my own anxiety.

I'm going to have limited, if any computer access while at the hospital, so may not be able to update until early next week, but I promise to get some sort of information up as soon as possible.

Crybabys Boutique

I first learned about Crybabys Boutique at True Up. There is a wonderful selection of Japanese fabric, and in addition, a great spring sale through May 12: just enter in coupon code ‘SPRING20‘ on the shopping bag page prior to checkout and you will receive 20% off your entire order (excluding sale items). Customer service and shipping were fast and friendly, my package arrived today

Starting with the upper left side and moving clockwise, there is a mushroom print, robots, little girls tending cheep, animal patchwork, animals at school and Little Red Riding Hood. All fat quarters, which is plenty for adding cuffs and pockets to pants, or even the bodice of a small dress.