Posts Tagged ‘juniper’

Slouchy Sweater for Junie

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Girl Charlee approached me to see if I wanted to sew something with their fabric. Uh DUH. Yes! It’s about darn time that I turn on the freaking sewing machines. So thanks to them for the extra bit of motivation. :) I love their fabric.

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I chose this heathered specialty hacci sweater knit. It’s a light-weight, ultra-soft sweater knit that’s perfect for the weird transition to fall where it’s hot one minute and cold the next. And it washes and wears so beautifully.

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I made up the pattern for this sweater. I haven’t yet perfected the pattern, but once I do, I’ll share that with you. It’s only 2 pattern pieces, plus binding. It’s similar to the Cocoon Cardigan from True Bias. It’s a little smaller than I had originally planned, but it looks so darn cute on June anyway.

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Junie is too cute. She didn’t want me to take photos of her, so I had to bribe her with phone time. But when it comes to painting her nails, she begs me to do it! She’s such a cute girly-girl. I can’t handle it, total cuteness overload!!

Outfit details:

  • bow: handmade
  • sweater: handmade
  • top: H&M
  • denim: Target
  • shoes: c/o Freshly Picked

 

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Matching Back-To-School Tees

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Girl Charlee approached me to see if I wanted to sew something with their fabric. Uh DUH. Yes! It’s about darn time that I turn on the freaking sewing machines.

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This horse fabric screamed both Penelope and Junie. And heck, I had enough yardage, I made a third shirt for Penelope’s BFF, Kate. The girls were particularly bored yesterday so I asked them if they wanted to help me make matching tees for them.

Their reactions couldn’t have been better if I had asked them to go to Disneyland with me. #bestreactionever

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While they helped me cut the pattern pieces, they were planning on which days they schemed about which day of the week they would wear their matching shirts. Originally they wanted to wear them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Ha!

Shirt Details:

  • Penelope’s shirt (2/3 of a yard) using size 6/7 in Megan Nielsen’s Mini Briar
  • Kate’s shirt, 2/3 of a yard using one of her favorite tees as a template (using this concept)
  • Junie’s shirt, 1/3 of a yard using a pattern I made for her Easter dress (still not posted yet, EEP!)

The fabric is light weight, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for a dress unless it was gathered at the waist to add extra volume. However, when the girls wore it, it was substantial enough that they didn’t need to wear camisoles underneath. It’s possibly because of the print/color. Love it though. Easy knit to work with and plenty of structure to sew with a standard sewing machine (although I totally used my serger for most of the work).

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Can you guess who’s the star of the show? It breaks my heart that Junie is growing up so fast. How did this girl get so big?!? She’ll be 2 next month!!

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Sewing: June’s Baby Doll Outfit

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As a goal for this year, I promised myself I’d take time out to sew each week. It hasn’t happened as religiously as I would like, but it’s happened. I’ve made a couple of little outfits for June and Pen. I’m in the middle of a couple projects for me. It’s been great to do some non-work, just-for-fun sewing. It relaxes me. But apparently it stresses the heck out of June.
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Lately she’s been in such a terrible mood. She’s got most of her teeth now so I wonder if she’s getting her two-year-old molars super early. What else would explain how a normally chill kid freaks out at the littlest thing? She wouldn’t have any part of this little photoshoot I set up for her yesterday. I still think she’s the cutest anyway.

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Around Valentine’s day, I made her this matching babydoll set. I found the fabric in my stash from a fabric swap years ago. It’s a soft, light-weight knit with oversized florals. The color scheme is a little more “Christmas” than it is “emerging spring” but the lightweight long-sleeves are great for those days when the sun is warm but the temperatures are still cool. Also, the dark fabrics hide all the gross stains she gets along her front for refusing to wear a bib. I’m all in favor of hiding those stains.

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I designed the top with an empire waist and low back. The low back is so adorable! I think it’s got to be my new favorite design element on kids’ clothes right now.

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The pants are little harem pants with a gathered waistband. She gets range of motion and I get an incredibly easy sewing project. I didn’t hem any of it besides the neckline. That biz has to be reinforced, but everything else has curled up nicely to look purposefully finished.

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Despite her terrible mood she is absolutely so adorable.

Outfit & Photo details:

Sewing: Juniper’s Lawn Gnome Outfit

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I’ve been dying to make a cute little outfit for Miss Juniper. I’ve had this French terry material for some time and I’ve wanted to make a few cute outfits for my girls. Harem pants included.

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On Saturday I had a few minutes to kill, so I drafted up a raglan hoodie and a pair of harem pants. The pleated front of the pants and the pointy hood kill me. She looks like an angry little lawn gnome. Adorable.

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Seriously, this girl has my heart. I can’t get enough of her. I want to make more cute little snuggle outfits for her!

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Unfortunately when I asked Penelope if she wanted something similar, she said no. She’s getting her own opinions on her clothes, it’s kind of a bummer. I’d love for them to be twinners! Oh well. We’ll see if I can convince her to agree with something similar. Fingers crossed!

Welcoming: Juniper Inês!

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It’s been quite silent around  here, and with good reason. I’ve been snorting the newborn smell like a crack addict. Miss Juniper Inês finally made her way here last Tuesday at a whopping 9 pounds 9 ounces. My biggest monster yet. We were all surprised at her girth and the speed with which she arrived.

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Tuesday morning I started feeling quite achey. Felix woke up two hours before his usual and came upstairs to cuddle me. It was like he knew I was in pain and needed someone to hold. Not minutes after he climbed into bed with us, my water broke. It was 4:30 am. There was an audible pop. I sprang to action, saving the sheets. Chris was more than pleased. I was pretty proud I was able to get out of bed that fast at 40 weeks pregnant. No small miracle there.

I had a feeling I didn’t have much time. Yet I still took a shower. I needed a shower.

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Chris got the kids dressed and fed. I grabbed the last-minute items like our bluetooth speaker and iPad. We dropped the kids off at the neighbors and drove off to the hospital at about 5:30. Driving to the hospital seemed like an eternity. The contractions were about a minute apart at this point. They were hurting at this point. I was in pain, but I knew every contraction was my body doing what it was born to and one step closer to meeting my little girl. To be honest, I was getting excited.

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I decided before I got pregnant that I would deliver Juniper naturally in a hospital. I’ll admit I didn’t do much of any reading or practicing on the subject. I mostly talked to friends about their experiences and listened to what worked for them and I came up with a plan that worked for me. More than anything, the mental preparation got me excited to labor rather than dread it. Each contraction was a painful celebration.  Strange, I know.

We arrived at the hospital and were admitted just before 6am. I was in pain and I wanted to get the show on the road. The nurses had no idea how far into labor I was. One insisted to make sure that my water had in fact broken. I’m thinking, “DUH. I’m in pain and this isn’t my first rodeo, can we get a move on?!?” She checked. To her surprise I was dilated just past an 8. She literally ran out of the room and didn’t stop running after that. They rushed to action. Nurses asked me if I was okay with the attending doc delivering the baby. I was fine with it, but deep down inside I wanted my midwife to be there. Just before I started pushing, there she came. She was ready. I was ready. So was June.

June clawed her way into the world about 4 minutes after my midwife showed up, 36 minutes after I was admitted into the hospital. In June’s haste she snagged on my femoral artery and I started bleeding out. Chris could see what was going on, but everyone kept their cool and eventually a suture kit was located and the bleeding was under control.

I’m glad I had planned on having her naturally. By the time I got to the hospital, there wouldn’t have been enough time to get an epidural and I would have been clueless and likely afraid of doing it all on my own. Instead I was under control and afterward I had the most amazing high. I was on top of the world, my body had done something so hard and I survived!

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I had a hard time visualizing myself using hypnobirthing CDs; so before I delivered, I compiled a playlist of my favorite dance-y songs. If I were to visualize myself doing anything, I wanted to visualize dancing and rocking out through the pain. The nurses and midwives got a kick out of it. The midwife told me something along the lines that it was one of the happiest, upbeat deliveries she’s experienced. And it was a happy experience! If you’re on Spotify, you can listen to the playlist right here.

Chris was the best cheerleader I could have asked for. The fact that the entire labor was under 2 hours probably made the experience that much better, but I’m so glad I went natural with this one. Throughout this week I’ve kept thinking how our bodies are such amazing things. We can do some seriously hard stuff.

Juniper is an amazing little babe so far. She’s eating and sleeping like a champ and she’s already given us huge smiles. She looks just like a darker-haired version of Penelope. It’ll be so fun to see how they’re similar and different in the coming years.

I can’t believe I’m already a mother of 3. I still feel like college graduation was just weeks ago. It’s unreal. I’m so grateful to have these kiddos in my family!

From a work standpoint, her timing couldn’t have been better. I hired a calligrapher to help me manage the coaching aspect of I Still Love Calligraphy. Erika has been instrumental to my mental health these last few months. She’s taken on enough of the workload that I’ve been able to create new content for the course while still staying involved in the teaching process.

Each Monday and Friday we sit at the computer and attack the uploads from students. She’ll go through the work and leave feedback. I’ll review Erika’s feedback and leave additional comments if any are needed. Instead of sitting at the computer for 12-14 hours on these days like I was previously, I’m spending around 4-5 hours at the computer these days. But last week, Erika was out of town on a much-deserved vacation with her husband. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to keep up if I were to have Juniper. The little Miss was so thoughtful and arrived on Tuesday, leaving me plenty of time to rest before Friday’s workload came along.

Maintaining work hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. Chris is at home helping me with business and family, so making sure I get sleep before these big days isn’t so much of an issue. Juniper has been a very well-behaved baby, so I can just snuggle with her if she’s fussy and finish my work just fine. It’s been a huge blessing to be able to work while growing this family of ours. Taking time off would have been a necessity if I didn’t work from home and at a desk. It’s been nice to take it easy while still be productive. That newborn phase can be so joyous, but frustrating when you have the energy to get a million things done but can’t because you’re ‘stuck’ feeding a baby.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a fabulous thing to be ‘stuck’ doing. But it’s nice to feel productive while giving her the attention that she needs.

 

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