"Grandma's hankies" dress

Here is the dress I just finished for Chili. The fabric was called "Grandma's hankies." I love the dainty vintage look of it. It took me about 3 days to do. I'm sure an expert sewer could have whipped it out, but an expert sewer I am not. I made quite a few mistakes, and learned how to do a few new things (pleats, how to make a slip/liner, and how to attach all of it), but with the help of my ever-so-skilled sister-in-law, it is finally done. I absolutely love how it turned out.
Cute as a bug.
Dancing to some music on the radio.

Baby T-shirt

This t-shirt I did for a baby gift for a friend. I used double stick fusible web to iron the shape on to the t-shirt, and then used pink thread to hand sew around the edge to give it a little hand-made detail.

Meat-crust Pizza

The bottom is like a big meatball, squished flat. I think I used a pound of ground beef, 1/3 c bread crumbs, 2 cloves of garlic, some fresh basil chopped up, and just a tad of water for the "crust." Covered it in tomato sauce, cheese and put some mushrooms that I had sauted with onion, some fresh tomatoes, and zuchini on top. Baked in a glass casserole dish at 400 for maybe 30 minutes. I used 85% beef, but wished I had used leaner beef. Oh, it was so good! Hope you like it too.

Pulmonary Sequestration

I have honestly been putting off writing about this. Mostly because we don't know much at this point about how this is going to evolve. On my 20 week ultrasound, we found out our baby girl has a pulmonary sequestration. There is more info here about what that is. To summarize in very simple terms, it's some lung cells that separated from the other lung cells in early development. It has it's own blood supply, but doesn't do anything. It does need to be removed by surgery after baby is born. How soon depends on how baby is handling having it in there. If it causes problems, it could need to come out immediately. If not, it would need to come out somewhere between 6-12 months. And while no one wants to hear that their newborn/baby will have to have surgery, in most cases, this is a treatable condition, and kids go on to have normal lung function. We are hoping for the best possible outcome, and trying to stay positive. Only time will tell how baby tolerates having it there, and if it will shrink, grow in size, or stay the same. It will be monitored monthly by ultrasound to make sure there is not a buildup of fluid in the chest cavity, and to make sure that it's not growing and causing problems to other organs. While the possibility exists of a few nasty complications, the risk for these is small. The specialist in town did say that currently it is bigger than what they usually see at 20 weeks, but this next ultrasound and subsequent ultrasounds could show changes, so treatment can only be determined as we see how things progress. So here's to a healthy baby! We appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

A New Way to Eat

Repurposing project #4

This came from an old denim shirt of mine, and a small piece of fabric I found at our church garage sale. I got a lot of ideas on this one from my sister-in-law, who is much more advanced at sewing than I am. I cut same sized strips for the bottom, and used a pattern for a general guide on size. I top-stitched on the green fabric to make it look nicer. And the green trim on top, I just folded a strip and adjusted it to make it work. Well, what was going to be a quick and easy play dress, turned into an all day project, but I learned a lot, and really love the result. I will have to do something in the back to make it a little more snug, but hey, you learn as you go.
Doesn't she look cute?!

Repurposing project #3

Was a stretched out dress from my niece...
Tah-dah!
New play dress made for free!