Making Clothes

My mom made this outfit for Olivia, an acorn-print corduroy and an appliqued acorn on her shirt, complete with embroidered leaf veins.  She has a kick-ass Husqvarna (love those Swedes), a new Pfaff serger, a sewing room full of inspiration, and a lifelong passion for making clothing and quilts. We are more than happy to provide a doll for her to dress!  (Actually Mom just won an award for making a traditional Hungarian doll outfit for a charity auction - Go, Mom!)

I am fortunate to learn (and continue to learn) sewing from Mom, but I have a complex about handmade clothes.  Growing up my grandmother and mom both made me things to wear.  The outcome ranged from some of my favorite things to being called "curtain pants" at the bus stop (overalls made from farm-themed quilting cotton).  So I'm always wondering in the back of my mind whether a handmade piece looks normal, if it's going to fit in or scream "homemade".  ("Handmade" has a positive connotation in my book like "artisanal", but "homemade" is negative like "cutesy crafty country".)  It's important to understand the motive behind making clothes.  Some people do it purely because they're looking for a project.  I do it to have pieces that are original, different than what one finds at the mall (though Gymboree & TCP are often inspirational), but hopefully not too weird.  I love the look of details like pintucks and smocking, although I'm happy to let others do that at this stage (she's growing too quickly to make it worthwhile for me).  I love embellishments like appliques and embroidery, and I'm hoping to try yo-yo flowers soon.  I have a folder of inspirational pictures, including...

Upcycled Christmas Card Ornaments

The year we got married my crafty friend Debora made us a Christmas ornament out of our wedding and shower invitations.  She even glued pearls in the corners.  It is still my favorite ornament, especially after making one and realizing the effort involved. 

I wouldn't say this is a great project for kids, but older ones could cut out the circles now that the scrapbook industry has made that process much easier and quicker. (I used to trace quarters and cut them with scissors.)   Instructions can be found here.

This is a great use for Christmas cards you can't bear to throw away.  You could punch all 20 circles out of one card for a cohesive look, or maybe just the focal points of several different cards that coordinate.  I just made this wedding one with my dear friend Reid's engagement party & wedding invitations and her thank-you envelope liner.  I used a 1" circle punch and it makes a 2" diameter ball.  Not sure if the ratio is the same for larger circles, but I would stick to 1"-2" unless you're making one to hang in a doorway or be part of a centerpiece.  I suggest using tacky glue and enlisting the help of a pack of alligator clips. 

Holiday Photo-Ops

I'm learning about obligatory childhood photos, mostly from people who post pictures on Facebook (and I'm not talking about any one person here - you all have great photos).  You'll see their adorable children at the pumpkin patch, in a pile of leaves, picking out the Christmas tree, etc.  I use the excuse that Fall/Christmas is a busy time for my business, but really I just didn't feel like dragging the baby out to do photo shoots.  And for the same excuse/reason we haven't sent out Christmas cards for several years.  (In case you don't know, we moved to Virginia.  There!)  Or baby announcements.  (Oh yeah, we had a baby, it's a girl.)  But, after some gentle hinting from my mother this fall, I bought a little dress (not too fancy, and only $8 on eBay - NWT), made a little black hair bow, and took Olivia to the photo studio to do Christmas portraits.  We were late, as usual, but still had to wait for another baby to get his milestone (9 month) pictures. [I had full intentions of doing high-contrast black & white naked newborn pictures when she was a month old, but at Week 3 Olivia got some awful baby acne and by the time it went away she didn't seem like a newborn any more. And then I just couldn't be bothered to have quarterly milestone portraits taken, on account of the 1.2 million candids that have filled up my hard drive.  Now I just tell myself we'll do portraits with the next kid so they'll have an equal number.]

Patiently waiting, executive-style, for the little boy in the sailor suit...  (Hairbrush is her favorite toy.)

The photo shoot went well.  Livi smiled a lot, played with the Christmas background, and kept her shoes on.  Afterward she patiently ate Cheerios while I chose shots and decided which coupon would warrant the best deal.

Then we had lunch at Chick-Fil-A and Olivia surprised me by (slowly, in small pieces) eating chicken nuggets.  It's magical how the food that big people eat can actually sustain a little one in the event that Mommy forgets to pack the fruit she cut up.  No more jars of baby food.  Epiphany!

Last night Steve and I went to pick up the photos, then decided to swing by the Santa display to see how long the line was.  There was no line at all (!) and we were excited to check off another obligatory childhood photo-op when I asked if I could just take a picture with my own camera.  They ask that you shell out $18 for the smallest package make a minimum purchase, so we passed on that opportunity (no wonder there was no line).  I noticed at the other portrait studio there were lots of kids in fancy Christmas clothes, passed out on their parents' shoulders on account of it being 8pm.  So glad I booked O's appointment between naps; I can't imagine trying to photograph cranky kids.  (Lydia, my condolences.)

So maybe next year we'll get the pumpkin photos when Olivia's able to walk around and do candid non-posed things.  Until then we'll have plenty of pictures of her sitting in her high chair, feeding Riley.  Oh, and in case I don't get these mailed out, consider this your Christmas card from us!

11 months

Olivia's clapping is still very cute... and she knows it.  She'll be getting into something she shouldn't and I'll say, "Ah ah ah" or "no" and she'll turn around and face the other way... and clap.  Like, "See how cute I am?  You forgot I'm being naughty."  ("No" has started working as long as we're not in her face like "Boo.")  Yes, it's high time we baby-proofed our house.  How do you keep little ones from playing with lamps and cords, though?  They're like baby magnets.

Livi has started standing on her own a little.  She'll pull up on a side table or footstool and I'll say "Yaaaay" and she'll clap, free-standing for a few seconds.  Then I'll say, "Come here," and she'll sloooowly crouch down and crawl the nine inches necessary to reach me.  Until this week when you held her hands to help her walk, her legs would just noodlize and she'd sit down.  Mandy & Jenni have taught her to move her feet, so now she does the Nazi march.  Interesting, since her wave (hello and goodbye) resembles a "Heil, Hitler."  And she has blue eyes and light hair... I digress.  Livi was "helping" my dad unload the dishwasher last night and then he closed the door and she was still standing.  He held out his arms and she shuffled toward him.  So for his sake, I'm going to say he was the sole witness of Olivia's first steps. 

OJ likes to stroke her hair while taking a bottle, almost like a pre-nap milk trance.  Stroke, stroke, and then she'll stroke what's left of my hair, or my sleeve, and now?  Now she has started stroking her beautiful long eyelashes.  Stroke, stroke, until she's pulling the lid off of her eye.  It's hard not to laugh.  I need to get her a pelt.

I was reading Bunny and Me (thanks, Cherie) to Livi this evening and, instead of trying to engage her in the dramatic story line ("Come back, bunny!"), I just started identifying objects.  When I get to the page with the ball, I say, "Ball?" and she points to it.  And, of course, Riley comes running from wherever she is, thinking somebody finally wants to play ball with her.  I realize if I were to say, "Bunny?" Livi would probably still point to the ball, but I'm going to enjoy this moment.

Olivia used to sleep from 8pm-8am.  Recently she's been testing us by getting up at 6:30.  I noticed her hands and feet were cold when I got her up the other morning, so the next night I left her onesie and socks on underneath her sleeper and she slept in an extra hour.  The following night I double-bagged her (put a larger sleeper on overher regular one) and she slept in again.  What do you normally do for a baby in winter?  She's not going to keep a blanket on.

Feeding Olivia has its ups and downs.  Some days she'll take cereal/yogurt/baby food from a spoon, other days as soon as she sees the jar or bowl she starts screaming.  It may be just as well because baby dinner foods all contain orange/yellow veggies which have likewise colored Livi's nose.  So I give her finger foods to eat and she sloooowly gets some in her mouth.  She'll eat some, play with the rest, and then get bored/fussy and refuse to eat any more.  She has discovered the fun in squishing things, dropping things on the floor and, even more fun, letting Riley eat from her hand.  I liken Olivia feeding herself to someone picking crabs.  You do it for the taste, for the experience, but you always have other things to eat for nourishment.  Her favorite food is cheese (same as Riley) and next she likes crunchy bready things and sweet things.  My mother-in-law suggested still-frozen peas, and those went over well with everyone because Olivia just eats them since they won't squish. We're still working on "getting" sippy cups.  She chews on the straw kind, and the spout kind seems to deliver more fluid at a time than she can handle, so she gasps or gags.  But she's getting it slowly.  At the 1-year mark I'm supposed to switch her over to whole milk from formula, and that makes me think she's going to starve.  Hopefully by then she'll be eating more finger food.

Thanksgiving

Sometimes it seems like a lot of work to prepare a huge turkey, several side dishes, and a selection of desserts for four people (my parents and us), so this year we decided to take a break and go to Skyland Lodge on nearby Skyline Drive instead.  We hiked the Stonyman Trail, enjoyed their exquisite buffet (and not having to cook anything ourselves), and shared a bottle of wine and a game of Trivial Pursuit.  Overnight we even got a dusting of snow, and the next day we had a clear and lovely drive home.  Plus, over the weekend we got to visit a little with Steve's parents and brother who stopped overnight on their way home to NY from NC.  I am so thankful for family!

New Trick

Olivia has learned to clap.  It doesn't matter what she's doing, if you say, "Yaaaay!" she will stop what she's doing and clap. 

She'll even do it when you say, "NO!!!" like when I found her digging in the nursery trash can this morning.  She sat down, smiled sweetly, and clapped.  This replaces the hysterical laughter she used to exhibit when I would say, "NO!!!"

My Quest for Ginger Chews

My mom used to buy a homemade mix for Ginger Chews -- brownie-like molasses-ginger bar cookies.  When I'd come home for the holidays she'd make some and I would do my best not to eat the entire pan of them.  The lady who made the mixes isn't really doing them any more, so for the past few years I've been pining for them at the holidays.  I'd make molasses cookies or gingerbread, but those didn't really do it for me.  So this year I set out on a quest for Ginger Chews.  If the recipes on three different jars of molasses, one cookie book, and a box of gingerbread mix didn't yield the desired product, I was planning to call and pester the jar-mix maker.

Round 1
I had 1/4 cup of "Grandma's Molasses" (which, come to find out, is rich in iron, potassium, and calcium) so I halved the recipe on the jar, thinking it would be good to warm up with a recipe followed correctly.  I chilled the dough, which extended the start-to-finish time excruciatingly, and it made cookies that were good but too cakey for my goals.  I wanted moist and chewy.  I forced them down anyway.

Round 2 (Kind of classic for me: buy all the stuff but never actually make it.)
I went to the grocery store the next day for ingredients for a cookie recipe from my cookie book, including more molasses (I bought two different brands for two more recipes) and sour cream.  Sounded interesting. 

Round 3
That night a providentially-timed conversation with my kitchen-inclined friend Mandy led me to this cookie recipe which trumped the cookie book.  I figured a perfect 5-star rating after almost 2,000 reviews (not to mention 45,000 people having saved it to their recipe box) was a good sign.  But I wasn't sure if I was ready to experiment with converting a cookie recipe into bars, only to fail and be discouraged.  So Mandy, bless her heart, said she'd be making some and would bring me a sample so I could at least taste how the cookies are supposed to be.  I was emailing with my chef-pal Mary about my need for a baking time & temperature when it occurred to me to change my web search to something like "ginger brownies -chocolate" instead of cookies.  I finally found a couple recipes for molasses bars sans chocolat that agreed on that point (time & temp).

So today after doing my homework (Pilates, putting orders in the mail, feeding OJ) I made a recipe of Big Soft Ginger Cookies, pressed the unchilled dough into a 9" glass pan, sprinkled it with sugar, and baked it for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  The molasses bars recipe had said they'd be finished when a toothpick inserted near the center came out clean.  Well, a paring knife inserted near the center looked like it was cutting into raw dough didn't come out clean so I put it back in for 6 more minutes, not wanting to overbake.  I allowed the pan to cool for a small eternity half an hour and then cut an edge piece to be safe.  It was divine, so I cut a center piece.  It was also divine, baked all the way through and still moist and chewy like a brownie.  I have found the holy grail of ginger-molasses bars, and I might be eating them for dinner instead of the cranberry pork roast in the crock pot.

In other news, it is mid-November and we are having thunderstorms.  Olivia has stopped being nice about eating any food from a spoon, but enjoys feeding herself finger food.  Also, Brown just delivered my new camera.  (!)