Blue yoke shirt jacket, sunflowers and more

The first of the sunflowers is starting to open. They are 'Lemon Ice' heirloom breed, gotten free with one of our squash seeds.


The other tremendous pumpkin in the garden is starting to turn orange


The pattern is Simplicity 6121.

I received it in the mail yesterday, and worked one up last night. I'm not happy with the collar :( Collars are definitely something I will have to work on. The pattern had no 'stand' or small band that goes between the collar and the shirt... but I might have to make one for the second try. I might also have cut the collar on the bias.. but didn't. The yoke's points will need to be worked on better, too... but considering the medium amount of care I placed on making them last night they turned out better than expected.



She swears it is not too long for her and that it is a jacket for *brr* cold. I did think the sleeves were extremely well designed. They were easy to set in and also move nicely when she does.


It goes down to her knees and she wore it for about fifteen minutes until I told her it was too hot for it outside


The yoke fabric is an Aunt Grace scrapbag print.



I'll have to practice the sort of pattern quite a bit more - but making the buttonhole by hand worked much better than any work on the machine has done.


Bunny, our Staffordshire, finds a duckie in her water dish and is amused.


The fence is being 'eaten' by the other squash plants. See the one growing right ON the lightweight fence? I think it is a Turk's turban, but it might be a Jarrahdale. I hope it survives. It might rot there, though :(

//NOTE// : More imagination antics today. Esme found a pink puppy watch that was a Happy Meal item a friend at work gave her - and she held up one little finger and said 'Oh, I got 15 minutes - I have to go to work!' and went out the door. She came back in (because we didn't follow) and said 'OH NO! There is a monster out there.' We said 'oh, okay.. , out on the porch? Maybe you shouldn't go out there, then.' To that, she grabbed a 'bazooka' type toy that was in her toybox and said 'This will work.' She went back out on the porch and pretended to have a fight with the monster. Mark said 'that's my girl - don't settle for hiding in the house, get that monster!' Later she was filling a small wagon up with water in our bathtub and saying 'I got my coffee.. oops! I dropped my coffee! It's all gone! I need more!' over and over... I am pretty sure it was a comment on Mama for drinking so many cups ;)

She also was a half-terror at her grandparents, asking for all food under the sun after she had already eaten. She did eat some of it.. which was decent. The visit ended in embarrassment for her. I was most upset that she did not even SAY anything at all... we have been working on it but it is just going to take heaps of patience, mostly on Mama's side of the issue. I marched her home, got her cleaned up and gave her a cup of milk to drink while she watched Clifford. That worked as sneakily planned. She went to sleep on our bed and we went downstairs to can our tomatoes and get ready to jar up the pickles which have been soaking in brine and vinegar for 8 days. There are eighteen half-pints sitting on the table and more in the pressure canner starting to heat up.

Large Harvest with little helper

Two pumpkins
the orange one will become a pie ;)


Large harvest!

We are getting ready to can the tomatoes. Mark got out the pressure canner and we are reading up what to do. I cut up a LOT of zucchini and other squashes and put them in the freezer.


helping open pinto beans


A bean!

Esme was more help than I thought in opening and shelling the beans. I had to start each one and make sure she didn't put any 'bad ones' into the good pot - but she had fun and was sad when they were all done.


A tantrum, non productive!


pinto beans

Over the past few weeks I've been eating most of the pintos and drying a few at a time. The ones already dried are in the ziploc bag. I put some more from this larger harvest into the pint jar with rice to dry. The jar gets covered with a coffee filter and a rubber band to keep air in and everything out. I shake the jar every day or so to circulate the dry rice around the beans as they dry. I have already used the rest of the beans to make soup. There is still another harvest or two in the garden!

No naps for the sniffly

6782 Simplicity 1974
got this one in the mail the other day

Esme is a size 3 or 4, but she requires added length and I always have to alter based on her measurements. This pattern is a six... but hopefully I can work it down or use the next one already coming (size 3/4 duplicates of a different number) AND this one to keep making this style for her for a longer period of time :)


5875 Simplicity, 1970s
Isn't the illustration adorable?
I don't own this one *yet*, but it is
the type of pattern I should be working with for the next year or so!
UPDATE: Found one for two bucks - ordered it!

I stayed home today from work with my sinuses.. after working through yesterday in misery and waking up in even more. I want to avoid it going to my chest like it did last time... probably no avoiding that. I had hoped to nap more, but each of my short naps have ended with my head being rolled on... and there was some snuggling, lots of rolling on Mama's head and back. *sigh* I did brush her hair which was physically exhausting *ha* and Mark held her on his lap so I could rebraid it as she was wiggling everywhere! Off and on she has been playing a lot on Starfall, which has also been when I wander off to my bed. I finally realized a word she has said for months 'da-four' is not play dinosaur, it is play Starfall. It finally hit me today.. and she has always been telling me no dinosaur, da-four. There IS a dinosaur in Starfall, though... so Mama had her reasons.

I have cruised some sewing patterns for ideas - but could not bring myself to start anything. I did fold up all the pattern pieces that were lying loose, did the laundry and walked to the mailbox to see if my other pattern came in the mail. It hadn't. The one that is coming in the mail is a duplicate size 3 and size 4 in a similar style to the first one posted above. Mark said I could indulge my curiosity to see if the 3 and 4 are that much different proportionally and how... and it was the same seller with combined shipping. I caved.. and ordered both of them even though I was feeling guilty about ordering one!

Other note: We picked our pumpkin today! When I was in the garage trying to get the clippers for it Esme had refused to follow me and was screaming and crying about not wanting to go but wanting to go back outside etc... I told her 'fine' I'll go get the clippers and come right back out.. and she got her hair caught on something just out of my sight and started screaming 'for real'... I didn't come right back until I had gotten halfway there... turned around and realized it was 'for real' and she had pulled herself loose just before I got back to her. Poor kid. She was so mad at me, but perfectly fine other than a broken lock of hair, which she showed me quite prominently. I couldn't even find a red spot on her scalp etc... I told her very sternly then when Mama says COME WITH don't be a brat and say I'm staying here... unless you are responsible. Of course she doesn't understand, but she is nearly four! But that has never happened to her before, either... so why could she think that when she was being snarly and unhappy and thrashing around near something it would reach out and grab her hair and not let go? I am glad she had the common sense to get free without hurting herself more.

I hate it when I am sick sometimes I get in that 'don't cry wolf at me' mode - and it isn't good... that is when the worst can happen. Yesterday morning a dog nearly killed one of my cats because I felt so awful I didn't want to respond to a 6 am 'odd bark'. They bark and howl and cry at 5 or 6 every morning and demand to be in and out three or four times around sunrise. Mostly we sleepwalk during these outs and ins. This was a bark not near the door, but out by the fence, and constant but not 'danger'. Mark said it sounded like they had a snake - but snake sounds like 'danger'.. and that is what got me moving - they had something, but not a snake. I was getting shoes but finally got out there to ask them what the *blank* was the issue and they had a kitten held down against the fence and were not letting her go. That, I think, is how they killed Suki - with a bark that we didn't respond to because we didn't think it meant 'danger' and had no idea why they were excited. Suki was scared to death against the fence when we found her. And for the record, we have seven cats and this had never ever been an issue before Suki.. the correlation is that Suki had gotten doused in a pond the day before they killed her, and this kitten was thrown into Esme's baby pool (by Esme) the day before they were doing this to her... I think there is a link in that they couldn't 'smell' who they were anymore. This kitten is fine, was a little dirty and a little out of breath and sore muscles.. by tonight she is jumping on shelves in the house and just looks like she hurts a tiny bit. It could have been so much worse if I hadn't snapped out of my 'I am sick please don't make move that fast' mode and gotten to it anyway. :(

Esme's stick figure drawings

To be correct they are 'tadpole' people, because the arms are coming out the side of the head. She's never really been interested and/or coordinated before - but tonight she shot of a few in a row after being given a whole new drawing tablet for herself.


face with 'ponytail'


added arms and legs


started out on another new sheet and added lots

This is the first time I've witnessed her drawing 'people'... and I think it was influenced by the Starfall snowman building game she has been playing the past few days... at any amount, I'm elated to see her thinking in progress :)

bits

Two things that made us go 'uhhh.... whoa hold the phone there!' with Esme the past few days.

We ran out of popsicles the other day and Mark found Esme sitting at the kitchen table with a small frozen apple pie box in front of her and a fork in one hand. She had just given up trying to stab it incessantly and was about to start crying about it. Daddy did calm her down and cook one for her... but she got it out of the freezer herself, knew what it was and understood something was 'wrong' with it but not what was wrong!

She was on my computer and hit the Google icon on my toolbar. She was typing in random letters, hitting the GO button and clicking on random links. YIKES. She has been going through my facebook as well and clicking on people's picture streams and looking at all of their pictures - which is almost all pictures of dogs and little kids, crafts and vegetables etc... and she hasn't done that unsupervised. The Google part was unsupervised as I thought she was just on her Starfall game and didn't dream she was interested in and/or could actually GET anywhere on Google.

scrap shirt

Amy Butler scrap fabric and two similar green scraps


dog hug
crooked buttonband, but it works


She is officially inches taller than the doorknob


Comparison: Last September 21
several inches below it!

Her added height is showing everywhere - needing lots of new pants, being able to sit on the potty unassisted, reaching the kitchen sink faucet handles when standing on her stool (she couldn't do this last week, but surprised me today by turning it on, washing her hands and turning it off before I crossed the room to help). She will probably be getting her own breakfast before the end of the year, complete with milk in the cereal bowl.

I have hopes that these shirts might teach her in the future how to button her own clothes on... Most of her clothes up until now have been back zippers, which is not easy for a child to 'self-help' on.

Another camp shirt from the wardrobe pattern. It was made with scraps of several fabrics. The actual buttonband was added on afterward because the facings were too narrow to provide reinforcement for the buttonholes. The machine-made and hand-reinforced buttonholes still look awful up-close, until the buttons are actually buttoned, then they look serviceable. This one is a little short ...probably because of the seam on the front pieces. I will need to try to extend the length to make something that doesn't show her belly when she is running around!

Other: We went to the donut shop, hardware store, a shoe outlet and the drug store trying to make up time to get to the health food store when it opened at ten. That was a lot of wandering around... and Esme was very good during most of that... After I picked up my red lentils at the health food store (so glad they had them as no one else did!) we went to the library. Esme copied what another girl did on the computers bit for bit for a while, and it impressed me, too, as she had not been able to do some of those operations in that game before. She got pretty upset after some young boys came in with a grandma that did not want them to play but wanted them to sit and read. Esme got the youngest boy in big trouble when the grandma went to get another book, so we had to leave too, in a ruckus of tears and screaming on Esme's part. *sigh* And it had been going so well up until then! I really wish we had a children's library where the rule wasn't "inside voices." It is so very hard to keep them there when they don't get to see other children very often.

We are home now, and hopefully the rest of the day will be more relaxing!

pattern used:

Simplicity 4969, 1950s era, undated