More Sewing

I've found myself in the sewing room more often lately. This is, my friends, A Good Thing. There is something so satisfying about creating something with my own hands. Being able to look at something and say, "I made this." Doing something that doesn't immediately get UN-done by all the other people who live here with me.

It's not that I'm making anything particularly amazing, either. Mostly, I've been making simple peasant tops for Katie. But it's nice to be able to MAKE her clothes instead of having to buy everything when every penny to spare needs to be going toward the adoption costs.

I made the top to go with the shorts that I bought on clearance.

It makes me feel good to be USING UP some of the embarrassing amount of fabric stash I have in the sewing room. Honestly, I wish I could sew about half of it up. The sewing room would function so much better without as much STUFF in it.

Remember how I mentioned that Hannah's prosthetic leg chews up her pants? Her prosthetist actually said the jeans she had on last time we were there were the worst he'd seen. Now, every mother likes their kid to excel, but she'd only worn them 4 times! It was that bad. Seriously, clothing issues has been the biggest "difficulty" of Hannah's special need on a day to day basis. And clothing issues are doable. Not fun, kind of frustrating sometimes, but totally doable.

At any rate, I decided to turn the pants into shorts and put them away until summer.

And I also decided to use one of the cut off legs to make Wawa (Hannah's doll) a skirt. See, there are some parts of adoptive parenting that are Different. You have to think about their origin as you make choices about how to parent them. Other times, it's exactly the same. And when my big girls were about to be displaced from the Throne of Babyhood by a younger sibling, we played up DOLLS and babies a lot. Granted, Annaliese was 2 and Brianna only 18 months when they had to surrender their crowns, but Hannah's family age is 2 years, so it still seems appropriate to me.

Hannah's birthday comes about a month before we'll be going to China for Katie. I'm planning to give her a doll cradle and make her some doll clothes, blankets, etc. so she can practice mothering, too. Brianna has made a doll sized pillow already.

So Wawa and her other babies will periodically disappear into the sewing room for fittings and by the time her birthday comes, I hope to have a nice little pile of sewn things for her/them.

Portable comfort blankies/security objects.

Unlike "real" Taggies, these are flannel on one side and Minkee on the other side.

I was planning to put them into my Your Adopt Shop to sell, but I'm having technical difficulties with the shop right now.  Email me at grtlyblesd@aol.com if you're interested in purchasing a snuggle blankie or other custom sewing.

One nice benefit of spending more time in the sewing room is that it gives me something relaxing and enjoyable to DO while I'm waiting. I find if I spend too much time online, I get caught up in the "when is the next step going to happen?" frenzy and stress myself out. If I can focus instead on making cute clothes for the little ones, I'll be more pleasant to be around, we'll save money, and the wait will not seem so horrible after all.




  Thank you for taking a moment to click for this site!