Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt, Version One, Lessons Learned

Because princess-itis has seized our household - earlier and with greater intensity than I could have ever imagined - I decided the time has come to venture into tulle territory. I didn't enter lightly, having wandered on these plains of desperation, climbed these cliffs of insanity while sewing a Tinkerbell costume ten years ago. But motherhood has its costs and pay them we must.

I armed myself with the high quality Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt tutorial and took Rylee shopping to pick out the tulle. I have to thank Amanda here not only for a great tutorial but also for her unwavering support as I begin life in a princess inhabited household. It's nice to know we're not alone in our trials.

My first attempt will be for At Home Dressing Up and not for Public Wearing or Viewing but I do have some valuable lessons learned.

1. Gathering on the serger does make quick work of the gathering but it will certainly eat into your seam allowance if you're dumb enough to forget to add extra for the necessary trimming of the ugly serger seams. This will render your pettiskirt a tutu.

2. Cutting tulle while it's still warm enough to require ceiling fans running will make you cry.

3. Things that are more fun than gathering yards and yards of tulle.

4. Even if you spend an entire nap time (PLUS some) sewing something you already spent an entire nap time cutting out, right after nap is not the best time to present a bratty little ingrate slow to wake toddler with her new princess dress.

5. Things that are higher quality than the tulle I bought.

6. Things that are sadder than watching your rolled hem fall right off the skirt because it was too narrow and the satin frayed away right underneath it.

7. The smirk that makes it worth it and might even make me try again.

Eyes on the prize, or being lazy with clip art

This is me, cutting tulle under a ceiling fan and gathering it under same.

This is Rylee, dancing with a scrap of tulle she found when she got up from her nap (Joy shown 1/10000000 scale).

I should have a pettiskirt in a day or two.

Purple Funks and tiny lumps

I haven't felt like blogging because I've been in a deep blue funk. So deep it's purple. I'm not sure if I can even blog about it, but it concerns the loss of self, identity and life that comes from having a baby, quitting your job and moving thousands of miles all at once.

Anyway. I did have something nice to blog about but couldn't get a picture.

Faith and patience have paid off for mommy hummingbird. Eric had the ladder out so I carefully climbed up and took a peek into the nest. It contains an egg the size of a jellybean and a little brown lump, softly dusted with feathers and breathing lightly.

The lump is much larger than the egg so it's either the empty shell or one that sadly won't hatch.

I'll keep trying to get better pictures.

Knitapaloza!

I'm going to pretend that I'm really going to finish drafting the Cal Patch T-shirt pattern rather than alternately scowling at and crying about the armhole and breast line.

Sooooo....here's the knits I bought. Forgive the poor photo skills. It was too late for natural light today.

Plain blue for my muslin. This also matches my skirt.

A pointelle I bought to match and it does match. But it's so thin it scares me.

Fish and starfish. I bought enough for something for me and for Rylee.

And last but not least. This also has mommy/daughter written all over it.

Yoga v. Sleep, Round Two

I mentioned last week that in trying to make peace with Rylee getting up at 6:30 I decided to start taking an 8:15 yoga class twice a week. To make that class we need to leave by 7:45. Here's how that went today...

5:30 am - Rylee wakes up for the first time, I put her back in bed
5:50 am - Rylee wakes up for the second time, I put her back in bed
6:10 am - Rylee wakes up for the third time, I put her back in bed
6:30 am - Rylee wakes up and since it's officially her morning I pull her into bed with me for a quick snuggle. Monday at 6:30 I was desperate for her to snuggle for even 15 minutes so I could be prone for just a little while longer. She lasted 5 minutes. Today at 6:30 she promptly fell sound asleep. Sound. Asleep. Oh, and did I mention on my arm?

6:50 am - I decide to extricate (successfully) but now I can't pack my gym bag or get dressed. But I can pack her a to-go breakfast and get her clothing out so I do that.

7:30 am - She's still asleep. I get my gym clothes and pack my bag without waking her. Dither, dither, dither, what to do?
7:40 am - She's still asleep! This would be a dream any other day. Ok, I decide to call this one for sleep but now she's slept so long that if I want to get a shower I'm going to have to be swift and silent. To keep the dogs from waking her up I decide to shut the bedroom door. I forget I live in an old house. So that goes about like this: "CREEEEAAAAAAAAK...Mommy!" She wakes up happy and I'm thankful for small favors.
7:43 am - Decide to go for it. Worst case I'll be too late for class but can still hit some piece of equipment and get a shower.
7:53 am - Pulling out of the driveway with a dressed baby who is munching on her to-go breakfast. That cuts drop-off time to two minutes, but if I carry her rather than let her walk in I can maybe still make it.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the area around my house currently looks about like this:

So to get anywhere I've got a few nasty intersections to get through. There's literally less than a lane in each direction. Two very narrow partial lanes are all that is available, one in each direction. Today that proved to be more exciting than usual!

See those two little cars at the top of the drawing? I'm in the one headed in the proper direction. At the entrance of these little traffic cone lanes there are signs that look like this.

I'm pretty certain that the sign the woman in the top, left-hand car saw does NOT look like this:

In her defense the traffic pattern has only been like this for about five months. But narrowly avoiding a head-on collision is good for my heart rate, right?

Having survived near-death Rylee and I are still on track to make it to the gym with about a minute to spare. Slamming on my brakes in the above scenario did fling her fruit mash-up onto the floor, but she still has dry cereal and milk to last her until the next red light. And please - feel free to cut-and-paste that breakfast description into any letters to the nominating committee for Mother of the Year.

For reasons best known to herself, Rylee has a little tantrum and flings her cereal all over the car. She then asks for cheese as we are just about to turn into the parking lot. She's not allowed to have any food there so I'm hoping she will finish her cheese at her usual quick pace. She doesn't.

I scramble into the gym, now already a few minutes late for class. The childcare workers inform me she'll have to stand in the hallway to eat her cheese. But they're willing to stand there with her so I can get to class. In the cooler light of now I'm blessing them for that but at the time I was irrationally irritated with Yet Another Hassle.

Zip down the hall, four minutes late for class. And so flustered that for most of the class I'm about like this:

Ohm well.

Statistics

Time: 6:58 AM
Number of minutes I've been awake: 96
Number of hours I slept: 5.5
Number of minutes Rylee's been awake: 57
Number of hours Rylee slept: 9
Number of hours she needs: 10.5
Number of wardrobe changes in those 57 minutes: 2
Ounces of water dumped on floor and chair: 12
Number of times Rylee has hit me: 4
Number of times I've hit Rylee: 0 (just to be clear)
Number of times I've said: "You're driving me crazy!": 1 
Hours left in the day: 8475923874329871298347