The Police and Babies

Guest post by your neighborhood Cycling Friend

Fear not my Bernina obsessed sewing friends. Put down your thimbles and rickrack and lets talk some rock-n-roll and newborns!

So after a hard night of Rocking at the Police concert last night (Thanks for the tickets James. The show was amazing). Those old farts can still rock pretty hard!



We got a call at 7:15 am this morning. I heard the phone ring, rolled over and wondered who in the hell would be calling my house at that hour on a Sunday Morning? Didn't the SF get released from the Primary Presidencey a couple of weeks ago? Oh its the American Fork Hospital. They wondered if we could be there by 8:30 and they said they would get the party started for us. So we pulled the kids out of bed, got them dressed, called Grandma Valentine to see if they could take the kids to church for the day and we were out the door.



We made it to the hospital and got settled in pretty quickly. The Sewing Friend and I are kind of old pros at this birthing thing now. Its our fourth time and we have had all of them at this hospital. We feel like we practically own the place. So the Doc made his way in, broke out his darning needle and broke the Bag O' Waters. We hung around for a while talking, watching T.V. , and reading our books. The SF finished reading a biography about Porter Rockwell while I was working on a book about David Breshears (Everest Mountain Climber). The contractions were coming and going but nothing too serious.

So about 1:30 we talked to the nurse about putting the SF on a small dosage of Pitosin (sp?). Oh I should probably mention here that the SF was planning on doing this birthing thing sans medicina and was a little apprehensive about making the situation any more painful than it needed to be. Nevertheless we decided to get the PIT line going and sure enough the contractions started coming in consistent and hard.

Now for the Sewing Friends out there who don't know the SF's cycling friend (me). Rest assured that the cycling friend and his buddy's know all about suffering through pain as we race our bikes up the high altitude climbs of the Wasatch mountain range. But the SF can put us all to shame. This chick is tough. She doesn't complain and does whatever it takes to get the job done. All of the nurses and doctors were amazed (and so was I) at how well she was dealing with the pain and how much control she had over her body in keeping it relaxed and focused on the task at hand. In fact she didn't even swear! Which we were all greatful for because she spent 15 minutes apologizing profusely to the entire hospital staff after baby #3. She said there was just this one word that really helped alleviate the pain.....Sh*t I said it again!

Anyway about 3:00 o'clock the pain was getting to be unbearable and the SF was questioning her resolve and commitment to this whole "all natural" approach. But after the nurse checked her and we realized she was almost completely dilated and ready to start pushing she doubled her efforts and decided to stay the course. Holy smokes ...... a couple of good hard pushes and we got's us a baby boy!



Porter Robert James was born just a couple of minutes after 4:00 and tipped the scales at 9lbs 3 ozs and was 20.5 inches long. That's a lot of baby boy. He looks just like a little James baby with big lips and a healthy nose. He was super quiet and mellow the first couple of hours. In fact he was so mellow the nurses were trying to rough him up a bit to get him to scream out a little fluid that was in his lungs. They were all laughing because no one could get him upset....even when they broke the needles out and starting sticking him.



We feel so luck to have this little guy in our family and rest assured there will be no lack of attention paid to this baby. Ya think?

Nesting

After a lot of planning, shopping, painting, and sewing the bedrooms are done! This is the before for the little girls' room (that used to be the big girls' room):


The after:The yellow room was painted apple green. I sewed the duvets (split one in half and used a cheap sheet for the back side to save money), decorative pillows, bedskirts (added trim to a premade bedskirt), and drapes (added trim to premade sheers). The girls helped decorate the "S"es.

Do you like how I decorated mine backwards? Yeah, a 5 and 7 year old put their "s" the correct way. I quickly did the other side so it could hang correctly!

I recovered some bulletin boards. The lamp is from IKEA, with a little trim added.

This is the nursery before:Now, transformed into a big girl/little boy room by some batten board, paint, and a lot of furniture!

Jonathan working hard-isn't he great?

The after:

I sewed the slipcover for the headboard, decorative pillow, bedskirt, cribskirt, bumper pads, crib quilt, and valance. The lamp is from IKEA with a little trim added.

I have a lot of photos of some of the projects: making the duvets and crib quilt. Let me know if you'd like to learn more!

Tours are available at the minimal cost of a plate of goodies!

P.S.
I had to make one for myself!



So, can I go into labor now? Please!

I was recently released as the Primary President in our ward after serving for two years. I had great ladies who served with me. While we are a church of lay clergy, (we don't get paid) I wanted to give something to these women to show them how much their dedication and support meant to me.

So, I sewed them purses to thank them for "carrying their load." I know, I'm such a cheese. Oh, it gets better.


Each have unique personalities and strengths. I captured this by embroidering an appropriate phrase inside each bag.

I can figure it out.

The ladies seemed to like them, and I was pleased with how well they turned out.

TECHNICAL INFO: I found the pattern online at Artsy-Crafty Babe . Click on Free Patterns for a PDF pattern. It is a great pattern and very easy to follow. (The blog and author is also what I aspire to do and be.) It makes a good size purse--very mom friendly. I used cotton quilting fabric, home decor weight cotton fabric, and a looser weave home decor fabric for the bags and handles. I used plain muslin for the lining.

I used an iron-on midweight stabilizer for all parts. I fused the stabilizer before embroidering the sayings. I also embroidered the sayings and attached the ribbon before assembling the bags. The inside pockets are the same fabric as the outside fabric.

I added interest to the handles by sewing ribs with 1/4 inch spacing. I found decorative buttons for the simple closure, although I think a snap or magnetic closure could be adapted easily.

You should probably make some. Call me before I go into labor, and I'll help you!

Saturday

It's taken me awhile to recover from my AWESOME Saturday, so I couldn't write. First of all, remember I'm fully 8 1/2 months pregnant (and measuring a week early). Second, my husband was out of town for the day. Third, the forecast was 100 degrees.

The older girls had a dance performance outside on a hot stage, at noon. I got them up, dressed, curled hair, and red lipstick on. I called for Syd to get dressed and she was mysteriously quiet. So for Syd that means either she's wet her pants or she's stuck something up her nose. It was the second.


This is not the first time something (other than a finger) has been shoved up Syd's nose. She has put a piece of batting and a thick chenille string up her nose. (See the sewing tie-in?) I was able to get them out, however, a green foam butterfly sticker proved more of a challenge. A 45 minute unsuccessful challenge.

Well, we were barely on time for the dance performance. Luckily, the girls were 3rd and 7th in the lineup, so we dance and got out of there. Sher dancing second from left. Isn't she cute?

As she did for the trip to Arctic Circle (mom deserved a big hamburger!) and the grocery store afterwards. She even fell asleep in the car.

When we returned home, I carried in (remember, super pregnant) a hot, sweaty two year old. Then, dear Sloane, wanting to help, opened the back of the car to bring in groceries. Yeah, milk, a whole gallon.

I took the rest of the groceries in, put them away, backed the car out of the garage, and hosed the now hot, partially curdled milk out of my garage.

A little while later, we headed to Uncle Chris and Aunt Marilyn's for a little professional medical intervention (he's a family practice physician and she's a pediatrician who gave birth a week ago). Jonathan joined us there while pulling into town. The doctors didn't have the correct nose-object pulling tools, but I brought along my handy serger tweezers (for threading the serger). Uncle Chris, using carefully honed nose-prying skills, was able to remove the green foam butterfly sticker.

Serger tweezers, penny (for size comparison), folded butterly sticker, nose flashlight.

What a day!

Ribbon Magic

So, here's a tease of the nursery makeover extrodinaire! I am using brown/blue/pink to satisfy a newborn boy and a 7 year old girl (we only have 3 bedrooms).

This is the crib bedskirt.
The plain stripes didn't seem peppy enough (bottom of photo), so I added polka dot ribbon on top. Plus, I'm mostly using chocolate brown, so the regular brown didn't totally fit. Doesn't the top one look better?

I fuse the ribbon with a Wunder Under product (iron on), then I sew the edges.So, what do you do with the remaining few inches of cute ribbon? Make a headband!

I tapered the edges and sewed....

I added two strips of 1/4 inch elastic, crossing them because it looks cuter (and hopefully won't cause that weird hair bump thing you get when the fabric is too thick at the nape of your neck).Is is strange that I'm matching my crib skirt? Have I gone too far?

TIP: It's good to have your children occupied while you're sewing. Invite the neighborhood over for some pillow sliding.

But watch out when one of the girls brings over the Barbie make-up kit with the green eye shadow!
Note to Revlon ColorStay: You got nothing on Barbie!