The pant challenge

http://www.cjpatterns.com/pat1010.html

So I am setting up a new blog when I move this server for sewing and motherhood, thrifting and style. And as part of that I’m setting up a sewing challenge: can I make the above pants in less time than it takes to wash and dry a pair of pants.

I am going to set up the challenge like this: set washer for 16 min. cycle. Toss in jeans (or khakis) and have pattern and fabric laid out to cut. start washer. Cut pants, sew pants, switch clothes to dryer, dry pants. I think I can do it, since I think our total wash cycle is 30 min, and I’m sure a pair of pants in the dryer is at least 30 min to 45 min.

I’m also not making something easy like a one seam knit pant. That I could surely do, but a trouser pant, with a CB invisible zipper.

I’ll move the server, move the blog and start the challenge next week after I sew the first test pair (the lime green capri length pants). So I’ll know how to sew the pants, and perfect the technique before I start the challenge.

We are up north, baby is sleeping in the bouncer and all is well. I brought knitting, knitted in the car on my part of the ‘ride’ (as opposed to drive) up. I have on a pale blue nursing top with the tan sweater with pale blue blanket stitch edging, and my super skinny boot cut black denim jeans. Perfect. With a vintage orange and white/turquoise choker necklace.

amish weekend

Our dryer is broken. So G. strung up the dog trolley line across the yard, and we’re using that to hang wash. So I’ve got E. in the babywrap, and I’m hanging wash, just like an Amish mother. Are we so different? Not really. She has it harder: no plumbing, long skirts, no microwave. or internet. But we both snuggle with our babies, relish the quiet moments when they are sleeping like angels, nurse on demand, stroking the soft curves of our baby’s cheek, warm against our breasts. No, we’re not different. Same, too, with the mom in her Parisian flat, a better wardrobe, perhaps (or at least more astute at scarf tying), the mom in her Florence apartment, the mom in her London row house. We are just who we are, and motherhood unites us. The mom who knits her baby a hat in Rome is no different than the mom who knits her baby a hat in Peru, or in Pakistan. She loves her child with something so strong, it will never break. And I wonder how it is for the moms in Darfur, in Iraq, in Palestine.

I have very much enjoyed Hirkani’s Daughters. I guess I had a silly thought that anywhere else but the US and Europe was ‘third world’ but that’s not true, as I read about Mexican, Argentinian, and Brazilian professional moms who went back to work and still nursed their babies. I am very committed to nursing E. into her second year. If anyone asks, I’ll say “my birth mother died of breast cancer, and nursing not only helps me, but her avoid it”.

I think about the mothers all over the world. We’re all united. Too bad we don’t rule the world, it would be a happier place. Mothers would not send their children off to war. It’s time to think about dinner. what can I make with a baby in a sling? I’m off to the freezer to see what things we have to microwave.

snoozin’

Baby is snoozing in the sling. cute cherub. I’m still shocked and amazed this is mine. All mine. She’s three months old, another shocker. I am settling into motherhood nicely. Figuring out how to do all the things I did (work, sew, take care of the house) and be a mother. Time will go so fast. I can’t believe a quarter of her first year of life is over.

Last night, another first, I rode 10 miles. It felt good/weird to be on the bike, like it was too big (too long/too tall) for me. it’s not of course, same bike I always had. My head pounded inthe sun coming up a hill (knoll, really), but the two herons on the way back made the ride worth it.

I cannot lament…

I cannot lament the fact that I’m probably not ever going to be pregnant again. It’s creeping up, as I dropped off maternity wear borrowed from a friend. But I have to find my way in the world of chic mom and cute baby and not look back.

I sewed the Sugar Babe pants. Cute. I’ll make ‘em again (this time cutting the right size first, instead of serging off 5/8″ from each side TWICE before deciding that was all the room I needed). Tomorrow, the tube top, in a smaller size, LOL. I’ll have to also recut the jacket pattern muslin (trace down the smaller sizes). I’ll bet I sewed a 10. And yes, they make a strapless nursing bra. I ordered one.
Next time I’ll make them in a silk. And that gets me thinking, what about those Italian silk pants? Don’t those need a washed silk duppioni tube top and brown linen jacket? hmmm. I think I’ll be using my credit at FG sooner than I think. And I may cut down the waist on those to the narrow style too, reduce some bulk I never liked.

See? its OK. I can do this. I can look forward, but not too fast. She’s three months old already, and time is flying so fast. I look down at her and see her tiny newborn cheek, pressed against my breast, the tiny triangle of space next to her little nose. i can see the nursery room at the hospital, that long night when she was under the lights, as if it were yesterday. The little chin wiggling as she suckles. Her tiny body wrapped in a receiving blanket, stroking the downy hair on the back of her neck and shoulder. The warm baby smell of the nursery at 3am. I don’t ever want to forget this. It’s magic.

what if I didn’t buy any clothes…

For the next six months. Nursing bras don’t count. But what if I sewed everything I’m wearing for the next six months. Use up the stash. Post a SnS on Sewingmamas and SewingRefuge every week. What could I make? The BurdaStyle Anda dress with nursing overlay. I am sure I have a knit that would work (hey, that b&w diagonal stripe…) The HotPatterns Sugar Babe outfit with green ombre knit tube top, black linen pants, and green linen jacket. The flare leg pants in capri length in lime green linen. That sounds like a summer capsule.

Then, into fall. An auburgine sweaterknit Cardiwrap. Navy and camel wool flare leg pants. B&W houndstooth flare leg pants. Iridescent denim flare leg pants (love the flare leg pants!) Auburgine paisley tube top (cut down the burda top I didn’t like) or super simple Anda tee. Slate wool knit Sugar Babe pants. Lilac princess wrap with 3/4 sleeves. Peach floribunda nursing top. Black and brown mesh knit reversible tee.
And that’s just the surface! I haven’t even thought of the fabric I have stashed. Honey brocade, tissue linen in aqua, floral linen for a baby sling.
I’d be super stylish, that’s what I’d be…

I wish I had a camera

Actually I wish I could reach the camera. But I can’t. In my lap is a perfect cherub. Laying on her side, in the hollow of a Boppy nursing pillow on my lap, E. is fast asleep. She’s got on a little animal print sundress with matching bloomers. She barely stretches across the boppy, curled up with her feet crossed at the ankles and one hand against my belly.

She is perfect. Just perfect. Well, a bit stinky (I think she needs a diaper change) but even that is perfect. She’s thriving on my milk, growing bigger every day. Her eyelashes are now long and curled up on the ends, she looks like the Gerber baby when she’s awake.

I wish I could etch this indelibly into my head, this pose, this moment.

Last night I took off for two hours with friend S. to thrift. I got a superb fitting pair of jeans, black pants, four picture frames for photos of E. for the office and a green glass beaded necklace (it may not even be glass, but it looks it). Wore the perfect fitting jeans with my funky vintage lily of the valley green sweater and a tank.

The world seems brushstroked with perfection and happiness right now. I don’t want it to end.

blink

in the blink of an eye this could all be over. Friday G. wanted to dine alfresco at Harper’s (I wanted Ukai). So we set off, she wasn’t strapped in to her car seat. We went up the stairs. Just as I said, watch her, she slid out and onto the step in front of me. I’ll NEVER forget her, in that little green dress, lying on the concrete step in front of me. Oh God, I was just panicked. I scooped her up as she wailed. As it turns out, after 4 hours at Peds afterhours she had a fractured skull, and so we were sent to the hospital. They had a CT done, showed the same, no bleeding or swelling on the brain, just a small fracture. The pediatrician said she was fine, would be fine. he didn’t give me a lecture, I think he knew how I felt about the whole thing.

what I saw, over and over in my brain, was her rolling down the steps to her death. Death. I would, would go after her, there’s no way I could continue in this life if that happened. Just could not. Not after all of this. I had to explain, more than once, about her long pregnancy and early delivery. She’s a miracle, and i cannot live without her. I’m sane now. Last night if I posted this, I’d still have been in that panicked, sleep deprived state where I’d have been sobbing at my desk.

E, I’d do anything for you. Anything. And the hours that I had to watch as you went through a CT (sleeping), blood draw (screaming) and Xrays (screaming) were among the hardest of my life so far. I am so sorry. You will never be in your car seat or stroller without being strapped in. We want to not talk about this, to put it behind us. I want to talk to get this out, but I feel terribly guilty for what happened. The nurse says I shoud not. That it happens, she’s fine and all is well.

travel wardrobe comes to life

Some months back (last year?) i wrote about what I ‘d wear if traveling right now. How I wanted to be uberchic but still travel worthy. So what is that? I think definitely dark denim. Though I hate denim for travel, a tencel denim might work. It’s also a knit jacket, a sweatercoat or wrap or poncho (eggplant sweater fabric?), something other than the gray cashmere sweater (boy I love that thing, but I’ll never remember which trip it was if i keep bringing it).

But the best accessory of all is E. And it’s time to snuggle up with her (she’s snoozing, all cozy and warm) and be a mom.

Ah found it 7.06.06: “I imagine the sled, and the bike trailer, or the active mom in cute flats, chic denim trouser pants, ruffled cami and cosy sweater pushing a jogger stroller out to grab my cappucino. It’s a nice thought.”

so yeah, floribunda nursing cami? cute flats? cosy sweater? denim trouser pants? check, check, check and check. Jogging stroller? check. Cappucino? check. Just need a nice coolish day to make this happen this fall. sometimes I cannot believe it. Yes, it is a nice thought, and it’s reality, baby, reality.