Birthday Dress

July is flying by!!  What a crazy month it has been.  We've been up to our eyeballs in summer camps, cleaning, gardening, and preserving. 

Sweetpea turns 4 tomorrow.  Hard to believe my littlest is going to be 4.  For her birthday, I made her a dress.

I'ts Simplicity 4161 and I have no idea what the fabric is.  I thought it was a cotton, but it may be a rayon or something like that.  It ironed funny...  I made her a size 5, but it was way too big at the top.  I had to take in the seam at the armhole down to the waist by a good good bit.

 (And I need a hook and eye.  That seems to be a downfall of mine - not sewing on the hook and eye.  So tedious!!!)

All in all, the sewing went well.  The pattern was fairly simple to follow.  And... I did my first buttonhole!!!  (Thanks, Nick, for all your encouragement!)  With such cute buttons, who could resist?

I'm hooked!  Or buttoned, rather, since we all know how i feel about putting hooks on dresses.  It was so easy, I can't believe it took me this long to try it out!  Way way way easier than lining up a zipper.

Happy Birthday my lil Sweetpea.

Spinning

I keep waiting for life to slow down a bit.  So I can do some of the things I've been meaning to do.  Like stare at the clouds.

Play in the creek.

Take my kids to the park.

Waiting for life to stop spinning quite so fast and give me a bit of time.

But life is stubborn.  Life plunges along whether you are holding on or not.

We are responsible for making our own time.  For doing those things we want to do.

For finding our own balance.


***Here is a note added by Nick in the comments.  I thought I'd share it with everyone in case you were looking for some clarity...
It's not clear from those pics (thanks to a fast shutter speed...) but that spinny thing was actually SPINNING.

And pretty fast, too...

And Munch could stand in the center and move her feet fast enough to NOT spin with it. An impressive feat - both physically and metaphorically...