Ease into motherhood: Find Your Voice

 

  
Ease In to Motherhood is a sewists’ celebration of motherhood and the changes it brings to our lives. During the month of July, we invite you to share your experiences of the physical and mental changes of pregnancy, childbirth and/or any other way a child comes to your life. We invite you to share how you embrace yourself throughout motherhood, to appreciate all the physical and mental energy it takes, to accept and love the changes in your body, your mind and your life. We invite you to share how you still dedicate time to care for yourself. We invite you to share how sewing is a part of your life through the journey.

(A discussion opened and hosted by Erin, Jodi and Montserratt).

*  *  *

OK so I know it's a nice little play on sewing words, but I must admit that my very first thought was: um, ease into motherhood? HAHAHAHAHAHA. CRASH, more like it!

Or was that just me?

Two pics of each - I most definitely do not have four children

The thing was, though, I loved having tiny babies. I know for some (most?) people, the early months of constant feeding, nappy-changing and interrupted sleep are a tortuous experience which improves dramatically as the child gets bigger. But I found the newborn phase relatively easy - breastfeeding went fine, the first child was a good sleeper, and while the second wasn't, I was enjoying myself so much that I breezed through his first six months fuelled on a mix of euphoria and strong coffee.  Perhaps that's why the crash, when it came, was all the harder.  I'd thought I was doing just fine. And no, I didn't much like the weaning and toddling, but this too was a phase they'd grow into and then out of. I didn't think I had anything much to worry about.

I stopped breastfeeding my son (the second of the two) quite suddenly when he was six months old. I had been enjoying pottering along on maternity leave and sort of forgot I was going back to work, and would therefore need to getting him drinking out of bottles for his time in daycare, until the week before. He took to it immediately, and the physical relief of not feeding him myself every two hours was so huge that within that week I transitioned him to being entirely bottle fed. Feeding issues for creche: sorted. Me: liberated. I hardly gave it a second thought.

I should have. Eight years later, I am now quite firmly convinced (on no scientific basis whatsoever I must add) that that sudden hormonal, physical and emotional change was what flipped the switch in my brain somewhere and kicked off my journey into depression. I've talked about that experience here, and luckily, not much has changed since then (the meds and mindfulness do their job!) What I do have now, though, that I didn't fully realise at that time, is an awareness of just how much my struggle with depression and anxiety is and has been a struggle with the fact that I am a mother.

That's a hard thing to face. I'm not even sure I could say why it is (I could offer a few theories, but they're probably best kept for the therapist). But it recurs over, and over, and over again - almost any anxiety or stress I experience, however it presents itself to begin with, only gets resolved when I trace it back to the same question: who am I? I'm a mother. And what kind of mother am I? And what else am I? And who are these children, and how do we grow together? And that's where the process of working it out, picking myself up again, starts.

Left: bought the fabric without thinking of the ironing those sodding ruffles would need.
Centre: towels + bias tape. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Worn once only.
Right: the first trousers I ever made. A rare early success!

So, motherhood and sewing. Well, I completely agree with everything Vicki wrote here about Getting Yourself A Thing. Obviously, sewing is my Thing too, and I'm very glad I found it. Also my Things are blogging, and instagramming, and twitting (less frequently these days) about sewing.  Being able to communicate with others about the Thing does me a power of good! And if I have anything to say to other parents reading this, I suppose it's on that. Find Your Thing, yes, but also:  Find Your Voice.

I had another blog before I started this one. It only lasted a few months before I shut it down, and the reason I did that wasn't because no-one read it (though they didn't) but because it wasn't my voice that was coming out.  Instead, it was the voice of someone who thought that blogging about sewing was somehow the same thing as blogging about your children, and about sewing and crafting for them and with them. You see, there were so many wonderful sewing sites and tutorials out there - Dana, Sew Mama Sew, to name just two - and I simply didn't know where the not-mummy things were. In my real voice, now, I can tell you this: I hate crafting with children. I'm SO glad mine are big enough now to do their own crafts without very much parental input. But back then, when they were small, that blog started like this...

*  *  *

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
First post

This is my idea of a good time: at home pottering about and making a merry old mess. Them: toys, crayons and books. Me: pins, needle and thread.

I learned to sew with my mum and at a rather traditional girls’ school where I and 5 others took GCSE textiles. In my rose-tinted memory the class was a twice-weekly haven of calm, creativity and gossip; my mum mainly remembers the enormous practical coursework burden and desperate all-nighters trying to finish the projects.  These were clearly enough to put me off, because I hardly sewed anything for the next 15 years or so.

And then last summer I got my stitching mojo back. I rediscovered my sewing machine (a secondhand 1970s model that cost 20 pounds and weighs about the same), experimented with some easy dresses, and then threw myself into making Christmas presents for my friends. Since September I’ve spent more lunchbreaks than I care to admit on fabric porn*.

Even at its most frustrating, sewing is total occupational therapy. It’s absorbing and it's liberating, keeping my hands busy and clearing my head. I find myself actually thinking about things again (with two toddlers and a full time job, it's been a while since I did that).  So this blog is mainly about keeping a record of the things I’ve made - but it’s also about getting myself to keep sewing and thinking. Because another thing I really enjoy but don’t do any more is writing.

The idea is that making stuff and writing about it keeps me more or less sane...

* i.e., wandering around fabric shops, stroking things and trying not to drool.

*  *  *

It's clearly me in that post, and I still hold to most of it. But you know what? In reality, I hate mess. And nice though it was to sew in the middle of family life, generally I find it even nicer to sew in my own room, preferably with the door shut and an audiobook on. In that post, the kids get mentioned first, then I appear briefly before moving on to my own mother, who pops up straight away in the second paragraph (analyse that...). That idea I had about "keeping myself sane" - I suspect what I meant was "keeping" (or rather, "making") myself the kind of mum who blogs lovely things about her children on the internet. It is me in that post - but it also really, really isn't.

The only kind of parent any of us can be is an authentic one.  Nobody else can parent your kids the way you do (and that's a good thing!); no-one else can speak to your experience.  You might be the parent, like me, whose only choice is to embrace the fact that motherhood and identity are sands constantly shifting beneath your feet. That's ok. We're ok. Our kids are ok. It's who we are. The only stories we can tell are our own; and we are the only ones who can tell them.

You just need to Find Your Voice.

(It's the one that's been there all along).

Follow

Ooh, pineapple!

There are some astonishing jobs out there, aren't there? It never ceases to amaze me, the myriad things to which we variously devote our working lives - and just how many of those things are so invisible, quite probably even unimaginable, to those of us who don't do them.

Official full time Viking blacksmith, for example. Medieval village fish-gutter.

This little dress, worn to visit the above Norsemen, benefited from the personalised services of a Professional Pineapple Placement Advisor.  Otherwise known as Measure Twice, who stepped into an instagram discussion on the relative merits of Pineapple! Or no Pineapple?? with the revelation that she spends much of her time writing technical placements for garments and, I quote, "knows all the sneaky tricks for label positioning".

Indeed she does. I did what she told me, and whaddya know? It really did come out looking just like a swanky, branded shop-bought item, instead of the cheap-as-chips fabric+free pattern birthday dress it really is. The only remaining doubt was whether this was all just a little bit too silly for the "take me seriously!" seven year-old destined to receive it.

I held my breath. She opened the parcel, shook the dress out, and took it all in as quick as she could. And then, with just the briefest of pauses, she shouted - "Oooh!!" - "PINEAPPLE!!!"

It was a good call, label-placement ladies of instagram. Very good call!

She also got a big box of make-up. Can you tell?

:: :: ::

What about you - do you do something unusual for a living? Or one of those invisible, essential things that nobody has ever heard of? What's the strangest professional occupation you've come across so far?

:: :: ::

Pattern: Crafterhours Racerback sundress (it's a freebie!)

Fabric: cotton knit from Moens, a great bargain at 2 euros/metre.

Ribbing: little scraps from the stash.

Follow

The joy of pockets: field trip cargo pants & raglan tee

It's been a while since we had some kid projects around here, hasn't it? Rest assured, I haven't been entirely neglecting them (the kid projects that is, not the kids themselves - they can be annoying, but in general I do try to keep them well fed and watered at least).  Today, I'm finally getting around to showing you the outfit I made T for his birthday in May.

Excuse the dirty floor

If you sew for kids at all I hope you've tried at least one Oliver & S pattern - they're absolute treasures, delightful to sew, and well worth the money. I always learn something new and valuable, and this was no exception. It's the Field Trip cargo pants and raglan tee. The tee is a pretty straightforward basic, the beauty of which is in the impeccable drafting and pocket detail. But for me the real winner of this project was the linen trousers - I had SO MUCH FUN making all those pockets!  The whole process of construction was a joy from start to finish, and the only thing I changed was to sew a double layer at the front knee panel, because boys. They go through knees like nobody's business. (There's a great flickr tute for doing that on this pattern, here).

Now the other thing about boys is, of course, pockets. Why is that? Part of my glee while sewing this up was knowing how into the pockets he'd be, and I wish I'd managed to video his reaction to them because it was hilarious. Instead, I've got the second best thing - a blow by blow demonstration of each one and exactly how much playmobil you can get in them. I didn't actually know they were full of playmobil until he started taking it out - I was killing myself laughing, which is why these photos are all at different angles.

Fig. 1: right side seam pocket.

Contains two policemen.

Fig. 2: right-hand cargo pocket.

Contains two knight on horses.

Fig. 3: left-hand cargo pocket.

Contains two foot soldiers.

Fig. 4: left side seam pocket.

Contains two more foot soldiers (he has quite a collection).

Fig. 5: the back pocket pièce de resistance.

Contain two hands.

POCKETS ON MY BUM!!!

BUM! I'M SO HILARIOUS!!

Follow

Stripy nauticalness

Prepare yourselves for photo overload!!  Because I am in LOVE with this little dress almost as much as I am with the overwhelming gorgeousness of the model and yes it's my daughter yes I'm biased no not sorry she's just the cutest!

And the dress, oh the dress. I adore this stripy fabric so much that it was fully and selfishly intended to be a dress for ME ME ME.  For some incomprehensible reason the Chien Vert was selling it off in cheap coupons, and I snapped up about three yards as quick as I possibly could.  What you can see for yourselves is that it's wonderfully, nautically stripy.  What you can't see is how absolutely gorgeous it feels. It's soft and smooth and stretchy and stable, with the most perfect balance of drape and solidity, heavy enough to be warm, but oh-so-deliciously cool against the skin. (For those who know, it feels like a slightly heavier-weight Lillestoff).

Sadly, the dress for me was not to be. First I cut it a size too small. Then I tried again, with a curved yoke upon which stripes could not be matched - a rather obvious mistake that I cursed myself for repeatedly, before bowing to the inevitable and cutting this little darling out of the remains and scraps.  It's not much to show for my 2.8 metres, but it IS absolutely perfect on L. I guess this is just what fate had in mind for it all along.

By the time I was done with making my failed attempts, I was utterly fed up with matching stripes and nearly didn't bother again. But you know what - it's ALWAYS worth it.  This next picture is blurred - she just couldn't keep still - but serendipitously in focus is that beautiful meeting of stripes on the shoulder. And you can hardly even see the side seams! It totally makes the whole thing, and I am ever so smugly satisfied that past-me bothered after all.

The pattern is the roller skate dress by Oliver & S, which I've made her before in woven fabrics (see here and here).  It's extremely comfortable in a knit - in fact, I think it's much better - but it did involve changing things up a bit. The dress as designed is fully lined, which in this fabric would have been much too thick and heavy.  To sew it in one layer, I made three changes.

First, to finish the neckline, I cut the decorative facing pattern pieces but used it like a normal facing on the inside.  I hemmed it, as the fabric curled a LOT, and then topstitched it down on the outside about an inch from the neckline edge. All dictated by necessity, but I really like how it came out. To finish the sleeves, I simply turned under a half-inch hem and stitched it down. The armholes on this dress are very, very curved - I don't think this could work with non-stretch fabric. As it was, I sewed the sleeve hems before sewing the side seams, so I could stretch the hem around the corners easier. I also didn't finish the inside hem edge (fortunately, of course, being a knit, it's not needed).  All told it's not the tidiest of solutions on the inside, but on the outside it looks just fine.

Finally, instead of sewing the elastic casing between the lining and outer dress, I simply sewed a strip of fabric to use as a casing on the inside of the dress. I ignored the curved markings on the pattern and just sewed it in a straight line, on top of one of the stripes - so it's pretty much invisible, inside and out. We also placed the elastic lower than on the original pattern, as L says it's more comfortable, and I think it's more flattering too.

And there you have it! Lots of photos of my lovely girl in her lovely dress.  One of these days she'll realise that this is the dress in which I cuddle her about 80 percent more often - because my little L encased in that beautiful fabric is an absolutely irresistible combination :-)

Follow

Kids Clothes Week wrap: a reversible hoodie

Wait, what? Kids Clothes Week Winter has been and gone? Where did it go??  Oh hang on, I know. That was those seven days in a row I spent wrestling with a reversible hoodie.  

If you follow me on instagram, you've seen this plenty already, but I wanted to blog it anyway as it was quite an achievement. To begin with, contrary to appearances above, he adores it (the face up there is just a photoshoot special). He adores it so much that if I let him he would wear it until it had to be peeled off. It's a massive, enormous, boy-sewing win.

It was also a total labour of love. Actually that's not true - it was a labour of swearing.  The problem is not with the pattern as such, it's just the nature of the beast: reversible = multiple layers of fabric.  Multiple layers and much precision.

And in using fleece for both the inside and out, I did not help myself.  Oh no. Especially not when I also added fleece pockets (on the outside only, thank God). For the first time EVER I actually resorted to hand basting the zip - because at the centre front/pocket intersection, when you add up all the seam allowances, I was dealing with this:

It took sewing determination I didn't know I had. I even made a special trip to the shop for a separating zipper (because doh obviously. Why did I not buy a separating zip the first time??) Reversible zips were nowhere to be found, so this is in fact a non-reversible reversible hoodie, a fact in the end I was supremely grateful for: it sat so thick and unwieldy around the neck, I ended up topstitching down that blue band at the hood seam, to keep everything sitting more or less neatly. It works, but there's clearly a right side and a wrong one.

The new, shiny, separating but non-reversible zip handily came with no pull attached, which clearly is great for four year olds. Good thing I happened to have bought tons of funky coordinating ribbon the other day. (Available in Veritas in lots of yummy colour/print combos, Belgian readers!)

And that's that. Despite being a surprising amount of work, in a week where I was inexplicably exhausted to begin with, this hoodie is one of my favourite things I've ever made. The fleece was half-metre remnants, the 2 colours of ribbing were all the scraps I had left from earlier projects - all in all it was cheap and stash-busting and it came out SO COOL!

This morning, wearing it of course, and cuddling me manipulatively, he asked me to make him another one exactly the same.  Which I will, as soon as I find some NOT-F*CKING-FLEECE to make it with.

I am not sewing with fleece again for as long as freaking possible.

Follow

Little flannel nightgowns

Do you think schoolchildren have watercooler conversations?  I do.  Because frankly, I can't think of any other explanation for it. What, exactly, was wrong with pyjamas?

Well, watercooler. More, you know, climbing around the playground. Comparing snacks at break. "Hey, L," (munch munch gulp). "What do you wear in bed?"

I can't otherwise explain it: the request for nightgowns came out of nowhere. The kind of nowhere that gives one an existential parenting crisis over no longer being your children's whole world and therefore having entirely lost your intimate, authoritative knowledge of what they are probably thinking at any given moment. I only know what they choose to tell me! (I.e. not a lot).

Now, some parents, I'm sure, find this kind of thing distressing.  I, on the other hand, well - I rubbed my hands together in glee and thought - now there's an excellent excuse to purchase cartoon-branded flannel from Plush Addict.  Forgive the sangfroid, but it's not like nobody warned me they'd become people in their own right at some point.

 

So, nightgowns.  The pattern is the Sadie Grace nightgown by SeaminglySmitten, which I got in the Sew Fab pattern bundle (T's has an improvised placket that's not in the pattern). If you didn't see it, this bundle was on offer for one week only in September, and includes a whole ton of kid patterns that separately would cost a lot more. I dithered about buying it for a couple of days, but it included a few patterns that I'd been considering getting anyway, and then my paypal finger slipped and I seemed to have bought it.  I felt momentary impulse-purchase guilt, but now that I've made something from it, and it's something I wouldn't have made otherwise, and that gets massive, enthusiastic use, well. Impulse shopping for the win!

L in particular so likes sleeping in hers that she has already (and rather insistently) requested another one. As the January Kids' Clothes Week starts next Monday, who am I to resist? Also, it's the only way to defuse the insistence :-)  I'm eyeing up some Liberty lawn that's been in my stash for ages and which, I now realise, is unlikely to ever get used for anything more 'deserving'. Besides, what is more deserving than cool cotton nightwear for my firstborn?

I asked them to pose like they were sleeping:

T actually does sleep in positions not unlike that sometimes, but on this occasion they ended up like this:

After 3 nights of bed-sharing, we've now moved both their beds together, like a double, where they can sleep side by side without squashing each other quite so much. This has had the wonderful side effect of putting an immediate stop to T's habit of getting into our bed, as he had done Every. Single. Night for his entire life. So that's a bonus.

With Kids' Clothes Week coming up and an overdue promise to sew more clothes for both of them, I'm looking forward to diving right into the rest of the Sew Fab bundle over the next few days.  Top of my list are these, which would all look great in both boy and girl versions, wouldn't they? :

Clockwise from top left:  bimaa sweater - ethan button-up shirt - best harem pants - reversible zippy hoodie

Currently I have 3 items cut out, 4 more patterns ready to trace, and another 3 on the 'possibly' pile.  Over-ambitious? Quite likely. But I really like ploughing through a big stack of kid stuff - those little pieces are a great antidote to the big makes that adult clothes can turn into. However much of it I actually get done, you can expect to see some more kid sewing this week.

Oh, and some snake print. On my legs. You'll definitely be seeing that by the end of next week - while it's still Jungle January!

Are you kid sewing too this week? What're your plans??  And how do you move between big makes? Do you need little projects to break things up, or you just charge from one ambitious project into the next?

Well for once the sun is shining, so I'm off out. Have a great weekend, fellow sewists!

Follow

Top Five of 2013: hits for the kids

Hello and belated Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/etc! I hope you've all had a good one and are now safely recovered from overeating or whatever other seasonal excesses you may have indulged in (your extended family?)  We're in the middle of a 10-day stay at my parents', which is wonderful but busy - between us all there are 9 adults and 4 children, in a house designed for significantly fewer people. We all need our tactics to escape the mayhem every now and again, and I'm having my moment to do a little blog catch-up. Sewing as refuge, even when I'm not doing it :-)

Anyway, on with the Top Fives! I've been considering not doing a Top Five Kid Hits after all, but it makes up such a big and enjoyable part of my sewing life that it'd be remiss of me not to include them. However, I'll be moving on quickly tomorrow to the year's Top Five Fails, which as far as I'm concerned are among the most interesting of everyone's lists - it's fascinating to see what didn't work, when so much of our blogs' focus tends to be on things that did work, or the process of getting them to turn out well.  So, here we go! If you want to see the original posts, click on the photos...


1) Skater dresses

This one's my favourite of the Kitschycoo skater dresses I made my daughter this spring. They've both been worn almost to death (demonstrating in the process why the serger should be used for finishing seams, not necessarily attaching them) and she's now much taller than she was - time for some winter versions in the new year!


2) Popover sundress hacks

The free popover sundress pattern by Oliver & S is a hit on it's own, but this summer I had great fun messing around with it too. The big twirly maxi version above is fantastic on very hot days, and I've seen quite a few other versions crop up both online and in real life, which is extremely gratifying :-)  (If you'd like your own, the picture links to a tutorial).  The pompom trimmed dress below has a crossover back, and is still in heavy wardrobe rotation despite now being on the small side.

3) The Primus tee

I have to include this because it's just so cool. It's made using the sleeveless kid skater bodice, upcycled out of a promotional t-shirt from one of Belgium's biggest breweries. I've lost track of the number of times people have commented that they didn't know they made children's t-shirts too, and asked where I got it.  If only I had more of the original tees, I could go into production.  Plus, look at my little rock star :-)


4) Birthday crowns

Pretty self-explanatory! This year I upped my game from the quick and dirty felt versions I used to do, and very pleasing it was too.


5) Sandwich wrappers

And finally, a hit for the kids that I suspect I appreciate much more than they do (though who am I kidding, that probably applies to all of them). It gives me a small but important sense of satisfaction to wrap their packed lunches up in these every schoolday - and those little impacts are, for me, just what home sewing should be about. Unfortunately, on the very last day of term T forgot his school bag on the bus, meaning that a replacement is due before next week - I might just make an upgrade for my old one while I'm at it. Kicking off 2014 in style!

And there you have it, 2013's hits for the kids. See you tomorrow with 2013's misses!

Follow

Local gifts for local people

Have you come across Laura of Behind the Hedgrow yet?  She's a new-ish and recently new-to-me blogger who makes lovely stuff, for herself and for her kids, and writes about it in a very readable and enjoyable way.  So before I ramble on, I thoroughly recommend a good read and a follow! However, let me be totally up front here: what excited me most when I discovered her, was her walls.

I was timewasting on Pinterest the other day when I saw a picture of her absolutely beautiful Liberty skater dress. And no sooner had this garment's gorgeousness sunk in than the realisation struck me: "hang on - semi-exposed brick? Peeling white paint? Bright but grey daylight? AND funky children's clothing? This blogger can only be in Belgium!"

And of course I was right :-)

All of which is a long-winded way of introducing some children's clothes, on my garden walls.  Because there are not just new-to-me Brussels bloggers round these parts, there are new Brussels babies aplenty as well.

And you can't make things for newborn boys without making things for their big sisters as well. The little t-shirt on the right is for a little T, and the bigger t-shirt on the left is for big sister S. T's shirt is from this free pattern - I just could not get the scaling to print out right, so I guessed a random size and it's probably far too big. S's t-shirt is a lengthened skater dress bodice, size 18m - 2yrs: she's just over two, but my T insisted on trying this on and it fit, and he's four, so I guess it'll be too big as well. Good thing kids grow I suppose. Both t-shirts are made of recycled adult tees and fabric scraps.

Baby A gets a stuffed inital. I enlarged hugely the A from the free Ottobre sulo applique letters, because I like the shape of them so much. The back fabric is towelling; the front is Alexander Henry quilting cotton. I bought a metre of it ages ago and have got so much use out of it, one gift or pair of trousers at a time.

And finally, I couldn't leave out A's big sister E, now could I? She gets her very own skater dress!

This came out an awful lot greener than I expected (though really, what did I expect?). But apparently she likes it and is quite taken with the little squirrel on the front, so, phew. I've seen her wearing it and it's also pretty big - I think she might still be getting some use out of those long sleeves next winter as well.

All in all, I have to say I really enjoyed making a whole lot of little gifts for little people. So much so that it's got me thinking quite a lot about what I actually like to sew, and how I use my time and abilities. In my head I'd make myself an entire bespoke wardrobe, and I certainly have no intention of giving up the many patterns and fabrics I have planned for myself. But I also have all sorts of ideas swirling around my head about how to get the right balance of time and importance between the kinds of sewing I do.  It's got something to do with that connection - the babies we know, the crafts in our communities, that putting together of our hands and our hearts.  Who knows, maybe my thoughts will come to something and I'll tell you about them :-)

A few days after we'd given baby A and sister E their presents, we bumped into them and their grown-ups at the playground. This happens quite often after school; we don't live far from each other. I'm very glad that my L and T are such good friends with both the littles and the bigs among my friends, that we have this kind of community - though in such a different way from how it was for me, growing up in a non-urban environment in the UK.

A and E's mum knows how to do french plaits, even on short-ish hair. L thinks she's the best.

Follow

Sugar and spice and all things nice

That's what little girls are made of. Right?

 

Harmlessly cute nursery rhyme gender stereotyping or not*, this is a post I have hesitated to write for about six months. If you want to know why, feel free to scroll to the end - and there's a free picture of some slugs! Once you've read it, I hope you'll forgive me for starting with yet more pictures of L wearing yet another remixed popover sundress.

This one has pom poms and is made with some lovely spotty pink cotton that Ilse kindly donated to the swap at our Belgian bloggers' meet. At L's demand request, it was going to be a halter neck, but once we got to trying it on, she hated having the ties behind her neck, so it was hastily converted to a crossover back instead. I would offer a brief explanation for how I did all this, should anyone be interested, but it was just before the holidays and I cannot for the life of me remember. It wasn't that hard so I doubt my explanations would be that useful anyway :-)

Here's  the back detail:

Close examination of late-August hedgerows can only mean one thing...

Yum yum yum.

While going through my Scandinavian photo dump, I also discovered the following pictures, taken in July somewhere and never shared as intended. While we're on the subject of little dresses, I might as well add them here. It's another remake of an Oliver & S pattern, because I am coming to appreciate how really great their designs are, not to mention the instructions. (And by the way I am now taking bets on how long I will resist their new playtime dress, tunic and leggings. Current odds: not very long).

Anyway, roller skate dress #2:

Like my classy shiny sellotape there? I am too cheap to buy pretty washi :-)

For me it's the details and finishing that make Oliver & S so good; this dress is possibly nicer inside than out (I'm not actually that enthusiastic about how the big print works on a little dress, but hey). I topstitched the neckline and armholes because in the end I was getting quite irritated with how the lining keeps peeking out of the first roller skate dress I made.

I wanted pictures in our local botanical gardens, before even realising they had specially put on purple flowers for us. Win.

And now, to the real story I have to tell here.

Regular readers (hello my lovelies!) might have noticed that I've made quite a few dresses for L this spring/summer: here, here, here and two here. It's not really exceptional - many bloggers seem to make this kind of a kid wardrobe weekly - but it's not my normal sewing behaviour. I also don't usually splurge on kid patterns or fabric, which I have done recently.

Unfortunately, this didn't come about through a happy accident of clothing needs and sewing inspirations.

It happened because of the sudden, negative body consciousness of my beautiful five year old.

We all know how it is: kids can be mean, and schools these days are rightly hot on healthy eating. Ours bans all chocolate, sweets, sodas and the rest, and teaches the kids about how to eat well. The fact that their teachers help get my kids on board with that is something I hugely appreciate. But, it mixed up in my daughter's head with some nasty name-calling, and came out in the form of:

"Mummy, is my tummy too fat?"

And a lot of sobs.

And this suddenly slotted together with things she'd been saying over the few weeks before, and I had an awful realisation of what had really been bothering her.

And, well, I don't know if this is a girl thing, really: in a class of 5-year olds, I can imagine the same happening to the boy who happened to be chubbier than the rest. But what I do think is a girl thing is that when she came to me and said that, my shock and despair was not that she had to ask, but that she had to ask it so soon.

There are so many other things I could say here. The only one I'll mention is the constant nightmare of trouser-shopping for a girl with a stomach and a bum. It seems that all kids are now supposed to be slim-hipped. And while I was panicking, desperately trying to think what to say to this beautiful daughter of mine, I realised: at least half the battle is that feeling of being comfortable in your clothes.  We all feel awkward and often yes, too fat, when we're trying to carry off clothes made to fit the shape of someone else. Right?

It's how and why I got into sewing for myself. And it's exactly how and why I sewed for L this summer. She got excited about the fabrics, she got excited about the clothes, and we talked about all of it just enough for her to forget the name-calling which thankfully disappeared soon after. I'm pretty sure that what did it was not just her parents' love and reassurances, or her teacher's extra attentiveness, but L herself, the day she proudly walked into class wearing one of her skater dresses. Because she feels good wearing them, and sod the rest.

While my hand in it was probably nowhere near as significant as I'd like to think, it makes me very happy to know that with a bit of love and distraction, we were able to help this whole thing blow over.  Sadly, I'm pretty sure the issue will come back - but hopefully not for much, much longer, and with us in full knowledge that we have the weapons to fight back.

And as for what little girls are made of... who remembers the rest of that rhyme?

What are little boys made of?

Slugs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

On our first morning at this campsite, G and I were intrigued to see L and T spend about 40 minutes absorbed together, playing with something on the ground at the other end of the field. It turned out to be the above.

It's a house for the 'family' of slugs they had painstakingly collected from the pathways: the leaves are beds, decorated with flowers, of course, and with roofs to keep the rain out (there is actually a slug inside each one, too). The grass cuttings are for their dinner.

The pride with which they showed it to us and explained what the slugs were all up to, well - I almost came over all emotional. Such imaginative, curiosity-fuelled, slug-focused brother-sister collaboration.

In the real world, that's the kind of thing all little kids are made of.

:: :: ::

* but I don't find it either harmless or cute.

:: :: ::

Follow