A Few Small Items

This weekend was productive, but not in the frantically busy sense that our last several have been. It was just nice and busy, with lot of things getting crossed off our mental to-do lists.
I hit Saturday morning running.
Okay. That's a lie.
It was probably 10:30 before I'd finished my coffee and gotten out the door to run a few errands. I was in search of a few crafty things and I did really well at the Salvation Army. After the success of making a shirt from a thrifted sheet, and after seeing so many, many cute things that other crafters are making out of thrifted sheets, I wanted to find some more. Now, our Salvation Army store mostly sells peoples' worn-out Wal Mart stuff. But, I decided I'd take my chances. Good thing I did. They were having a half-price sale and actually had a bunch of cute sheets in there! I got enough fabric to make a retro (read: full-skirt-so-it-takes-like-eight-yards-of-fabric) dress that's been on my list, a practice sundress of my own devising, another one of those Summer Blouse shirts from the Weekend Sewing book, a shirt for Emma, a nightie for me and an Ann Taylor skirt to turn into a dress for Emma. All for less than $20! So, yay me. I'm going to be a busy girl.
I also went shopping with my mom. A local department store was having a super sale and we really found some cute shirts and stuff. I mean, my mom bought me a couple of cute shirts and stuff. I'd just spent all my money on used sheets. How insane does that make me?
We got some things done in the garden - our peas are potted and some of the tomatoes are too. Three snow peas and three sugar snap peas. I hope they work!
And knitting. I have finished a full 10% more of that shawl, if you'll notice the progress bar there on your right. I hope to get even a bit more than that done tonight!
And - you know how it gets when you have a long-term project going and you just need to feel like you've finished something? That's a real problem for me, so I take side trips from my main projects in order to satisfy that "instant craftification" urge. I made Emma a cute little dress for this summer out of some scraps from the remnants bin at Hancock's.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. For those of you who have little girls (or know little girls that you love enough to sew for), this is the Miss Madeline dress pattern from The Handmade Dress, and I highly recommend it. Emma's a little bit bigger than the sizes the pattern covers, but it was really simple for me to size up - very flexible and very forgiving for a newbie sewist like myself. I omitted the elastic around the sleeves. More comfy for her, less work for me.
And she's so cute in it that I can't choose just one picture to show you. So here are the rest:



The weather has been delicious. It's spring for sure in our neck of the woods. We spent a lot of time standing still this weekend, outside, the wind hitting our faces, and remarking to each other what a lovely day it is. I took my iced tea out on the front porch yesterday, just listening to my wind chimes and drinking in more of the weather than the tea. Some wasps are building a nest again in one of the chimes, so every once in a while you get a dull thud instead of a clear, sweet chime. But it just makes me laugh.
This time of year, I always am compelled to consume the days with all that I have. I know that this weather is fleeting and I know that these days while my children are young are fleeting too. They'll be gone too soon, as surely as the spring will be. And I find that I have little choice but to throw my arms wide and enjoy them while they last.

DAILY BLISS: a super-cute new shirt to wear