Adventures in Paradise

Young Indiana Jones - A Tribute to a Friend

This has been a rough year - I lost my closest Navy friend and running buddy in April and then in August I lost one of my closest high school friends.  Steve was an odd bird, and so were his group of friends, some of whom had been together in the tiny parish school they'd attended since pre-school. I transferred in mid-sophomore year, so it could have been a lonely place for me. Thankfully the school was welcoming and so were the students - I fell in naturally with this group, most of whom I remain in contact with today, including my high school history and math teachers. The group I fell in with was mostly a geeky bunch of kids...into sci-fi and fantasy and other out of the norm things. Steve in particular stayed out of the norm, completely submerged into historical reenactments from Roman times to Vietnam....things I never even knew existed for the most part. He could knit, sew, and do odd things like nalbinding in the name of historical accuracy. He contributed hats to Hats for Sailors every year since it started in 2010. Costuming was a bit of a passion, and it was always fun to see what thing he would come up with...even to his co-workers at places like Apple and Wizards of the Coast.

This past July a friend from DC was in the area and I met up with her and her tour group (with their permission) when they toured Pompeii and posted a series of pics including this one:

He commented at she might need "tiny Indiana Jones kit" and that he "might know a guy".  Less than two weeks later he was gone, thanks to esophageal cancer. So, there was no other choice for Halloween, was there?

I give you Indiana Jones - the toddler years. The bull whip (yup, it's real) and fedora were Etsy purchases and the cross body bag came from a street stall on a trip to Florence a few weeks ago.

The shirt is the Oliver & S Sketchbook shirt with an inch added to the body (note to self: if you add to the body, you have to add to the shirt placket, too.) The fabric is a pretty basic muslin bought on Amazon to use for toiles, but it was the only suitable color I had in the stash and there was no suitable inexpensive material that I could find in the fabric stores or markets here.

The pants are also Oliver&S, the After School Pants, in brown Kona Cotton, size 18-24m. These pants run super slim and these will only fit if the Puppy is wearing underwear instead of Pull Ups and not for much longer. The 2T is a better fit even though it's a bit big. But for Halloween, these are fine and I count them as my muslin for future iterations of the pants like the corduroy ones in the previous post.

Mom was in town for two weeks, and in between trips to Florence and Venice, I managed to finish the shirt and hem the pants and con her into a short drive to Herculaneum (aka Ercolano here in Italy) for a quick photo shoot. So...young Indy in action supervising archeological reconstruction, reading up on her source material, and then kicking back after a job well done. By the end of the afternoon, she was done...no more hat, bag, or bull whip. But I can think of no better tribute to my friend.

Good bye Steve. You never grew up and I know that you've moved on to the next big adventure. P will grow up knowing about you.

After School Pants

Things in my world were too crazy to even consider sewing along with Project Run and Play this past go-around, so it's a good thing that the sewing prompts didn't excite my imagination at all. I can't imagine being a contestant for that round because I was just "eh" on them all. The stuff people sewed was amazing though, so I'm the one at fault on that side of things. I did still use the time available to good use.

The first week while they were sewing "Willy Wonka" inspired outfits, I spent a long weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland visiting family and managed to find a source for Harris Tweed.

Edinburgh Fabrics is a tiny little shop well off the tourist path, but worth the time to walk there because they carry an amazing selection of Harris Tweed and a bunch of other lovely wool fabrics. I got a remnant of a pretty pink tartan wool labeled "Merida" .  I don't know if it's a film tie-in, suspect not, but it's the perfect size for a little winter pinafore/jumper dress for the Puppy this fall. She thinks she's getting something from this gorgeous bit of Harris Tweed I bought.

But she's not. At 55 Pounds per meter and it being incredibly narrow, it will be for me. I got three meters, so maybe a light jacket or a skirt. If I cut wisely there might be something for her. I suspect that precious fabric will marinate for a while though.

And on the subject of travel, for the first time ever, I was able to take the Puppy on a trip and have her occupy herself sufficiently on the flights that I could knit!

AND - it's not for her. Another first in two years. Some of my older socks are wearing out and a good friend sent me some yarn last year that she wasn't going to use even though it was one of those super hard to find limited edition sorts of yarn. It's a Halloween theme, but I'll wear them whenever it's cold because the black with pops of neon make me smile.

Finally, there have been pants. The Puppy has more clothes than she needs...for warm weather. She's got just about what she needs for cool weather, but if she has another growth spurt, that won't we true. So, a few pairs of pants. I've found the right sizing for her in the Oliver + S After School Pants, so those will be my go-to pattern for her until she outgrows them. The first pair just exactly fits her, but they're for Halloween (pics when the whole thing is done) so I don't care that they won't fit in a month. And thank heavens she's mostly potty trained, because they won't go over diapers! The second set are much better - I sized up two sizes to the 2T to accommodate flannel lining.

The After School Pants have an optional ruffle, which is adorable but ruffles aren't my thing. Instead I added piping to the front pocket, from Farmhouse Fabrics, which I'm pretty sure I also got the lavender corduroy, and color blocked with the lining fabric. That's a flannel I bought when I was still pregnant and planning to make flannel crib sheets. Still haven't made those, but that may be a weekend project as the weather here cools.

Isn't the back adorable? Those little pockets? Those little pockets kill me when I'm making them though. The point at the bottom middle...and the top stitching. My top stitching is improving though it's still far from looking polished. I need to remember to take my time because I rarely am willing to rip and re-sew. There's a matching Sketchbook Shirt, which was a wearable muslin for the second part of the Halloween costume. I figure I might as well sew multiples if I'm going to trace the pattern.

It's not reversible because of the pockets, but who wouldn't want that softness against them in the cold winter months ahead? There's a nearly identical pair of pants for the daughter of a friend, who is 9 months younger than the Puppy but is exactly the same measurement wise in chest, waist, and hips! She's about 2 inches shorter, but I suspect will shoot by P within the year. I love that P is really appreciative of my sewing, even at 26 months. She wants to wear everything, even if it isn't finished yet, which can be a struggle, but aside from an early dress, she has embraced all of the clothing I've made. The best thing about these pants, though?

Pockets!

A Cake!

Not a lot of sewing going on around the house, because have I mentioned that the Puppy has more clothing than a supermodel? Maybe Princess Charlotte has more, but it might be neck and neck.  And despite my attempting to stop clothing being given as a gift, there's always something that people just can't resist. (And when I open the package, I can always see why.) And, the Puppy has enough of everything so gift giving is hard and clothes are small. I'm pretty half-hearted about saying no to clothes. So...no sewing recently other than repairing raveled sweaters and fraying ties on sun dresses. Also no knitting because it's HOT here.

But in a search for the Smitten Kitchen strawberry cake recipe that flew around the interwebs a few years ago, I poked around and found a recipe for an Italian cake that sounded right up my alley with pound cake texture and citrus flavors.  She reviewed a recipe, then posted a link to the Ciambellone cake recipe from Caffe Marchio. The picture on the cafe website is gorgeous. Mine looks nothing like it, but it sure tastes amazing. I had a helper.

She helped pour the pre-measured dry ingredients and stirred them together. (No, she isn't tattooed, she had to have at least make it to double digits before I'll allow that...she got markers from Nonna for her birthday and decided that her body makes a better canvas than the paper does.)  She cracks eggs like a champ, so I'd have let her do that this time, but she's developed a toddler's unwillingness to let go of things, so she just holds the eggs in her hands and says "E mio! E Mio!" and refuses to actually crack them.

She stirred away happily while I prepared the Bundt pan and washed up the first set of dishes. Then perched on her new step stool (the best birthday gift she got,  IMHO and I'm not the one who bought it), and cleaned up the mixing bowl after I'd put the cake in to bake.

I did not prepare the Bundt pan well enough. I think the Pam spray mentioned in the directions may be essential because vegetable oil smeared around the pan did not do the job.

I got it out and glazed, after learning that some dissolved sugar is a good substitute for corn syrup. The inside looked much better than the outside.

I'd eaten a few bites of the cake when the Nanny returned home and pronounced it "Meravigliosa!" and asked for the recipe. Not too shabby even if it isn't pretty. More importantly, this is the first cake that has gotten the Puppy Seal of Approval. No idea why I decided to do Mamma and Me cake baking when she doesn't like cake, but this was worth the risk. One thing I'm just realizing is how truly transitional this age is. She looks like such a big girl in the cake making pictures but boy does she look like a baby again just a few hours later eating the cake.

 

I'm Two!

So, in 2016 I was all ready for a July Baby. She was coming on the 7th, planned C-Section because baby girl was not. going. to. turn. Tried all the Spinning Babies stuff, tried chiropractic, even went to the hospital for a manual rotation (version) and backed out because that just wasn't going to happen. Too risky and I was not ready to potentially have the baby that day. My mom came out for a planned month of help on the 1st, so we'd have a few days to get ready. We saw Kinky Boots at the Kennedy Center and in an effort to help Mom maintain her goal of running a race every month, we signed up for the Firecracker 5k on the 4th of July, a race I'd run in the past. Not the most exciting course around a suburban shopping center in Virginia, but a great community event, especially as part of Team Red, White, and Blue. I did not run the race because I couldn't fit my feet into my shoes, I was signed up to volunteer along with a good friend who offered to hang with me instead of running.

Then I went to a routine monitoring appointment at the hospital but since we were early we stopped at the exchange on base, which by some miracle was open. We bought a few things that my mom thought I needed and hit the hospital, thinking it would be a quick 30 minute stop. But it turns out that standing in the heat, lifting boxes of food and moving big barrels of ice and sports drinks will do things to your body and I'd put myself into labor, which the Puppy wasn't tolerating well. I guess if you're having your head squeezed by a muscle intended to squeeze your backside, you wouldn't tolerate it well either. First they wanted me to stay longer, then in the middle of the extra hour they wanted to watch, all hell broke loose and four people came running in, turning me on my side, stripping my shirt off, and pushing compression socks onto my legs. The heart rate speed back up and stabilized and the Obstetricians came in and told me that "Today is her birthday" and a few hours later I was in the OR. My poor mom didn't get to change out of her race clothing until late that night, and our phones were rescued by a friend who brought chargers in before I went into surgery. But oh, what a difference in 12 hours...

 

And now look at her...

Birthday Style

I knew I wasn't going to be able to do anything for the stripes theme for Project Run and Play, because I spent that week in Lisbon for work. I thought about bringing something to hand sew, but I rarely have free evenings when I'm traveling - too much of what I do relies on developing and maintaining relationships, so there's usually dinner out somewhere. But the same apparent chest cold that kept me from running on the day that I took the pictures for the Puppy's kitty dress, kept me from going out, too. I'd get to the hotel from work around 5 and instead of changing to head out to meet colleagues, I slept until it was time to go to work the next day...13 hours interrupted by coughing fits all night.

I got back home and promised the Nanny that I would see a doctor on Monday when I got to work. I did...and the chest cold turns out to have been pneumonia. Which it turns out, is utterly miserable, and lasts a lot longer than I'd expected. I didn't have any plans for "personal style" week, and didn't have the energy to do anything anyway. Then I got a glimpse of the Puppy snuggled into a soft, double gauze swaddle during nap time and saw her in a soft, floaty white dress. My style of choice for her is clean and classic, but modern - this suits both of us well, I think.

This is a repurposed swaddle of hers, one of the few that isn't patterned. There are several that I may repurpose in the next two years because I love this. It's the Oliver&S Pop Over Sundress, with a slightly altered hemline, so it's a bit of a handkerchief line. It's hard to see in this, and my energy level is pretty low, so I'm not going to re-take the pics. 

There is red mini Pom Pom trim at the bodice and red top stitching. I'm still working on good top stitching, but I'm pleased with most of the top stitching on the bodice and ties. She was born on the 4th of July, about an hour before the fireworks, in Washington, DC, so she is doomed to patriotic birthday photo shoots until she starts having a say in the matter. Ditto patriotic birthday dresses, but this one is pretty subtle and really takes the accessories to make it clearly a 4th of July dress.

She loves this pinwheel, leftover from her first birthday photos, but still doesn't quite get how to make it work. She'd be happy for me to make it spin all day, but that's not going to happen right now.

In other brain washing news, she is the daughter of a Sailor. I gave her this bear that sings "Anchors Aweigh" a year and a half ago and it is her stuffy of choice. Born on the 4th of July, Navy theme in her head from before she could speak. My plan is fool proof right?