Sun 1 Jun 2008
All That In Only 2 Days?
Posted by Liza under Personal, The Real Live Boy, Crafty
[9] Comments
Jill took Noah to a car club cruise-in on Saturday, giving me almost 6 glorious hours on my own.
After I got out of the shower, my phone rang. It was our friend Emily, calling to tell me that she was at a giant church rummage sale in the neighborhood, and that baby clothes were on sale 25 items for $1. Yes. Twenty-five items for a dollar, or $0.04 each. And that there were some good baby girl clothes in the gargantuan heap of children’s clothing.
Now, this baby wasn’t going to be naked. But since up until Saturday, I’d been avoiding buying clothes in the hopeful anticipation that Jen and Cait will have a boy, it was entirely possible that she was going to have little besides hand-me-down neutrals and gifts from grandparents.
But I’d been starting to worry. What if Jen and Cait have another girl? We won’t even know until September (knock wood) when their baby is born. But who has the money to spend on outfitting a whole baby, possibly unnecessarily? (Hint: Not us.)
At 25 items for a dollar, I could lay my fears to rest.
In the course of the next hour, I sat under a shady tree with Emily and her toddler daughter Laurel, picking through a pile of clothes that was roughly 8′x12′x1′ — yes, that’s 96 cubic feet of clothing.
I bought $5 worth of baby girl items, size newborn to 18 months: 125 items. It took 3 loads of laundry to clean everything. I overbought in the cotton sleepsacks, and somehow managed to get two identical pairs of 18 month footie pajamas that are yellow with pink and red flowers. I have both summer and winter items in the 12 month size.
But at a grand total of $5, who cares?
Then I went to the bookstore, where I treated myself to 3 new authors; two long books that I’ve been told stand up well to repeated readings.
And then on to the grocery store — we’ve been out of butter for almost a week.
I got everything home, and put away, and started the baby girl laundry, and finally settled down to “finish” my felt fried egg project.
Five minutes later, Jill and Noah got home. Sewing materials were quickly put away to be ignored until Noah was safely in bed.
Jill and Noah demonstrated his new mad baseball skillz.
Today was another whirlwind of activity. Our church began a special summer Sunday School series, in honor of the 150th anniversary, reflecting on the church’s role in the civil rights movement “then and now.”
But after we got home, ate lunch, and got Noah down for his nap, I finished my felt food swap contribution. I did give up on hand sewing the eggs after last night, and I wish now that I’d never even started it that way. The hand-sewn eggs are cuter, in my opinion, but I went from having 4 completely finished and 8 more cut, 7 with yolks sewn on, to having 24 ready to put in the mail tomorrow.
This is what two dozen felt fried eggs looks like: 
I’m especially proud of my idea for stuffing the yolks — they’re filled with felt scraps left over from cutting the eggs.
Not only are no two alike, some differ substantially. There are 4 that are completely hand-sewn, 7 with hand-sewn yolks and machine-sewn edges, and because I didn’t realize I’d miscounted how much felt I needed until I’d cut 2 of my last 3 pieces, 3 are noticeably smaller than the rest, and 4 have 1-ply whites.
In spite of all that, I’m pleased with how they turned out, and how easy making felt food is. Plus I’ve finally test-driven the sewing machine I got for Christmas, and it was super-easy to set up and use. I even mended a pair of pants for Jill.
There will be more felt food projects in my future. Easy, cute, cheap, non-toxic toddler toys — what more could you ask for? I also anticipate more sewing craft activities.
Don’t forget: Monday is Blog for LGBT Families Day!
