Mama said there’d be days like this

Today was supposed to have been a good day. After Mr. Gren was gone all day yesterday, I was looking forward to having him corral the kids so I could get some sewing done. Last week, a friend said she would pay me to make two baby dresses for her new granddaughter; I showed her my patterns, she chose the views that she liked and I bought the fabric and lace last Saturday. This morning, all I needed to do was attach one sleeve, hem the skirt and do the buttons and buttonholes; then I would be ready to move on to the second dress. Before I had even gotten out of bed, though, plans were already changing: Mr. Gren remembered that he was supposed to help mow the church lawn today at 10. {sigh}

At 11, Mr. Gren was done mowing and I escaped to my sewing room. The sleeve went on fine, the hem and lace looked great. And then it all started going downhill. While attempting to pry The World’s Tiniest Buttons off their little card, I stabbed myself with my seam ripper. Luckily, I didn’t bleed on anything important.

Scene of the tragedy

I ran downstairs to get a band-aid (oh, I mean a Kroger Sterile Adhesive Bandage) and then headed back up to sew on The World’s Tiniest Button. Funny, I had never noticed how much I use my left thumb — threading a needle, knotting the thread, holding on the dang button while I sewed — all this became much more difficult. I did prevail in the end, but that’s the end of my sewing for the day.

One finished dainty baby dress

I put away the pattern I was working from and went to get out the pattern for the second dress, thinking I could at least get the fabric cut before lunch. But I couldn’t find it! I had had it just two days ago, where the heck had it gone? Shuffling through my patterns, I was relieved to finally find it, right where it should have been. I dumped it out and thought to myself that those pattern pieces looked awfully familiar. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were the ones from the first dress. I studied the pattern envelope, thinking I must be losing my mind, and wondering which one of those dresses I had just made. After a minute, I realized that the envelope to match those pieces was stuck neatly on my message board — the place where I always stick the pattern I’m currently working on. I really did think I had gotten enough sleep last night…

The elusive pattern

Now, with the correct pattern pieces in hand, I began to search through them to find the 12 month size. 18 month front, 18 month sleeve, 18 month back… What’s going on here? My friend had asked me to make her dresses in approximately 6 month and 9 month sizes; I didn’t have a 9 month, but I figured the 12 month would be close enough. Why isn’t it here? I flipped over the pattern envelope and saw something I had never noticed before: It was solely an 18 month pattern. No additional sizes, despite the fabric requirement listings on the back. 9 and 12 month are pretty close; 9 and 18 month are nowhere close and I’m not comfortable enough sizing down patterns, especially when someone’s paying me for my work. What to do, what to do…

I flipped through my fabric store flyers to see if anyone had patterns on sale this week and it turns out that Hancock’s does have Simplicity for $1.99. Not a stellar deal, but it’s pretty good. I also found this weird image. Still trying to figure that one out. Before I waste my time heading down there, I decided to check the Simplicity website and see whether they’ve even got anything similar to this pattern anymore. I came downstairs to learn that the kids had had a free-for-all while Mr. Gren was washing the dishes. Konik had crawled up onto the secretary and found some highlighters. The girls were happy to relieve him of them and then proceeded to color all over one of my idea notebooks and Rana autographed her rainboots. After that, Konik dowsed the notebook with water, pulled my crochet hook out of another project I’ve been working on and dragged yarn out of the bag it was in. The notebook is drying out, but I still haven’t found my crochet hook. Simplicity does not carry a style like this, and, my band-aid is already peeling off. Is 4:30 too early to go back to bed?

ETA: Before I could even get this posted, Konik chewed up a mouthful of animal crackers and then spit them out all over the carpet. Nice.