And on the child

 Here's a photo of Grace wearing the dress and the hair tie, holding her octopus (the one Kent made her), and the doll with her tiny octopus. I love that Grace has a pair of slippers that so closely resemble her doll's slippers.

Scope creep

Or how a sewing project grows and becomes more complicated.

This project all started with a reminder from a woman who was my niece by marriage years ago (I never know if a divorce ends that relationship but saying ex-niece or former niece seems so weird). She asked me on Facebook if I’d made a doll for her when she was a little girl. That stirred a long-ago memory—in fact I had made her a doll. She’s still got it which blew me away because that doll has to be close to 35 years old.

Well, our youngest granddaughter turns 1 tomorrow so after that reminder from my niece, I thought oh hey, I’ll make Grace a doll! That would be pretty cool. I found a pattern online (no time to have one shipped and I’m not shopping at brick & mortar stores these days) and ordered some fabric and notions for curb side pick-up. I was ready to get started two weeks ago except I had that violent flare of Meniere’s and lost the entire weekend.

No worries, I started back in last weekend. Here’s where the scope creep came in: Kent made Grace a really cute octopus for Christmas, so I asked him to make a smaller version for her doll to have as a toy. 

Then I thought it would be really cool if I made Grace a dress to match the dress I’d be making for her doll. 

And then I thought, well the pattern has a tiny little shoe pattern so wouldn’t that be really cute? 

Oh and the doll has little hair ties and I think I can squeeze out a bow headband for Grace too!

I wish I'd gotten a better photo of the tiny little shoes, they are really cute. And the octopus is just wonderful.

Here's the dress for Grace, with the doll in the background. I don't know if the hair bow/band will work but hey, we gave it a go.

And that is how you scope creep a sewing project, one (baby) step at a time.

I made a thing

This is a stress relief kit for my sister. She’s an RN in Denver and worked in the ICU for years. But a year ago, she got a different job within her organization but outside direct patient care and has been so happy with her new position.

But with COVID, she got recalled to the ICU and even worse, was scheduled to work nights. So I made this for her.

The mask is made of a quilted fabric on the outside and silk on the inside—as I told her, if she uses it and needs to wash it, she’ll need to wash it in a mesh bag and line dry. I shaped this mask a bit so there's more padding around her eyes, and stitched the batting to the quilted side (you can see that in the first photo). I also put in a box of my favorite stress-reducing tea which tastes amazing, plus melatonin to help her sleep, a box of lavender-lemon tea lights (lavender is supposed to be great for relaxing), and then a small bag of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

As it stands, she’s worked a couple of night shifts and then got moved to giving COVID vaccines, and has gotten her first dose herself. With any luck, she won’t need any of this kit but if she does, then she’s prepared.