balancing act

Thank you so much to those who have expressed their care and concern over my littlest after being so very sick.

She's doing AMAZINGLY well now. You'd hardly ever know that she was sick at all, which is really such a blessing. Sometimes it's hard to just jump back into real life, almost as if nothing happened. Even though all I wanted to do was do something *normal* like laundry and dishes, it was so hard to come back and just keep on working. It was like I really needed a break/vacation after all that we went through.
To have to sit back and watch as your child comes close to death is nothing I would ever wish upon anybody. It's the absolute worst feeling in the world... knowing that I would give absolutely anything to take away the hurt, the pain, the illness, but knowing I can do no more than hold her hand and try to comfort her. But something worked. And she's still here.
So of course she was the recipient of my first round of sewing in weeks...
I needed a quick fix. I didn't have the time (or desire) to get into anything that was complicated in the least, so I went with the tried and true Olivia pattern by Farbenmix. I omitted the hood and the pocket on the underdress (who am I kidding, I've never even attempted the pinafore even though it looks quite cute), which made things all the faster.
I used some great ribknit (that could be dyed.. I just like it the way it is) I got from.. hm... SewZanne's I think and the magenta thermal is from JoAnns. I really want to get some more thermal material because there's something about it that just screams, "I'm nice and warm and snuggly!" and that comes in handy where I live. The wind is ferocious outside right now.
And of course, with winter approaching (heck, it feels like it's been here and left already, but I know that was just a taste of what we're in for), any little girl's dress here is going to need leggings to go underneath. I didn't get a photo of the leggings alone, but I took the lazy-because-it's-quick route and instead of creating a proper casing for the elastic for a waistband, I just used some underwear elastic (I got mine at SewZanne's) ... or maybe it's called boxer elastic? It's wide-ish and it's cute with some monkeys on it. It's so fast and easy to just serge the elastic on.
Gee whiz, I'm wordy. On to the pictures already.
Here's my littlest in all her cuteness, standing on the couch to pose. The picture looks a bit fuzzy (I like to pretend it was done on purpose for some really neat artistic effect)... and it's because I had left the digital camera out in the vehicle and it got below freezing that night, so when I brought the camera in for pictures, the lens kept fogging up!

And then a shot just a bit later of her playing in the snow in her new dress. We had inches and inches more than that, but a lot had already melted off.
I love icicles. Don't you just want to pluck them off and eat them?
And now we'll travel *back* in time a bit. The littlest returned from the hospital on a Sunday and by Monday we were out picking pumpkins at the aunt & uncles' pumpkin patch south of town. It was gorgeous. And I figure this works for the ol' sewing blog because my girls are wearing shirts that I made (even if I made them last year!).
Here's the littlest with the pumpkin she picked out all by herself: A lovely, very small, green one ;)

And my three sweet girls (yes! I made the pumpkin hat on dd2!) and their cousin.

So now I'm just trying to figure out the balance to it all. Keeping up with life (while still having to visit the doctor's office for some blood draws to make sure her counts are all looking good), working (I'm a part-time barista at my favorite coffee shop) and trying to get in a bit of sewing time.