Cameramen swarm in and a wall of reporters surges forward, shouting questions to Clarisse. Outside that door it’s like walking into a human-size beehive. I don’t know what they think I’m going to do. For my trip to court, they sit me in a wheelchair and manacle my ankles and left wrist to it. it’s confusing and in some places I had to draft portions myself! which is flatly ridiculous when you’ve paid for a book and taken the time to print out and tape together a pattern.By the time Tuesday rolls around, I’ve had six hours sleep, total.

this is annoying step, no matter what, but it is especially difficult in this case because the pattern pieces don’t come together very easily. the start with, the patterns come on a cd and are printed out, which adds the time-consuming element of taping together the pattern before you even trace it. unfortunately, there were quite a few problems both with the pattern and the instructions. the pattern is from the book sewn with love by fiona bell of their nibs fame. turns out it was more of a challenge than it even should have been.

I was excited to take on the challenge of this shirt with it’s buttons and arm cuffs and collar with collar extender. mostly they are small in the arms…his arms seem to be stretching out every single day. thankfully, we have a lot of handsome shirts but they are getting small. he wears a button up shirt nearly every day and he calls them “handsome shirts” because while he might be a humble ‘man of the woods’ on the surface if you dig deeper it’s clear he knows he is super cute (he also has a handsome hat that sees just as much wear as the shirts). he requested that I make it into a ‘handsome shirt’. C picked the fabric himself (from out of my stash) and it is a soft, flannel-like check that I got at a yard sale. With this shirt I was aiming for a guaranteed home run. but, I have lots of plans for lots of sewing and that has to count for something. well, not really LOTS since I’ve only made one shirt and it’s already thursday. I’m swinging right back into ‘regular life’ (after my dreamy time at the makerie) with lots of kids clothes week sewing. Ahh!! couldn’t you just squeeze that kid?! so cute! I do love him.

Cutie Pies by Barbara Bell