Behind the seams

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and no I'm not busily attending to a newborn..... I've just been a very neglectful internet person the past month. My last post I was in a panic thinking that I might go into labor 5 weeks early. Here I sit a month later, 3 days till my due date, still very pregnant :) For the past week I've been having more prelabor symptoms, being completely effaced (ie the baby's head has completely dropped, just waiting for the hole to open!) and dilated to 2 centimeters, feeling a bit crampy. At my Dr appointment last Wednesday she thought I had a pretty good chance of not making it to my due date since I was completely effaced already..... yep, here I still am :) And still no true contractions. We are starting to get anxious. Thankfully I still feel really good.... everyone assumes I must be miserable at this point, guess alot of women feel absolutely miserable in the last weeks. I couldn't imagine feeling miserable and anxious.

Even though I've been MIA to the internet for the past month, I've actually been quite productive, both due to this pregnancy and with some crafty goodness. Aside from getting slammed with work at the day job and working twice as much as I usually do (go figure, we get overloaded with work right before I need to take 6 weeks off! oh well, atleast we have the extra income before I'm incomless for the 6 weeks) most of my time has been going to getting our tiny apartment ready for baby..... major cleaning, reorganizing, rearranging, and putting all the baby stuff into it's place. Thankfully Pat has been very helpful with the cleaning end of things. I finally feel like things are set for this baby to arrive. We got really lucky at our baby showers, getting every item we truly need. I'm so thankful for our family and friends for being so supportive. In the coming weeks I'll share some of my favorite items that some friends and family handcrafted for this bambino, some truly beautiful things :)

As for being crafty, about a month ago I was burning the oil on the sewing machine getting some dresses and kid's skirts sewn up to send with my vending partner to Merlefest. A big part of me was really bummed that I couldn't go to this festival this year, it's my favorite one to vend. But the last thing I wanted was to go into labor 700 miles from home without any of my family! So I managed to get some "festival" dresses and super cute toddler skirts sewn up and sent them along with some of my older stock with Andrea.... so atleast my goods were there :) I always enjoy the break of making what I consider my "festival" dresses..... super simple cotton dresses where the fabric does most of the talking.

I also worked on a couple of custom orders, one for this super comfy smock dress for my uber talented pottery friend Grace. It's knee length and made of the stretchy bamboo jersey- that oh so buttery smooth fabric!

And then there was the custom wedding dress I was working on..... this is just the cotton muslin mock-up I did for the bride-to-be..... the final dress is going to be out of hemp/tencel. The gal is super tiny so the back here isn't finished, she's tinier than my dressform. But for the back I did more of a corset style, ending with a zipper up back instead of my standard elastic back. It came out really sweet and I can't wait to work on the final version.

The front is going to have 3-d flowers under the bustline, this pic shows one for an example for the bride.

Anyways, just wanted to stop in and give an update and show a few of the things I've been up to the past month before I go MIA again for awhile. Although I'm sure I'll be back as soon as bambino arrives, even just for a brief sharing of the cutest baby pics ever (hehe). Then I'll have my hands full adjusting to life as new parents, as well as preparing for the few festivals I'm still vending this summer..... and who knows, maybe I'll stop neglecting the Magnolia Skies online shop and get a few summer pieces posted for sale..... all in good time :)