Gratitude Day 5

Are you doing this?  Last year, I made a point to post on Facebook every day in November something I was thankful for (I may have combined a couple of days, but I actually did pretty well!), and I'm doing it again this year.  Last year it was about using gratitude to stop focusing on pain and start looking for the good things in my life.  And as I look back over the past year, November was when I finally started moving forward and taking control.

So this year, I'm looking for little things, and expressing them as close to "in the moment" as I can - it's not always possible, but I hold onto that thought as long as I can until I can get to my phone or a computer.  Today's moment of gratitude is brought to you by my 8 year old daughter - when I woke her up for school this morning, I found her hugging her "pink baby".  (No picture of that, bleary-eyed mama was not exactly looking for blog-worthy gratitude moments right then.).  Here's the story behind "pink baby" and why she inspired gratitude this morning:

5 years ago, I had a 3 year old and an almost 6 year old.  We had just moved to Idaho, and we were maintaining 2 households because my ex (we were married at the time) was still working in Washington.  So money was tight, my sanity was tighter, and Christmas was coming.  Katie didn't really have a dolly to play with - she had a bear and a penguin, but no baby doll to cuddle like a 3 year old should.  So I decided to try to make one.  This is what she looked like almost finished:

I thought I had a "finish" picture, but it looks like some of my pictures have disappeared from Google.  She does have a face (brown eyes! why do all dolls have blue eyes???), and a skirt, and an attached blanket, and maybe a hat.  I know I didn't make hair.

Anyway, the sweetness of this comes in when I tell you that I had already started making the doll when I asked Katie what she wanted for Christmas.  I may have been about as far as this picture.  And she looked at me and said, "I want a pink baby."  Melted my heart.

So today's gratitude thought:  Today I'm thankful for craft.  Because even in tough times, even when I didn't have enough money to buy things for my children, I was able to make them things they needed and things they wanted.  And because last night sometime my now 8 year old decided to grab her pink baby and sleep with her.

Happy Halloween!

Last night our church had a Trunk or Treat (candy handed out of car trunks) and chili cook off, so the kids got to wear their costumes early!  Katie chose to be a kitty - kind of from a last minute trip to Walmart.  But Hallie chose to be Betsy Ross - her class does a Famous American project, and she is doing her in-class presentation today.  Her teacher is actually kind of a genius - this way all the fifth graders will be in costume for the annual costume parade!

Hallie's dress is "vintage" - my mother made it for the Bicentennial celebration. My favorite part is the sleeves!  Her bag is flag fabric pulled through an embroidery hoop; she also has a blue field with white stars to carry around.

We're already on candy overload from last night, and today my office is hosting trick-or-treating - they'll be coming in to get more candy!  I'm excited to have them come see where I work and show them off to my coworkers!

My Week In Stitches and Merry Christmas!

I'm enjoying my first paid holiday in over 10 years, and I have to say "enjoy" is exactly the right word!  The girls turned on Christmas music this morning while my mom made cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning, and now they're rolling out and cutting sugar cookies.  They're old enough to do this basically unsupervised - they just call me when they're ready to have the cookies transferred to the baking sheet, since they can't seem to do that without mis-shaping a rocking horse or Christmas tree.

As far as projects, I'm happy to say that as of about 2:30 this afternoon the aprons are done!  I was getting really nervous about finishing them. I'd planned to work on them during the days when the girls were at school.  Then I got a job.  Fortunately, they spent most of the afternoon out of the house with their father yesterday, so I was able to sew without being asked, "Mama what are you doing with the sewing machine?"

Here are the finish pictures:

This one is mine.  Made mostly according to the instructions found here, with 4 ruffles.  I modified the instructions slightly - instead of making an actual waistband piece, I made the back piece longer and folded it over.

Katie's - she loves ladybugs.  And this pink has ladybugs with lime-green heads, lol.

And Hallie's.  Since she's 10 now I wanted a fabric that looked a little more grown up.  I love this light-blue-bubbly thing.  As I said before, mixing prints like this was a huge stretch for me.  And I couldn't make myself mix too much the girls' aprons each use 2 fabrics with a total of 3 ruffles.  I did have to figure out the proportions of the adult apron to size this down to elementary school age.  I think I'll do a separate post about my modifications - my brain is too tired to do math right now, and I still have to finish knitting a legwarmer!

I hope you all have a blessed and happy Christmas!

Wordless Weekend - Child Labor

Catch Up Post #4 - WIP

Now, finally, we get to current projects!  Thanks for bearing with me over the last week while I showed what I've been up to - there really were things I wanted to share with you, and I'm glad I'm able to do it now.

When the 9 year old was picking out yarn for her friend's legwarmers, she came across a skein of yarn that she really loved.  I mean she really loved the color.  So I decided to make a sweater for her out of it for her 10th birthday.  This was progress in October, when I'd gotten to the point of taking the sleeves off the circular needles.  I'm nearly finished with it, which is great because her birthday is in the first part of December.  The "pattern" is more of a technique for a top-down raglan.  (Link will take you to the very complete instructions.)  I was nervous about running out of the main color (Caron Simply Soft, Jade), so I decided to work in some white stripes.  I'm now onto the sleeves, so it's almost done!

This one is actually a finish, not a WIP, but it's from Halloween.  The 7 year old decided she wanted to be a princess at the last minute.  So we fished through the fabric tub and found an adult-sized floral dress someone gave me for a project just like this.  I cut the skirt off and cut a new bodice, then folded up the skirt to make it the right length.  I cut off the excess and eased the skirt onto the bodice.  Guess what - no hemming, no seaming except at the shoulders, sides and the waist.  The tulle came from her Southern Belle costume from a few years ago and solved the need to make a real sleeve (and also makes a cute peplum).  I glued some jewels and pearls onto the front and used sticky-back velcro for a closure.

Fairy Sisters - this picture was taken in August, and I think I've done a little bit more on it in the purple to the middle-left.  At some point I decided to stitch pages 3 and 4 at the same time.  I'm not sure now why I made that decision, it was probably not the best.  Especially because I've been so spotty on it, it's difficult to even remember which symbol I was stitching last.  I know some people stitch HAED in columns or squares in total.  But I just can't break the habit of stitching sections by color.  So once I start pulling a color I don't want to stop using that one until the section is done.  That's probably how the 2-page-at-once thing happened.

This is the progress on the legwarmers the girls requested for Christmas. They both chose to have the hot pink.  K wants pink laces, and H wants blue - the opposite of her friend's.  They're a pretty quick knit.  You can find the pattern here if you'd like to try for yourself!

My First Knitting Finish!

I finished this Monday while K was home sick from school, so she got to try it on right away.  She hasn't yet had a reason to wear it outside, since she's been home with an ear infection all week.  But the bonus was that she was handy for checking the length and photographing. :)

She tied it herself.  I was going to something with her purple coat and hat and gloves - because she really does love this color. (Rebekah - you 2 would get along so great! LOL)

This is a little bit closer look at the overall basket-weave pattern.  And also me playing with the text/watermark options in Picasa.

I really enjoy the light weight fabric this created.  Crocheting was faster for me for these kinds of scarves, but the finished product would have been more bulky.

So here's to a FINISH in February!

My Week In Stitches

It feels so good to be back to a normal stitching schedule again!!  I'm making serious goal progress, as you'll see:

Tuesday, Friday - Fairy Sisters.  6 rows in, out of my month's goal of 10!  14 rows left to the top of the moon-shadow.

Wednesday - 15-sided biscornu.  This is about halfway through the 7th motif, so I guess this is the true halfway point of the stitching process.

Thursday, Saturday & Sunday - purple basket weave scarf.  It's at 24 inches right now.  Since I'm making it for the still-under-4-foot child, I'm somewhere past 50%.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

New Interest - Knitting!

I resisted the urge to learn to knit for a while.  There were a lot of reasons: I already had enough WIPs without learning a new thing to start, I like the one-handedness of crochet (2 needles seemed like it would be more complicated), I kind of liked being on the "outside" of yarn arts....

But the downside of being on the "outside" of yarn arts is that most of the patterns that catch my eye are for knitting, not crochet!  And I really like the feeling of knitted fabric - it's not quite as bulky as crochet.  You may remember a couple of years ago I learned afgan stitch, which produces a knit-like fabric.  But it takes FORever to crochet.

So a couple of weeks ago I was waiting for a prescription at Walmart, and I didn't quite have an hour's worth of shopping to do - you know how it is.  So I wandered into the yarn aisle.  I'm fortunate that my Walmart still carries fabric, yarn and beads.  So instead of buying yarn, I bought knitting needles and a book.

In my efforts to learn how to do knit and purl, I found this pattern for a basketweave scarf.  Knit 3, purl 3 - I think I have the hang of it now!

I'd knitted up a swatch of it for practice, and K saw the Simply Soft in Grape (purple is her favorite color) and begged if she could have it when it was done.  So now I have to finish it!  I'll try to find my upstairs tape measure and use it in the progress pics.

Finish Photos - 3 of 3

Finally, here are the photos of K's Easter dress. Also a circle skirt, with crocheted straps.  I measured her shoulders very carefully, and forgot that crocheted cotton stretches!  So I do need to shorten the straps some what.

Here's the back - I made it into a racer-back style.

And her artistic "in the tree" shot.  Because it's fun.

An Easter Preview

Here's a look at what's been occupying my mind for the last couple of weeks - Easter dresses!  Youngest is modeling her not-quite-complete dress.

There are some crochet elements to be added, and of course better photography to be done (I took this with my phone - fortunately for all of you, the mobile blogging failed, and I had to transfer and edit the photo anyway).  But I'm so thrilled that this fits and is done - it's a patternless-dress.  I wasted all of spring break and an entire bedsheet trying to figure out the math to make these dresses work!  Now that it's done, I can safely say that this is a less-than-one-day dress.  For me, that's incredible!!

Moving Quaker-ly forward

I started the final large diamond motif (lower left) on the Quaker Diamonds piece this afternoon.  Sort of.  Because it covers parts of 4 pages, I actually started it over a week ago.  But now I'm doing the diamond-y part.  I also only have 4 and-a-half letters left.  I am very hopeful to be able to finish this week and send it back to GhostStitchers, so they can send it back to it's owner.  And then I can go back to personal stuff.  I have beads screaming at me from downstairs (anyone remember the bracelet I started? Yeah, it's not a bracelet anymore), and a scarf I started while we were at the hospital last weekend.

Oh, yes, the hospital.  Saturday afternoon, my younger daughter woke up in a very-unlike-herself fashion - she's normally full of energy, bouncing all over the house.  She walked out of her room looking like she was in tears.  She had a low-grade fever, and said her tummy hurt, and was really acting out of sorts.  We gave her something for the temp, and told her to rest.  Then she said that the pain had moved from her belly button down and to the right.  *heavy sigh*  I was at a women's retreat planning meeting, so dear hubby took little one to the hospital, afraid she had appendicitis, calling me in a panic to leave the meeting and meet them in the ER.  Fortunately, we live very close to the hospital, so we were able to take turns running home as needed for, say, the shoes that DH forgot to put on the child when he took her out of the house.  Or the laptop and assorted cartoon movies.  Or my stitching.  I took Quaker Diamonds, and got some x's on that, but I also grabbed a ball of yarn because I figured it would be easier to crochet if the lights were dim than cross stitch (yes, easier, kinda doable, but not recommended).

ELEVEN HOURS, a blood draw, an ultrasound and a CT scan later, little one did not have appendicitis.  The lymph nodes in her lower abdomen were inflamed in response to a SOMETHING her body was fighting off - the next day we discovered it was a plain old respiratory flu.  What's even better, is that this is just the way her body fights infections and viruses, and she'll probably have this kind of problem for the rest of her life.  Super-cool.  And in case you're wondering, no, we didn't know that there are lymph nodes in the abdomen either.  She is now completely fine, a little bit of a cough, but back to normal.

I hope you all have a fantastic week, and I hope to have great, FINISH news on Saturday!

I spend too much time on Facebook

And it makes me forget to come update my blog! I've had a not-so-stitchy couple of weeks. I had 4 dresses I wanted to make before summer started. Guess what - summer started, and they're not done. Oh, sure the khaki dress is assembled, but it's not the way I want it. I didn't realize when I purchased the pattern that it was a trapeze-style dress. Not the most flattering on me. So my mom and I have been repinning so that I can alter it to be more of a classic shirt-dress.

Here's what I HAVE accomplished:

One of Hallie's dresses - this is the Ariel print she chose, with "seashell" buttons. She wore it proudly to church on Sunday, and unless you look closely, you can't tell it was home-made by a novice sewer. I did not cut the pattern pieces for this, I TRACED them (you may all pat me on the back for my smartness and frugality) - keep reading to find out why.

A "Ni-Hao Kai-Lan" shirt for Katie's birthday. Unless you have a 3-5 year old, you will not know who Kai-Lan is. She's like a Mandarin Dora. Katie's been asking for months to "buy" her own Kai-Lan shirt, and I havent' seen them anywhere. The one I found on eBay that wasn't exorbitantly priced was too small. But I did find iron-on transfers! Yay! In my to-be-used-someday fabric stash I found an old white tablecloth. I reused the dress pattern (size 4, of course) for this shirt. I simply measured down 2" from the hip line on the pattern to mark my cutting line for the shirt. The sleeves came from my stash of quarter flats - my first attempt at sleeves. If you care to look closely, you'll see the neck-line is stitched with yellow thread, and the hem-line with orange.

The shirt took me 6 hours over 2 days to complete. I think 2 days to complete a sewing project is a record for me. I'm taking a break from the sewing machine today, doing laundry, and cleaning the kitchen. And spending quality time with my computer. :)

Hallie's Glasses

I need to start by apologizing to my children for cursing them with some sort of degenerative eye issue-thing. I've needed corrective lenses since age 5, and Hallie, at age 6, has her first pair of glasses.

The nurse at school sent home a note saying that she'd been tested twice and needed to see an eye-care professional (the kind of note that has to be signed by the dr. and returned to the nurse). So we went. I didn't think her eyesight was that bad - she sits up straight at the table to do her homework, she can read me headlines off the tv screen, I haven't noticed her squinting or holding books close to her face. But I was sitting in the exam room watching her miserably fail the eye tests and it made me very sad.

The glasses she chose are purple Hannah Montana. The only Hannah Montana-ish-ness is the scrolly design on the sides, and the crystals behind the ears. Unfortunately, these are not the glasses she will keep, because she has my ears. They sit back nice and close to the head and plastic bows don't fit! Her poor ears were raw and starting to blister after just 3 days. Walmart did an exchange on them, and she chose a pair of bronze metal frames that work nicely with her hair. I have to teach her the basics of frame choosing early on! We are now waiting for the "rush" order to be filled. She has permission to only wear the glasses to school and while doing her homework, so her ears can get a rest.

Oh, and here's how Katie went out in public on Saturday. Pay special attention to the feet. Is she 3 or 93? LOL

Happy Easter!

This is our annual pic with "Big Bunny", this year I stuck myself in the back. I'm wearing contacts again for the first time in 3.5 years, so I'm not so camera-shy anymore! I forgot how big my eyes are! Maybe next year I'll get the rest of me in. Baby steps...

Here's my darling Katie in her "Easter bonnet" - it's actually an Easter basket! She borrowed this from the church egg hunt this morning, and will be returning it to the office Wednesday, so someone else can use it next year. I'm taking odds now on who thinks she will remember this basket and throw a tantrum for it next year.

It's interesting for me, stitching without glasses. I realized this afternoon that most of my stitching work has been with glasses - I picked up cross stitch when I was pregnant with Katie and still wearing contacts, and I decided to give my eyes a rest after she was born.

Okay, time for the girls to hunt eggs in the living room, and me to take out the contacts while my eyes are only slightly burning.

A happy Resurrection Day to all of you, or just Happy Easter!

Goal Review Time (You want to read this one!)

Recap of March Goals

Stitching:

Complete 3 new items for Etsy - no - I think I posted one new item, I have another one waiting to be finish-finished.
Stick to my stitching schedule (posted on the right) - weekly progress in each category - I'm going to say yes
Finish stitching Dove Love by 3/25 and move on to finishing - Completed 3/29!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stitch and finish Lizzie*Kate gift by 3/31 - will complete stitching today (3/31)
Stitch, finish and mail TTE Biscornu exchange piece by 3/31 (deadline) - mailed 3/28, and Dawn has already received.

Beading:

Organize stash (I know, too general) - no
Try one new seed bead stitch by 3/17 - no

Blogging:

Maintain posting pace (I'm happy with it, are you happy with it?) - yes
Create widget for bracelet giveaway - yes
Comment at least weekly on fellow stitching blogs - yes

Miscellaneous things I hope to attain by 3/31:

Find a house!!!!! - yes!!!!!!! We just heard back from the agent on the house we saw Saturday - the only change the seller wants is to exclude the storage shed in the back yard. Um, okay! Pending inspection, closing May 15!!!!! Pics later when more docs have been signed. But we were praying for a quick answer and we got one - the offer was sent at 6 last night, with a response by 10 this morning.
Potty train Katie!!!! - I'm gonna say...yes!!! She's been dry all day every day since Friday afternoon - Day 3. She's in pull-ups at night still, but I'm good with that. She even made it through Costco on Sunday without an accident, and I got out of Costco for less than $100.
Regular fitness routine - no, but I've been busy! And I always lose 5 pounds when I move, and it's almost time to start mowing the lawn again, and my size 14 jeans have a hole in them, so I have no choice but to fit into the size 12. Motivation, right?

So, goals for April:

Finish-Finish gift for grandparents (that's Dove Love, if you haven't been following along)
Stick to weekly stitching schedule
Pack 2 boxes each week (maybe starting with beads)
Focus on what I'm doing in the moment instead of being distracted by paint colors, new drapes, etc.

Saturday Update

I've been focusing this week on what I do have, what I've been able to accomplish. I'm trying to keep that positive attitude in every aspect of my life. I was so determined to finish Dove Love this week! And then this darn cold/flu thing knocked me on my butt! It's annoying, because I had enough energy to sit in the chaise and watch TV, but not enough to stitch. The last 2 nights I was in bed, lights out by 10 (early for me). So keeping that in mind:


I'm grateful to only have about 6 rows left in the tail. I'm grateful to only have about 6 rows left in the tail. I'm grateful...you get the idea. Maybe next week I'll just post a pic of the back. :D



BoInk - I decided to start Motif #1, and I'm glad I did, because in stitching the black tops of the knotwork, I discovered that I am not off at all in my count. Yippee! I really like the orange I chose - alone with the black, it looks like gold/copper filigree.


Housey-ness: No response from the seller on the cute blue house. Our offer expired at 7 pm on Friday, so we're not obligated. We looked at some more today, and found one that's very similar to the one we're renting - exact layout, somewhere, it's 400 square feet smaller. There's one less bathroom, and I think most of the lost space is in the kitchen/dining room. So we'll be talking about whether to wait for the sellers to come back with a counter offer or walk away and go for the one we saw today. I'm not as excited about it, but it is still in this area and in our price range. And it's pretty much move-in ready - just depersonalizing and repersonalizing bedrooms, and removing borders in all the main living areas. Holy cow, border-happy people!

Katie-ness: I think she's made herself "sick" - her tummy hurts and she has a fever, and you know, I'm pretty sure it's been since Monday or Tuesday that she pooped. But she's been dry all day, including wandering around strange houses.

Potty training saga

I've tried to keep this blog about my creativity-ness and things like that. But when it's something in my life...I don't know, I just have to talk about it or I'll go crazy. So I apologize to my daughter(s) who will, in the future, Google themselves (or use whatever is available then) and find that mommy talked about how stubborn Katie is. Bear with me, crafty readers. Most of you are mommies, and have been through this, so maybe you'll get a chuckle out of this. And please, if you remember the experience being as difficult as it feels right now, don't tell me - that means it's just going to get worse!!! ;) FYI - Katie is 3 years 8 months and 13 days old. Her sister was fully day trained by 3 years 6 months.

I'm trying the 3-day potty training method that Heather sent me. I started with tons of encouragement and a lot of excitement. Day 1 saw Katie go potty on the potty twice - both only when I told her (the whole idea of this system is that the kid learns to tell you when they have to go - which is much better to me). Day 2 in the morning saw Katie standing next to the couch, listening to me remind her to tell me when she has to go potty, and peeing on the floor. Day 2 after nap I started bribing her with chocolate chips, which seemed to work. Day 3, she has started to roll her eyes when I remind her to tell me when she has to go potty. And when I ask if her panties are dry, she says "I'll tell you when I have to go potty, Mama" - which, I've learned means "No, my panties are not dry".

DH seems convinced that she'll get it on Day 5 of the 3 day plan. Of course, he's 500 miles away, and is trying to keep me calm on the phone. I'm willing to stick to the "Pull Ups are no longer an option" during the day, but I think after this weekend, we'll go back to Pull Ups at night, because I think she's really just a hard sleeper and doesn't wake up enough to get out of bed and go potty at night. I can deal with that. Although I woke her up this morning and she was mostly dry.

Through the wonderful worlds of blogging, Facebook and cell phones, I've gotten a lot of encouragement and support from moms all over the country (probably all over the world). I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with my best friend, who told me it's okay to tote a stubborn wet child around Walmart or Costco. I try really hard not to wish this part of my life away, but can I please just fast forward a little? Just skip to where she's ready to "get it"? And is everything in her life going to be this hard? Oh, dear Lord, please return before she gets to high school!

While I wait...

We found out yesterday that we were the 3rd offer in on the house. They have until Friday evening to get back to us. They also discovered the 500 foot discrepancy between the listing and the actual house size, so I won't be surprised if they don't accept any offers and relist at a higher price.

I've nearly finished Dove Love. All I have left is the tail portion on the heart! My goal was to finish by yesterday. I think under the circumstances 1 day late counts. I'm determined, even with a cold/flu, to finish that tail today. I will do as much stitching as I can before my eyes feel like they've shrunk inside my head.

Yes, my wonderful children have shared their germs, and I have a fuzzy-headed, volcanic-sneezy cold/flu thing. I have little appetite (Mommy's sorry, girls) and I feel yucky (again, sorry). Why does Mommy always get the sickness last? I'm the worst about telling my kids "it's just a cold, you don't feel that bad, go eat your dinner, I got pizza because I know you'll eat it" - oops. Yesterday I managed to make meatloaf and get it out of the oven before my hips and shoulders started aching. It wasn't so much that I wasn't hungry, I just didn't feel like eating until later. I warmed up a can of cream of chicken soup and drank it, along with some 7-Up, just cuz.

Otherwise, I'm chilling (literally) and playing games on Facebook, oh and trying the 3-day potty training method. Yesterday was day 1 - the only times Katie went potty and stayed dry were when I told her to go before nap and before bedtime. It's the "tell Mommy" that seems to give her a hard time. We've been "going potty" for nearly 2 years - she has to get it soon, right?

Thanks for visiting me - at least you can't get germs through cyberspace.

March goals

Is it possible that it's already March? Is it possible that I accomplished everything on my February goal list? Let's see!

Recap of February Goals:

Complete 3 new items for Etsy - well, I listed 4 things, only 2 of them were new finishes, but that counts, right?
Continue making strong weekly progress on Dove Love - yes! Yay! I'm estimating 2 or 3 more weeks of updates, and then it's back to the Secret Squirrel cave until the gift is received
Complete and mail 3 Ladies RR to Pixie by 2/24 - completed by 2/26, holding until Pixie is ready to receive
Stitch 2 hours every week on Emma #2 (8 hours in Feb) - 8 hours in Feb accomplished - the first weekend SAL on FB really helped me make that goal
Finish and mail 1 PIF by 2/14 - yes, and Laura has received

March Goals

Stitching:

Complete 3 new items for Etsy
Stick to my stitching schedule (posted on the right) - weekly progress in each category
Finish stitching Dove Love by 3/25 and move on to finishing
Stitch and finish Lizzie*Kate gift by 3/31
Stitch, finish and mail TTE Biscornu exchange piece by 3/31 (deadline)

Beading:

Organize stash (I know, too general)
Try one new seed bead stitch by 3/17

Blogging:

Maintain posting pace (I'm happy with it, are you happy with it?)
Create widget for bracelet giveaway
Comment at least weekly on fellow stitching blogs

Miscellaneous things I hope to attain by 3/31:

Find a house!!!!!
Potty train Katie!!!!
Regular fitness routine

Thanks for visiting and taking part in my creative life. I appreciate your comments.

WIPs that are now finishes!!

Okay, here's an update on some of my WIPs from this holiday season.

First, Katie's Angel Baby:

Her sweet little face:

And the afghan (pattern is from Crochet Cabana - follow the link below for more great, easy crochet patterns):

The doll will be attached to the afghan on a diagonal, so that she can be wrapped in it. That's what gives her the "wings". I think that will be my "after the kids are in bed" project tonight.


The purse that Hallie made for her friend:

And the inside:

Apparently, the friend loved it, and decided that it will be blue for the time being. Hallie stitched on the handles, as well as the sides of the panels. It's french-seamed to high heaven, so I hope it holds up to many reversals!