Out of my closet and into theirs

All the stillbirth Gowns and blankets have been turned it. She (the bereavement nurse) was delighted by what I gave her. From the sounds of it, they will take a long lengthy time to get used up. which is good, cause I honestly hope they never have to be used.

On top of the ones i got pictures of, I did make two more in the medium size that in a white tone on tone fabric. Those ended up looking slightly more boyish. I'm going to look into getting a Big 3 pattern on sale and see if I can scale down one of the boyish baptismal outfits down to size.

I also gave her the heirloom sacque I made since I really have no other use for it.

We have great plans on what we'd like the bereavement support to look like. Our goal is to make sure everyone has all the attention they want so we might "offend" some who wish we would bother them as much. But at least we catch all the people who want the attention.

A few more Gowns

I finished sewing the gowns that I cut out yesterday. Making a total of five gowns. Not really in love with the pattern, but the choices are few and far between. Here's what they look like none the less:

I can't see any differences in the three sizes except for the fact the length varies. The slight increase in the yoke is so minimal I'm weary that they will fit the spectrum of sizes they are suppose to. Also not very boyish.

I picked up some white fabric today, I'll try to fiddle with another pattern, hopefully those will look more boyish to me.

Personal Sewing Time

SqueekMoo had a late nap. I should I known better than to let him catch a nap so late in the day, but he was so tired and i really wasn't in the mood to deal with a grumpy cranky little one. I think I have a mild cold.

Knowing he had a late nap, I didn't rush to put him to bed. We took out sweet time. He eat the left overs of his dinner when he ought to have already gone to sleep. I laid down with him for a while, but eventually he got tired of laying and played in his room.


I wanted to play with my sewing machine, and so I decided that if he was going to stay up he was going to have to amuse himself without me. Which is able to thankfully.

So I finished up the last of the little quilts I had pinned and ready:

I had a size extra tiny gown that had already been prepped, pleated, sewn and had the first row of smocking in. I was able to finish all the smocking on it tonight.

Knowing when to move on

I had been very diligent in making the heirloom sacques, however I basically hit a wall. An inspiration wall that is. When I become uninspired in something I drag my feet and nothing gets done. What's worse is when I ignore that fact that I'm uninspired and become unproductive for some time.

That's what been going on that past two weeks is fighting "being good" with "uninspired." Had I given up on being good about staying focus on one task I would have at least accomplished something. The new rule is I can only work on works in progress projects, which in this case was perfectly fine. I wanted to work on one of my side projects.

Tonight I gave into the whim. I cut out the fabric for five stillborn gowns. I think I'm awake enough to iron what I cut. If I'm lucky I'll probably even mark the armholes. Tomorrow if all goes well I hope to serge, sew, and pleat.

Saturday my in-laws are coming. We tend to do a great deal of driving when we are around them, so I want to have some small hand projects to stay busy and productive on the drives. Smocking is the perfect distraction.

What I've been working on

Friday is my postpartum visit. It means that its been more or less six weeks from when Matthew was born.

But I've been busy. The first few days were spent just as a family. If we didn't cherish SqueekMoo before all this, we honest to goodness adore him. He can get away with just about anything and hearts have a hard time disciplining him. (Oh we have discipline him, but there is always a hug and kiss afterwords.)

We then spent two weeks with family. MacMac and I were high school sweethearts and currently all our family is localized in a city very very far from here. The first few days of the trip were sober but after the memorial service things went back to "normal."

When we returned home I started feeding my mind. I taught myself to smock. Through the Smocking Guild (SAGA) website I found gowns for stillborns. It wasn't what I planned but I needed a new project to keep me sane and it did seem fitting. I used Marie Grace Designs' wonderful tutorial on how to pleat without a pleater. I'm nutty and could tolerate it, however if you plan to do a fair amount of pleating you should definitely invest in a pleater.

And so when I go in for my appointment I'll be giving my midwife a few items to take up to the labor and delivery floor for future mommies and daddies of stillborns to hopefully be comforted by.

I complete five gowns and thirteen blankets. For a reference in scale the hooded blanket is 12 inches square.