I think, like many of you, I lost the entire month of April to COVID-19. Shortly after my second full post about the red renaissance dress project, I got the okay from my boss to work from (not my) home. Once it looked like working from home would last at least a couple more weeks, I knew I needed to make other arrangements. So, I packed up my improvised home office, and temporarily moved in with my (retired) parents. This turned out to be a good thing for all of us. The pandemic has brought on a lot of introspection, and a big life change for me is in the works. But more on that in a later post. 

Thankfully, none of us have gotten the "'Rona-virus" yet. However, life has still kept us busy. My dad had the misfortune to take a tumble down some stairs and break his leg in two places, but thankfully is recovering well

The other big thing to happen in our family is the arrival of our much-anticipated niece, "C". Originally she was due the last week of May. But, we got word that doctors would prefer if she made her appearance two weeks early, on May 4. 

Fortunately, we just had time for the small, social-distancing approved baby shower - which gave me an excuse to make the cutest little baby romper. The challenge, of course, was that I would need to use what I could find in my Mom's sewing room.

After a quick search online for free baby clothes patterns, I settled on this one, which seemed easy enough

I couldn't tell you what the fabric was originally purchased for, but it was only about a yard or so. I think the purple and white flowers are perfect for a spring baby.

The romper is based off an OshKosh design, and has a self-lined sleeveless yoke on top, that closes in the back, with a baloon-style bottom that snaps at the crotch, leaving the arms and legs bare. 

Along with the fabric, I found some rick-rack to add some decoration. The rick-rack came from my Grammie, who absolutely loved the stuff. I think it will make for a special outfit - it will have a touch of C's great grandma on it.

And here it is, all finished! I can't imagine her being tiny enough to wear it. Hopefully, she'll grow quickly enough that she can only wear it once or twice. At any rate, I really enjoyed the excuse to make it. 

My sister-in-law was kind enough to send me these pictures of little miss C wearing it a few weeks after the shower, with a matching yellow hair bow. She's so cute in it! Soon after this, my brother told me her head had grown too much to for her to be able put her in it - three cheers for a growing baby :)

For almost a year, we've had a family reunion on the calendar. Four days, at a lodge high in the Rocky Mountains, and nearly 40 people between kids and adults. We had a lot of activities planned to keep the kids busy, and lots of "visitin" time for the adults. But, one of the activities we had planned for everyone was a giant family photo session booked with a team of professional photographers. It was decided that the different major family groups would stick to a chosen color for our clothes. Our family chose a light turquoise. We found button-up dress shirts in the right color for the adult guys, and matching beautiful silk/wool scarves for the ladies. 

.As you can see from the picture pulled from the online listing to the left, (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078NZYCMW/), the scarves were really more like thin shawls. This meant us ladies had a lot of leeway in how we styled them. 

The only problem was the little boys. It was proving difficult to find shirts for them in the right color. So I suggested we could make vests out of an additional shawl

I ended up using two different vest patterns, as one of the boys was solidly in toddler range, and one was still in infant sizes. The scarf/shawl fabric turned out to be a little fiddly to work with. Once cut, I only had to to glance at it, and it would fray. This also meant there was NO ROOM for error, as trying to rip out a seam also destroyed the fabric. I kept reminding myself that these vests only had to last for the 45 minutes or so that the photo shoot would take.