The good, the bad and the plain horrible....

Friday 21 August 2009
The good: The lovely Bec over at Honi Designs is generously giving away a pile of her cool and useful stuff to anyone (who lives in Sydney) that leaves a comment on her blog, and I was lucky enough to score this gorgeous pink dress form:


I never win anything, so to land this is a pleasant surprise. Hopefully it will be closer to my size than my current dress form, but if not I have so many projects on the go that a second dressform will certainly not go unused. Bec also has several other giveways happening at the moment, so if you live in Sydney pop on over to her blog to say hello!

The bad: bubs, hubs and I are having a family portrait taken this weekend, and in all the bags of lovely hand-me-down clothes that I've received would you believe there is not one dress for Anna to get all prettied up in! But that is easily rectified, and actually I'll admit I am glad I finally have a reason to sew something for her. So I made her this little dress from a red cotton cherry print and cotton lace that I had in the stash, from now OOPMcCalls 3994:













Isn't it cute? The bad thing however is that it is too big! I've been foiled again by bad sizing from the pattern companies. My fault though, I cut this out whilst Anna was napping and not wanting to wake her to measure her, I decided just to cut it out based on the pattern size for a 6 month old. Since she is now 7 months I thought it would fit, but luck was not on my size. However all is not lost, it will fit her for summer and the weather around here has turned cool again so I'm in the process of making her a little tunic that involves corduroy! and ric rac! Now I just need to finish it in time for Saturday.

The plain horrible: Anna is currently suffering from her first bout of croup, and since she is still smiling and generally happy in between coughing I guess it's not as bad as the sounds emanating from her chest. Being first time parents, we had no idea what was wrong with her when last night around 10.30pm she started coughing like a sea otter, but thankfully in Sydney there is an after hours doctors service that gave us advice over the phone, and then within an hour and a half a doctor came to our home to check her out. Plus this service is fully bulk billed so it didn't cost us a thing (except in all the taxes we pay of course). Unfortunately there are no chemists open at 1.30am, even those in the seediest parts of Kings Cross where everything else is 24hrs, so we ended up at Concord hospital emergency department at 3.30am where they gave her a steroid dose which eased her symptoms and helped with her breathing so when we all got home we managed to get a little sleep (only 2 hours for my husband though before he went to work!). Thankfully the hospital is only 5 minutes from my house, I'll never curse the sound of those ambulance sirens again.

There's been so much press lately about how terrible the NSW health system is, but our experience has been nothing but great. Sure Concord hospital is looking pretty old and run down, but the staff there have been so lovely and efficient every time I've been there I can't complain at all. And getting a doctor to come to your house, let alone at 1.30am? And not paying a cent for it? Now that is service.

Anyway Anna is sleeping like a champion today, and even though she is doing her best Darth Vader impression she seems to be in good spirits so hopefully this will past in a few days and we'll be back to normal, well as normal as things can get around these parts anyway!

Have a good weekend everyone, happy sewing

11 comments:

  1. A doctor to your house at 1:30 am!!!??? AND FREE!!!!! NO WAY!! That would have been a trip to the ER at the cost of $100.00 on top of the $1200 per month insurance premium. OH I can't wait for the US to have an improved health care system!!!!

    As to the croup - it sounds way worse than it it. A good dose of steam from a hot running shower then a quick step out into the cool night air can work wonders on that seal bark.

    I love the red dress. It is gorgeous. Sizing for infant and toddler patterns, even children's patterns is so hard to do by age 'cause kids don't come in one size. At six months, my kids were wearing a 2T which is supposed to fit a two year old toddler. Never believe that sizing.

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  2. I hope Anna gets well soon! I remember my son's first croup attack; DH was away, and I had no idea what was going on. I second the idea with the cool night air; cuddling and stepping out was usually enough to help and we hardly had to resort to steroids.
    As for the health system, everyone complains that it's getting worse here in Germany, but if you'reinsured under the public health system your children are, too, and for free, and no medication nor emergency medicine or hospital ever costs a cent. So I guess we're spoiled!
    Oh, and I looove that red dress. Post pictures when she fits into it, please!

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  3. Oh, I hope little Anna is better soon! Yes our health system is pretty good when you hear what some other countries have ;(

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  4. Cute red dress! Croup is scary, but it sounds like you have it all under control.

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  5. The red dress is cute! I had a sizing issue with Simplicity, wrote an email (nicely complaining) and got a free pattern!!!!

    Since I've discovered Ottobre for kids, I've not had any sizing issues!! Well, the one I had was my fault - I didn't follow the size chart.

    As for croup, we've been there too! The cool night air thing works good for us, as does sleeping upright in a recliner. (with mommy, who's NOT sleeping! *L*)

    Hope Anna's all better soon!

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  6. The red dress is adorable - she will fit in it and outgrow it before you know it!! Croup is scary!!! Glad everything seems better now...
    Marybeth
    http://puppydogtails-marybeth.blogspot.com/

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  7. I hope Anna gets well soon, the babies are adorable when they do not leave us to sleep also.

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  8. I made that one a few years ago and have never gone back to McCalls (or any of the other major pattern companies) since! That is why I am now a Japanese sewing addict. No matter how beautiful the sewing, no matter how beautiful the fabric - nothing can compensate for a poorly drafted pattern. Burda is Ok sometimes but when you are sewing for kids there is no sense in fitting them - just find some patterns you can trust.

    I've been through croup several times and cold air, steamy showers, warm liquids always help. It is always worst in the middle of the night.

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  9. Yikes! Scary times - hope she's alright.

    Great job on this little dress! Love it. Can't believe fitting is required for under 1's !! Geez, I would've done the same and not worried about measuring but seems like there's no escaping it even for the little-uns.

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  10. I hope Anna is doing OK in this unexpected heatwave. It was 32 degrees in Byron today! I love the red dress!

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  11. You busy mom you! As the others have said... hope Anna is better now!
    The dress is really cute... couldn't you put a long sleeve under it? The color is great! And you did it from your stash... good for you!
    I just made a baby quilt for my neice with nothing but stash fabric too... it has 6 different prints/colors for picot's on the edges of it!
    Steam is what we've always used for our croupy kids! I remember sitting with my head in a sink when I was a kid with croup! Take care you don't get it too!

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