Isabelle does this every night now. She puts on her own shirt and is sooooo proud. There are times that she puts the shirt on backwards and I don’t have the heart to flip it the right way.

She’ll stand there with her arms up in the air with the biggest smile on her face. Sometimes she jumps up and down to emphasize how important this accomplishment is. Sometimes she even says “da!!”, meaning “ta da”.  I want to remember that always.

There are many days where Isabelle does something like this and I think, ooh I want to remember that. I should write that down or draw it. But then I don’t and then it’s lost.

So, this is a start to a new illustration series, the “I Love” series. It might not be daily drawing but dependent on when Isabelle does something I want to remember. It’ll be sporadic drawing but at least it’ll be drawing.

Today I was going to post about the beautiful new book I got. I took a couple of pictures of the book but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed today so am not in the mood.

Isabelle has a diaper rash. I think this is her second ever diaper rash. It is so sad. Yesterday when I was changing her she was crying and saying, “it hurts! it hurts!!”  And she was crying and shaking in her bath. It is so awful.   And today I wanted to let her run around without a diaper but she isn’t having any of it. She’s not liking the nakedness.

And the house is trashed. Actually for the past few days Isabelle has been wreaking havoc in the house. She takes all the pillows off the couch and tosses them all over the living room. She does the same with her toys. It looks like a toddler’s been through. Oh wait…a toddler has been through.

You know, it’s one of those days. I wanted Alan to stay home from work but he didn’t and he got all mad about it.

This post was going to be about the new book I bought. The one I keep mentioning briefly. The one I already took a few pictures of. But I’m not sharing. It’s late, I’m tired, and the book deserves a proper post. So how about some pictures of Isabelle instead?

Here’s a picture I tried to take of the book.

Can’t see it? It’s right there. Under her tooshy. And here is the picture of the skirt I absolutely fell in love with from the book.

Yeah. Right there. Under HER FOOT. I swear, I do take care of my books. It’s just, Isabelle is fascinated with the camera these days. She actually picks up the camera, brings it over, and asks to have her picture taken!

And how is the little miss doing? Thankfully she is much improved. No more crying or shaking. Just a bit red but it doesn’t seem to be bothering her. Ok. Maybe real pictures of the book tomorrow. When I can say all the nice things I want to say with a fully awake brain.

If you were reading on our anniversary, you saw that Alan brought me to the book store. I didn’t find the book I was looking for but found this one instead, Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin.

I’ve never heard of it before. It was just luck that there was that one copy in the store and that I pulled it off the shelf. I opened the book and fell in love with this reverse appliqué swing skirt.

I sat there flipping through the pages of beautiful pictures. Stopping occasionally to read about beading, stenciling, deconstructing a t-shirt, and at the unexpected like a biscuits recipe and “loving” your thread. And right then and there I knew I had to have the book. I ordered the book and since it’s arrived I’ve been carrying it from room to room reading it.

There’s a paragraph in the first chapter where she writes about how in the mid-1990s a lot of garment factories closed with businesses moving overseas. It makes me sad.

Ok and here is where I go off on a completely different subject.

I read that chapter and in the back of my mind I think about a link my sister sent me, The Story of Stuff and how whenever I go to Target there is just stuff everywhere. Racks and racks of clothes made by cheap labor in other countries. Clothes we don’t need. Clothes that are inexpensive to buy. I think about how much time and effort it takes for me to make something and it makes me mad.

Do we care less about things when we don’t have to pay a lot for them? When they are easy to replace with more cheap stuff that we don’t need?

It makes me think of the documentary my friend, Veronica, recommended, The Corporation, and how big uncaring companies are everywhere. Companies that do not care about the world we live in or the people who live in it. And then I get mad that I shop at Target. That big stores have things cheaper. That food sprayed with pesticides is cheaper than organic. That I don’t even know where to find a mom and pop store for the necessities.

It makes me sad to think our country is a consumer country. We don’t make things anymore. We buy things. Our economy is based on how much we buy. The government is giving us a tax rebate hoping we’ll buy more stuff to stimulate the economy.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. It all just makes me sad, this fast paced life we live in where everything is easily had and easily thrown away.

And even though I think all this I can’t stop myself from wanting a play kitchen. Even after or especially after I quickly made a sucky drawn one for Isabelle.

She sits down and we pretend to have tea on it. So she thinks it’s a little table, not a stove.

I just don’t want to think about any of that anymore. It’s all depressing. I guess I’ll just sit down and sew all the sad thoughts away. Yeah. That’s it. Sewing. Hand made. With love. By me.

Yes. Isabelle really did this today. She got the idea from the book, The Adventures Of Super Diaper Baby. So can you guess what I’m sewing her next?

And in my washer, right now as I’m typing this, I have some cotton jersey. I got it from Joann Fabrics. It was a bit hard to find. I had to ask a salesperson. The only bit left was in the red tag section. Oh wait. They had one shade of green in this tiny organic section. I didn’t even know they had organic at Joann Fabrics. Or can you really call five or six bolts a section. It was barely a shelf.

I also have two t-shirts I’m going to be deconstructing. Can you guess what I’m going to be making for myself?

Go to cute baby #16, new word.