Good morning! It’s another Good Song Sunday Sunday. That’s fun.

If you love the song and want it in your permanent music collection or you want to put it on a mix tape for your friends, you can get it here.

As Long As It Takes

I built a fire while you lay asleep
tangled and restless in a mess of sheets.
You feel betrayed, left behind
by all you’ve worked for and all that you trust.

But I love you, and I will stay as long as it takes.

There’s nothing peaceful about the sadness you keep
wearing your bleeding heart on your sleeve.
There’s nothing left for me to give
except for some silence.

I love you, and I will stay as long as it takes.

I built a fire while you lay asleep.
I watched the ashes rise.

What can you do with a couple vintage pillowcases? I made my first matching dresses for Ellie and Emma Rose!

I’ve seen these types of dresses at farmers’ markets and such in summertime, and I always thought they were so cute! When I got my sewing machine I knew I wanted to figure out how to make them. They look easy enough, and they are! I used a couple different tutorials–this was the main one I used, and I used this one, too.

It’s hard to get these girls to stand still. Ellie just wanted to dance in her new dress, but I think you can see a pretty decent picture of the dress here:

So sweet!

If it weren’t for the elastic, these would have taken no time at all. Even for me, beginner that I am.

But there was elastic involved, and I learned a couple things about working with it in the process:

1. I now have a strong distaste for elastic.

2. Don’t thread the whole elastic piece through your casing until AFTER you’ve sewn one end to the garment. Otherwise, it’ll get lost in the casing, as mine did several times.

3. Attach a safety pin to the end that you’re threading through the casing so you essentially pull the safety pin through instead of just the elastic. Key: make sure you don’t pin the safety pin too close to the edge of the elastic piece, or else your elastic may rip, leaving you with an unattached safety pin and a bunch of elastic lost in the casing. Then you just might have to undo the stitch you had just done to avoid lesson #2. And that would be frustrating.

I still love this though–even in the midst of battling the elastic. Sewing makes me feel the same way I felt in the photography darkroom in college–an escape way better than reality TV, even. And it’s way different than songwriting–you can just lose yourself in the sewing room for a few hours and come away with something awesome that someone can wear or play with!

And, if you have any tips for me, comment with them!

I have found my new favorite thing to do. SEWING. I love it.

A skirt and legwarmers. My first foray into clothing.

No, I didn’t make the skirt from scratch. It used to be a dress that had stains on it that I couldn’t get out. But I think it’s even cuter as a skirt!

The leg warmers used to be these:

HA! So fun! If you want to reuse your old comfy socks because, like me, you can’t throw any article of clothing away, you can find the tutorial I used here.

Here’s another picture of the finished products. Note how excited Ellie is that Mommy made her what she calls a “new, beautiful dress!” (everything’s a dress for her these days).

Next project: matching dresses for the girls made from vintage pillowcases. I’m almost done, so keep your eyes peeled!

I’m not sure why I’ve chosen to make animals with my sewing machine instead of what I dream of making: dresses for Ellie and Emma. Maybe it’s because I’m not emotionally attached to stuffed animals the way I am to little cute dresses. Maybe it’s because the stakes don’t seem very high if they don’t turn out right . . . I mean, heck, remember how much Ellie loves Mr. Owl?

Then again, maybe it’s just that I got a sewing machine a couple weeks before Easter and didn’t have Easter bunnies for their baskets yet.

Whatever the case, I made bunnies. And here they are:

This was my first go. No pattern. I think it’s cute in a very weird, kind of creepy way. But Ellie on Easter morning confessed that she didn’t like it. I think she was just more excited about some other things in her basket. Because, really, how can she not like this?

About mid-way through that one, I decided that I needed a pattern and I fell in love with this:

I was so excited to see how easy it was, so I went for it.

Who would have thought that this cute turtleneck (happily modeled by Ellie when she was about 7 months old):

Could become this?

Success! I made something I LOVE!

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. –Isaiah 40:31

I used to love the last part of this verse the most. The “they shall mount up” part, the “they shall run” part, and the “they shall walk” part. I always garnered alot of strength from it; it would help me gird myself up for the waiting part.

And then I would work at waiting.

But this morning on my run it occurred to me that working at waiting is weird.

To wait on the Lord means to hope in him, which means to trust him. And to trust in him means to believe that he is good and that he loves me. And if I believe that he is good and he loves me, I can relax and let go of my working, striving, and worrying. And then I can be patient.

And then waiting isn’t work. Waiting is rest.