i need a back up plan

Oh oh oh I am so far behind, not just in blogging but in life. There should be a commandment that says thou shalt not over commit oneself at the peak of flu season. My husband has been in bed all weekend, so instead of sewing lovely things and writing blog posts about them, not to mention learning the insane stack of music I recently agreed to play, I have been fetching him water and snacks and running the kids and generally trying to keep his plague away from the rest of us. Fingers crossed. It's not like I get paid sick time or anything.

I am dying to show you a couple things I finished up a week ago or more, but they are test knits for babycocktails, and I have to wait until those patterns are released. Meantime, the kids have a piano recital coming up in a few weeks and Anya currently has nothing appropriate to wear. It's not necessarily a super-fancy dress-up affair, but the patched sweatpants and hand-me-down t-shirts aren't going to cut it, either. She hates dresses and frilly clothes, which is all fine and good, but we've got to find something suitable in middle ground. About a week ago, we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: So you've got this piano recital next month and you need to look nice for it.

Anya: (looks at me skeptically and frowns)

Me: (hurriedly) You don't have to wear a dress, I promise.

Anya: (looks at me slightly less skeptically)

Me: But you do have to dress up a little bit. You can't wear jeans. 

Anya: (thinking)

Me: How about a tunic? That's like a long shirt you can wear over leggings. It's not a dress, I promise.

Anya: OK

Me: And if you want, I'll knit you a nice sweater that will dress it up, too.

Anya: (lights up) Ok!

Me: So you tell me, what colors do you want to wear?

Anya: bright red, green, and orange

Me: Oooooooo-kay. I will try and work with that.

I showed her some sweater patterns and she picked out this one. I showed her my yarn and none of it was suitable ("not bright enough!") so I had to go out and buy some. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find just the right shade of something when you really need it. Fortunately, the craft market had a bright crimson sock yarn (Frolicking Feet) that will be just fine. I breathed a sigh of relief when she approved the color.

Now, about the green and orange…I've got a lot of green fabric from a dress I found at the thrift store a couple months ago, so I'll make her a tunic out of that. She'll look a bit like a Christmas ornament, but oh well. It's what she wants. As for the orange? Maybe I can appliqué some bright orange flowers on the tunic or make her an orange flower corsage or something. I've got less than 3 weeks to pull this together with everything else going on in my life. I'm thinking I better have a  back up plan, just in case.