hospital crafts

I love the "can do!" and the "make do" spirit of crafting but have lately given into the allure of perfect supplies and beautiful materials. I cannot say I fully regret that. I do love me some beautiful materials. But I have many frugal bones in my still-sorta-bony body and am a child of a child of a child of The Depression and, as such, love a good challenge.

After surgery, an orthopedic resident brought by a big brown sling with a stiff & scratchy strap. "Hmmm," he said, in a surprisingly disappointed tone, "I don't think this will fit him." Sometimes I wonder if I really am at a children's hospital. Some of the residents seem rather surprised at this, too (the same dumb ones who march in with jolly voices at 6:23 am and ask, "Oh, did I wake you?"). Daddy cut up a flannel blanket and made a handy scouter sling. This is how Reuben felt about it*:Mama had a bit of fabric and also found nice soft tubular gauze and took impossibly and inappropriately tiny stitches with silk thread because she needed a work of love just then. For her Reuben*:*photos may have been selectively chosen with great bias
(which is not really fair because I was very proud of his can-do crafting spirit and it worked fine but I wanted to make one and then I'm the one who dresses him)

Project #2:Audrey has a great love of all things starred. She also has a great love of long-legged dark jeans, and we both thought her back-to-school pair was a bit plain. I brought them to the hospital this week and, though I was a bit unprepared, was able to make do:

A quick image search on the hospital room's computer + paper towels + medical tape = perfect star embroidery templates! A double set, even, since the towel was 2-ply :). I just pinned them straight on the jean leg (I let Audrey do the arranging) and stitched around the templates (in lieu of a good photo, I amped up the effects. clever, clever me: such a good trick!).

When I got home, I added details with silver thread, tracing inside one of the stars and adding a tiny pocket detail.They're so awesome, they made the first-day-of-school outfit cut.