{off the charts}

A few weeks ago, I showed you Emily's beautiful growth chart, and ever since, I've been cutting, sewing and quilting my fabric scraps together to come up with something similar for Matilda.

For someone who doesn't really put initials on stuff, I've sure been embroidering my fair share of 'm's onto things this week. I guess I can't get enough of the American Typewriter font.

I made a couple of changes from Emily's design. Some by accident (such as getting carried away piecing the parts together and realising too late that I had one big strip instead of six neat little strips) and some on purpose (such as adding in embroidered lines to mark Tilly's exact height). 

Actually, not so on purpose -- the addition of lines was to cover up my inexact sewing. Each little square is supposed to be an inch high, so that you can simply count the squares to measure your child. My squares ranged from 0.8 inches to 1.2 inches. Not a big deal for one square, but when you put them together, it sort of throws the whole measuring thing off. Which is, you know, the point of a growth chart. Oops. Hence, embroidered lines.

I skipped out on adding the exact date we measured her, too, simply because I can't say for sure that I could find that information. Yes, I could find your 5000 photos of her first year for you in milliseconds, but dates and weights and numbers? Um, no. We're doing ball-park ages. Approximation never hurt anyone.

I think I'd mentioned the idea of having significant fabrics match up with special ages. Well, the piecing process made the fabric order completely random, so I gave up on that.

But how excited was I to find that at 21", her length at birth, their was a little scrap of an Alexander Henry tiger? Very! (Tilly was born  in the year of the tiger, and has absolutely lived up to all of the fiery, roaring expectations)

Other fabrics of significance include: the Russian Doll lining to Tilly's Moses basket, the red gingham of her first dress, the red wagon wheel print of the pajamas I lived in for the first three months of her life, and of course, her party dress fabric.

Rather than using a wooden dowel, our growth chart is supported by this handy little ruler, inserted between the pockets on the back. It's got a perfect hole in the middle for hanging, and it'll be handy for measuring up from the last mark to see how tall Tilly is. Rulers on the brain at the moment, it seems.

Still a long way to grow. And if she continues getting taller at this rate, as Justin says, she'll be 70 feet tall by the time she's sixteen. I'm going to need more scraps...