Ridiculous Five Year Project

The story behind this little quilt is a sad, sad example of how easily distracted those of us with fabric addictions can be. I started this quilt for my unborn second child five years ago people! Also, it can hardly be called a quilt. She was going to have a fairy themed room and I came across this cute fairy fabric and decided to just make a quick blanket with the fairies on one side and minky on the other. Minky had just come out and this little project was mostly an excuse to use the super soft stuff. It should have taken me a weekend at most to complete this. Well, I put the two pieces together, freemotion quilted little flowers all over it and put it aside to do the binding later. So, it sat. And sat. My second daughter was born and then I had a newborn. Unlike all the blogs I read from people that have like five babies running around and still sew daily, I got nothing done in the sewing department with a baby in the house. I then went through a Jane Sassaman obsession where I started a new quilt (known as the butterfly quilt, also unfinished to this day) and then I decided I would learn to hand applique and started that project and then, well, my life fell apart. So, to somewhat get to the point, I unpacked this quilt at my new house and put it in a prominent place so I would finish it. And it sat. I made this quilt and this quilt and started a myriad of new projects and then I felt really guilty... and then! and then! (is anyone still reading this?) Melissa came over last weekend to sew and I decided the time had come to finally get the binding on this quilt. And I did! And now I have no idea why I didn't just finish it to begin with. Oh well. I did notice a great thing about this quilt. When you just take a full cut of fabric and throw on a backing you end up with the perfect size rectangle for kids to use on their nap mats at preschool. You see, that's what I intended for it all along!

Socks for Christmas

Usually one would not be overjoyed to receive socks for Christmas. However, this year I have already received one of my Christmas presents, which was indeed socks, and I could not be more pleased! My aunt and mom have been chatting for weeks about joining a sock guild at a yarn shop that I had never been to, but my aunt had no idea how to knit a sock. I thought the idea of a sock guild was intriguing, but I also had no idea how to go about knitting a sock and it was quite a few things-to-learn down on my project list. That all changed last week when my aunt called me practically giggling and asked me to join her in private sock lessons at the yarn store, The Whole Nine Yarns, as an early Christmas present. I was definitely up for that adventure and yesterday we went for our first lesson. If you knit, and you live in the Atlanta area, and you have not been to The Whole Nine Yarns... GO! This place is a knitters dream and I was overjoyed to see that it was absolutely packed with people taking lessons, buying stuff, and supporting the local yarn economy. So many quilt and yarn shops come and go very quickly, but this place is definitley doing a lot right and creating a knit community. Our instructor was delightful and got us both on the road to making socks in no time. My aunt had another class after ours which only had one other person in it, so they said I could hang out with them and work on my socks. We were there all afternoon chatting, viewing different yarn combinations for some pillows my aunt wants to knit, looking at books and chatting some more. It was quite invigorating to be around tons of people that share the same crazy passion for yarn and color and all its possibilities.

As I was walking to my car I did do a little mental head slapping for having bought more yarn (the perfect combination for a scarf to match my new jacket had to come home with me) and even a new book, not to mention joining the monthly sock guild myself! Clearly I had lost my mind. But then I looked down at the ground as I walked and noticed that it was sprinkled with tiny, red, heart shaped leaves. A little reminder from the universe to embrace what you love, and just be happy. At least that's how I saw it.

And So It Begins

The seven year old has been in craft heaven the last two days because Grammy got her a Janome Hello Kitty sewing machine for her birthday. She has had three "lessons" and rarely talks about anything else. The first thing she said at 6:30 Monday morning was, "Mom, I think today is a terrific day to learn how to sew" and the last thing she said to me when she went to bed tonight was "What are you going to teach me about sewing tomorrow?". So far she has practiced following a straight line and then following the line with the edge of her presser foot, she really has done much better than I thought she would. Today I did have to teach her one of the most important lessons in sewing... "When you start to get frustrated it is important to get up and walk away, then come back to it later". It's a lesson that I still have to remind myself of quite often. I have stopped hovering over her every second and am just letting her "go at it" as Melissa told me to today (so of course I will blame her if the child sews her fingers together). Her concentration is quite good, she didn't even stop sewing to ask me "are you taking pictures of me for your blog again?". Yep.

Birthday Quilt!

Hard to believe there is now a 7 year old living in my house (even though sometimes lately it seems like she is about 13). I saw this quilt kit when we were in Nashville and fell in love with the Moda Full Moon Forrest fabrics (each one has different animals hidden in the design) and snatched it up with the intention of making a birthday quilt. Thank goodness the pattern, "Just Can't Cut It", was super simple and I was able to make it in basically two weekends. Melissa and mom came over for an intense Sunday sewing session last weekend and I got most of it done then.

Of course now the younger child is begging for a new quilt of her own. I am determined this week to finish the quilt that I started for her when she was born, um, almost five years ago. It has been waiting for binding that whole time. That is really, really embarrassing. Especially since it was just one piece of fairy fabric and one piece of minkie on the back. In my defense, everyone else made her quilts when she was born and mine was just a quick blanket I was whipping up to go with her fairy room. Sometimes it sucks to be the second child, but hopefully that will distract her for a bit until I come up with something fabulous for her January birthday.

Boo!

My little devil wore her costume almost every day of the last month. Then, when Halloween finally arrived, she hit about five houses then came home and begged to go to bed. It was a big day... Halloween parties at school, a neighborhood jumpy house, several sugar crashes... she fell asleep in her costume.

If using a reader, you have to click through to see pics!

Almost Ready!

You don't believe the story of the Great Pumpkin? I thought little girls always believed everything that was told to them. I thought little girls were innocent and trusting.
-Linus, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Crafty Gifts

My mom has had two new loves in her life lately, embroidery and shrinky dinks. She purchased a new Bernina embroidery machine this year and has slowly been getting over the intimidation factor. The great thing is that sometimes I benefit and sweet, crafty gifts come my way. She made bags for all of us that went to Nashville together a couple months ago and monogrammed them too (I love the ladies with all their different shaped fruit butts)...

Way back this past summer (seems like a really long time ago since I am typing this with my feet on a heat vent and an alpaca scarf wrapped around my neck) mom got the girls obsessed with shrinky dinks and this has been the craft of choice that the girls beg to do with her any time they know we will all be spending lengthy amounts of time together. Well, one crafty thing often intertwines with another, and she has discovered while looking at hundreds and maybe thousands of embroidery designs online that they often lend themselves to great shrinky dink designs too. This past weekend she and Grampy were super cute and worked on little Halloween themed shrinky dink necklaces for the girls. Grammy found costume garbed bunnies here, printed them out and Grampy colored them on the shrinky dink plastic. Grammy did the cutting and shrinking and added the necklace string and voila! Adorable vampire bunny and frankenstein bunny Halloween necklaces. The girls loved them and hey, it keeps the grandparents out of the bars while we aren't here to entertain them.

Super Quick Road Trip

We have been saying forever that we would head up to Asheville to visit the cousins and check out their new guest house, and this past weekend happened to work out for a super quick road trip. We piled into the car Saturday morning and headed north. The trees in the Atlanta area had barely started to change, but about an hour farther north showed definite signs of fall. We had a planned stop at the Tallulah Gorge overlook to take in the scenery. It was lovely, but if you are in the area the next couple of weekends it will be spectacular.

Our next stop was not at all planned, but I simply could not pass up the roadside sign that promised Goats On The Roof. "GOATS ON THE ROOF!!!" I exclaimed several times with escalating excitement, and Jay obligingly did a u-turn to take us back to check it out. I don't know, for some reason I just really like goats. And c'mon, put them on a roof and I'm there. And even better, you get to feed them using clever little contraptions!

Look at that glee at feeding the goats! Now that's some roadtrip fun. The shrimp were almost as enamoured with the goats as I was. Jay humoured us, but mostly smirked at the goat spectacle.

The rest of the drive was spent admiring the trees as we got closer to Asheville, they became quite a spectacular sight to behold. After arriving we got the official tour of the new guest house (the oldest child calls it The Hotel). I'm proud of myself when I make a scarf, but Cousin Trey builds a whole house! Now that's crafty. Sure, he had a bit of help, but still.

The little cousins even sat still for a picture. Well, for a moment anyway... And this is what I get from the "grown-ups"... That night Arwen made a delicious dinner, here she is working hard. Hmm, where could Trey be? Sorry Arwen, this is a terrible picture of you, but it cracks me up. We also celebrated the almost-seven-year-old's birthday. The next day we headed to the park with some very tired children and wore them out some more playing soccer. The youngest child slept the entire trip home.

Obligatory Political Post

I will be voting early next week in an attempt to avoid the November 4th crowds. It seems like every blog you read these days has something to say about the election, so I thought I would get my two cents in. I am not the type to ever tell someone else who to vote for, I think it is a decision that each person has to come to based on what they believe government should provide/take away in their lives, but I am happy to share some random links from around the internet that I have used to help make my own decision...

First up, the sites that help cut through the clutter:

Political Fact Check

Analysis of the Candidates' Tax Plans

Other Ballot Questions for Georgia

Go here for an in-depth look at Palin's "career" in politics (scroll down to about the fifth paragraph), then try this one for a look at why Obama may not quite be "the answer" for the struggling lower and middle class.

Why do I put an article on Palin instead of McCain? Well, because I think the most important article on McCain may very well be this one.

Which means you really have to take a hard look at his running mate, you know, her:



But then, if you really need McCain in action, this is one of my favorites:



So really, I think it is up to you to decide to vote for either that hideous woman that will end up as president if John "I think women are lining up to have late-term abortions for the fun of it" McCain is elected or for Obama's terrible tax plan, but please just educate yourself on the issues so that you don't go to the polls "decided" like these people:



And just one more because it cracks me up...

Christmas Crafting In October Is So Stressful!

This afternoon I have been secretly knitting on the girls' scarves while they are upstairs playing with their friend from next door. It is so stressful! Every time they call out about something I jump. I only have my furry helper as witness, she better not tell. Of course, she probably thinks I'm knitting four scarves since her eyes are completely crossed. It's hard to keep projects hidden from the ladies when they are often my biggest fans... "oh mommy, that is soooooo nice, will you make me one next? please, please, please!". How many days until Christmas? Maybe I can cheat and give them as Hanukkah presents since this will be our first year celebrating the Festival of Lights.

Speaking of miracles (sort of), look what my rose bushes gave me! They are so happy to have some cooler weather and are covered in these beauties.

The Best Weekends are Fall Weekends

After dealing with a bit of a rough day at school on Friday (she was defending a friend, but apology notes were written on principle), we jumped into a busy weekend. The girls were in a wedding on Saturday for their dad's brother, leaving me free to make some major progress on the quilt I am making for my soon to be 7 year old's birthday. Once I figured out that I was trying to make the wrong size quilt based on the fabric kit I bought it went quite fast. (I can hear you laughing Melissa, cut it out). I love, love, love these Full Moon Forest fabrics by Moda, they have animals hidden in almost all of the prints. Very fairytale-ish I think. Today I will be searching out some backing fabric, I have to somehow get this done in two weeks.

Saturday I mostly spent at the Gwinnett Sewing and Quilt Expo with the mom and the aunt. There were lovely quilts on display and lots of great vendors, it is very dangerous having all your favorite local quilt stores in one room. We definitely managed to do our part to support the local quilting economy.

Fall decorating around here is slowly taking shape, and that, along with the nice cool and crisp morning this morning, put baked apples on my mind... so I decided on one for breakfast. My dad made these a lot when I was a kid. He would dig out the middle of the apple to remove the core, put in a spoon of butter and a handful of raisins and then pour Coke over the whole thing. It was finished off with a dash of cinnamon and cooked in the microwave for about 4 minutes. I didn't have any raisins, but I loaded mine up with butter and Coke, cinnamon and ground cloves this morning. Next time I'm at the store I'm going to get some of those dried cranberries or craisins, I think those would be pretty tasty. I've seen other people fill theirs with brown sugar instead of Coke, but I like how the Coke kind of caramelizes on the bottom of the bowl when you cook it, and it all smells soooooo good.

Oh, and I also must mention that one of my little artistes had her artwork chosen for the spring art show at school (the child turning 7, not the head-butting one). Between Grammy and I, it has probably been completely blown out of proportion, but we are just so proud that she loves to create as much as we do (and a little recognition can go a long way)!

A Week Full of Presents

The theme for this week was definitely presents! The girls were very busy Monday and Tuesday making gifts for Jay's birthday, I've been busy getting birthday and Christmas presents started and Jay even brought me roses mid-week "just because". He also brought me cannoli, but for some reason there isn't a picture of them.

A birthday quilt started for Courtney (including my furry assistant). I can't get enough of these owls and am going to have to try very hard not to steal this quilt from her when it is done...

Scarves started for the girls for Christmas. I thought I was very clever making them both at once, but I foresee a lot of time spent trying not to get the yarns tangled together...

And of course the roses, aren't they lovely?

Randomness and Lack of Self Control

Been a little too busy to blog lately, but thought I would pop in for a quick post. What have I been doing, you ask? Well, my mostly part-time job turns into a mostly full-time job in September and October. Also, I agreed to help put on a charity auction/comedy event for a few hundred people that takes place, um, tomorrow. So, been a bit psycho harried impossible to put up with busy the last few days. So, what do I do when I'm being pulled in a million different directions by job, family and random charity event? Buy embarrassingly large quantities of yarn of course! Apparently I am never too busy to drop absolutely everything and run off to a yarn-store-closing-40%-off-sale-event. Mom mentioned that Knots of Yarn was going out of business (sniff, sniff) Wednesday night and we were there almost at store opening on Thursday morning. And now, my loyal readers, I must confess that I am a bit ashamed of what transpired at said store-closing-40%-off-event. Did I mention 40% off?!!! My mother and I lost all semblence of self control and endulged in what only can be described as a yarn buying frenzy. However, as I sit here with my overflowing bag of yarn beside me, right where I can reach out and grab a skein to stroke and admire from time to time, a sense of calmness and clarity descends upon me, one that could not be acheived with hours and hours of real therapy (and do you know how much that costs?!!!). Yes, I am here to rationalize my yarn buying excess by the pure and simple fact that yarn therapy is worth each and every penny. Especially when it comes deeply discounted. Hopefully this picture of my newly extended stash will help to bring a sense of well-being to your day too...

Merino and Silk and Mohair and Cashmere, OH MY!


I know, it isn't quite the same. My youngest child cried on the way home from school because she wanted yarn too, she has a long life of textile addiction ahead of her.

This isn't all of it I'm afraid. Some things have been left out because of the enormous gift giving holiday looming at the end of the year. The lovely rainbow balls on the left will be cast on next week to begin scarves that the girls will be getting for Christmas (luckily they don't read my blog). They have been begging for scarves, I love that they really seem to appreciate handmade items. Can't wait to share all the upcoming projects that I plan on diving into next week!

The Re-Start of TV to Knit By

Most of the time there are many things I would rather do than sit down and watch tv, but last night's kick-off of the new Office season made me a happy, happy girl. Damn that show is funny. I don't know how they do it, but the whole cast is genius when it comes to delivering an uncomfortable work-place moment.

A little video post in celebration:

This is... so frustrating!

Melissa picked the "this is" theme for last week to try to get us back to it. There are plenty of little things that happen from time to time that are very frustrating, like dealing with an incorrect charge on my phone bill or having to drive by four gas stations before finding one with gas this morning, but I'm going to pick the one that I experience almost every single day at my job for pure consistent frustration. A large part of my job consists of signing people up to take a class. They call me to get the class schedule and then tell me what day they want to attend and I get all their needed information. Not exactly rocket science. But every single day I experience this sentence after relaying the current schedule... "Oh, hold on a minute, let me find my calendar". And then I wait. While they shuffle through the stuff on their desk or in their purse. This seriously frustrates me. While I say through clenched teeth "Oh, sure, take your time" I'm actually having to practice deep breathing and hold back a lecture about how my time is valuable and being wasted. I know, it is little, but it is really frustrating!