museum day live

Last Saturday was Smithsonian Museum Day Live - if you don't know about it, click the link and see if there is a participating museum near you! My daughter and I went last year and this year to my very favorite place: Genesee Country Village and Museum. It's a living history museum with very little gimmicky stuff...just the buildings and interpreters and so much beauty and learning to take in. 

There was spinning and dyeing going on, using cauldrons over an outdoor fire (I bought some indigo dyed laceweight for a shawl), weaving demonstrations, fresh wheaty hearty pretzels being sold by a sweet lady in period dress (they were hung on a branch!), spinning wheels galore, spice and herb grinding to make sachets, the history of chocolate (complete with a hot chocolate sample, oh so rich and delicious), plowing demonstrations and q & a about oxen, a "pioneer woman" who puts all the little kids to work when they visit her homestead (Daughter was sent to gather firewood), and oh boy, the general store...I could spend all day in there. 

The day was so peaceful and relaxing. I can't wait for the next Museum Day Live! Daughter and I will be there.

lighter fare

I must admit, I've burned myself out on the huge knitting projects for the moment.

While I wait for the urge to start something large, I'm doing some fun quick knits.

I'm also obsessed with using up my stashed yarns and leftovers right now, so this scratches that itch as well...some new clothes for one Ms. Barbara Doll.

This shift dress took one day to make and used a few ounces of old leftover Baby Ull and size 2 needles. I hate the belt and will re-do it, but wow, what a FUN pattern to knit!

I ordered a selection of patterns from a great seller on ebay - "Pretty Patterns" - and while they are photocopies (I knew this when ordering) they are of excellent quality. I can recommend this seller for sure if you're seeking unusual or hard-to-find patterns. It seems there were many Leisure Arts booklets with Barbie patterns in the 80s (I saw some on ebay as well) but not anymore. I wonder why? Knitting for Barbies must be uncool now or something. Anyway, I liked the collections this seller had - they are very 50s and 60s and not difficult at all.

The back closes with 3 snaps, and it is hemmed, which is a nice detail. People used to put so much care into things. 

I loved making this. Can't wait to make more...it's perfectly delightful hot weather knitting. 

monday monday

Thank you for the kind words. The funeral was on the 15th, so I am still a tad melancholy, but I'm getting through it.

Other things that are more fun to talk about:

Hubs took me to see a production of FAME! on Saturday night. It was so awesome! I have an intense love of musical theater and will go see just about anything, so when these tickets were offered for free from his office (his company sponsored the show), Hubs knew I'd want to go. And, dude, it was FAME! Who doesn't love that? So the kids slept over at Grandma & Papa's house, and Hubs and I got to go on a date, with dinner and everything. The show was performed at Artpark, and if you're ever in the western NY area, I recommend you visit. It's a state park, open anytime, and you can walk right down to the edge of the Niagara River. It's really beautiful.

Also...I finished a sweater! Woohoo! I feel like I've barely finished anything this year, so I was really thrilled to block this baby:

This is Spring Time in Hollis and I really like it. I saw it on a blog last winter and in a rare move, I bought the pattern (through Ravelry, I believe). I liked that it was worsted weight, top-down construction and had just enough interest to keep me going. I'm getting bored after making a bazillion plain top-down raglan cardigans. This pattern is well-written and easy to follow, and I will surely make another sometime.

This is size 8 (!) for my big first grader, knitted from Knitpicks WotA in violet, a discontinued color that I got on sale years ago. I think I used about 6 balls, but I can't remember for sure, as I started this several months ago and only just now finished it. As per Daughter's request, I left out the eyelets and belt, and knit the sleeves somewhere between 3/4 and wrist length, so they "wouldn't get in her way." I'd like to get some fall fabric and make a matching dress for the school year...we'll see.

It feels good to get another languishing project finished. Time to go diving into the UFO basket to see what else I can clear out!

thoughts on summer

How do you see summer? Do you still think of it in terms of a big vacation, like when you were a kid and summer meant...doing absolutely nothing, or doing whatever you wanted, and it stretched out before you like an endless path?

As a stay-home mom I think of it like that. I've almost always lived by the school calendar, going from high school to college, then two years after that to graduate school, then on to teaching, and now I have a school-age child. My life is ruled by the school schedule, and I have come to really love and rely on the structure it brings.

Sadly, as a mom, summer is not a vacation, right? Gosh, I do still think of it that way, and long for warm, lazy afternoons sitting in a lawn chair with a good book and a glass of iced tea, or breezy mornings sitting on the patio working some cross stitch or knitting with my coffee. I make all these mental plans for what I'm going to accomplish, like finishing sweaters and starting on Christmas ornaments, creating involved cross-stitches to frame for my home, sewing quilts and garments, and getting a head start on next fall and winter's sewing and knitting.

HA!

My fantasy of my children happily playing in the sandbox or splashing around in the wading pool while I crafted serenely were quickly dashed this year. The children hop around from place to place, declaring the sandbox too hot, the wading pool too cold, and everything else, you guessed it, booooring. AJ mostly wants to follow his big sister like a shadow, so when she hops out of the pool and heads for the back door, he wants to go in too. This inevitably happens moments after I've gathered all the required towels, sunscreen, snacks, etc., and settled into my lawn chair for a few moments of knitting or stitching.

So to sum up, I'm getting absolutely nothing done. I spend my days refereeing the bickering of the children, chauffeuring Daughter to and from her library activities, serving up endless snacks, sweeping up sand and crumbs, and hiding in our air conditioned bedroom (yep, we are caught in the northeast heat wave, though thankfully on the low end with temps in the 90s). If not that, we're sitting in whatever pools we can find, or visiting grandma in her air conditioned house. It's too hot to hold knitting needles, too sticky for stitching, and I can't even turn on my bedside lamp to read at night because it throws too much heat. Yuck!

This too shall pass, I know, I know. In a few short years my children will be far better able to self-entertain. And I'm not complaining, really, about summer and heat. I vastly prefer being able to just run out the door with the kids when we want to go out, rather than bundling into winter gear...I guess I'm just making excuse that I don't have much to write about because this time is not really mine. It's all mommy all the time just now.

an easter sweater in july

There's a new online quilt show aimed at the young, new quilter. It's called "Quilty" and it's hosted by Mary Fons, daughter of super-famous quilt personality Marianne Fons (of Fons & Porter). If you haven't seen it, check it out, it's very cute and focuses on beginner quilting skills.

There's a 2-part episode dealing with hand and machine quilting, featuring Marianne Fons as Mary's guest. When discussing the sample they are using to demonstrate different styles of quilting, Marianne says she had trouble coming up with something to bring along...she doesn't have a bunch of quilt tops laying around because, in her words: "I finish my projects."

I finish my projects. What novel idea! I often wonder why so many of us have craft ADD, where we flit from one project to another, leaving baskets of abandoned socks, sweaters, embroidery, quilts, etc. in our wake.

It's fair to say I always have at least two knitting projects on the go at once, generally one on larger needles and one on very small needles (a sweater and a sock, for example). But sometimes, as in right now, I get way more than that piling up. I currently have a sock, a sweater for Daughter, a sweater for AJ, a long-ago abandoned baby sweater that was supposed to be for my son but will now become a gift, a shawl, and a granny square afghan (crochet, but let's lump it in there). Actually, I just surprised myself in coming up with that list...it seemed I had more semi-abandoned projects than that.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong to have a lot of projects going. It's certainly common. I have so many things I want to make it keeps me up at night, my mind racing with possibilities. And I also feel the need to knit and sew for my kids as much as possible while they are still little and will wear what I present to them...Daughter, at age 6, is already expressing strong opinions about her wardrobe and I've started consulting her before beginning anything new lest she dislike it and stuff it in the back of a drawer.

But none of that does any good if I don't finish up. So with that quote from Marianne Fons in mind, I sucked it up and finished the sweater I'd intended as an Easter sweater for Daughter.

Knitting Pure & Simple neck-down cardigan, size 6-8. I used close to 3 skeins of Lion Cotton Ease in white, knitted up on US 9 needles (US 8 for the seed stitch ribbings). I fell in love with these buttons and I think they are perfect to jazz up an otherwise plain sweater. Click on the photo to see them bigger - they look like gingham! So cute! They are "Dress It Up" buttons, purchased at Michael's.

This sweater was so boring, the size 9 needles felt so clunky, and the cotton yarn made my hands hurt. I guess that's why it took forever and a day to finish. Plus Easter was freezing cold (we wore wool) and it was such a cold spring season, this sweater wouldn't have gotten much use anyway. I'm hoping it will get lots of wear at the beginning of the school year.

So, that's done! I guess that means I can cast on for something new...right?

summer begins

Oops, did not mean to fall off the face of the planet for 2 weeks. It's been a busy, busy time and I got sick (again) with a sinus infection that traveled downward and settled in my throat, rendering me voiceless over the weekend.

Around here school starts after Labor Day and doesn't finish up until the end of June, so we've only just begun our summer vacation.

It seems like Kindergarten just started and now it's over! My big girl, on to first grade...

It's only been 4 days but school seems so far away already. Daughter is signed up for crafts and stories at the library, and also lego club which I have to admit sounds like fun. I don't mind paying taxes when these free activities are available to my kids. AJ isn't getting signed up for a specific activity this summer because he still has speech therapy several days each week and I have nowhere for Daughter to go if I'm busy with her brother. So we'll wait till fall.

I say that, but I don't know what the coming school year will bring. We're in the throes of transitioning from Early Intervention to our school district for AJ's speech services, and that means evaluations and testing and reports about our baby boy...which I know are all necessary to get him the help he needs, but it's a horrible process to endure from a mother's perspective. I have to sit there and calmly, quietly watch him be tested, all the while wanting to "translate" his speech because often I do know what he is saying, but the tester has no idea. Thankfully he scored right on target for his age cognitively, meaning he does not qualify for special education (which we pretty much knew), but the speech problem...well, it's pretty severe.

No one knows exactly what is wrong with my kid. As our ENT told me yesterday, he is one-of-a-kind, an interesting case. And you don't really want to be "interesting" in the medical world. Doctors like interesting cases. They want to poke your kid and see what happens. All along I've been hoping and praying things would even out and become easier; that he would succeed and prove that he's really just fine. Now we've been referred to cranio-facial specialists to further investigate the apparent weaknesses in AJ's palette, facial muscles, and eyes.

It all leaves me feeling frazzled and knotted up and confused. I want and need to do what is best for my son (and for my daughter, of course), but it is sometimes hard to know what that is when you're dealing with so many medical disciplines.

So if I disappear for a few days or weeks at a time, it's likely because I just can't sort my thoughts out in a coherent fashion. Through it all there's the endless laundry, the cooking and cleaning, the piles of sand tracked into the house that need sweeping, the potty training and cleaning up of accidents, the bills to be paid, the groceries to shop for, and of course the summer family fun to be had.

Back soon.

life stuff...and a question for you!

Dear Winter,

It is really time for you to go now. No seriously, we have had just about enough. GO AWAY.

We had this one nice day a few weeks ago, and the kids made the most of it, romping around in the melty snow, playing under the huge pine tree in our yard, and generally soaking in the nice temps. (Also, trashing their clothes almost beyond saving...thank you, Tide Stain Release!)

But since then we've pretty much had snow on the ground. These are tough winters, the ones with no thaw from Thanksgiving straight through till March. We often get a long, late autumn, with no snow up to or even on Christmas, or some nice warmish days in January, up into the 40s or even 50s. BUT NOT THIS YEAR! And it is starting to wear on me, big time. I'm feeling so utterly housebound - it makes me think of the Ingalls family in "The Long Winter" and I wonder how on earth they didn't all go screaming insane.

It's just that when everyone is sick and playdates get cancelled and it is truly too cold to spend much time outside...well, it gets really boring and frustrating for everyone involved. I'm so, so tired of hearing my own voice as I snap at the children (again and again and again): stop it! don't push him! quit pulling her hair! if you can't agree on a video I'm turning the TV off! etc, etc.

We did end up joining the museum, and that's fun on the days we can go. And I've been leaving the house every single day with AJ, even if it is just to drive around a bit and go for a donut and coffee. We go grocery shopping a few times a week, hit the drug stores with our coupons for good sale items, browse Joann's and the other craft stores, and get donuts or bagels together. Sure, it's kind of bad for my pocketbook, but it is better for my sanity. Until we can go outside and wander the neighborhood, or go to the park, or spend the afternoon at the wading pool with lots of other kids, it will have to do. I wish we could do something a bit more...I don't know, educational? Valuable? We'd go to the library to get books or participate in story hour, but my 2.5 year old destructo-bot would unshelve all the books and disrupt the story hour. He's just not quite ready for that yet (maybe in the autumn when he turns 3). For now it's strictly outings where he can be trapped in a cart or the stroller.

Daughter was off school for a week recently and it nearly killed me, trying to keep them both from destroying the house or hurting each other. They are just so bored, and have pent-up energy to spare. Winter kind of sucks for little kids! I know so many people lament the growing up process, and chastise those who "wish childhood away" but good heavens, I have had enough of the toddler years. (And did I mention we are potty training? Aaaargh!)

I know it's just a phase for both of the kids, but right now it's tough. There are very few activities I can come up with that suit both a 6 year-old and a 2.5 year-old. They can paint together...sort of...until AJ uses the same brush for all the paints and wrecks all the colors or Daughter starts hoarding paints so AJ can't reach. If I try to start an activity with Daughter, or play a game with her, AJ will either disappear and get into something dangerous, or try to wreck the game/activity. And if I try to sit down on any piece of furniture in the entire house, my son wants to crawl up and sit directly on top of me. Which wouldn't be so bad if he could sit still. But he writhes and tickles and pulls at my hair and just won't settle.

I'm grasping at anything that will cheer me up these days. That means blowing off my responsibilities (nuggets and potato smiley faces for dinner again, kids!) so I can sew or knit. Making sundresses gives me hope that nice weather is around the corner, hooray! And I find that utterly losing myself in a detailed sewing project (like this somewhat complex dress pictured above) is like a meditation for me. Sometimes I play music or NPR, but often I just sew in silence after everyone has gone to bed, or during naptime when AJ is sound asleep and the house is nice and quiet.

*****

I do have one nice thing to look forward to, and it is this: Hubs and I are planning to take a little vacation together, just the two of us, which we have not done since our honeymoon in 2003. For real. Our marriage could use a little attention (no problems, per se, just a need to reconnect) after these last few troubled years taking care of kid issues, and we're going to head out for, oh, maybe a 5 day weekend journey or something like that. We plan to drive and keep it budget-friendly (because of Hubs' work we can get hotel discounts), and want to do something peaceful and quiet (no big cities). We're thinking sometime in May, and somewhere on the east coast. Where would you go? I'm looking for ideas!

early spring sewing

Oh boy - less than 1 week of February to go, everybody! And as our typical weather pattern around here is to get just one last giant wallop of a snowstorm in March, it is safe to say we are truly almost done with winter. And yes, sometimes we still have snow flurries until the end of April, but we also have had high 80s on Daughter's mid-April birthday.

My point is, spring is SO coming. We had a couple of truly lovely days at 50 degrees last week. The packed snow melted away, and the children were able to play outside. I can definitely feel the difference in the sunlight, can you? Just like in late August and September when the sun slants differently in the afternoon, so too does the sun seem higher in the sky and just...I don't know...friendlier, I guess, as February winds down.

So like I said before, while there is still knitting to be done, I am preparing for warm weather.

Here's one of Daughter's new dresses for 2011, nearly complete. Just needs buttons/buttonholes, and a hem. She has requested that it be "down to her ankles" so that is what she shall have. We are thinking this will be worn for Easter, along with the white cotton cardigan I fully intend to knit. Easter is very very late this year, so I'm thinking it will all get done.

And this is just for fun - a 3-tier gathered skirt for Daughter. I am desperate to use up chunks of fabric before she gets any bigger. This is some floral quilter's cotton I got years ago when I worked at a quilt shop, along with some (Michael Miller?) red pindot left over from another project. I don't know what the pattern is...my good friend Karen sent me tracings years ago when we made these for a charity project. But gosh, it is so easy and could be drafted in no time. It's basically 3 rectangles, each roughly double the size of the one before. Cut two of each on the fold, sew them into tubes, and gather them onto each other. Add a hem and a casing for elastic and voila! A super cute, simple skirt. Daughter is actually wearing it right now - with tights and long sleeves of course. (It is, oh, about 9 degrees out today.) I look forward to having her help me pick out some more matching prints from the stash to make up more of these cute, simple wardrobe staples.

priorities

Sometimes it's so hard to decide what to spend our hard-earned money on. Yesterday I decided I wasn't going to just sit around the house with the kids during the mid-winter break, so I asked my mom if she wanted to go to the science museum today. They have an awesome kid area that's huge and entirely hands-on.

It cost $24 to get in for me, my mom, and my two kids. Now I'm kicking myself for not just spending $50 and getting the full year membership, which would entitle us to get in anytime. Dur. Stupid.

I have trained myself to be so utterly careful about our finances that I sometimes don't allow for frivolity. Not that an explorations lab at the museum is exactly "frivolous" but it's also not a true necessity in life, so I tend to talk myself out of spending the cash.

Depending on who you are, or what your circumstances are, $50 may sound like a lot of money or a drop in the bucket. My problem is that right now I am sitting at my kitchen table and right next to me is my leaky kitchen window. The wood surrounding it is literally rotting, and when the snow melts or it rains hard, water actually drips into the house. It's in terrible shape after 40+ years and it is next on our list to be replaced (we've already done two exterior doors that were in similar shape). So whether you think fifty bucks is a lot or a little, it is still a chunk of that window repair and could go toward a project that really needs doing.

However, after spending the morning with my happy, busy children in a beautiful, enormous, high-ceilinged, bright and airy room filled with station after station of educational and fun toys, I've forced myself to re-evaluate my priorities. I could save the $50 and sit here in the boring house, trying to get my kids to play and stay away from the boob tube, or I could just spend it and take the short drive to the museum anytime we want, 7 days a week, rain or shine. I can be with other parents, my kids can interact with other children. We can have fun and feel engaged in community, which is sorely lacking for us.

It's a leaky window vs. our sanity - kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? The home repairs will wait. There is fun to be had right now.

busywork

No one really tells you, when you become a stay-home mother, that it is pretty much a totally boring job. It's also largely thankless, but we mostly know that, I guess. After nearly 6 years of stay-home-ness, I am bored out of my mind. In the dead of winter in a cold climate, there is little to look forward to each morning...making meals the children will not eat, cleaning up after the children, watching PBS, playing playdoh, painting with watercolors, doing mountains of laundry, listening to the wind rattle the windows, more cleaning up, etc, etc.

I've scheduled many playdates this winter in an effort to combat the cabin fever, but inevitably someone gets sick or something comes up and either I cancel or our friends do. We've all been sick since Christmas, almost non-stop. We were on the upswing for about a week, until Daughter brought home another nasty virus from Kindergarten. AJ just managed to squeak in for his surgery last week, though his nose was stuffy. Another couple of days and he'd have had chest congestion and a fever like his sister. Luckily those symptoms showed up after the surgery day. He is, in fact, sound asleep right now (11:45 a.m.) and has been since 10:30, because he barely slept last night. He was restless and feverish, crying almost constantly. Which means Hubs and I are exhausted as well.

It's just a crappy, crappy time of year. I'm going through the motions but barely getting anything done. It's all too easy to just sit and browse the internet for hours on end. I grab a ball of yarn here and there and work on something, but I'm not feeling inspired. It's all just busywork to pass the time.

Here's the marled sweater I showed a couple weeks back, now finished:

Knitting pure & simple neck-down cardigan, size 2-4. My little boy is getting big! This took nearly a whole skein of lion fishermen's wool. US 9 needles for the body, US 8 needles for the ribbing.

It went really fast and was pretty satisfying, so look what I found in my yarn trunk:

Another orphan skein of fishermen's wool. Another neck down raglan? Sure, why not.

I'm making an attempt to cheer up and look forward to spring:

This yarn has been hanging around since I was pregnant with AJ, waiting to be made into socks for Daughter. I'd better do it now, as her feet are almost too big to squeeze 2 socks out of one skein. I'm hoping to put these in her Easter basket. We try to go really minimal with the Easter candy because no matter how we beg and plead with my in-laws to lay off, they inevitably show up with enormous baskets filled with chocolate and junk. So I go with one very small chocolate figure, some jellybeans and m&ms, and some sort of useful item (like socks) or a book or something.

I'm pleased with myself for actually working through my stash a bit so far this year. I keep most of my yarn in my old college footlocker, and I can now close the lid easily, without sitting on it. That means some yarn is definitely gone. With little else to do and sick/post-surgical children lolling around the house, I might as well keep cranking out the knits, using up all that yarn I've been collecting for so many years.

so much making

There's been a bit of recent sewing around here...the machine never really gets put away for long. I went to Joann's to get a few summer patterns for dresses and tops that I desperately need, and this awesome dinosaur fabric leapt into my cart:

So cute! I mean, really, how often do you find great fabric for little boys? These little dinosaur pants came together in about 20 minutes. I used the pajama pants pattern that I've made a million times before, with no outside seam, just an inner leg seam, crotch seam, hems, and waistband. So, so fast! And now that AJ is getting to be a big boy (2 and 1/2 already!) he is forming opinions about his clothing...but he loves these! So that's kind of awesome.

Here's a bit of a closeup of the fabric. It's from the juvenile prints section at Joann's, and is a nice lightweight twill-type fabric, 100% cotton and washes and dries beautifully. One word of caution: it was printed crookedly so I actually lined up the pattern piece with the print, rather than exactly on the grain. For simple little pull-on toddler pants it made no difference.

Oh, and these pants cost a whopping $3.50! I love it when sewing can actually be economical in this day and age!

But mostly there has been knitting. Please, it is like 5 degrees F here! I can't even bear to sit at the sewing machine, it is so chilly. We keep the heat down during the day to cut down on the dryness and the gas bill, so I tend to gravitate toward the couch and cover myself with afghans.

I showed the yarn for this sweater a few weeks ago. It was a bag of "mill-ends" from AC Moore. I always dig through that bin because there might be a treasure buried beneath all the yucky white acrylic!

I am reminded of why I don't work with variegated yarns. Look at this goofy sweater! Daughter says she will wear it, but frankly I wouldn't blame her if she didn't. The yarn is Paton's classic wool, and knit up into a warm, springy, soft cardigan. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's "EPS" method, which I have come to adore because I need no pattern and can haul the project around anywhere without having to refer to anything. The buttons are jewel tone and I will have Daughter help me choose which to sew on.

Side note: gosh, Daughter is getting big. I totally underestimate her size because she is very slender, but this sweater seemed HUGE when I was knitting it and it just fits.

Moving on...it's not like AJ needs another new sweater right now or anything, but I desperately need to keep busy and also use up some orphan skeins of yarn. So he's getting a Knitting Pure & Simple neck-down cardigan, in the 2-4 year size, made from this skein of Lion Fisherman's Wool.

I'm not loving it, but I'm not hating it either. Anyway, it's going fast and makes for excellent mindless knitting while I hunker down under seventeen blankets to watch movies at night.

Finally for today, a bit of stashbusting. We knitters tend to have a stash of yarn, and some of us (me) tend to buy without thinking at times. We see a clearance sticker and take temporary leave of our senses. Then we blog about it, lamenting the fact that we have so much yarn and need to make use of it. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but this year truly needs to be a stashbusting year for me. We've had lots and lots of medical bills piling up because every year our health coverage gets worse and worse. So whereas my son used to have surgery and it hardly cost us anything, it's now climbing into the thousands. Yep, thousands. I have newfound empathy and deep pity for the uninsured these days...but that is another post.

So in light of that, I went diving to see what needs to be used. I found this:

One full skein plus dribs and drabs of Cotton-Ease in the looooooong discontinued blueberry colorway. I got these on clearance at Joann's when Daughter was a wee baby, for half off the clearance price if I recall correctly. I made myself a Sitcom Chic cardigan with this yarn, probably about 4 years ago? I can't even remember exactly when. And this is the remains.

There's probably just enough here to squeak out a toddler sweater for AJ. But I was not excited at the prospect of making another plain blue sweater with this yarn. I left it sitting on my dresser for two weeks, where it stared at me and made me feel guilty every time I went in my bedroom.

Then I saw a really cute little quarter-zip pullover at Target. Maybe you saw it too - it was royal blue with lime green striping in the cuffs and hem, and a little lime green robot on the chest. I waited and waited for it to be marked down, but by the time it was, AJ's size was gone.

But I was inspired.

I sacrificed $3 of my precious birthday gift card for Joann's to purchase this single skein of Cotton-Ease in lime. That gift card is supposed to go toward making myself summer clothes, but this seemed a worthy use too. Now the blueberry yarn will find a use after all these years, my son will have a new sweater, and I will feel quite satisfied with myself. Ha! Look at me rationalize.

So that's the crafty update from over here on the frozen tundra! What are you making during this deep freeze?

spring wips

False alarm! The camera is ok, it was the memory card that was shot! WOOT! Viva la camera!

Now I can continue to take crappy pictures in all but the best light for who knows how long!

The last few weeks have seen me being a really frustrated Mommy, what with the moody almost-5-year-old and the Very Busy Toddler who refuses to eat more than a few bites of food and drinks almost nothing. So I stepped back from blogging to keep it from becoming a bunch of repetitive whining. But, thank God, Spring is arriving as it always does, and we are able to get out in the sunshine, generate some vitamin D, play, breathe fresh air, and start to climb out of our winter rut.

I meant to get photos yesterday, but couldn't, so a quick idea of what we've been up to:

• Flashy light-up Disney princess sneakers for Daughter in a really big size (major growth spurt this winter!). I truly hate light-up princess sneakers, but I truly love my kid, so we got them.
• A new-to-us scooter for Daughter was procured (handed down from some cousins). We are planning to buy her a new one as this old one is in rough shape, but we had to make sure she could do it and like it before we spent the money.
• Plans are being made for purchase of Daughter's first bicycle. She still rides her trike but is practically giving herself two black eyes as her knees come up so high when she pedals. Also, she needs a new helmet because the one she got at 2 years old just isn't cutting it anymore.
• SHOES on AJ for the first time! (He is not a fan.)
• AJ playing outside for the first time! (He is a BIG fan.)
• Knitting and sewing (obviously).

As we wait for the playgrounds to dry out - which could be awhile, this is Buffalo and we are probably going to get a few more inches of snow before Spring is officially here - we are hanging close to home. So I'm still knitting and doing a little sewing. I'd like to increase the sewing but the Very Busy Toddler doesn't allow me much time.

After finishing up some baby gifts for a dear friend, I got busy with:

This dress for Daughter was originally going to be a size 2. I cut it out at the end of summer '08 when I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant with AJ. It never got stitched together (in fact, the pattern pieces were still pinned to the fabric). I wanted to salvage it because the fabric is pretty, so I cut a new bodice in a size 4 and used the existing size 2 skirt. I had originally cut the skirt to the size 4 length anyway. It still needs sleeve hems and buttons/buttonholes. She can wear it, but the problem is the length...even the size 4 length is far too short. I can't lengthen the actual dress (nor do I want to, it would look funny because it's open all the way down the back, plus it is already hemmed), so what are my options? I had the thought of making a slip with a wide band of the dress fabric at the bottom, designed to extend below the hem by about 5 or 6 inches, kind of like an old-fashioned underskirt. Lame? Ideas?

On to the knitting! I can't believe I have never made one of these before. Do I even need to say what it is? I finally made a "February Baby Sweater!" I checked The Knitter's Almanac out from the library during the summer of '08 and paged through it while Daughter played at the playground, but like everything else during that long, hot summer of anxious pregnancy, it didn't go real far. I thought it was kind of interesting, but I was in no shape to do math or otherwise use my brain.

Holy cow, what a great pattern. Elizabeth Zimmermann was a genius. I have since gotten my hands on all her books and I'll be doing more posts involving her stuff very soon. I am obsessed.

Anyway, this FBS was made with some soft sort-of putty color Patons Grace I got in a clearance bin at Michael's last year. Two skeins at $0.99 apiece, plus a card of gorgeous vintage buttons, and I have a very frugal little baby gift for a new cousin (born, ironically enough, in February). I think this came out to about a 6-month size, using size 5 needles. I've since purchased additional sport weight yarn to make another and see what happens with the sizing. EZ! You are fascinating! I'm also eager to try this using a different stitch for the body (maybe to make it more boyish?) as I think that's really the spirit of the pattern as it was written...to use it as a springboard and make it your own.

And finally, newborn soakers have been selling well all winter, so I'm working up a few in random leftovers to sell at a reduced price. I know some people balk at paying even $18 for a newborn diaper cover, so these will be 'knitter's choice' colors and will probably list for about $15 (including shipping). I think that's fair.

Oh, and a really special treat for me and Hubs:

It turns out we got the new, larger memory card for our camera just after Daughter was born. This is one of the photos we found on the old, original card when Hubs popped it back into the camera yesterday. Here's Daughter, 5 days old and all of 5.5 pounds, being cuddled by Hubs' grandmother. Impossible to believe that one month from now she will turn 5 years old.

new sewing trick!

I was recently watching some sewing show on PBS (America Sews, maybe?) and saw something so, so enlightening - I could not wait to use this trick.

The guest was showing how to set in a sleeve, and she said something along the lines of "you should never have to gather a sleeve to make it fit." She said it is not the 1980s anymore and unless you are making some sort of period costume with leg-o-mutton puffy sleeves, you should NOT have to gather a sleeve cap. If you do, the pattern is written/drawn poorly.

!!!!!

Friends, if you have been hanging around here long enough, you'll recall that I would rather chew tinfoil than gather in a sleeve, especially on a tiny garment for a child. It is pure torture, and the main reason why I make a lot of jumpers and sleeveless sundresses for my daughter.

Here is the trick, plain and simple: you stitch the sleeve to the garment before you stitch the underarm or side seams, so the sleeve is going in flat.

Place the sleeve, which has more fabric and needs to be eased in, on top, and the garment on the bottom, right sides together.

Pin the markings first (for example, large dot to shoulder seam, small dots together, notches, etc).

Then, carefully fold the two layers of fabric over your thumb or finger, whatever is comfortable, and bisect two pins. Then do it again and again, always bending the fabric to ease in the sleeve, and pinning in between two other pins.

You'll need eleventy-billion pins, and it takes a few minutes, but in the end you'll have this:

There are probably 50 pins holding this sleeve in.

Once you have carefully pinned in this manner, stitch the sleeve to the garment with the sleeve on the bottom. The reason you do this is simple: the feed dogs pull the lower fabric incrementally faster than the top fabric (thus the need for a "walking" or "even-feed" foot in quilting), so you put the piece requiring ease on the bottom. Then press, clip, etc. according to pattern directions, and go on to stitch the entire underarm/side in one long continuous seam.

IT WORKS!!!

This woman on the TV show said there's really no reason you can't sew up garments in this order (shoulder seam first, underarm/side second) rather than the "traditional" way of gathering in the sleeve. Now, I am sure there are exceptions to that rule, but in general? I think I'm going to use this a lot, and I am much more excited to make garments for my kids if I can do it this way.

Now, if only I could come up with a good, quick, easy way to finish seams without a serger!

Oh, what am I making? This:

Daughter is "helping" to make the blue girly robe in the upper right corner. I've never made anything with this type of collar before, but so far, so good. Just hemming and a bit of hand finishing to do, then we'll have a blue flannel bathrobe.

for pretty's sake

For the past several years I've really been on a "make useful things" kick (probably stating the obvious, huh?). I used to be a big embroiderer, but I stopped when I started having kids. I couldn't see the point of using my time to stitch little motifs when I could make clothing and useful household items instead.

But lately I've been struggling to find things to do with my daughter that we would both enjoy. For about the last 3 or 4 months she's been peppering me with questions when I work, wanting to try everything I am doing (including cooking, baking, ironing, caring for AJ, etc) but she's been a bit too small and a bit too young for most of it.

Last night she kept me company at the kitchen table while I stitched up a quick, simple half-curtain for the bathroom window, keeping busy going through my threads and sewing supplies. She asked a million questions and wanted to know when she could PUH-LEEEEZE sew something. Today I decided we'd go for it while the baby took his nap.



I can't even believe how well she did. She will be 5 in April, and she has always had excellent fine motor skills, but I still didn't expect much. I loaded up a hoop for her, drew three lines for flower stems, and gave her some green embroidery floss and the biggest embroidery needle I had that would go through the fabric.



She stitched along the lines perfectly. Then she added flower buttons at the top of the stems. All I did was tie the knots in the floss and get her started. Then she was off and running with no further help from mama.



Three flowers and a ladybug. Wow. I am very, very proud of my little girl.



I worked on this little bug while Daughter stitched. It's about 4 inches across and I used variegated blue floss. Not sure what I will do with it, but I guess that doesn't matter. Sometimes it's nice to make things just because they're pretty.

bleh

Ugh, we are sick AGAIN. Head colds for me & the kids this time around. If this keeps happening it's gonna be a loooooong winter.

Time to watch Tinkerbell for the seventy-hundredth time and try to catch a cat nap while the kids are otherwise occupied!

The Nativity Story

Yesterday I sat down with Daughter, while she peacefully played with play doh, to try and gently explain "the reason for the season." As I started talking about going to church and celebrating baby Jesus' birth, she interrupted me.

So here is the Nativity Story, as told to me by Daughter, age 4.5:

"MOM, mom, mom, I know this story. Mary and Joseph looked for a place to stay. They went to the place but it was all stuffed with people. So the man pointed to where the cows and the donkeys and the horses stay. There they made a bed of straw for Mary in the hayloft. Then they went to sleep. But Mary woke up in the middle of the night, because she saw that the baby was born!"

(Daughter shrugs)

"And they wanted to name him Jesus."

So there you have it.



(Apparently Grandma has a book called "The Baby Jesus" and has read it with Daughter. I had no idea.)

inVESTment

Wow, I have written lots of dorky blog titles in 4 years of blogging, but that one is a real groaner.

So here's the deal: I have sweaty kids. In the summer my poor son has near constant sweaty wet head, and I change his clothes at least once a day, especially when he is on the move. Daughter prefers to be barefoot all the time, and it is all I can do to get her to at least wear an undershirt when it is cold. In winter, she is at least amenable to wearing socks (most of the time) and AJ seems quite comfy in just a one-piece outfit, or one layer of cotton shirt and a pair of pants.

But I have to knit for them! What's a mom to do? We have an overflowing basket of hats and scarves. The sweaters I am making are sitting on shelves and in drawers, largely unworn. Boo!

I think the answer might be...vests.

I have never liked vests much, for myself. Yeah, I went through a phase in high school when I wore men's suit vests with my grunge clothes, but never sweater vests. But on kids? Kind of cute. And I do believe it's important to keep their core warm, especially as temps dip toward the 30s and 20s (and hopefully not below, but probably).

Here's the other part of the deal: Michael's craft store has my all-time favorite workhorse yarn, Patons Classic Merino, on sale for $2.50 per skein. That is the cheapest I have EVER seen it, and I am dying to just buy and buy it, stocking up on every color I like.



We went yesterday morning. I let Daughter choose two colors for herself (wisteria and woodrose heather), and we chose together for AJ (dark gray mix, and then a striped one with dark gray and cognac heather). This is my kind of retail therapy, people! 4 vests for my kids for $17.50!

Now I just have to find time to make them.

(currently in the queue: red xmas stocking (1/2 done), green xmas stocking, pink baby sweater & hat, mittens for AJ, xmas ornaments for therapist gifts, and now vests...and that does not even count the 2 sweaters in progress for me...oh help!)

rite of fall

I had hoped to have this quilt finished up over the weekend...but it's sitting under my sewing machine needle with just one seam quilted. AJ has decided that taking two naps each day no longer works for him, but he keeps switching back and forth between not sleeping in the morning, and not sleeping in the afternoon. I was able to get the quilt completely pieced and bordered Saturday night after everyone went to bed, but on Sunday afternoon when I tried to begin quilting it, my darling son kept standing up in the crib and hollering. I tried laying him back down several times, but to no avail. So...no quilt today.

We did have a great weekend, though. Saturday morning Daughter, AJ and I met up with my parents to go apple picking.


It was sunny but quite brisk, so we donned many handknits (total count: 4 pair socks, 4 hats, two sweaters, one pair mittens, one scarf, one baby afghan), and luckily I ran back into the house to grab extra fleece jackets just as we were about to leave! We wouldn't have lasted long without them.


We brought our little red wagon, but it turns out the farm has their own fleet! They tow one out behind the hay wagon as you ride to the orchards. It was so cool.


So many apples still on the trees. It was ridiculous.


We ate ourselves silly (it's ok, they tell you to!)


We went home with A LOT of apples.

It was simply...