Patchwork Skirt -- A Quick Peek

I'm nearly finished with my daughter's patchwork skirt!  Taking me forever, as my sewing machine is up in my bedroom, on the same floor as their rooms, so my best times to work on it (ie, when they're asleep) are kind of a no-go.  But I'm really close to finishing it, and then I'll be writing up a tutorial so you can make your own if you think they're nifty.  

Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos from the whole process.

Pile of scraps turned into skirt blocks

Three long strips of blocks sewn together

Putting it all together

You Know You Want This

The This Cosy Life blog is giving away a copy of Naturally Fun Parties with Kids by Anni Daulter and Heather Fontenot.  Go here for a review of the book and to enter the giveaway.

(Photo snurched from This Cosy Life.  Copyright 2012 by Julie Hunter.)

Visiting the Garden

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to link to your own ‘this moment’ post in the comments below)

To Market, To Market

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to link to your own ‘this moment’ post in the comments below)

Hoedown!

Monday, we spent some quality time in our new garden.  First, the kids helped me break up clods of dirt and get everything ready for some planting.

They have enough shovels and rakes and implements of destruction for 4 or 5 kids, but hey.  This way they don't fight over trowels and scoops.

I got this hat at Colonial Williamsburg last summer specifically to be my gardening hat.  It's perfect!  Well, almost -- the inside gets caught in my hair a lot, so I'm thinking of sewing up just a band of fabric to go around the bottom of the crown to save my hair and act as a sweat band too.

All we got planted was a row of carrots, but it's a start.  We have lettuce and tomatoes started inside to transplant later.  We need to build our fence higher, though -- the way our neighbor tells it, we have mutant bunnies around here that can leap houses at a single bound...

No Pictures, Please!

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to link to your own ‘this moment’ post in the comments below)

Breaking Ground

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to add a link to your own ‘this moment’ in the comment section below)

Birthday Socks

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to add a link to your own ‘this moment’ in the comment section below)

I'd Like to Live in a Daffodil

Who wouldn't want to live in a daffodil?  They're so cheerful and friendly, always nodding their heads to whoever passes by them.  They're my second-favorite flower, after daisies.  Well, thanks to Lucinda Macy, the genius behind Etsy store Willodel, you can now find out what it's like to live in a daffodil!  Well, sort of.  She's created this amazing play set, complete with a little daffodil gnome (my daughter says it's a fairy instead) to live inside.

Willodel is chock full of other charming play sets and gnomes, all with a woodland theme, all great for imaginative play.  They're all wonderful, but this one is definitely my favorite :-)

Back. Again.

Since the last time I blogged, we've moved, we're mostly unpacked, and I'm starting to get back into crafting. At last! Which means I'm also getting back to my blog :-)

I just listed this sweet hat in my shop:


It's a 6-12 month hat I made from 100% merino wool. Divinely soft! And I love the happy, springy colors, don't you?

Here's my current project:


Yes, I'm knitting! Crazy, I know. I realized I'd pretty much forgotten the little I'd learned about knitting, so I decided to jog my memory and use up a bit of left-over yarn and make something small for Mercy -- I was thinking a Barbie blanket for her to play with when she's older, but I think I'm going to run out of yarn before I make a whole blanket, so it'll be more like a Barbie throw or rug or something. But again, don't you love these colors? Bright and cheery, and I love them!

And finally, my friend Julie from This Cosy Life gave me this gorgeous yarn as an early birthday gift:


It's hand-dyed cotton chenille from Etsy shop Crochet 4 U 2 Dye 4. I'm going to make Mercy a sun hat from it as soon as I finish my little knitting project. Fun, fun, fun!

Easy-Peasey Glue Batik

A month or so ago, I read a post on That Artist Woman's blog about doing batik with kids. I'd actually never heard of batik before, but it looked fun. Instead of using hot wax to create designs like classic batik, That Artist Woman used Elmer's Washable School Glue Gel. I thought maybe I'd try it sometime. Well, Danol spilled orange juice all over a plain white shirt one morning last week, and it didn't all come out in the wash, so I thought, why not try that batik thing with it?

So, armed with blue glue gel, watered-down acrylic paint, Dano's shirt, a body suit for Mercy, and one of my hubby's old undershirts for me, I embarked upon my batik experience. That Artist Woman said it would take 12 hours for the designs I drew with the glue to dry, so I did that Thursday night. I did a train for Dano, autumn leaves for Mercy, and for my shirt I wrote "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD" (Psalm 98:4) and surrounded it with music notes and symbols.

I learned a few things. If you do big, filled-in shapes with the glue, like the smokestack on the train or the bottoms of the music notes, they'll take longer than 12 hours to dry. And if you try to do a lot of little lines together, they'll probably all run together. If you're doing shirts like this, definitely put waxed paper between the front and back of your shirt or your design with go all the way through and your shirt will glue itself to itself. Which didn't happen to me, but with as much as they stuck to the waxed paper, I know it would.

But eventually, the glue was dry, so on Friday afternoon, we took our shirts out to the balcony and painted them. I'd mixed up acrylic paint with water in squeezey bottles, which made painting the shirts really easy, especially for Dano. I learned some things here too. Putting down plastic garbage bags under what you're painting is good (I did, and got very little paint on the balcony). Also, prewashing your garments if they're new is good. I didn't prewash Mercy's body suit, it was brand-new, and the paint did NOT want to soak into it. With Dano's and my shirts, the paint soaked in where we squirted it. But I had to rub and pat it into Mercy's body suit, and it didn't soak in as well or dye it as brightly.

I also learned that little boys who are not yet 3 years old can be awesome at this! Dano's shirt turned out the best of all, I think. He was super-careful and thoughtful about where to put each squirt of color. He would put one color over another, which made his shirt look beautiful and artistic, while my shirt looks blobby and blotchy because I was trying not to let them bleed together very much.

I think this would make a really cool craft project for Vacation Bible School, a summer camp -- anything where you can take multiple days to make it. Because after the paint dries, you have to soak the shirts to get the glue out, then let them dry again. So it's at least a two-day project, maybe three. Read That Artist Woman's post here for all the details on how to do this.

I've washed our shirts in the washer, and they've retained their colors quite nicely, so I'd say this craft project was a rousing success!

A First

If you're wondering what I've been up to for the past couple weeks, wonder no more. A good deal of my time was spent crocheting this dress for Mercy. I bought a couple hundred yards of divine hand-dyed yarn from my friend Julie back in June -- it's the same as this yarn she's selling in her shop, ThisCosyLife. I knew I wanted to use it on something special for my baby girl, but I just couldn't decide on a project. I wanted to try making her a dress or other piece of clothing... but I've never crocheted clothing before. I felt daunted by the idea.

But I started looking at crochet patterns for baby dresses. I couldn't find any I really liked -- they were all too complicated or too frilly or just not what I wanted. I wanted a simple, sweet sundress she could wear to church or the mall or whatever.

Then I said to myself, hey, I know what I want -- why don't I just make up my own pattern? I make up patterns all the time! What's the worst that can happen -- I have to unravel it and start over. Big deal. I knew my 200 yards of yarn from Julie wouldn't be enough for a whole dress, but I had some wool yarn left over from another project that was a lovely peach and just matched one of the colors in Julie's yarn. I figured between the two, I'd have enough.

So, after much trial and error, ripping out stitches and redoing, I have the sundress I wanted. Simple, colorful, and feminine without being fussy and frilly. I even had enough of Julie's yarn left to make a matching diaper cover! I found these perfect buttons at the craft store, and my first attempt at crocheting clothing was complete!

I plan to offer my original pattern for this dress in my shop soon -- I just have to write it up first :-) And now that the dress is done, I can get back to blogging and post about the two books and three recipes I've been meaning to share.

Let Me Espresso My Love

I have acquired a daily vice. I now drink a cup of coffee every morning.

I had noticed that ever since Mercy arrived and I stopped getting as much sleep at night, I had been super crabby most mornings, with poor Dano bearing the brunt of Mommy's crankiness. But the days I had a Coke with lunch, my mood noticeably improved. So since the beginning of July, I've been drinking about 6 oz of coffee every morning. And mornings are going much, much better. Caffeine is my friend.

We have very little counter space in this apartment, and most of it is overhung by cabinets that are so low my coffee maker doesn't fit under them. A couple of years ago, my mom got me a little French press coffee maker like this one, and that's what I use every day now. I only fill it half full, as I never have time to drink a whole mug of coffee, and the half serving seems to do me just fine. It fits nicely in these beautiful coffee cups I inherited from my grandparents. Every morning as I sip my coffee from one of them, I feel so grown-up because when I was a kid visiting them, these cups only came out when their grown-up company came over. Yes, I'm thirty and "feeling grown-up." Guess I've achieved my goal of never actually growing up, at least so far.

Anyway, while I'm singing the praises of coffee, thought I'd share my favorite song about coffee, "Espresso My Love," by The Divers.



This is a performance on the theater stage at my alma mater -- the two guys in the center, Pete (singing) and Andy O. (playing the bongo), are professors at the college (Theatre and Art, respectively). The other two are brothers and also attended my alma mater back when Pete and Andy were students instead of profs. Since they sing fast and the video is a bit hard to hear, here's a link to their delicious lyrics.

An Unpleasant Milestone and The Farmers' Market

What a week! Mercy cut her first tooth on Wednesday, which means we have had a cranky girl for four days. At least now I know why she didn't sleep well on Tuesday... but she hasn't slept well since then either. That first tooth is such a killer :-(

Anyway, I took the kids downtown to the local farmer's market today. It just started up last weekend and is supposed to run through October. When the weather cools down a bit this fall, I'd love to walk there with the stroller, but today we drove. I bought tomatoes, blueberries, and a bulb of garlic. I haven't tried the tomatoes or garlic yet, but the blueberries are excellent! I'm going to have to find some recipes to make with them, as I doubt they'll last long even in the fridge. Hmm, maybe blueberry pancakes for breakfast tomorrow? :-9

Adieu, Adieu, We're Going to the Zoo!

I'm finally getting a chance to post about our zoo trip! Things have been crazy here -- we took off for Boston for a couple days to help my brother and his wife pack up their moving van 'cause they're deserting us, sniff sniff sniff. Between packing for the trip and then unpacking and doing laundry, I have had few minutes to call my own. But right now, both my little ones are napping, so maybe I can get this written and posted.

Dano loves the zoo. We took him to this same one three times last year, and he remembered it pretty well. We walked through their rain forest exhibit first, where Dano loved the birds and was leery of the monkeys, but thought their ocelot was awesome. Here's a shot of his favorite way to check out the animals: crouch as close as possible to the glass/fence.
After that, we lunched at one of their many picnic areas, where Dano ate his sandwich as fast as he could "so the ants can't have it," then roamed around, climbing on rocks, while I fed Mercy and myself.

Usually she loves the stroller and conks out in it, but this time she was at The Zoo! She wanted to see the animals! She had to ride in the sling so she could see! In fact, she refused to have her head inside the sling pretty much the whole time -- she had to peek around it to see everything.


Okay, I've got a recipe, a book review, and shop news I've been wanting to post for over a week now. And a giveaway! I plan to get that rolling tomorrow, then do the rest next week. Adieu!

This Cosy Life's 7 Days of Giveaways

My friend Julie of This Cosy Life is doing a full week of giveaways, starting today! All you have to do to enter is become a fan of her Facebook page. Visit her blog here to read all about it. Today she's giving away one $10 gift certificate for her Etsy shop. She's been adding a bunch of supercute new items lately, from hand-dyed yarn to little teether dolls like this one, and some of them are sure to be prizes. So what are you waiting for?

The Ladybug Dress

Voila! If you've been wondering what I've been working on lately, here it is: the Ladybug Dress.

Nope, it's not for Mercedes, it's for a friend's daughter who will turn five next month. I'm hoping to make a little handbag to match it, we'll see.

This is the first garment I have sewn since I was... twelve? I think so. And the first time I've followed a dress pattern by myself. So I'm really proud of it, even though it's a frightfully easy pattern. I did have to use bias tape, so it wasn't all straight hems and stuff. I love the ribbon sleeves too -- I'm totally making a smaller version of this dress when Mercedes is two or so.

And I love this fabric! It's a cotton seersucker, very breathable. And so cheerful! My friend happens to love ladybugs, so I had to get this and make something from it for her little girl. I actually bought more and made a sling for Mercedes from it because it's so cute!

Santa Hat Pattern

I just added my original pattern for baby/child Santa hats to my store! It's in my Crochet Patterns section (obviously). This pattern is really easy, perfect for beginning crocheters. If you can chain and work a double crochet stitch, you can make this hat! This pattern has instructions for five sizes: 0-3mo, 3-6mo, 6-12mo, 12-24mo, and Child. I also include the directions to make the pom-pom.

I've been selling my crochet patterns quite a bit lately. I love the idea of someone taking my pattern and making something of their very own with it -- it's like getting to be a teacher, in a way. And since I also love making up my own crochet patterns when I can't find one for what I want to make, I'm sure I'll be adding more patterns to my store in the future.

If you order this pattern now, you'll have plenty of time to make one or two of these before Christmas, even have your kids' portraits taken in them if you want. I also sell the already-made hats in my store if you don't feel like making them yourself, and if you don't see the size you need, contact me because I love making custom orders.

Up next week -- a giveaway!

Turkey Treasury

I got a treasury today! I call it Turkey Tots, and it's full of turkey-themed wearables for kids. Hope you like it! Remember, it'll only be available for viewing for a couple days, so check it out while there's still time.

Also, my Free Shipping offer will end tonight, so if you've been putting off taking advantage of that, don't wait much longer.

Still See a Pattern?

Remember the snowman hat I talked about in my last post? I've made another one and listed it in my shop in my brand new Child Hats section. I'm planning to add some more hats there soon -- after all, why should babies have all the fun? I've also added the pattern to my shop, so now I have five of my original patterns for sale! I've expanded my pumpkin hat pattern to include a child size too.