must send these

I made a handful of linen tea-towels a while ago. I think they were half-yard lenghts cut in half to make two towels out of each type. Anyhow, hemmed'em, put a little loop on one corner and a button on the other. The intention was to make them apron substitutes, but they are too small for me and too big for Owen. Got the nice idea from weekend sewing. The light ones (below) are lousy for drying dishes, but otherwise nice looking. I am hoping that with time they soften up enough to become absorbant. I haven't tried the dark two that I am sending to my brother.... really, one day soon! I am just going to close my eyes and hope they work well. I washed them a few times to pre-soften them for him.

bitty booties

I made some of these a while ago... I'll have to dig up the pics one of these days. Anyhow, I had been sitting on this awesome fabric that Cascade gave me for, uh, like two or three years. These are patterned from Heather Bailey's Bitty Bootie pattern... pretty easy, though sewing up the heel with the machine was a little tight. Anyhow, the fabric is super soft and fuzzy on the inside and pretty chinese style silk on the outside. Even better... they actually fit (well, with a little growing room).

Just squeezing in a little bit of crafting on the days I'm home with just Grace... and when she can bear sleeping on her own rather than on my chest.

Very Hungry Caterpillar

My first shot at making a costume for Grace, or either of my kids for that matter...(update a lot later when I realized that folks are interested in looking for just such a costume)  This was very easy to make!  There are two greens from the fabric store, not quite batik, I can't remember what it was but a little bit of texture on them.  Anyhow I just sewed strips of cloth together (right sides facing) using elastic thread in the bobbin. This was the first time I tried this and it worked perfectly.  Hand wind the bobbin, don't pull tension on the elastic, it will do that as you sew.  The top was just about 4 rows separated by maybe a quarter inch... maybe less.  Just some small ribbons at the top to keep it up.  The hat was an existing baby hat we had with felt eyes and antennae sewn on.  I hand sewed them so it would be easy to take back out afterwards.

I love how it turned out, and perfect for an infant, except for its incompatibility with the bijorn. Brian made and wore the leaf and apple!

It's Dia de los Muertos... and between hitting a little too close to the heart this year and being a little bit busy (though the latter isn't much of an excuse) we didn't do our offrenda again this year, but I do just want to list the beloved ones that I want to fondly remember today: Uncle Dudley, Grandpa Jerry, Grandma Jean, Gou mou, Tai Gung, Tai pa.

I haven't mentioned it, but Grace's birthday, 22 Sept is the same day that we lost Grandma Jean. I appreciate that Grandpa Em finds life and love on such a painful day.

fun with squares

Okay, maybe its nesting, I don't know but I've been on quite a quilty bender... mostly I wanted to try these pillows and get two kiddie blankets done before, well, baby girl comes along. The pillows were from a tutorial on Posie gets Cozy: ( http://rosylittlethings.typepad.com/posie_gets_cozy/2009/05/pretty-patches.html )... super fast and easy, I backed them in some off-white corduroy with a basic envelope back. I don't know what I'll do with them, but I sure do like them! I also finished Diane's baby boy's quilt... I got the fat quarter packet from the menonite shop when visiting the in-laws... Diane has always loved vintage winnie the pooh, so I went with it for the blanket... Also backed in corduroy (actually the same one). It turned out pretty well, not the manliest blanket, and I didn't get a very good photo of it... it was fun, and hey... its a baby! I need to photograph the last baby blanket, for my cousin's baby boy, but I'm deciding if I"m really done. Here's my stack-o-quiltiness so far this summer... fun.
Otherwise I'm loving Dahlia season, I get to bring home a couple of bunches when we can make it to the farmer's market. Our garden is doing pretty well, we have a few sugar pumpkins getting all orange on the vine, we had a handful of nice zucchini, but our plant is taking a break and beefing up its leaves. Cherry tomatoes out front are awesome, and we have a few other volunteer squash, I"m still not certain if they're decorative or edible. Totally loving our blueberry haul and our alpine strawberries... we have two white'uns and three or four red'uns... totally delish and doing really well, though we have a few beetles and slugs that find them every now and again. Most exciting perhaps for Owen was digging for potatoes in our wine barrel out front... got two pretty good meals out it! I think next time we plant them much deeper and maybe will get more.

One more good project thus far... I was going to paint the whole room, but talked with a designer at the paint store, and she suggested we paint just the fireplace... as soon as she said it I thought... perfect! In reality I'd like the whole shebang gone, but its too much work right now.
Before (dated, homemade job of a hearth)
After... blends in much better, much less busy, heck even makes our carpet look better!

Thanks Dad! Looks great!

Okay, enough with the fruit already

Pshew, I may officially be over picking... well at least for a week or two :)
We hit TWO farms this weekend... Grossen's peach farm, which we will have to watch closely next year, they only have a few days they are open, and their peaches are totally worth it ... so yummy. So yummy in fact that we came home with about 30lbs... no wait, it had to be more than that, what's $32 / .80 per lb... okay 40lbs of peaches. Spent the afternoon (from 3-10) making jam and canning peaches, we only put one batch in the freezer because of space issues. One of these days we will get a second freezer. It's not really fair to say that that whole time was processing peaches, because I had three batches of marionberry jam from two buckets that we picked at Rowell brothers, you know, since the peaches went so quickly (we did get there at 8:30 am). I wanted some more fresh blueberries, and had hopes of getting into the blackberries... probably my best jam last year... seedless, loads more work, but totally satisifying. Anyhow, Blackberries were already done and we had to do some serious hunting for enough Marionberries, but did pretty well in the end... whatever about two buckets worth comes to... maybe 6 lbs? Jam recipes, we just used the suggestions from the Pomona Pectin box(es... took two for the day, and we were perhaps a tad short in the end) with full sugar (2c sugar per 4 c fruit) and for preserved peaches used the Ball Blue Book, just canned 'em in a light syrup.

I'll have to check at home for the official tally but:

40lbs peaches =
a lot left to eat
1 pie
1 frozen pie filling
5 quarts of peaches
5 pints of peaches
5 Pints Peach Jam
5 half Pints Peach Jam

2 buckets of Marionberries=
2 Pints of Jam
7 half-pints of Jam

We didn't seed these (a la Microwave+ sieve + pestal technique from Jar-man Jim last year... though it did make some pretty impressive Jam)

We had about 2/3 of a batch of wild (called sweet-sour) plums from our farm basket so topped the batch off with peaches and ended up with two pints and one half-pint of Wild-plum and peach Jam.

PSHEW.... I was pretty achey by the end of the day.... and jammed out. So happy about all of the happy fruit waiting for me this winter.

Now for tomatoes.

colorful quilt for our little girl

Well, I finished it! Thanks to Renee's gift certificate to Fabric Depot, Mom suggesting an actual pattern, Brian's patience as this took up several evenings (though mostly while he was out of town), and Owen's enthuiasm for his little sister's quilt! It's perhaps a little bright. I took the advice of a salesperson at the fabric store, and found one fabric with colors I liked and matched others to it. I really do love the fabrics, so much fun. I also must credit Montevilla for finding the gouged "hook" on my sewing machine that was making me curse for breaking my thread every three feet and suggesting a walking foot purchase... Both of which totally saved my sanity.... I like my machine again :)
The pattern was called Fantastic-O Fat Fun from Afternoon Delights. At first I wasn't sure the pattern was worth the 9 bucks... looked pretty strait foreward, but they show you how to cut the fat quarters up in stacks to make the stripes, and they all fit together perfectly, so much easier than agonizing about sizes and seam allowances etc... totally worth it. Took the equivalent of 20 fat quarters (I used 10 half yards) for the top. The only other alteration I made was to round off the corners with a big plate... awesome! No corners, had to cut the binding on the bias, but it worked out so nicely, smooth round corners, no funky mitered corners (I can typically get most of them, but there is always one of the four that looks weird.... yay curved corners and how about that cute mermaid fabric.... love it.

The pattern is so efficient that it took almost all of my left-over fabric to make a little blankie to match... totally different pattern, sort of a log-cabin thing, and I was out of the floral flannel and the binding fabric, so it's just a turn and topstich sort of blankie, but cute still!
Owen has taken to this blanket and is thrilled to roll up in "little sister's blanket"; I keep folding it up, and he keeps "getting cuddly" inside.Okay, two more kiddie quilts, they will be much smaller, but I have to think about them still... and get them done before Bambina arrives.

Name game: So far we have Madeline, Gwen(da), Eliza, Grace, Marina, Mei, Mary... I still like Jade and Celia, but think those have been nixed by B.

19.25lbs of blueberries

(about four buckets filled)
= 10 bags of double-blueberry muffin batches (2 pts each)+ 9 blueberry - lime popsicles
+ 2 quarts frozen just for fun (for smoothies, snacking, whatever...)
+ 2 pints for the neighbors
+ one big big bowl of fresh'uns for eatin... good thing too since the young'uns (ours and the Lamberts, oh and misc. visitors, and me :)