it only took about 5 years... modern crosses quilt at last

It only took me 5 years to finish this thing... I would go in fits and bursts... get a lot of squares done and then none for a long long time.  I was chatting with a friend about projects unfinished and this came back up.  Turns out I really was nearly done, I was derailed a year (or two or more??) ago when I had to cut a bit more of the light blue background color... I had it, I just had to cut more strips so things came to a long halt.  Anyhow, after mentioning it I decided to finish up and it took all of almost no time at all to finish the last 10 squares or so.  I was sure it would take forever to sew the squares all together... but nope!  They went together in an afternoon (with some sweet help).

 After an attempt to randomize the colors and reshuffling a few different ways, we settled in on a rough rainbow distribution.  Of course, after all that I don't sem to have a picture of the whole quilt at once.  It was bound in fabric from the crib set that Auntie Gigi made for the kids.  I loved it, the big cross on the back is from that as well and I love that I get reminded of it every day.  The crosses are entirely from my stash and scraps from various projects, which is to say I have purchased too much fabric over the years.  The pattern is from Modern Log Cabin Quilting by Susan Beal (mine is even autographed :).  In all truth, though it took forever... this is NOT a hard pattern at all.  the crosses go together so easily.

 In the end, I took it to get quilted by a professional long-arm quilter guy.. Leon Gogl if you need someone.  He did a great job and had it done in a few days!  The pattern suggests tacking buttons in the middle for quilting, but I didn't love the idea of sleeping on buttons, and sort of felt they would get snagged on things (though looked cute in the pattern).  This is a big quilt for me (though still a bit small on our queen sized bed), and I didn't think I could sanely cram it through my sewing machine.  Anyhow, I"m glad I had Leon do my first big quilt project.  I"ve made some big quilts for the kids bed, but they were large pieces put together, this is the first fiddly quilt I"ve made, with lots of cutting and seaming.  It ended up pretty square in the end, and I"m proud of it!

Shoot I just realized that I need to make a tag for it.  What year do I put on it though.  Start/end year (too much like a headstone?), just the final year?

blankets for babies

So, we are enjoying another baby wave, at least from afar and I managed to pull together some whole-cloth quilts 

all with some of my favorite fabrics ever... the mermaid fabric is some of the first that I may have actually fallen in love with a bit.

The double gauze makes this one like a cloud.  These were lined wit wool batting, so it is super fluffy, and tied so on one side the babes could play with the fiddly bits, and the other side is a bit more smooth.

I haven't made these in a while, but figured the big sibs needed a little something to haul their own stuff around in so a few more zaaberry messenger bags.  I love these and may be double gifting to Noah (can't remember if I gave him one a few years ago for Christmas), but my kids both still use theirs!  

Plus one more... a log-cabin quilt that is more traditional, and made almost all with my stash!  This is for a pending baby... waiting for his full arrival, but this time I am prepared!  So exciting to have cute littles around again!

patterns

I just realized that I missed this, for it rarely happens anymore.  For ... well probably years from three until just recently almost everytime we would sit down to eat, Grace would start the meal by gleefully pointing out the patterns in our seating arrangement..... It goes something like this (with plenty of pointing to clarify whom she was speaking about... pairing up each in turn... and it only works orthogonally):  "Girls next to girls, boys next to boys, wearing blue... not wearing blue, light skin... dark skinned, kids... grown-ups, short hair.... long hair"

Spoilers

Owen was suspicious, but uncertain, he is 10.

The santa thing, the easter bunny thing, he is suspicious but he is willing  to suspend his disbelief for the spirit of the season, does not see a major need to test this story in favor of the magic and joy of the seasons.  However, maybe because he has received some pretty convincing notes along the way, the tooth-fairy was the last to fall prey to skepticism of maturity and growth.  When he lost his 9th tooth last month, he staged a "test" to confirm his suspicions.  With tooth tucked deeply underneath his pillow, and putting on his lightest sleeping practice, he constantly checked on the tooth and would awaken at the least activity near his room.

10:00 & 11:00:  I tried to make the swap for the expected shiny gold dollar.  He awoke, I told him I was going to sleep and hugged him goodnight, but no swap

12:30 Brian tries same, fail.  Sets alarm for later... certainly by this point O's suspicions are closer to being confirmed with the little parade of parents "checking on him" or "saying goodnight"

2am:  Last try, Brian gets up, crawls stealthily into the room and is caught lying on Owen's floor next to his bed, Owen peering down at him asking him what he is doing.  Brian hands him his dollar and takes his tooth.

I was so sad that this too has passed, in the morning when I checked in with him, he informed me somewhat reluctantly that he had caught Dad last night.  We talked about him keeping the magic intact for his sister and even his friends and he seemed to get-it.  I laugh too so if it's funny and sad... what is that fad?  Sunny?  Sunny.... thinking about Brian laying down with his hand under Owen's pillow at 2am, with his every growing son looking down at him with no great pleasure but a certain resignation and maybe even satisfaction but  no glee... and poor B having nothing really to say other than... here you go.  B who has written curly-cue letters with little fairy drawings on it for several of the early lost teeth, in response to requests that the tooth fairy provide a picture so he knows what she looks like, explaining why the tooth fairy forgot once, who did so sweetly to make the event exciting ... was caught weirdly lying next to the bed in the middle of the night.

P.S. O has since lost two teeth and we simply pretend that moment of reveal never happened.  This kiddo isn't missing out on his gold dollars!

Capes and butterfly sleeves

 Did I post this already?  I made this cape for Grace around Christmas time.  It was some great steely velour that I got at Knittin Kitten, and a beautiful meadow that Grace picked out at Fabric Depot.  It is adorable.

 I just finished this shirt for Grace with some great double gauze (I love double gauze... so soft, breathable, and comfy).

 The pattern is from the Lesson book, and I have made her a similar one (with a bit of a skirt) in pink before and she seemed to like it, but these days she is more into blue so this suits her well.

Wrapping soap

Making soap is great!  It's fun, it makes nice gifts and I love to use it myself!  But if you are going to give this stuff as a gift, it's a bit nicer to have it wrapped in some manner rather than just handing off some naked bars to someone... Which I do frequently still, but none the less, I recognize that it may be nicer if it is wrapped.  However, soap is stupid to wrap, it's not all that square (though with the mold it is better!), and the most realistic option is to wrap and label each bar... which means a lot of bars to wrap, and even if I do try to get the heart shaped or odd shaped bars wrapped, they are still pretty messy looking.  Now I haven't figured out the solution to the weird bar shapes, however this year I am very happy with our wrapping efforts.  (wow that's a long introduction, I must have a final to write or something).  In the past, we have done the cigar bands (eh... ) I bought some old thin accounting paper from Scrap last year which was pretty good to use, but this year... I got the kids to do some bubble prints for the wrappers.


How to do bubble prints (I was too busy making prints to take pictures of the process sorry, but I liked it so much that I still want to write it down!):

• A lot of tempura paint (a few table spoons at  least... stick with stronger colors)
• Shallow dish (not deeper than say a salsa container)
• a good strong squirt of dawn or other dish soap (when I need serious dish soap, I use blue dawn, for my dishes though I prefer the frou frou smells of mrs. meyers for every day). 
• about 1-2" of water to cover.

Mix thoroughly

BLOW gently with the straw (only caveat  is the reminder to BLOW not suck on the straw as they may do without thinking.... Owen).

Gentle blowing too, to make a nice tower of bubbles without overflowing your container.

Take your paper and just set it down on top of the bubbles.



These make cool prints at the very least. They dried quickly and were ready to use minutes after we were done.  More to the point of this post is that they make perfect wrappers for soap!  Get-it... bubbles... soap... They turned out much nicer looking than I hoped, really more of a marbled effect.

Fun for the kids, fun for me too... does end up being a little splattery, but not terrible if you don't go all crazy on the bubble blowing.  Clean-up went well, probably because of all the soap!
(pictures soon... or really you will probably just get a bar of soap!)

AAnd just because I have them here and am remembering to post them.  Mom made G. this amazing grey awesome flannel dress/jacket (gets used as both) and we both LOVE it!  It looks so good on her and the flannel is so wonderful that I bought some (similar) for a shirt for myself and an orange colorway for a robe for Owen!

For whatever reason I don't have a great picture of Grace's Christmas Dress, but I did make it, our of a red velvet that hides many errors (the hem and zipper are a bit wonky), but it is so cute on her, and turned out really nicely (and she wore it every christmassy opportunity)

 The vest for Owen I made a while ago, but don't think I posted.  It's pretty great on him, though for him, it serves as an excuse to look dressed up without having to put on a button up shirt or collar.  The reverse is an awesome cotton and steel arrow print that I love.

Figgy raglan, Basil fox and the unicorns

So I made a few more figgy raglan shirts... but only one pictured yet, as it is now November and the kids still have a hard time giving up their summer clothes!  I Love this fabric though, I bought the very last of what fabric.com had, so had to make the sleeves in a contrast navy blue (that I used to make a dress for myself too!).  

 I made the shirt much longer and traced the hem from another favorite dress.  Then had just enough fabric to make a sweet little kangaroo pouch For the hem, I tried to just use some of the blue, but with the curved hem it pulls a little bit funny, it got better with washing, but still, something to work on.

 and... and she actually wears it!  I made a similar shirt... raglan, cut dress length but no pocket (mistake really)  I love wearing it though it is a little sack like, though super comfortable!  When we had the indigo vat this summer, I dumped two skeins of rope into them and really let them soak.  Owen and I finally pulled together these two baskets.  One to corral our magazines that get stashed everywhere and one to sort of hold the games.

 oh and this one. a Basil Fox for Leslie's little guy Harrison.  He had to have black 'cause it's leslie, but I kept it a bit off the monochromatic 'cause I think they are super cute in the little pendeltonesque flannels.

 Finally, for today, you can't really see it all that well, but a cute tank that I made Grace this summer that she NEVER wore in spite of the awesome unicorn in a garden pattern and cool breezy feel.  Never that is until 1 November after a torrentially rainy halloween (though in her defense it's cool, but it's not all that cold out now. ) It has butterfly sleeves a cross over and tie back and a ruffle hem.