Conversations From The Back Seat

In the car, as we left lunch today.  The temp gauge read 112.

Bug: "Mommy, why is my hair wet?"
Me: "That would be sweat."
Bug: "That's the wrong kind of water!"

Attempting to Read

Richard and I took the kids to the library this afternoon.  Given that we were not-entirely-politely tossed out the first and last time I took the kids solo, we opted to tag-team it.  (I'll tell that story later, if anybody's interested.)

I got to wander off by myself for a few minutes and actually look at book titles and read blurbs and everything.  It was kind of cool.  I even picked out a few books, though thinking that I'll be able to scratch out enough time to finish even one is probably silliness.

I'll admit to two of them.

The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger.  The way this particular library shelves their fiction, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly what genre your book is going to fall into.  This one looks like it's going to be a nice combination of historical, romance and personal redemption, without being too much of any one of them.  I don't expect it to be a particularly light read, but I'm looking forward to it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This is probably gong to sound ridiculous, but I had NO IDEA that a movie of this book had been made, much less one starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.  When did that happen?  (Oh, last year, by the looks of it.  I was a little busy.  Obviously missed it.)  I was going to give some sort of blurb, but I suppose everyone's already seen it. ;)

I picked up a third book too, but it's a poorly written piece of garbage to have on hand for car rides.  Also probably the only one of the three I might have time to finish - sad as that is.

After picking out my books, I went to find Richard in the kid's section.  I was shocked...that place had been stripped clean.  Bug has been reading the Magic Treehouse books and the shelf that used to be full of them was entirely empty, as was every other shelf on the aisle.  Aisle after aisle after aisle in the kid's section was empty.  I thought that perhaps they were rearranging or moving the books elsewhere, but it turns out they've all just been checked out.  Almost all of the chapter books, almost all of the easy reader books, almost all of the board books, almost all of the kid's music and movies.  Stripped clean.  Richard was baffled until I pointed out that it's the first week of summer vacation and 115 degrees outside during the day.  Even mid day on a Thursday, the library was packed.

Bug ended up finding a handful of books that he was excited about (a new Charlie & Lola, his first Ramona book and a few that we've never heard of before), so it ended up being a good trip.  We read a whole bunch of little board books to Boo while we were there, but she generally prefers to hear whatever Bug is reading, so left all of those there for whoever might want them.

I'll go online and put holds on some of the books that we couldn't find for Bug today.  He'll be pretty excited by that, I think.

Just How Washable is a Washable Crayon?

We're going to find out.  Soon.  Because I walked into my kitchen and found this today.

Boo is my artist.  She also hit the fridge and the kitchen wall with that purple crayon.  I think Bug half expected me to totally blow my top but, well, they're washable.  So...eh.  I told them to have at it and we could clean it up when they were done.

(To her credit, Boo isn't even two yet and the first thing she did when I commented on her having written on the cabinet was go grab a sponge and try to wipe it off.  Sweet girl.)

The finished project, after the introduction of new colors and giddiness that Mom was letting them draw on the cabinetry.

Bug says that's the cats fighting (which, thankfully, they don't really do) on the right-most door.

Pillow Talk Swap - Getting There

Fabrics have been decided upon and cut.

And I might need a pedicure. ;)

(First post is here, if you missed the background info.)

Pay It Forward

Here's something new. :)  I caught just a little bit of a Pay It Forward blog movement a few days ago and was kind of intruiged.  Didn't go looking for the details at the time, but they kind of landed in my lap tonight, thanks to CraftyRie (via facebook), who pointed to Cas at Sew It Seams, who heard about it from Sally at ::virtu::, who got it from Rie at CraftyRie.  (Still with me?)

So, that seemed like a good sign to maybe jump in. :)

The rules:  (This is a copy and paste, so I make sure to get it right.)


So here's what happens:


I will make a handmade gift for the first 3 interested people who comment on this post.

• I have 365 days to do it in…
• What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!

The catch is that you must participate as well:

• you must have a blog
• and before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Just cut and paste this one if you like, which I did! 

So...comment. :)  Link me to your blog post and I'll start plotting to make you something that you'll hopefully find cool or useful or fun.  And I can't wait to see what people get to making for who signs up with them.

And...go!

Pillow Talk Swap

It's been about a year since I've done a swap, and I've recently joined two over on flickr.  Modernista Homemade, a brand new group which I'll post more about very soon, and The Pillow Talk {Swap}.  I've been eyeballing PTS since I first discovered flickr swap groups over two years ago and I'm actually kind of breathless that I was accepted.  Seriously, the level of ingenuity and beauty of design in this group is A-MAZING.  I'm trying very hard to not let my inferiority complex creep in. ;)

My partner filled out her form and put up a great mosaic, but I've still been feeling a bit directionless.  Then I saw this awesome quilt that QuiltDad did, from Lizzy House's Outfox the Fox pattern, and was kind of inspired.

...But how to work it into a 20 inch pillow top?  Hmm...

I fiddled with it.  I mapped.  I sketched.  And I could NOT figure out how to make it fit without it getting all kinds of weird.  Finally, I realized that I was going to have to lop off just a few squares to make it work the way I wanted it to.  I sketched some more, then downloaded a very simple shareware quilt block program to see if I could mock up something that would show the modified design well.  It was in a weird format, so I ended up having to dump it into Paint to post it.  (Which also meant that the colors were pretty garish.)

I posted the graphic pretty late last night and it's gotten good feedback, so I'm moving forward with it for now.  Which meant choosing fabrics.

My partner gave very few clues as to her decorating colors and the items in her photostream and blog didn't really point me to anything in particular.  I *think* she'll like brights though, and I'm certain that a white background would be best, so these are the fabrics I'm considering right now.

I really only need one of the black and white fabrics, but I'm still trying to decide which I like the best.  Hopefully she'll weigh in.

And, lucky for me, if she doesn't care much for the colors, they're PERFECT for my Modernista partner. ;)

New Look

Thought it might be time to change things up, visually, just a little bit.  Like it?

A Surprise Baby Quilt

Not in the sense that it's for a surprise baby...but that I was surprised to be making it. ;)

I started posting last night over on my shop blog about the Rashida quilt, so-called because I found a little bit of fabric from a line by that name and even though I have ten million (give or take) other things on my plate at the moment, it wanted to become something RIGHT NOW.  I kept petting this little bit of fabric - it was maybe 1/4 yard - and thinking things like "It might make a cute little bag?  Or maybe a skirt for Boo?"  But, no, it wanted to be a quilt.  So I started chopping it up.

Then I added a bit of Kona and a striped fabric that I adore and use as a solid, but have no idea who makes it.  I originally bought the yellow to line a mei tai, but we've ended up using it for so many other things!  (We have it in green, too.  Love it.)

I was able to get the first two rows of a 4x4 layout all sewn and trimmed and attached to one another last night, then finished and attached the rest of the blocks today.  I didn't expect to get any farther than that, but was able to piece together the back, too.  No pictures of that, yet.

Chin hung out on the cutting table for most of the day, holding down the off-cuts for me.  I try to be very careful to not let the cats mess with sewing projects, especially if they're gifts or for the shop, but he was quite content napping on the scraps and it's so rare that he wants to be a part of what's going on during the day, so I let him stay.  He didn't try to get on the quilt once. ;)

Once I got the back finished (which actually happened pretty early in the day), I had these delusions of grandeur in which I was able to baste and quilt it, too.  That was, of course, only in my imagination.  Bug and Boo were kind of all over the place today and sweeping and mopping the floor so that I could lay everything out and then try to get it pinned before someone little came through the room just wasn't going to happen.  I decided to wait until they'd gone to bed, and it's ended up being a VERY late night.  Fingers crossed that I can do it tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath on that, either.  It'll get done though.  I'm way too excited about this little quilt to let it sit unfinished.

Giveaway Day Winner's Apron

It needs a pressing, and then this apron is ready to go on it's way to Laurel, who won our Giveaway Day drawing.  She said that she liked blue and green, and I took a little liberty in adding the red to punch up the palette just a bit.  I hope she likes it. :)

Pretty Fabrics

These came in the mail today.  I SO love fabric mail.

"Heirloom" by Joel Dewberry

"The Woodlands" by Khristian Howell

 Technically, these are for the shop.  Buuuuut, I might eke something out of the scraps.  Just sayin'.