ON{the laundry}LINE

How we do

2012-05-11T09:59:00.001-07:00

Warning: photo heavy. May contain traces of grass, sticks, and goat dander.

Concluding statements: Nicole enjoys exploring her grandparent’s farm, but Olivia clearly has country in her blood. She’s always been a bit less clean and neat than Nicole by nature, we jokingly call her our little boy. Oddly enough she’s the more delicate-looking of the two, and I dress her more like a china doll because it goes with her coloring where Nicole always looked more Right in bright fun colors. Just goes to show nature vs nuture blah blah pile of hooey. She also likes dolls more than Nicole did/does. Some kids just like mud and bugs and it doesn’t really require deep pondering.

Also if you feel the need to chide me over the photo of my kids ignoring the DANGER : POND sign I will laugh at you and move on, because clearly you don’t know how completely paranoid I am about children and water.

check the manual

2012-05-02T10:04:00.001-07:00

I’ve kind of had One Of Those Weeks where Tuesday night I felt like it’s been a long week. The kind where when my 17 month old was absolutely furious this morning when I made her wear a sweater AND PANTS when I felt it was chilly, I was just about ready to head back to bed.

I feel like when life gets to feel really hard, it’s a good time to check the manual. By which I of course mean the Bible. Sometimes I like to just randomly flip around and see what strikes me, and today I thought I’d jot a bit of that down since I wanted to commit it to my mind more. I find writing does that for me. I recently changed my facebook password to a text I wanted to keep in mind. Writing it out takes a bit longer than a more ‘normal’ password but it really does make me stop and think for a minute! As a result this post might be a bit disjointed and possibly not even make any sense, so feel free to skip it!

I’m using the New King James Version today, which I don’t always. Sometimes the slightly different wording in different versions make a text I’ve read hundreds of times stick out in a new way, though, and today was no exception.

Luke 22: 45-47 is part of the story of Jesus’ betrayal and death and reads, “When He rose up from prayer and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”

I’ve often wondered how the disciples could fall asleep while waiting in the garden, but this wording makes me think differently; didn’t I just say how I was ready to head back to bed after dealing with Olivia being difficult? The disciples knew something was up, something big, and they were probably pretty stressed out about it. I can definitely relate with the desire to just go to sleep when overwhelmed with the sorrows and difficulties of life. Or even to just shut my brain off and go browse Pinterest or something for a while. Shutting things out doesn’t fix anything, though; instead, we must “Rise and pray.”

1 Corinthians 12 : 20-26 speaks about the church/congregation/believers in general and reads “But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, on these we bestow greater honour; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honour to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

I don’t think its hard to figure out why this text always strikes a chord with me when I come across it. The Bible doesn’t talk much about things like equality, seems like, but here we see a text about how all members of the body of the church are important. A body is only as strong as it’s weakest part. We automatically give extra care and consideration to the more fragile or weak parts of our own body; we don’t say parts are useless and cut them off. How comforting! No matter how low we feel, we are important, even if we have a hard time seeing how sometimes.

In Galations 2: 11 reads “Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed…” and in 14 and follows, we read Paul say, “But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? …”

If we really stop and think about that for a minute, Paul ‘called Peter out’ in front of the congregation at Antioch, and not just that, but he also wrote about it in his letter to Galations which was then passed amongst the churches. How terrible Peter must have felt! But Paul didn’t do this out of spite or to shame Peter, he did it to correct him and those he’d led astray. Was Peter ‘kicked off the team’ for messing up? No. Jesus didn’t come to save the perfect; he came for the weak, the broken, and the failures. Which pretty much sums us all up, right there. The point of that text wasn’t “And Peter was totally humiliated;” Peter was wrong, Peter was corrected, and Peter, like all of us, was not perfect. He made mistakes. The mistake was corrected, and life went on. Were there people gossiping about what Peter had done or whether Paul should have dealt with things differently? No doubt, that’s human nature too. Is that the point, or even important then or now? Absolutely not.

So, did I flip through the Bible and find a text that said “Hey Laura, you’re doing everything just right,” or one that said “Hey Laura, you’ve veered off course a bit but here’s a list of the next ten things you should do”? Of course not, but I did find reassurance that to be human is to be weak and make mistakes, and fortunately nobody’s salvation is at all dependant on me being strong, or right, or even on me ‘staying awake’ all the time. Even the apostles got overwhelmed, fell asleep, and made mistakes – and some big ones that called for a little public correction and the sting that goes with that, even. I hope it doesn’t sound depressing; I feel very reassured.
Any pressure to be perfect and never stumble isn’t coming from God, He already knows how miserably I fall short. And thinking about Peter’s ‘public failure’ makes me feel better, too; if Peter, of all people, could look a bit ‘dumb’ in public, to the point where I’m reading about it still today, and still be considered a pillarstone of the church… then why do I worry sometimes about what I ‘look like’ to other people? Seems pretty petty and trite, all things considered.

Peasant top and a quick brawl

2012-04-27T08:56:00.001-07:00

In hindsight, I feel a little guilty submitting Olivia to GAP’s ‘model call’ contest. She’s terrible.

This side shot, which involved a lot of cropping, was probably one of the closest possible representatives to a ‘’modelled shot”

I got a lot of these ‘running away’ type shots. So we know there’s a back.

We even got some ‘detail shots’ *ahem* we’ll pretend that was deliberate.

This out of focus beauty is the only documentation of full frontal shirt-ity that I’ve got. And for your viewing pleasure, we have WWE, ON{thelaundry}LINE style.

Oooh, that’s a good chunk of hair Olivia’s got there. But it looks like Nicole has got a good defensive strategy, holding the hair closer to the root and just going along with the pull for a minute while Olivia drags her around!

Oh, now look at that turnaround. A quick shove to the ground and Olivia is dooooown!!!

Oh, but she’s back up and running again. But it looks like this battle may be over, this seems to be some sort of weird …chase-hug? We’re not quite sure.

No children were harmed in the making of this blog post. No tears were being shed, so I just kept snapping during the 30-second brawl. If you’re curious, the only person who’s inflicted any real damage between the two of them … is Olivia. When they briefly fight, if she’s losing she runs upstairs and bawls. But she’s been known to lose her temper and suddenly bite Nicole, and last Sunday Nicole sported a nice fancy bite mark on her upper cheek for most of the day before it faded. Brutal. But they still get along 95% of the time, and love each other to smithereens!

Thanks, internet

2012-04-26T18:06:00.001-07:00

In case you were wondering if seeing what keywords have brought people to your blog this week boosts the ego or no, I present to you this completely unedited image of the top 8 keyword searches that have brought people to my blog lately.

I’m not even going to type number three out, I might bring in more hits. I don’t even dare google that to see how the hey-diddle-diddle I managed to bring in four hits with that phrase this week.

Hats off to you, google. Hats off to you.

Kids Clothes Week Challenge

2012-04-26T17:39:00.001-07:00

So in case you don’t follow any of the bloggers participating….

I have actually been sewing away almost every day at one thing or another, most of which is for my children, but today I actually have a finished product to display. Simple enough, a peasant top for Olivia in a very cool fabric. I’ll try get a picture of her actually wearing it tomorrow. After I finished it, washed it, and hung til it was dry, her and I were done with each other for the day. We had a falling-out over dinner. I’d tell you who won but I don’t want to embarrass ~~myself~~ anyone on the internet.

I had to put it all large in hopes that you can see some of the detail in this very cool fabric. And now I will tell you a sad, sad tale about said fabric. (see it modelled, if you can call it that, here)

See, I was quite delighted to find this fabric with a finished edge to it, all dappled grey and pretty and very light and airy. “This,” I thought to myself, “is perfect for making a summer maternity dress.” Whether I did a tank on top with a gathered skirt of this on the bottom, or shirred it on the top and just did a maxi dress, it was going to be perfect.

But no.

Because I did my mental math on how much fabric I would need to make a dress. BUT. And this is a big old BUTT, much like my own…….. I did that mental math based on when I use both sides of the selvedge on a piece of fashion fabric. Nooooo, sir. Wrong. I came home with two different fabrics intended for this type of purpose, and in both of them I have exactly half of what I need.

And the moral of the story is

When shopping for Kids Clothes Week Challenge

Shop for Kids Clothes Week Challenge.

The end.

(on the bright side, I have to go back for fabric for me next week. Because I. Am. So. Done. With. Maternity. Pants. Please tell me I’m not the only one out there who finds that they drag your underwear halfway down your bum. And then you have to pull up your underwear, and then you have to pull up the back of your pants, and then you have to pull up the front of your pants. Repeat every five minutes for about eight hours. And then you just go and take off your pants, sit on your bed and scowl, and then put on some perfectly good yoga pants.)

Little Circles Skirt

2012-04-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

So after seeing Dana at MADE’s post about the little bitty baby skirt, Nicole decided Olivia needed one. No problemo, her tutorial makes it so easy you can pound out a few in an afternoon. Or, if you decide to do one with two layers, just the one. I’m afraid it’s going to wind up on the short side, since I was working with some fat quarters, but I did what I could to add length by using some vintage lace trim I had in my box of embellishments.

I used some of the scraps to make this flower embellishment for the waistline, which will shabby up a bit in the wash.

The under layer is actually the wrong side of a fabric that matched just spectacularly. Since I wasn’t really keen on the right side, voila! Perfecto. This is also my first time using lace to hem something, and man, it could not have been easier. Especially for a circle skirt.

So now that I’ve proven that I actually do do things in my spare time, other than stare at my children and pick my toes, let’s have a story.

So, yesterday the girls were being very well behaved and Olivia had slept well the night before, so I was feeling quite benevolent and decided it would be fun to go out for a family dinner at a local family-friendly restaurant. It was, and it was fairly uneventful, except for some major drama while we were waiting for our meal. Chris and Nicole were playing X’s and O’s on spaces provided in the kids menu, and twice he started and won. She wasn’t excited, but no big deal. “She’s not great at this game,” he pointed out. The third time, she started and had two little O’s lined up down the center, and Chris cut her off with an X.

She literally BURST into tears.

“Why would you X me, Papa?!” she wailed loudly. He tried to shush her, looking around with absolute mortification while I shoved my face in my hands and tried to stifle my laugher. I unsympathetically pointed out to him that he Does. Not. Always. Have. To. Win. I’d say letting your four year old win round three kind of goes without saying, but let’s just say Chris learned the hard way yesterday. He quickly drew up another chart and let her win.

“I feel better now,” she sniffled. “Let’s play again.” “No thanks,” he mumbled into his Pepsi, while Olivia tried to eat a yellow crayon.

Well, tonight he challenged her to rock-paper-scissors right before bed, which I didn’t even really realize she knew. Apparently she’s a champ and a con, a poor con but a con nonetheless, because she clearly waited until after he’d produced ‘paper’ to victoriously sign ‘scissors.’ He looked baffled while she cackled her ungracious-winner victory, and I cracked up.

“Looks like she’s pretty good at this game,” I pointed out.

And then she was locked away for the rest of her pregnancy

2012-04-17T11:51:00.001-07:00

So I was all up in the blog talking about all these projects I had on the go, and then I just vanished from the face of the internet. I know.

Here’s a summary of April, which surprisingly has actually not resulted in being locked away in a nice white room with padded walls. So far.

- my ultrasound shows that my due date will likely be moved from Aug 2 to Aug 12. I say ‘likely’ b/c they forgot to send the u/s to my midwife so that was based on my memory of what the u/s said, but it will be confirmed next month at my appointment. I wasn’t really counting on not being pregnant on the 12th, anyways. My babies get comfy. I guess I was sort of counting on not being pregnant on say, the 20th, and there’s no guarantee of that anymore. But we’re going to not think about that for the moment.

- My friend and I patched and primed my walls. Then painted. But I accidentally bought (poorly labelled) oil based primer. So that meant re-priming those spots and repainting. Benjamin Moore Aura paint. Yeah, ouch.

- while running to buy more paint, I rear-ended someone. Just one of those things. We exchanged info, then I called my hubby and bawled like a baby, and he came and made sure I was okay and drove me home. Nobody was hurt, and baby is fine too. We’re out a $200 deductible and Chris is a little bummed that I managed to just barely not quite write off the van, which is not his fav vehicle.

-our $150 ikea set is just destroyed. Olivia has been slowly pegging off the chairs by tipping them and they just can’t take it and have been slowly shattering. Our table wound up lame quite a while back but is now completely 3-legged. Things are a little desperate. And we want something made back when things were made to be nearly indestructible. I found the perfect set on kijiji for a GREAT price, but lost it due to an internet error. So very, very disappointing. But since we’re at a point where we are literally desperate, we have to settle for ‘nearly indestructible + do not hate’ which is a really sucky standard to go with, but we had been counting on the table set lasting us til after our kitchen renos, so we aren’t really prepared right now. Frustrating.

-my sewing machine is trying to die on me. I will not let it. If it dies I will throw it off the roof, though. I promise. *shakes fist*

All in all, I’ve had a frustrating couple of weeks but I took out my frustration on bursts of decluttering and reorganizing. I may have thrown out some things that would horrify you. Like a perfectly good apothecary jar, because someone broke the lid on the matching one and I was pretty upset because instead of saying something about breaking it, which would have bummed me out but I would have shrugged it off, the lid was put back on and turned around so the large missing piece wasn’t noticeable and nothing was said. The (clear) jar was holding Nicole’s dental floss picks, and she could have cut herself pretty badly the next time she went to grab one because someone else chose to try hide their mistake.

(no, not my brother. Apparently he has run across a few people that read my blog in university etc, and has PERSONALLY thanked me for sharing the covered-himself-in-glitter-and-declared-himself-a-vampire story with the internets. But I’m pretty sure he’s secretly pleased with himself.)

Anyway, clearly I’m not always sunshine and rainbow and brown paper packages tied up with strings all the time. April has not been my favourite so far!

You know what is my favourite? My crazed offspring! Let’s marvel at my unedited photos from my point-and-shoot camera. No pretties for you, my friends.
I wanted to take a picture of Olivia yesterday at supper because I thought she looked hilarious standing there in her puffy tutu, stuffing her face with sausage. And for some reason, whenever she noticed the camera, she cranked her head at a ridiculous angle.

and again

Why yes, she is quite the filthy little hooligan, isn’t she? (please admire our trimless door. We’re still WIP up in here. Besides, trim is for fancy people, and my table has three legs. But isn’t the grey paint nice?)

My girls are kind of ridiculous together. We have a new crib that’s much shorter, and Nicole considers it her duty, nay, privilege, nay, RIGHT to take Olivia out of her bed in the morning. Olivia could haul herself out of the crib no problem, but chooses not to. We are all very grateful to her for her self-inflicted imprisonment. Which is kind of a lie b/c everyone lines up to haul Olivia out of her bed after a nap because 98% of the time, she is full of sunshine and you just became her favourite person. The other 2% of the time you kind of throw a bottle at her and run away, if you’re smart.

Awww, muffin. Doesn’t she just look precious and sweet in this next picture? You’d never guess her favourite game is to whack uncle AJ in the face and cackle like the wicked witch of the west.

Let’s make up for my crabby whinefest earlier with Crazy Kid Stories.

So, I had a case of Minute Maid orange juice boxes at the top of the stairs, after dragging it inside from a Costco trip I was hoping maybe Chris could take it down. The next morning, Olivia quietly sat there and opened no less than three boxes (apparently the seal is not that hard to conquer on those things) and spilled/drank a bunch. Eventually she was overcome with … Shame? Pride? One of those, probably the latter, and brought me a box to show me what she’d been up to. Awesome. Thankyou for rubbing that in.

And as for Nicole, she was calling me in the middle of the night; at bedtime she had been offered one of two blankets, and in the middle of the night she apparently changed her mind. I gave her a remarkably calm chat about wants vs needs; that is, what is and is not considered worth calling mommy for in the middle of the night, and how to decide if she really needed my help or if she should go back to sleep and worry about it in the morning. After pondering that terrific-mom-moment speech for a moment, she asked, “Can you get Papa then, so he can get it for me?” No.

Greetings from the Tropical Arctic

2012-03-20T10:36:00.001-07:00

Greetings to one and all from the land of the it’s-normal-to-blizzard-here-in-March where it has been balmy enough to break out tshirts and capri pants and perhaps even some shorts, if you’re being active! We are just loving it, even if we have that bit of fear in the back of our minds that the foot and a half of snow that was here maybe two weeks ago tops will be back tomorrow or the day after.

First of all, I wanted to get a confession out of the way. Just rip it off like a bandaid. I just bought a groupon for not one but two spray tan sessions. I know. What a vain little hussy. But listen, as a 21ish weeks pregnant lady, I think it is perfectly legit for me to desire a little faux tan without having to slather my increasing-in-size body with tanning lotion in some sort of shameful naked yoga where I end up with zebra stripes because my balance is off. And I’ve gotten a spray tan once before, since my hubby and I weren’t doing anything special for our 5 year anniversary, as a little pick-me-up oh-where-did-my-stretchmarks-go. Now that I’ve blasted you with a plethora of unnecessary mental pictures, I will leave you the reassurance that with the lowest level of faux-tan available, I look nothing like an oompa-loompa.

And now we shall wash your brain with a soothing medley of Cute Pictures Of My Kids.

There, do we feel better? Ahh, sunshine and spring. Just what the doctor ordered!

Is anyone particularly interested in a little tutorial video on how to quickly fix your pictures up using free Windows Live software? You might be surprised to find that many of you have it built in to your computer already. It is quite simple and easy and great for little bitty tweaks like adjusting exposure/warmth… I don’t even pull most of my photos into photoshop/elements if they’re just going up on the blog or on my personal fb page for my friends&fam. Any of these photos in this post, for example, were either untouched or just had the exposure, tint, warmth, and saturation maybe tweaked a bit. (other photos in the past that have had things like eye pops and such did find their way into photoshop, but these ones don’t have any of that. I may eye pop the one closeup of Olivia yet though.)

but we still love each other

2012-03-09T07:52:00.001-08:00

If you follow my blog’s facebook page, then you know that this week has been this sort of week:

My kids have been varying degrees of sick since Saturday, and Chris started up a few days ago and now I’ve joined the famjam in the sore throat department. Both girls are on antibiotics now, and as far as I figure, what happened was that Nicole got a sinus+ear infection and then a sinus cold, and Olivia got a sinus cold and then a sinus+ear infection. I had figured both girls had a sinus cold from the get-go but when I took them in b/c I was strongly suspicious of infection in Olivia and thinking Nicole was starting to get there, it turned out Nicole was much further along. The doctor assured me she probably has a high pain tolerance, because I was stalking that kid with questions about how she felt and nothing was declared hurty until the night before.

Low moments of the week include that my kids hate each other when they’re sick. Well, really just Olivia kind of got a Man Cold or something b/c from day one she was draping herself all over me and only me, and if Nicole got too close she’d swat at her or wrap her arms around me and declare, “MINE!” Kind of hilarious except poor Nicole just wanted a family cuddle. Anyways, that got old fast for her and they were glaring each other down in no time.
Other low moments include Nicole having several fever spikes, the highest of which was 103.7F … poor Chris was manning the thermometer while I was running to Safeway and he was freaking out when I got home. It’s really scary watching that number go up… and up… and up! We were lucky though, a close friend of mine’s son had this same cold and he had a febrile seizure at a much lower temp and they wound up in the hospital, scary stuff. (And she went into labor what, 24 hours later? Nadine wins Exhausting Week Award, no contest.)

High moments include them starting to feel well enough to get along this morning and being quite sweet together. Olivia was feeling sucky yet and burrowed her face in my arm, and Nicole rubbed her back and said, “Oh, Olivia is such a sweetie baby; I sure picked a good sweetie baby.” “Oh, you picked her, did you?” “Yes, I told Papa. ‘I want this baby, Olivia.’”
Earlier in the morning Nicole brought me a hardware store flyer and showed me some drill set or something and wistfully told me, “I hope Papa can buy this.” “For who? And why?” “For himself, because it’s AWESOME!!!”
There were a few other sweet moments playing with Olivia’s blankie and stuffed bear, where they kept passing him back and forth and Olivia kept saying, “Thankyou.” That’s her new word, and she repeats it over and over while I change her poop diapers. And the way they have been lately, trust me, it is well deserved.

I’m quite used to my kids being little demons when they come out of a really sick spell, so I’m beyond pleased that they’re actually being quite sweet this morning. I’ll come back and re-read this post in about 7 hours when they have me pulling my hair out….

Coming soon to a … monitor near you.

2012-03-04T13:59:00.001-08:00

This blog post has been brought to you by the letter “I” for “Ipod Photos”

Okay girls and boys. I’m slacker of a blogger, I know. No Friday Favorites even. Lame. But I’ve been a busy bee in real life. It’s been some things like painting a hallway, meeting with people at Home Depot about my impending kitchen reno, cleaning and recleaning my home and laundry and children. Nothing really worth pulling out the camera for. (Although I confess, I’m tempted sometimes to take a picture every day at the magical moment where I’ve just finished cleaning everything, just to prove half an hour later that it was, in fact, clean.)

I’ve also been working on this. By which I of course mean, napping. No, not really; my sleepy time coincides with Olivia’s wakeup time. Somehow I press on. Mostly I keep forgetting I’m even pregnant. I’m 18 weeks (and a bit) somehow? Normally by now I look like I’m about 7 months pregnant, and I tend to carry like my torso is an egg with bosums on the top. This round I’m sporting more of a ‘I shoved a soccer ball down my shirts’ sort of a look. Until a few weeks ago we all kindof kept forgetting that I was even pregnant because I just looked sort of beer-belly-ish most of the time. Normally I head straight for ‘third trimester’ and work up from there, so it’s an odd thing.

However, in the last few weeks I’ve also created a cute chenille-cut-monogram pillow for Nicole, nearly finished Olivia’s topsy-turvy-squares quilt top, and created a 18m+ backwards-zip sleep sack. Olivia is a bit of a stripper. When placed in bed and faced with the concept of sleeping, she often chooses to rebel by stripping completely naked, occasionally peeing and a few times more. Um, not cool, Olivia. Not cool. So I responded by making her a hugely long sleep sack that zips in the back. I spent a few days anxiously pondering a different way of making sleep sacks from my previous way, and when I finally decided to put my seam ripper beside me and just try it, I was quite pleased to find that I’d found a much more efficient way to create lined zipped sleep sack than what I’ve used in the past.

The topic of Nicole’s old sleep sack came up, which was polarfleece, simple, and used a wide ribbed neckline instead of a zipper so she could just be slipped into it and I didn’t have to face my zipper-fears. Then out of nowhere, this weekend I got a request for a tutorial on that type of sleep sack from someone who’d read a forum post where I’d mentioned it, from years back. So I think I may do a tutorial on both types; I’d had intentions of creating a .pdf pattern in multiple sizes of the zipped sleep sack and selling it, but I think I may just do a tutorial including how to draft your own size. After all, most of what I learned when it comes to making things, I learned from others’ free tutorials!

All I talk about lately is sleep, not sleeping, sleep sacks, and the like. Clearly I have developed an obsession. With sleep. Sleeeeeeep.

If I Have A Boy

2012-02-22T20:12:00.001-08:00

I’ll hopefully be finding out whether we’re expecting a pink or blue bundle at my 20 week ultrasound next month. Boy, that came up fast! We’re pondering the idea of a boy because a) obviously, it could go either way, and b) the heartbeat came up at 145, and both my girls maintained a steady 165.

A friend of mine jokingly asked me what I would do with a boy, since I couldn’t make him tutus or headbands or hairclips. I proposed that I could dress him up like an english gentleman until he’s old enough to hate me for it. Later, I was thinking I could make him some quilts. Here’s a roundup of some other things I could do if I have a boy!

First things first, this quilt pattern comes to live with me and I make the coolest baby quilt ever. EVERRRRRRR. Allegedly it’s not even that difficult but my brain is dazzled and I assume if it is actually something I’m capable of, everyone else will be dazzled too. Especially the baby, who will write me a thankyou card as soon as he learns to write.

Baby boys need clothes, too, and this reversible vest strikes me as the perfect way to hide at least two food incidents before running out of clean.

Reversible cuffed pants? Girls and boys alike look cute in cuffed pants, and reversible is just french for magical as far as children are concerned. I need to make Olivia a reversible shirt for when we go to Costco and she rubs samples all over herself.

A comfy version of the gentlemanly look, I think yes.

Indulge my vulgar side.

Obviously.

Button up shirt converted to a onesie? I think yes.

And that’s barely skimming the barrel! Let’s not forget every single rad boy tutorial over at I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar, for after the baby child grows. Plus I will knit him many a tweedy sweater.

Now, as to what I would do WITH a boy child? Hmmm… I don’t know. Rescue him from his sisters mostly, I imagine. Time will tell!

(girl or boy… what a joy!)

Sour Soother Valentine

2012-02-13T08:40:00.001-08:00

I thought I’d share the cute little Valentines we made for Nicole’s preschool class, and the printable we created for them. Kind of last minute, but if you want to use them you still have time!

I thought I had cardstock but I was wrong, so we wound up just printing these on regular printer paper. The front is a pale pink heart (made of many hearts) with the words It’s hard to be SOUR around you, Valentine! and the back features a funny little kissy face and plenty of space to write who the Valentine is for and who it’s from, and we also added a foamy sticker to each one. The heart and kissy face were both graphics that come loaded in Adobe Elements 10.

We took Jumbo-sized sour soother candies that we picked up at Costco and put one (but could have easily fit two) in a 6 x 3.75 treat bag. If you’re worried about the elements, the top of the bag can be sealed off with a curling iron, but we’re giving them out today so we just cut out the four Valentine’s from each page, folded in the center, and then after filling in the back, stapled them onto the bags.

You can click on the above graphic to get the full-sized sheet. When printing, be sure to deselect ‘fit picture to frame’ or whatever similar option changes the sizing of the graphic to fit the paper, this should fit your typical printer paper without adjustment and will be way easier to cut that way. (I got my hubby to print it off for me and forgot to mention that, and it’s possible but way more fidgety and your Valentine’s will be inconsistent sizes)

Oh hi

2012-02-06T16:35:00.001-08:00

Nicole got some sticker earrings, play rings, and lip gloss for Christmas. She coated her face in two of those three things one day. I told her she was fancy and took a picture.

It’s really hard to properly convey the amount of lipgloss that was all over her face, but suffice it to say she was quite shiny. (She sure does look tired, I know. It’s a trendy thing around here. More on that later.)

As for me, I know, I dropped off the face of the earth for just over a week. I’m alive. I had a root canal, got puffy and sulky, did a bunch of house work, had company, got tired and sulky, knitted things, cleaned and housework and all that in repetition… you get the picture.

I’m going to give you some stellar advice now, so heed and harken. If you require a root canal, do not schedule it first thing in the morning. I figured I would get it over and done with. It went something like this.

Oh, this isn’t so bad. Freezing helps. Somewhat uncomfortable still, but whatever.

Okay, I’m done. I feel spiffy, I think I’ll pick up a few groceries on the way home. I’m a hero.

Okay, I got a root canal and I don’t get the big deal. I’m going to blindly dither around for the next two hours, completely and blissfully unaware of the pain that’s coming my way when that local anaesthetic wears off. (Please note that spellcheck is not required for me to spell anaesthetic. Applause.)

Okay, so this is starting to hurt. Maybe there’s something to the root canal phobia that gets generated, after all.

Waaah, my face hurts with the hurts of a million hurts and all my teeth feel like they also had root canals because I don’t know, sympathy pains or they are all letting out a rebel yell at the death of their noble comrade.

The rest is less interesting, mostly just me in the fetal position for a few hours, and then dosing on Tylenol and pulling it together to make spaghetti noodles and sauce for supper. (I have a pasta maker. So now I don’t buy noodles. I like to make things more complicated, if I can.) If you got through all that, the moral is, get a root canal at the END of the day so you can go straight to bed afterwards.

That aside, this week’s big project is a big old room swaparoo. For a while now we’ve been facing the grim reality of the fact that while our girls love sharing a room, it’s a bit of a nightmare.

Olivia wakes up crying at 3am, Nicole the light sleeper also wakes up. Tired Nicole.

Tired Nicole is also Naughty Nicole. Naughty Nicole throws a fit at bedtime after they’re both tucked in, because she knows that if she yells I will be quite ticked off because then Olivia will wake up and/or not fall asleep. Tired Olivia. Frustrated Mommy.

Tired Olivia goes to bed ridiculously early the next day, leading to her waking up ridiculously early and waking up Nicole. Tired Nicole. Tired Mommy. Frustrated Tired Mommy.

Cycle of DOOM!

So, Chris’ office is 90% moved into my craft room, which temporarily renders it unusable, but I’m going to make it work so we can share the space. We just both have to work hard to keep it clean. It’s going to be a rough ride but guess what? I’ll have so much more sleep and less frustration – THEORETICALLY – that I will be able to take on anything.*

So then we will be finishing the flooring and closet in that room, repainting it a neutral color just in case we decide to move this summer, and moving Nicole in. By week’s end, hopefully.

*I am fully willing to acknowledge that I may or may not be a pregnant hormonal mess who cries about anything and more sleep won’t likely adjust that much because I did get a decent sleep Saturday night but that didn’t stop me from tearing up when the minister prayed for the expectant mothers in the congregation and how they get tired and I was like YEAH I GET TIRED and teared up and then got all annoyed that I tear up over everything… and then got so annoyed over tearing up over everything that I teared up over tearing up over everything. But I got it together before the prayer was over so that’s our little secret. Just you, me, and the internet.

P52 2012 - Mallory Cowl

2012-01-26T12:48:00.001-08:00

Today’s project 52 photo is of me, not by me. I figure I need to get in there every so often, though.

My husband fancies himself a bit of a photographer. I’m here to go on the record… that I agree and disagree. He can find focus on my manual focus lens pretty darn well, considering he rarely uses it. But a portrait photographer he is not. A less flattering set of photos I have never seen. Here we have the best and second best of the set.

Best – angle is still a bit unflattering for my head shape, but at least I’m smiling (at my girls who watched through the doorway.) When I saw these photos I went and checked for Double Chin, because I am known to get one if I’ve been slacking off and I have definitely been dipping into the poutine a bit lately. But my fears were fairly unfounded, things are not perfect and it’s time to start using the second trimester workout video that came in the mail today, but it’s not half as bad as the angle on these photos led me to believe. This is, however, one of the best of the lot.

Second best. Yes, this really was the second best out of about 20 photos. I was talking. I was asking if it looked better when I was smiling or not smiling, and if I should be looking at the camera or not. He was wearing a tshirt because he hadn’t bothered to put his jacket on and just wanted to get back inside.

How unprofessional. It’s like he doesn’t even take me seriously when I say, “Come take a picture of me in this cowl I knitted.”

I’ve already gushed on and on about the Mallory pattern. I used a knitca.com wool yarn and Shannon from luvinthemommyhood.com’s pattern. It’s perfect for Winnipeg where that little v neck on your peacoat is ever so stylish but terribly impractical. It’s doubled up, and if it’s –40 and the wind is howling I can do the one wrap around my neck and the other around my face. The wool isn’t like wearing silk, but it’s not too itchy either. I can wear it comfortably and will even likely knit up a matching hat.

I’m a knitting machine!

2012-01-25T17:56:00.001-08:00

I can only assume that, like some sort of disease, knitting is contagious. I used to do knitting, when Nicole was just born. I jumped into it with both feet, starting off with a baby sweater. Things went swimmingly (despite my fear of cables) until I tried to knit a beautiful brown sweater for myself in a bamboo yarn. It took me a year of picking up and putting down (because I’d pause for a few months here and there) because it was a really fine gauge yarn. When I finally finished, the sweater was drapey, lovely, yummy looking. And absolutely positively did not suit my figure, at all. I was traumatized. I’ve barely picked up my needles since.

Then I repinned this little vest pattern, and a friend commented that she’d knit it and it was a quick, simple, lovely knit. Feeling bold, I knit it up for Olivia. Having made it too small, I made it again. This time it was a bit roomy but perfect, in my opinion. I had deliberately made it a bit long so it would last a long time. And then Nicole stole it and claimed it as her own, and because she’s kind of a twig, and the vest was made a bit roomy and long, it actually fit her. I did enjoy myself, and noted that knitting is quite good for watching Shows. But it was supposed to be a one-time deal.

More recently, Shannon finished her Adult Mallory Cowl pattern. “Well, that looks pretty simple.” I thought to myself. “I bet I could find my big-girl pants and make that.” Then I filed it away in my brain / Pinterest forever. OR DID I? No, the stars aligned. I won the ability to choose a WagJag deal from www.bargainmoose.com and the only thing that interested me was a $60 credit to www.knitca.com … soon after, there was yarn on its way. Lots and lots of yarn. “I can just crochet with the rest of it when I’m done the Mallory,” I thought to myself.

some of my lovelies; the first is already my cowl

But no. I finished the Mallory up lickity-split. (stars have not aligned for that photo yet. I even put on makeup yesterday, and straightened my hair today. But no, not yet. On the bright side I look 57% better than normal lately.) And something was lit up inside of me. Something about those rows of little v’s… they called to me. My first love is still crochet, and I do have this pattern started, but then Olivia and my couch conspired together to have the hook go missing. I need to start buying doubles of my hooks, because is it just me, or do hooks go missing 600% more often than knitting needles? They fall out of your work so much easier. (although I’d cry if my kids pulled my needles out of my work. I’m pregnant, I can cry over whatever I want to cry over.)

So now until I have either found the missing hook or bought a new one, I’m starting up on this pattern. Both sweaters are for Nicole, but seriously, I know for sure that provided she doesn’t mutilate it, items knitted for her can be passed down to the next little girl. We may be betting on team pink, but I’ll still reach for the size four pattern first. Not to mention if I make something for Olivia she’s like “Oh clothes, can I rip them off easily to be free and naked? No? Then it’s not exciting.” Whereas for Nicole she’s so excited she’ll steal things from Olivia and stretch them to fit.

And if you’re wondering, pink. It’s all pink. I have some grey yarn and good intentions but the public cries out for pink. And the public includes daddy, of course. (the first pink yarn pictured is for this one, the second is for the flower bolero.)

Kicking Pillows

2012-01-23T06:56:00.001-08:00

I’ve been on a bit of a pillow kick lately. I bought some sweaters a while back to turn into pillows for my livingroom and finally got around to it the other day. I have to shrink up the front pillowcase a bit, it’s a bit wide. The one behind turned out a bit sad and misshapen so it’s hiding back there for a reason, but it’s perfect to shove behind my back. The nicer pillow was kind of an ugly sweater, I think. Covered in pearl and rhinestone buttons, including the sleeves, it was… a lot. I paid around $2 and cackled all the way home, then asked Chris if he liked my pretty new sweater. I was expecting awkward silence but I like to take home ugly things and pretend I love them and then laugh and explain what I’m doing with them, so he had picked up on the pattern and was on to me. Whatevs.

When I did the second pillow I had learned from my mistakes a little bit, and decided I would make my pillow open-and-closeable. Next time again, I’ll do this a bit better; After I’d already cut out my pillow shapes, I decided to use the bottom hem of the sweater as my button plackets. So I had to piece it together a bit, but next time I would just cut off the bottom hem first and have the front and back pieces as two perfectly good placket pieces. This sweater had an actual hem instead of ribbing so it worked out quite perfectly. Add in some fabric-covered buttons and you have a happy pillow. Nicole tried to steal this sparkly princessy pillow and refused to give it back, until bedtime when she realized that sparkly gem-covered pillows aren’t great for putting your face on.

Pillow forms are about $5 a pop at walstoremartplace. So for the pretty pillow, which (mildly imperfect placket ignored) would have cost about $30+ and not been washable, I spent about $7.

And for the record, I used white thread and a zig zag stitch on my sewing machine. Yes, my serger is perfect for this kind of project, but it had pink thread in it, which would have shown through. (ask how I know. Pillow number one, that’s how.) I have another project in mind which calls for that pink thread so I didn’t feel like rethreading it when a zig zag works perfectly fine and I knew this pillow had a life expectancy of about a year. (I have kids and a dog. The dog likes to sleep on it like a big priss, and the kids like to throw it on the floor for her because it looks funny.) After the pillow is permanently stained and half the buttons are gone, I can take the pillow form and make a new pillow!

Tomorrow I’ll share an even cooler pillow project that will come with a bit of a how-to. I’m trying to decide if I should go for a full-blown tutorial, since I’m pretty sure I made it up, but I have to do a quick search first to confirm that. If I do do a full tutorial I won’t reveal the project until I do.

I’ve been very on-topic and that’s almost disturbing, so I’ll random it up a bit with a little tale I just remembered. I like to self-diagnose on google and WebMD and a few months ago I was feeling completely exhausted and under the weather. I had some cramping as well. I plugged all my symptoms into Web MD and I was informed that I was experiencing terrible PMS, or pregnant.

“Stupid WebMD. Wrong on both counts.”

Lol nope.

Friday Favourites

2012-01-20T17:46:00.001-08:00

Does anyone feel crazy over how I spell that? If I recall, the American way is favorites. We Canadians do love to sneak u in wherever we can. Interpret that as you will.

If this isn’t the prettiest cookie I’ve seen all year, I don’t know what is. I kind of want to make them for Shannon’s knitalong and feign total innocence over my loose interpretation of knitted mittens. Except I think actual mittens would probably be easier.

Speaking of Shannon, she released her Mallory Cowl adult pattern this week! I have yarn on the way for this. Ironically, by the time the yarn arrives our butt-numbingly cold spell will have ended and we’ll be experiencing normal weather again. For now.

This needs no explaining. Where I found it on Pinterest, the linkback brings you to Facebook, but obviously this is brought to you by the cynical minds at www.someecards.com

I made this French Onion Soup last week. And then I ate it. And then when I could find it in me to fit more food in my body, I ate it again. And then I ate it again the next day. Because this is quite serious and generous when it says it serves six, and Nicole isn’t a soup person, and mainly because it’s amazing. I used Canadian Rye Bread (it’s a different creature. When we ordered rye bread in North Dakota, the waitress took one look at our bewildered faces and kindly said, “You’re Canadians, aren’t you…?”) and chedder cheese on it because it’s what was in my kitchen, and it was magical. This recipe calls for red wine, and it gives it a nice richness that just… yumm. I want to make it tomorrow.

Oh, how sweet, how fresh, how darling. This simple little leaves headband just makes me think of warm weather and fresh air. I love it.

Googiemama’s 4-bunk bed is only the beginning of as far as this lovely bedroom is concerned. Not only do each of the beds have their own light and privacy curtain, there’s hidden storage. There’s space to play. There’s a striped ceiling. There’s dresser space for four girls, and sparkly light fixtures, and some of my favourite colors. Go look, it will make you feel like a slacker if you painted your kids walls and called it a day last time you redecorated. (guilty.)

I think I have some more rad things I found this week but my monsterface baby is sitting beside me – she is supposed to be in bed, to start off with – and she’s pulling my hair, right in the back where it hurts. If I go “OW!” and scold her she laughs this out-of-breath-I’m-laughing-so-hard laugh. This baby does not take me seriously, at all. My mom-voice has been known to cause grown men to stop dead in their tracks. Stuff of legends here, folks.

But Olivia? Olivia laughs her bum off at me.

I never thought I’d be a mom who would ask her husband to give her kids trouble for her. But there are times when Chris walks in the room and I turn and desperately ask him to give her trouble for something, like pushing the glass top off the coffeetable or standing on the dining room table. If he sounds mildly displeased, she bursts into tears. I’ve tried all range of emotions, facial expressions, etc. and I am just a clown as far as she’s concerned. A sitcom character. I sincerely hope she outgrows this.

a monster, the likes of which the world has never known

And to conclude on yet another unrelated note, I’m in my second trimester now! Exciting. I celebrated by feeling the constant desire to put food in my belly lest I feel unwell. I need to stock up on celery or something…

P52 2012 - miles of smiles

2012-01-19T18:46:00.001-08:00

Olivia greets me cheerfully while people-watching in the front window

This picture could definitely be sharper in focus, I’ve been coming to realize that my auto focus doesn’t actually necessarily do a better job than when I manually focus with my favourite lens. Kind of a bummer, actually, but at the same time a good thing; on both parts, because that means I don’t actually need a new lens, it won’t likely actually help me out that much. I could maybe use a new camera body so I can bump my ISOs without killing with noise, but boohoo cry me a river because that is not on the menu. Mama needs new shoes. Or rather, new places for shoes. More square footage. By reno or moving van, this just under 1000 square foot home is at maximum capacity with 3 adults, two children, a dog, a business, and a ridiculous amount of hobbies betwixt them all. Sometime in the next year, something needs tweaking. Time will tell!

Speaking of what time will tell, I heard Baby V3’s heartbeat yesterday! Always such an awesome thing. I hope I’m not alone in sort of suspecting that I’m not actually pregnant despite all signs to the contrary until that little galloping sound. Baby V3 had a heartbeat over 160, so we are placing our wager in the Team Pink category just for fun, old wives tales, and the fact that this is the third fast heartbeat in a row. But once again… time will tell!

Nicole’s Skirt Project

2012-01-18T08:09:00.001-08:00

First off, a quick follow-up to Monday’s post. Little Hailey’s heart surgery was successful with very few complications. She did better than expected, swelling is not bad, and she is busy healing up. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with her family, we are glad that the waiting can be with a lighter heart now, and hope that soon they can be back home! (If you’re curious, her dad is my cousin.)

Now, onto the project I did with Nicole! Thursday’s post left you with an image of Nicole heart at work (haaa) cutting away at her skirt project.

Before I give it away, here’s a few more images, see if you can guess what kind of skirt she was making!

Does that line give it away a little bit??

Teehee, I’m sorry, when those pants slipped down I couldn’t resist. Hard at work! There was so much focus, it made my day. Here’s the skirt we were working on… the circle skirt tutorial by Dana at MADE!

After I’d sat down with a coffee and some sailor-talk to figure out the maths (anticlimactically, the maths were stupidly easy, so I had to browse Pinterest for a few minutes to finish my coffee) and let Nicole choose a fabric out of my stash, the whole procedure took about an hour. Ten minutes of that, at least, were spent rethreading my serger with pink thread, and then re-rethreading it after I’d tried to take a shortcut and learned a valuable lesson that sergers don’t take shit from nobody.

The fabric Nicole chose is from Ikea, my mother in law (aka Nana) brought it and a few others down the last time she was visiting. She watches the as-is section for me. (our Ikea is supposed to open this year! Right around the same time I have a baby, I hear! Do they have prime parking for people with babies??)

So, I’ll break down Nicole Did and Laura Did.

Laura did the maths. Nicole chose the fabric and the length of skirt she wanted. Laura drew on the fabric with the magic fabric marker. Nicole cut the skirt out and chose the color of thread for the serger. Laura rethreaded the serger lovingly, serged the raw edges of skirt + waist elastic, and sewed waistband elastic into a circle and pinned it like mad. Then Nicole + Laura sat together and slowly sewed the skirt to the waistband with a zigzag stitch. Then Nicole wore the skirt and gave joint credit to both of us for making it. (which is funny, because she spent more time on it than I did, and if she tosses sprinkles on or chocolate in to a batch of cookies she claims full credit.)

It’s a big old full spinny skirt. I’m actually surprised she wanted it so long, she would have gone floor length if I had let her. I went and did a more practical tea length so she wouldn’t land on her face all the time. Once summertime hits, I’m going to invest in a rainbow of tanktops so she can wear this skirt and others like it with joy and happiness and leggings-turned-int0-modesty-shorts-because-she-ripped-all-the-knees.

She was so excited about her skirt that it was impossible to catch a good picture of her. “Well, what of outside?” you ask. I missed my window of Uncommonly Decent Weather and it is –40 (C and F match at 40, kids) with windchill today, so, yeah. No outside shots. (“Wait, what?” ask those of you who weren’t here last year. “Winnipeg.” I say, and we both nod sagely.)

But here is a shot of the skirt folded up a bit. The waistband is literally just a thick white elastic. I could have dyed it if I wasn’t doing a quick project that I didn’t want to turn into a non-quick project. I really recommend Dana’s Tutorial. I’m thinking about making one for me, with that elastic it would likely work great as a maternity skirt this spring. I bet you could whip up an entire family’s worth of skirts in an afternoon, it really is that easy, especially if you serge the bottom hem.

Prayers

2012-01-16T17:29:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, I know I had teased about posting about the sewing project Nicole and I did the other day and said it would go up today.

However, I’m not feeling the blogging today; today my cousin’s little baby girl, Hailey, in in surgery. As I type this, the surgeon is operating on her tiny little heart. It’s been a long hard road of ups and downs for her and her family since she’s been born, and the goal along the road has been to get her healthy and strong for this surgery. She was flown in to Vancouver last week after the local doctors had determined that there was nothing more they could do for her here and it was time to head there for her surgery.

Say a little prayer for her and her family (mom, dad, and big brother) today, if you well. So far everything is going well, and there are so, so many prayers going up today that this surgery will go great and that she can be on track for a ‘normal’ life… no more tubes, IVs, or hospitals.

____

So I thought I posted this when I wrote it, but I didn’t; so I’ll give you the update. The surgery is complete, things went well with very little by the way of complications. If all goes well in the healing process, hopefully the family will be headed home in no time!

Friday Favourites

2012-01-13T09:36:00.001-08:00

I think you should all know that the song in my head right now is The Little Peoples rendition of “Music is to dance to, if you like to dance, me I like to dance each time I have a chance… like a ballerina or a hip hop diva…” actually, now that I think about it, I suspect that is a Little Peoples original. Anyways, now that you have that critical information in your minds, lets move forward.

I know I shared a link with you in the Christmas Dress post to a peasant top tutorial that spans many sizes, but that involves creating your own pattern. If using a pattern is more in your comfort zone, this sweet little 0-3 m Peasant Dress pattern will be right up your alley,and a darling baby gift.

Do you decorate for Valentine’s Day? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Depending on how recently I’ve birthed a child and the amount of energy that tends to be directly proportional to the activity of said child, in the opposite direction. This year, Olivia is climbing on tables and continuing to defy death on the regular, so maybe not… but then again, this chain of hearts is so charming, I might just shove her in the pack’n’play and go to town. (I have no idea what the original site says, at all. For all I know it’s a string of chinese cuss symbols. In which case, my bad.)

I am all about charming today, I guess. Doesn’t this just make you smile? It just makes me smile. This is another foreign site, I have no idea what those Brits are saying, either. Juuuuust kidding. This link is a via but credit where credit is due… from the link you can find the etsy shop of the crafty lady who makes these little charmers. Sigh. I’ll take the sewing machine sewing kit and the red/turquoise bunting makeup bag, plus the embroidery hoop art of course…

More bunting! I am the last person to jump on the bunting bandwagon… that or I just needed the buntings to get really, really tiny. I do love tiny things. And ruffles! Guys, this cake (link is to a roundup of cakes) wouldn’t even be that hard. A medium consistency buttercream icing in pure white to do the ruffles from the bottom up, after icing and smoothing both cakes… the same tip to do the white ‘ribbon’ line around the bottom of the upper tier… and then dowels. The bunting looks to be bakers twine hand stitched through bunting.

Oh, you guys. You know Katy Dill always has a winner up her sleeve, and this sleeve is no exception. Even better, this is actually a tutorial for a cute little cross-over bodice shirt. For some reason it took me until the last pictures to realize this shirt was for one of her baby Dills (I know, that picture is kind of a giveaway, but I only noticed the sleeve. I’m a little excitable, you’d be surprised to hear.) and I got quite excited about the thought to make it into a maternity shirt. And you know what? I still may. A crossover top, cute little ruched sleeves, and then just toss some extra room into the front of the empire-waist top with either gathers or pleats… I like it. Probably gathers to go with the sleeves. I have a nice, flowy black and white knit large-print floral. Say that ten times fast. Anyways, hey ho lets go. Maybe next weeks project? And I know, not all of you sew and those of you that don’t are probably all like SUUUUUUURE dear, whatever you say. Sorry. Here’s food again:

This is The Pioneer Woman’s Beef Stew with Beer and Paprika. No, wait, let me finish before you stampede over there. I haven’t made this yet, I bought all the ingredients I knew I didn’t have onhand and I marked it on the calendar to make yesterday and got terribly excited. I didn’t buy beef because I have a large portion of a cow in my chest freezer, and I didn’t buy beer because I requested a manfolk (there are two here) do that. When I went to go grab the beef to defrost, I realized that basically all I have left are Tbone steaks and ground beef. Not helpful. I also did not have beer. I could have just picked up beer, but I didn’t want to make two stops when I had thought I’d have a stay-at-home day. I explained to my hubby that I didn’t have beer or beef, and Stew With And Paprika sounded much less appetizing. So we ordered pizza. The end. Now I hope to make it this weekend. Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!

What’s your favourite recipe? What do you like better… tiny things, or oversized things?

P52 2012 - Hard At Work

2012-01-12T19:00:00.001-08:00

This week I had a project in mind for Nicole and I. She’s always asking me to sew for her lately, ever since I made her the Christmas dress. I’m quite pleased, don’t get me wrong, but it occurred to me to sew something WITH her. When I told her she was going to sew a skirt, she asked for the book Sewing Clothes Kids Love (amazon.com referral link) with excitement. I handed over the book, but gently told her that while she could definitely look for inspiration, for her first sewing project we were going to go for something a little simpler. And I’ll share more about that on Monday’s crafty post!

Look at me all following a pattern. Crafty on Monday, free days Tuesday and Wednesday, P52 on Thursday, and Friday Favourites on Saturday. Kidding. Anyways, we’ll see how long it lasts, but I’m happy with the structure so far… a little planning and structure around here has been a long time coming!

If you’re a blogger, do you follow a schedule, or go with the flow? And either way, do you think I’m crazy for wanting to ease into sewing with my 4 year old? She’s not into Zhu Zhu Pets or Barbies – although she loves LaLaLoopsy mini figures – but crafting is where her heart lies. Do you craft with your kids? Or do you leave crafts for school?

Yes, Ryan Gosling. Yes you may.

2012-01-11T15:34:00.001-08:00

Yes you may give me a hand massage.

I know, everyone and their dog has been reposting these handmaderyangosling memes. I just can’t resist this one, it’s my favourite.

Reason one: Of course Ryan Gosling can give me a hand massage. That’s a given. If Ryan Reynolds would treat me to a nice lunch and then go fabric shopping with me and hold all the bolts, then my day would be pretty much complete.

Reason two: Egads, after 6 hours of crocheting – which I have definitely done, more than once – ‘a hand massage’ is the best three words you could possibly say. Unless you’re saying, “I bet you could sure use a hand massage.” and then walking away, in which case, you’re probably evil and possibly my husband.

Reason three: I always love a hand massage. Last weekend my hubby randomly surprised my girlfriend and I with a spa trip for a massage and pedicure (things like this totally null out his Dark Side, which was noted in reason 2), and I always forget until the middle of the massage that when they say ‘any areas in particular’ I should say ‘80% hand massage please and thankyou’ because quite honestly, that’s my favourite. Possibly quite a waste of a massage, but yes. Hand massage. Yesssssss.

In the Bedroom

2012-01-10T12:54:00.001-08:00

So, I have never ever ever in my long-legged life met a long-legged sailor with a long-legged wife. Among other things I haven’t experienced, I also have never wound up properly decorating my master bedroom, not since I moved out of my parents home.

definitely not my bedroom; found via pinterest, but the source link is just a jpeg, let me know if you know who to credit

In our apartment, my roommate decorated our room with a classic Spongebob Squarepants motif. (Her tastes have changed since then and her current master bedroom is, in my opinion, enviable.) Since then, I’ve made somewhat of an effort from time to time, but it’s always wound up at the bottom of the list. However, soon we are going to be painting the room and redoing the flooring, and then it is game on.

Currently, I have a closet organizer, which is yay. I have two bulky bedside tables that are too short for our bed (we have a pillowtop mattress) and too big for the smallish space. I have a mismatched dresser and mirror, which need to go. I am happy with our pretty new bedding, which is light blue sheets with a chocolate brown oversized comforter and pillows in both shades, all subtly striped with matte and sheen. Our bed itself, however, rests on the metal bed thing with wheels they throw in for free sometimes when you buy mattresses. So no actual bed in per se.

Basically, clean slate.

So far, what I’m looking at is grey for the walls. I have a large can of light grey, and a small can of a darker grey I’d like to use for an accent wall, perhaps something like below. Aaaand that’s about it.

I have some projects I definitely plan on doing. Curtains, for one. Another is a diy upholstered headboard, something like the below picture/tutorial, but with a less enthusiastic arch.

For the color palette, I’m really loving the one below, it incorporates the colors that I am loving and the things that I do have on hand very nicely. It wouldn’t be hard to push that last color over to a chocolate brown.

So, what I am wondering is, does anyone know a line of fabric that I should take a look at that to make said curtains and headboard? I want something classic, in these colors (the first blue on the left above is basically the color of my sheets, the grey is pretty much the wall color) and not too overly feminine. (that’s a lie. feminine away.)

And also, where do I buy tall, skinny, curvy bedside tables to love and cherish forever and ever that don’t cost a gazillion dollars? Everything I’m finding is too darn short.

Re-New Recieving Blanket - Sharp Crochet Hook

2012-01-09T12:02:00.001-08:00

So Santa (aka the mailman) brought me a Sharp Crochet Hook for Christmas. Let me say, as soon as I saw the idea, I was smitten. I pinned it immediately, and then when Santa (aka Google Chrome) asked me what I wanted for Christmas, this inexpensive little hook was in the mail in no time flat. To take it for a test run, I decided to take a cute but slightly worn receiving blanket from Olivia and add a sweet little pink cotton shell edging to give it life for the new baby. (Granted, I could have a boy. I plan on doing a boy one as well.)

Basically, the sharp crochet hook is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a curved hook, the tip is sharp so you can poke it through fabric. I’ve wanted to play with edging with crochet for a while, but the idea of first doing a blanket stitch or punching holes with an awl bored me to tears. My ADD would have none of it. Now this, on the other hand, I can do. It took a bit of getting used to, for tension for example, but after a bit of playing this was my first project. The sharp crochet hook comes with a pattern booklet. Did I follow it? Hahaha, good one. The patterns are adorable, and I’m definitely going to try some of them. But for round one, I went with a continuous 8-shell.

If you’d like to make your own, here’s the pattern:

Receiving Blanket 8-shell Edging

You need:
-sharp crochet hook
-3.25 mm (USD3) regular crochet hook
-cotton yarn for size 3 hook

sc = single crochet
ch =chain
sl st = slip stitch
dc = double crochet
sk = skip stitch

Round one: sc with sharp crochet hook about 1/4” apart around the perimeter of a receiving blanket. Sl st into first sc to end.

Round two: with 3.25mm regular crochet hook, ch 3, do 7 dc in the sl st, sk 2, sc, sk 2, 8 dc in next st. Repeat (sk 2, sc, sk 2, 8dc) around. End with a shell, sk 2, sc, sk 2 (or flub it a bit, skipping one or three, to make it fit) and then sl st into the ch3.

Feel free to ask if that is at all unclear and I’ll try fix it up for you, and if Santa happened to forget that you’re a hooker, at $10.99 with the book and $6.99 without, the Sharp Crochet Hook is barely a splurge so much as skipping a coffee or two.

(disclaimer – I was not paid for, asked for, or given free product for this. I – uh, I mean, Santa – bought it and loved it.)