A cup of calm

My sister and I spent an entire weekend cleaning and organizing my house. In all honesty, it would have taken us a week of weekends to get it all done. But my kitchen is ever so much more manageable now, even if getting to the sewing machine is still an Olympic event. But, houses are for living in, and neatness disappears. But I made sure to take care of this little cupboard my sister organized.

 

Isn't it lovely? That is my "china". I got it at a yard sale for $20 when $20 was big money. It's called "Anniversary"and some of the pieces are a little chipped, but they are my 'good' dishes because I love them and they make me happy. Jason and I used to make a pot of tea on Sunday mornings before we had kids and sip from tea cups very civilly. Incidentally, the tea pot is from a friend's trip to England. It's not part of the set.

Sometimes when the house it getting the best of me, I go to the cupboard and open the door for a hit of neat and tidy and pretty. Before my sister organized, it was all shoved up on the highest shelf and I had to pull it all down to find anything. Now, I will sometimes take out a little plate and have a slice of frozen lemon cake - just to be civil.

A Little Patchwork

For the past few weeks, there has been no creativity in my life. I finished the girls dresses and then... nothing. Summer is here, and the girls and I are so busy that I have been missing things. Swim class? Oops. Occupational Therapy? Oops. And that's not like me. So J and I made some time yesterday for me to do some sewing (which is a much bigger challenge than that sentence reflects). I've been curious about the disappearing 9 patch, so I decided to make a little pin cushion. I've always thought I would like a nice cute pin cushion. Ever since Blue took a pair of scissors to the old strawberry, anyway. So I got my scraps out and laboriously cut out 4 one-and-a-half inch squares. Whaaat? Nine patch needs 9 squares. Get the scraps back out. Where was my head? I just don't know. So I sewed, and I sewed, and I sewed. And let me tell you - when your squares are 1.5 inches, that 1/4 inch seam needs to be accurate. Well see? I'm learning already.

 

So I cut and arranged and arranged and arranged and sewed. And now I have the smallest pin cushion on the face of the earth.

  

I think it is so small it doesn't even show off the prints well. But it does hold pins quite well.

Part of what got me interested in patchwork was this little bit of my past. I have had this quilt since I was a teenager. I think it came from my grandparents' house after they died. You can't tell from this picture, but it is in sorry shape. I don't know if it was my storage method (I was young, I thought a plastic bag was a good idea) or what, but it has deteriorated badly. Every time I touch it, it rips a little here and there.

 

 

And here is the back. As a kid I was amazed that the back was made up of the same print in different colors, and I also wondered why the person who made it would have bothered using two different colors. I didn't come from a family that talked about fabric or quilting or that sort of thing.

 

Incidentally, since the quilt is falling apart, I can see that it was pieced onto muslin. I keep staring at it, trying to figure out the order in which the pieces were sewn, wondering what the person who made it was thinking about as she chose pieces. I have always been fascinated by scrap quilts and the history of the fabrics that make them up.

Now lastly, as I was looking at this quilt, something reminded me of a quilt I had started long ago. I haven't thought of it in eons, but today I managed to dig it out of a box in the attic. When I started it I had just moved to northern Minnesota (north of the lake...brrr) to live with my new boyfriend/old friend. I didn't have much of a job, and I was stuck out in the cold north woods, so I decided to make a quilt. And being me, I decided it had to be a recycled quilt. Every Wednesday I would go to the $3 bag day at the thrift store and buy a bag of shirts to cut up. I would then spend the week cutting out the pieces, one by one, with scissors, using a foam core pattern piece. Then I would sew them all together. And rip, and sew. With an old black sewing machine that I bought in Duluth for $20. 

Then we moved east, and I bought some scraps of fabric at Crate and Barrel and made some more blocks, but then we were getting married and then we had kids and the next 9 years disappeared in a flash.

I bet you're thinking I had some fancy intricate pattern I was making, right?

 

Nope. Just a good old nine patch. But just use your imagination for a moment and you will see me with my tongue sticking out the side of my mouth toiling over this thing. 

I put them all out in the sun for a few minutes today for pictures. I absolutely hate some of the fabrics I used. But the feel of them brings back such bright, young, falling in love memories that I don't want to mess with them. Not even the sparkly trees. Not even the lavender plaid.

So I was thinking about finishing it. I can either sew it up as is, or I can 'disappear' the squares. I'm undecided but leaning toward disappearing them. I don't actually like the look of it right now. Part of me wants to just plow ahead with something new, even though that wasn't my initial plan for it. Part of me is indecisive and terrified. I think it would be healthier to just slice them up. Or I could just shove the impotent dregs into the attic again. Wouldn't that be a shame? For me, I mean. To turn down this opportunity for growth and all that.

What have I gotten myself into now?

I just signed up for Craft it Forward on Marie-Jolie's Permission to Unwind. I am both ecstatic and terrified. I love, love, love to give things to people. It is my life's calling to make people (anyone... everyone!) happy. I will also freely admit that I am very poor in the structure/timeliness/followthrough department. Getting better as I get older, though. And once you state something in public, you reallly have to follow though. Unless you are drunk off your gourd standing atop a bar in northern Wisconsin.

So here's how it works. I accepted a craft to be mailed to me with the provision that I would mail three crafts out to to-be-determined others. So here I am posting on my blog with this offer: I am going to mail the first three people who comment a fantastic little surprise craft of my choosing. As long as those three people go over to their blogs and make the same offer. Isn't that fun? And seriously, when I signed up, I almost forgot that I was going to get something from Marie-Jolie. I was very focused on the thought of sending three crafts out to other people.

So. Don't be a lurker. I know that occasionally people make it over here. It will be fun, and I will make you something lovely. I'll even go over and look at your blog to see what kind of things you are into. Awesome. I love this game already. So hurry! Sign up now!

So busy

I often wonder where this blog is going. Am I writing it for myself? For you? For nobody? Is it a craft blog? An autism blog? A parenthood blog? Yes, all of the above I suppose.

It has been the most hectic of weeks. Blue's first gymnastic show, preschool graduation, IEP meeting, a visit to kindergarten, a friend's birthday party. Not to mention we will be leaving for my brother's big fancy wedding in three days and Blue will be a flower girl. No stress there.

But this afternoon? The IEP is done, and I feel very good about it. And school is over for the year. And in a couple hours our in-home support person will be here to work with Blue, and she will go with us to the birthday party, which means I might enjoy the party, too. So the moment - this moment, feels okay.

Here are the dresses I made for the girls to wear to the rehearsal. They will all have matching bloomers to go with the dresses


They crack me up. I was lucky to get even one good picture. It was just before graduation and they were 100% revved up. You can't see too well in this picture, but Ivy's dress has green piping and Blue's has yellow. And they all have matching sandles, too. Blue's are aqua, but Ivy's are green and Mia's are orange. Thanks, Children's Place. How did you know?


Here is their cousin Mia's dress.


They all had fancy handmade buttons on them - until Ivy ripped one of hers off during the graduation ceremony. Maybe superglue will help.

With a CRASH and a BURN.

I've mentioned that Blue has clothing issues. I vacillate between thinking I should sew all her clothes and thinking it's so much easier to buy all her clothes. Everything that is store bought has to be knit, which I despise, and if it feels good to her, chances are it looks garish to me. But she will wear the woven pajamas and dress I made her. So my thinking ran along this line: if Blue picks out the fabric, and I make her pants from a pattern I know she likes (or a very, very, very similar one), she is bound to like the pants I make. Right? Riiight? And she'll wear them without a fuss, right?

Enter exhibit #1: the oliver +s sandbox pants.



Look at those elephants! I love those elephants. How the whole thing came together to look like something I would have worn in 1976 is beyond me. When I saw what I had done, the song "Macho Man" ran through my head again and again. I honestly didn't think anyone could make oliver + s look so goofy.

BUT! She will like these pants, and she will wear these pants, and I will bite my tongue and ignore the fact that she looks like a disco preschooler.

Or maybe not. Because as is her way, Blue does the opposite of what I think she will do. She asks for pink pants with elephants? Yes! Yes! But when it comes time to wear said pants?


Sadly, no. She actually had the gall to tell me she would like them better if I made them out of 'some different cloth like my pajamas'. And sucker that I am? I will probably look for some softer cloth. These are made of Kona cotton, which , I admit, is not the softest stuff. But from the fuss you'd think I was trying to cram the girl into some Toughskins.

And on a better note - Mia's dress? 3T top, 4T bottom. Ka-ching!

By the way, I learned a couple little lessons while making this. The first was about print matching. This is so busy it's not awful, but I'd look closer before I did it again and line the print up better. The second lesson was: don't pink your seams when you are tired. Never, never, never.

Testing, testing

Just trying out a straight up 4T for Mia before I cut into my Moda Fresh for the coordinating cousins dresses. My thought is that she is going to need a 3T up top, and about 3 inches added to the length. I could put money on it, but I'd just end up paying myself in the end.

Reason #142 to listen in geometry class

I whipped up these Easter baskets for a couple little friends this weekend. I use the term 'whipped' loosely. But I learned a lot, and I know what I would do differently next time (though maybe not what I would do differently the time after that!)

I made a rainbow shaped pattern piece and appliqued their initials, and some eggs. I put ribbon trim on the blue eggs and puffed them up just a tiny little bit. I was pretty happy with things. Then it all got a little dicey.


When it came time to decide how big a circle should go at the bottom. I took a guess.


Mmm. Close, but too big. Pick it out and start again.


Much better but still not easy. Then I apparently got cocky. Pick it out again. I had four of these to make - two outsides and two linings.

Eventually that was done and I treated myself to a little bit of playing with the fancy stitches I never use. This came out a lot better than I had any reason to expect it would. The wider stitch was far nicer.

I don't think the girls minded the fact that they barely stand up in the end. Even though I managed to somehow iron the layers together with Wonder Under, thinking that would give them more stability (don't even ask, I don't want to talk about it).


And in case you haven't figured, I think geometry would have helped me figure out how big to make the circle at the bottom. I thought the radius probably should have been equal to the length of the edge I was sewing to it, but beyond that I was hopeless.