glimpses

It just makes apples more fun.

A Boy and his Blob: a sculpture - one of Blue's favorite Wii games lately.

 

My pottery is getting better. Sort of.

 

Butterfly mobile I made for Blue. I hung it up over her bed while she was sleeping so she saw it when she woke up. Jason happened to be sleeping in there (we play a lot of musical beds in this house) and said she gasped when she saw it.

 

It is summer. Ivy inherited her dad's strawberry blond curls, but she inherited my humidity inspired curls, too. Curls upon curls lately.

 

Blue is growing out her bangs. When she wears her black Mario shirt and her hair down, she looks like a stoner. But if I make a rainbow in her hair, she'll let me put it up sometimes. She's playing Boy and his Blog. Backpack? Check. Jellybeans? Check. Ivy is always relegated to the roll of Blog. "Gulp!"

Cricket, oh, Cricket

Oh our darling Cricket (you must be asking yourselves) where on the earth have you been? With what have you been entertaining yourself since last we saw you? We pine for your presence, especially us of the new following persuasion. Please, return to us and enlighten us with your snarkiness.

Okay, you  asked for it. We have had a busy few weeks around here. Topping the list is shopping for a homeschool curriculum. Blue is not doing all that well in school. She is coping, but she is certainly not thriving. Her creativity and sense of wonder are taking a fast ride down the toilet. I had hoped it would be different, and I can see that perhaps each year we would have a sometimes better/sometimes worse experience, but I just can't leave it to chance. So we are soon to be embarking on the Great Homeschool Experiment in which I teach art, Jason teaches chemistry, and my mother teaches piano. Rosetta Stone will be teaching Spanish to us all at the same time. I was thinking Latin American Spanish - anyone have thoughts about that? We live in Maine, so there are relatively few Spanish speakers. If anything, we find more French in our area, but I don't think that would be most useful in the long term.

I think our plan is a good one, and I think all of us are looking forward to starting. We will be doing art every day, piano once a week, chemistry once or twice per week, and if she likes it as much as I think she will, Rosetta stone the rest of her waking hours. She is very much a visual learner, and she loves any kind of computer/video games. And she likes knowing things her parents don't know. I played with the trial version over Christmas and it is big fun. In fact, the grownups (erm - grown up siblings) all got a little pushy about having a turn.

Do you think I'm a mean mom for making my kid do school over the summer? I think we'll have a decent payoff later when we can take vacations on a whim.

And okay - in crafting news - some pictures for you, because there are way too many words up there. Please indulge me. I know this is excessive - but she is seriously cute.

The pattern is from Lil Blue Boo. I hemmed and hawed about buying a pattern for something I could probably whip up without, but sometimes the payoff for spending money on a pattern is that the shirt actually gets made. And the results? Really cute. The cap sleeves were my own idea - puffed them just a little to make it more girlie. Ivy gave me the best compliment - she wore this shirt for three days straight. Score one for mom.

Giveaway Craziness (and the winners are...)

Okay, my fingers are exhausted and my eyes are burning. I'm not sure I should have set out to look at every single giveaway, but I made it through the lists. And it's funny. I found that sometimes I subscribed to blogs but didn't enter the giveaway, and sometimes I entered the giveaway, but didn't follow the blog, but only a few times did I do both. Maybe it is my rebellious nature that makes me resist following just for an extra chance to win something. I also found that I entered many more giveaways for supplies than finished items. That must go hand in hand with my resistance to buy things I could possibly make, which is why, for example, I have not had a pair of slippers in four years (well, until my lovely sister-in-law gave me some for Christmas, anyway.)

Oh, wait a minute. You wanted to know who won my giveaway? Sheesh. Of course. I can be a little slow sometimes.

There were several entries that made me laugh. I'll try to get back a little later and show some of them to you. But the kids are running around crazy and I just need to get this done. This last sentence, between the phone and the kids and getting dressed and breakfast - almost an hour. Serious. The rest I wrote last night. See the difference?

So the big winners are...

Lindsay  who said...
 I'm not sure how old your kids are but here it goes,
An ion walked into a bar and said "bartender, I think I left and electron here" the bartender say "Are you positive?"

Erin who said...
Whew, the pressure's on. This one has been a favorite in our house for a while.
Knock, knock
Who's there
Interrupting cow
Interrupti - -
Mooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Haha! Happy laughing and thanks for the chance to win!

Lindsay, you made my husband snort, which is no small feat. And Erin was the first (but not only) person who posted the interrupting cow joke that is the all around family favorite.  I'll send an e-mail out to you guys.
And hopefully I'll be back with a few more doozies later. Thanks everyone for taking part. I have to tell you, I can't believe there were SO many responses. And I actually tripled my followers, which I was certainly not expecting. Talk about the pressure being on, now.

Giveaway Day!

Hello there, peeps from Sew, Mama, Sew! Welcome to my blog and my little giveaway. Let me introduce myself. My name is Cricket. I live in Maine, I have two adorable feisty daughters and a really fantastic husband. He is not feisty at all, so they must get it all from me. I am a knitter, a sewer and a general crafting type. Right now, I have a barn full of old furniture I am thinking of restoring/upgrading. And I'm pretty sure I will be homeschooling both kids next year for preschool and first grade. Let me tell you, my house is a disaster and there are piles of laundry everywhere. Which is why it is a good time for a giveaway.

So on with the giveaway! Last year was so cool, I really wished I had been on my game and hosted a giveaway. So while haphazard, I am putting something together this year - 10 pm on Sunday evening. Please don't hold it against me that these pictures are crap.Imagine everything a little brighter, a little prettier. Yeah, that's it.

First, I have a sewing giveaway. Because I could not think of a better theme, this prize package is a rainbow of fat quarters. Here they are. Some of them you may recognize, all are quality quilting cotton and some of them were even bought from Sew, Mama, Sew. Apropos, I know.

Oh man will I ever be glad to get rid of those clowns. I hope someone out there likes clowns, because I can't stand them. That purchase was a momentary lapse of reason.

The second item I have to offer is also a rainbow of sorts, but, well, not. I'm pretty sure all of these are Frog Tree Alpaca, probably sport weight. I had a growing problem with all my yarn getting in a major tangle, and I got in a snit and wound all the skeins into cakes with the help of Ivy, who is 3. When we were done, there were labels fluttering about the room, some with drawings of princesses on the back. So - while I am pretty sure this is Frog Tree, I can't be positive. I'm also pretty sure my mother-in-law had a first and last knitting lesson with the maroon. Yeah. TMI?

So you can enter one or both. Leave me a comment that will make me laugh. Tell me a good story or a joke. Or a joke my kids will like because it will in fact be my kids will choose a name for each prize. Why? Because, well, it seems more fun than the random generator. So clean jokes and stories, I guess. We can all read them aloud and whoever makes us pee our pants (not hard for a certain little judge I know) wins.

And also, while I have you all here. I want to show you something I'm working on.

 
Suddenly I'm all addicted to hand sewing these tiny little hexagons. They're paper pieced, and I want there to be not more than a couple pieces of each pattern.  So if there is any other cracked soul out there who wants to do a scrap swap of pieces at least 4"x4", give me a holler. I thought my scrap bin was big. Heck, I thought my stash was huge. But really? Not so much. I need some help here.

By the way, please feel free to look around my disjointed blog. I would be thrilled if you want to follow, but it won't get you a better chance to win, so only do it if you enjoy my lopsided view of life and my cantankerous ways. And hey - I hope you win something!

I was driving down the road...

My poor husband. He knows that the moment I utter those words, there will be some large piece of junk  following close behind. I can't help myself. Stuff on the side of the road calls me. Haunts me. But this - THIS! I have been looking for this for a year or more. Ever since my sister gave me my mother's china. Granted, my mother bought it a piece at a time at the grocery store when I was a kid, but still, it was our china, and it deserves respect. Enter respect - found on the side of the road. I admit, I did pay money for it, but it is so perfect I was more then happy to fork over the $25.

It's almost like I have gone and grown up or something.

Tres chic shabbiness, complete with predistressed edges. And didn't I hear somewhere (everywhere) that aqua is the Pantone's color of the year?

I think that means I can wait until next year to refinish it. I'm not really a shabby chic kind of girl. I do love aqua, though. Oh, and did I mention it dragged a buddy along to my house, too?

My real first quilt

I made this quilt for my best friend's third baby boy. Let me tell you, I would only do it for my bestest best friend. My fingers where tattered and bleeding when I was done. Why, you ask? Only because I had no earthly idea what I was doing.

See that lovely hand quilting? The applique? I don't quite know what was inside this quilt. It sure as heck wasn't Warm and Natural. It probably wasn't even polyester batting from Wal-Mart. Knowing me, it was an old blanket of some sort in there. And I wondered why it was so dang hard to quilt.

I only remember feeling like it was an endless task. And it was pretty small. Meant to be crib sized. Or maybe drag-around-the-house-until-it-is-in-tatters size. I'm glad I did it, though. Her second boy got a basketweave knit blanket. Also an endless task, but it helped me to learn to knit. Oh, that was a long time ago. It was acrylic. Ugh. But the first boy? The first boy got a lava lamp. WTF, Cricket?

But looking at this quilt? The thing that stands out the most? Damn, that floor looks nice. Freshly painted, not chipped or worn, not covered with stickers, paint that doesn't really come off, sticky foam or applesauce. And absolutely no dog hair. Even though I had two dogs. I tell ya, I'd trade that pretty floor for the wee princesses of the household any day. But it sure would be nice to have the magic painting fairy stop by again.

Incidentally, tomorrow I am painting my mother's kitchen ceiling. My mother's cathedral kitchen ceiling. Which is also her bedroom ceiling. Wish me luck. I'm being paid with a Wii. Pretty sweet deal for both of us seeing as how the professional painted gave her a quote of $450.

Devil in a blue dress

Yesterday during my blog wanderings I spotted a cute fabric covered headband with a shamrock that slid on. I do wish I could remember where I saw it now, as to provide a link, but I was on a link following escapade that I can't even begin to recreate. So last night at Target, I picked up the cheapest headbands I could find. Because even if I buy the sturdy ones my girls will break them. Sigh. In fact, Blue wore three of them to school today, and I am sure three will not come home this afternoon. When the girls saw them, Ivy immediately claimed the blue one because blue is her new favorite color. Yes, her mother is both proud and thrilled. She told me she was going to wear it to bed, and I told her no, but she could wear it to school the next day. She was happy with that, and told me she would wear a dress, too. So I said that would be really nice, maybe she could wear her blue dress to match. Her reply? "Mama, you make me a blue dress from Daddy's old shirt." Verbatim, people.

Around midnight I finished concocting this dress. It isn't quite like I had planned, but it fits surprisingly well, and it was a good learning experience. Overall, I'm quite happy with it. I showed it to J when I finished and while I didn't expect him to like it, his response was so much more startling than I had expected. The furrowed brow, the baffled look in his eyes. "Well, it's a nice little dress. It's...ahhh... random, though. And it looks a  like lightning." To which I replied "Actually, it's in fashion." "Oh!" Says he.

Well, then.

I don't know it it really is in fashion., Ruffles - check. Flowery ruffles - check. Refashioned polo shirt - check. Whatever. It was a challenge because this is one of J's work shirts from his old, municipal, job and there was an (extremely unremovable) embroidered logo on it. He didn't feel comfortable giving it to Goodwill for that reason, so it was up to me to make something wearable out of it. And I did.

Not only that, but the girl likes it. Actually, she cried when she saw it because she said she wanted long sleeves. But I reminded her that it is almost springtime, and she would get to wear it more with short sleeves and that made her happier.

And as long as we were doing a photo shoot - overexposure notwithstanding - I put her into her new bonnet. She picked out the fabric herself.

I added an extra half inch to the fold side of the pattern for her, and it fits her fairly well. I'll have to add even more to Blue's bonnet, but now I have a better idea of how it goes together and what needs enlarging.

Ah, spring is almost here. It is almost unheard of to have spring-like weather this early in Maine. We are usually knee deep in snow until the end of March and then move into mud season in April. It has been blissful. The girls might even get to wear their Easter bonnets egg hunting this year. Meaning, we won't have to have winter hats and mittens on. Ivy and I have been excitedly watching the buds and crocus and daffodils start to push their way up. I'm not sure she really understand how amazing this is going to be when things start blooming. I'm so glad to experience this with her.

I hope you have a lovely spring day. Aw, who am I kidding, I really hope I have a lovely spring day. Okay, and you, too.