Baby Break...Blog Time.
Both of the babies are crying in their respective containers. Cookie Monster is inconsolable, because he lost not one but three pacifers, in the disaster that used to be my sewing room. So he can't nap.
Uh, not me 
Mr. Moo has an cold and is having problems sleeping even though he is tired, snotty nose and congestion with a screaming, unhappy Cookie Monster crying upstairs in his crib isn't helping.
But sometimes you have to let them cry....so they keep telling me. Two babies is A LOT OF BABY. I'm not sure how mothers of twins make it through. I know how I'm making it through. I HIRED A BABYSITTER!! I'm so excited! Paint me green and call me Gumby, cause I'm no longer Pokey.
Today I invited a young lady over, lets call her Pixie Potter, she is eleven, and I used to be her nanny. She is riding the bus to my house after school to help me out. She is a little too young for me to leave Mr. Moo with her alone, but not too young to play with Mr. Moo while I (hysterical laughter) finish up my table runner, (only hours till it's presented). I'm looking forward to an excellent business partnership where I get two hours in the afternoon of sanity, so I can clean the house (more hysterical laughter), sew, go for a run, play on the computer.
I'm SOOOO excited and only twenty short minutes till she arrives. The Cookie Monster is not going to sleep obviously so I've got to go!
I'm not sure what you're talking about...
What mess?
Notice the boxes on the left (which contain squares cut in different sizes)have been pulled down by the Cookie Monster, Mr. Moo hasn't figured this one out yet.
Double Trouble
She's MY mama!!
And the number one reason, that I'm not getting anything done...I only have one lap!
Dashing through the SIMS
Now that I am not getting up at 5am to run anymore, (because Son of a Nutcracker I have a nine-month old who wants to play starting at about 2:30am, and screams if you don't agree with him about this agenda) I am able to stay up past the little guys' 8am bedtime.
I was up until eleven last night playing the SIMS and so I didn't have time to work on my tablerunner. Um. Yeah.
Here's the thing, each year my Stitch In Time group does a Christmas exchange. Last year we did stockings, and this year we are doing tablerunners. The real problem is I don't know who my Secret Santa person is. I had never seen her before last November and she hasn't come to a meeting since. Okay that may technically not be true, since I have had to miss a few meetings (we meet once a month) here and there because my classes sometimes conflict with our meetings.
Not knowing who I'm making the tablerunner for really slowed me down. This is the reason I will never be a good retail sales product producer. I need to know who I'm making the quilt, giraffe, elephant, wool pillows (holy cow am I hooked on these now) for, it makes a big difference to me in the colors and patterns I choose.
For instance one of my favorite quilts was one I made for my nephew out of Pooh fabric. Now Pooh is not terribly original but I loved the quilt because I used a Bear's Paw pattern. I love doing subtle things like that in a quilt.
I did mark the quilt last night, and begin machine sewing the crosshatching. Here is a picture of Mr. Moo attempting to help. This is of course after he wreaked havoc all over the rest of the room. He is into everything!
Marking the runner
This is my first venture into machine quilting. I don't really like it. While it is technically faster, it is more stressful for me, I love the calmness and fluid motions of hand sewing. That's probably why I'm getting so much of it done. *eye rolls*
I've given myself an excuse. Christmas. I don't have to work on anything that isn't a Christmas present until January.
Of course January is when I plan on ripping down the sheetrock in my sewing room. But more on that later.
Table Runner Who?
Uh yeah, table runner, not finished. I have two very good excuses. One is that my mother -in-law got me hooked on wool this weekend. She decided we needed to make wool pillows for the bazaar on Saturday.
Talk about instant gratification. These babies are slick and so easy! I made this Santa pillow yesterday and am working on a Gingerbread man pillow next.
Santa Pillow
Next, The Man taught me how to play an game called the SIMS. This game is like playing dollhouse on Steroids. And boy did I love playing house. If this keeps up I may have to get a babysitter for Mr. Moo so I can stay home and play on the computer...I may even give up sewing !
That won't happen, for one thing my sewing room is warmer than the computer room, which is the COLDEST place in the whole darn chilly house!
Lets end positively. Things I did do today.
-went for a run
-marked the table runner for quilting
-snuggled my little sick buddy
-watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
November's Block of the Month
Well, the newsletter is done and sent out on the airwaves, the BOM is done and posted below.
Turkey Tracks
On the not done list we have the table runner for Tuesday, crafts for the bazaar on Saturday, un known Christmas gifts, and everything on the UFO list. On top of it all Mr. Moo is miserably sick, but he was introduced to chicken broth today and is a very happy though snotty baby.
August's Block
Tonight I'm working on my Mad Quilter's Newsletter, I suddenly realized that it was the end of November and I hadn't gotten it out yet. This month's Block of the Month is not quite done either. With an unfinished table runner that needs to be done by Tuesday night I'm starting to stress a bit. I did finish a giraffe today and I got a request to make another!!! My UFO list is growing by the minute!
Below is the picture of August's BOM it is called Hourglass. I'm hoping some off the other Mad Quilters will send me pictures of their BOM's so I can display them as well.
Hourglass
'Twas the Night before Thanksgiving
Dust Bunnies
'Twas the Night before Thanksgiving
and all through the house
the Dust Bunnies were scurrying
to pack and move out.
For here came this lady
with a broom in one hand
a mop in the other,
Intruder to their land.
They had been happy here,
for months! They complained.
They had planned on living here,
for as long as it rained.
Out! Out! shouted the broom -
wielding Witch.
"You've all got to go
before I can sit down and Stitch!"
"People are coming,
from here and from there
and I won't have them knowing
that I shelter dust hares!
After Thanksgiving,
I'll forget you exist,
you can all move back in,
because on my list...
cleaning is something
you do once a year.
Now The Man knows the truth,
It is just as he feared!
A wife who won't clean
except under pressure,
who feeds the dust bunnies
while fabric she measures.
But today is the Day
that dust bunnies see light !
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL
AND TO ALL A GOOD FIGHT!
Forever
Sometimes the hardest thing about your dream home is it’s location. Our picturesque setting comes with many pleasures, no neighbors in view, the sound of running water (nearby creek) foliage view from every window, and my favorite, no pooper scooper laws. But there are always some drawbacks, no cable has ever been run down this road (not a huge hardship) and DSL only became available in August. Since August I have been in DSL heaven, having an infant means I have less time on the computer than I want, but waiting for dial up was impossible.
However since DSL has come into our lives I have been exposed to Spyware and pop ups for the first time. These problems never surface when you have country bumpkin dial up. So now I have frustrating days where I can’t get on the internet because the spyware has re directed me to (obscene site of your choosing, after all this is a family blog).
But now all is well because (to borrow from Sarah) the Super Nice Husband has come home on his lunch break to fix all my internet problems.
So without further adieu ….
Here she is ….
Forever and Quilt
I finished up my Softie for Loobylu’s November Month of Softies project. Her name is Forever.
She is going to a foster daughter of a woman whom I work with at the OB clinic where I am doing my internship, this woman was also my OB’s medical assistant. All day long she works with pregnant women, some who are doing things to themselves that we would never believe, those of us who gave up caffeine, and beer and OH MY GOD, chocolate, so our babies would be healthy can’t imagine putting Meth, Cocaine or Heroin into our unborn babies. This woman works with this everyday and then is a foster mother on top of it.
She has a foster daughter right now who has had a difficult time, at five years old she has had three almost adoptions. That’s right, she was almost adopted three times and those adoptions did not go through, so she has some attachments issues.
Her foster mother always makes sure when she gives her a present, that she rights the little girls name on it, because “it’s hers forever”. So here is my Softie, Forever, with her quilt accessory. Because to me quilts say “I want you to be warm and loved, forever.”
Somethin' fishy
cool case
I love my quilting case. As you can see it is just a fishing tackle box that I bought at the local fishing and hunting outlet but I love it. I can divide and conquer all my quilting thread, keeping it safe from my machine thread. I have my fabric pens, and pencils safe and sound (not marking all over things they shouldn't) and my trusty tins.
Altoids, and breathmints of all shapes and sizes where I keep my pins of different sizes, my needles of different sizes, bells and whistles for ornamentation. My favorite pin cushion that I swear is stuffed with pine needles, it always smells soooooo good.
And the icing on the cake is that the top opens up and you can keep applique projects or even baby quilts inside. And it doesn't even smell like fish! BONUS.
Things I could be doing
I love going to other blogs and seeing what everyone is up to, it is so inspiring for me, of course what I should be doing is my single case design paper (due Tuesday) for my Methods Research class but I’m at the computer and I just wanted to peek.
And then of course I want to blog, because Hey! I'm at the computer already. Below is a picture of my Pixie Twilight Quilt, also known as the Mad Quilter’s Block of the Month 2003.
Pixie Twilight
I set the Blocks of the month around a sunset scene, and plan to use the purple fabric in the corners as a fat border followed by the same dark purple and orange sashing for the outside border.
This quilt is for a young lady I know, hopefully for her twelfth birthday (April) as usual my original plan was this Christmas, but sometimes goals don’t work out. The name Pixie Twilight came from a woman I knew a long time ago who planned on naming her unborn daughter Pixie, but she had a son, so she scrapped that name.
These colors remind me of twilight and its future owner reminds me a of a forest pixie, so I thought the name was fitting. I love my Dr. Seuss tree in the sunset, originally I wanted to put an owl there, but I like it without the owl for now. The tree is just pinned on, I have to baste it soon because there is one thing I have learned as my UFO stash grows and that is that pins...RUST. A quick and easy way to ruin a quilt.
I enjoy having my UFO’s so readily available for viewing on my blog, because I can get all excited about them again without taking them out of the box. So it is only a virtual mess in my head instead of one in my sewing room.
Back to the schoolwork!
Rockin' out
Well, just got off the phone with The Man and it's confirmed, all three of us our sick. I've been feeling puny since Wednesday morning but have managed to stave off any serious illness, but this morning I woke up with a swollen throat, and I was not happy.
Mr. Moo has been miserable since yesterday, I thought maybe it was the shot he got at his 9 month check up but it appears that he just doesn't feel good.
This became really obvious when he sat next to me at the sewing machine for almost thirty minutes.
Li'l Helper
He really enjoys the noise the sewing machine makes....I don't know why. He also got excited about the fringe on this afghan (who doesn't?) and he liked being rocked, which was hard to do and work the machine pedal at the same time. He even tried bouncing his 24lbs around to make it move but that tired him out pretty quick.
I spent the morning working on the Denim Fish Quilt. My new goal is Thanksgiving, since I obviously didn't make the Halloween goal. The problem as I see it, is that I don't like piecing at the machine as much as I like quilting at the frame. I often leave huge spaces in my quilts for hand quilting later and with denim there is no quilting reward there is only tying. Ahh me.
Well Mr. Moo is out for the count, I'm headed to the showers.
Behind the Scenes
Santa's Workshop
When I start getting down on myself for all the things I'm not accomplishing (uh like my pink elephant or check out my UFO's list and those are only the ones I've listed so far) I remember that I'm making lots of headway on my christmas projects.
I start thinking What have I been doing with time? Look what everyone else is accomplishing and then I remember that I can't post the majority of the projects I'm working on because they are presents! So after that pep talk I'm off to work on a paper for school with a sense of accomplishment.
High Ho Silver.
In the Beginning
Okay, I'm such a computer dork that I am not even able to troubleshoot my own blog, apparently my non-dork super computer geek husband was ridding our hard drive of spyware last night and set my security settings so high that I couldn't access my own blog or hotmail....anyway the trauma of it all.
On an up note it is always cool when people read your blog, and I found out that Sarah at Hip to Piece Squares is alive!! yahoo.
Rowing
So in the beginning there was Chiropractor coffee girl and Li'l Muscle. We were all on the Crew team together in college...No not the Harvard rowing team pictured above, but the Washington State Rowing Team. GO COUGS. (I'm trying to be more open here) Anyway I had been quilting for about a year and was looking for quilter buddies when we had a reunion of sorts in Pullman and both expressed quilting interests.
So we became the Saturday morning Crew Quilters, but then my sister and "T" joined and then Cool kelly started coming around and since we all lived all over the Northwest we became the Mad Quilters, because "T"'s husband said we were crazy to drive all over for quilting groups. But we like quilting.
Then Cool Kelly moved to Texas and Li'l Muscle's doctorate program moved to Chicago and now we have to keep touch by internet/and montly newsletter. Then we started doing the Blocks of the Months which I love.
You can find all the patterns for our current BOM in Block Party by Marsha McClosky, except the Turtle pattern which lists it's measurements.
So a history lesson on the Mad Quilters.
Where have all the bloggers gone?
September's Star
An Antique Star was the pattern for the September Mad Quilter's Monthly Block of the Month. I of course should be posting the Turkey Tracks pattern for November but we didn't meet in November do to my sister's emergency tonsillectomy. One more thing to add to my to do list. I'm not sure why I organize blocks of the month because it just leaves me with yet another unfinished quilt! But gosh they are fun! Seeing everyone's color/fabric/style interpretation of the same pattern is awesome.
When I first started blogging, but before I became a blogger I used to follow two sites. QuiltMommy and Hip to Piece Squres. But they haven’t blogged in awhile. The interesting thing about this is …..where did they go? If you friend suddenly stopped returning your phone calls you would go to his/her house or call his/her friends and relatives to find out what happened to them. In the blogosphere however, you never know, maybe they just got tired of it, maybe they didn’t have the addictive personality trait I have….maybe they don’t have to see movies all the way through JUST TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.
The blogosphere is an interesting place to inhabit, every day I learn a little more about this place. Yesterday as I was site hopping (I think I started at Suburban Bliss but I can’t be sure) I ended up taking a What kind of Blogger are you survey at blogthings.com and one of the answers to the question What is your biggest blogging pet peeve? Was Bloggers who never share anything about themselves? I thought this brought up an interesting query.
While I live with a techno junkie who has his own blogs (yes blogs plural) and does disclose our baby’s name and pictures of our house, I am not that comfortable with the internet community yet. I have a hard time placing my baby’s name on my post but I wonder if that drives away readers. And then I wonder if I care. In this day of Reality Show TV, are we expected to disclose everything about ourselves on our Blogs in order to attract readers?
I guess to answer my own question I would have to say that no, I don’t have to disclose my house number and family’s whereabouts if I don’t want to, after all I started blogging to communicate with those other crazy crafters that I can always reach with in physical demographics. The Blogosphere is full of people I would never meet in my daily routine and those are the people who I want to blog back and forth with and see what crafts they are crafting.
So craft on!
On the Road Again
Season table runner
Well after a week of houseguests we spent yesterday on the road returning all visitors to their various ports, home ports and Airports. Sadly Mr. Moo’s fan club is back down to its original two members.
On the upside, since The Man did all of the all day driving trip, I did get started on the Seasonal Table Runner that I need to have done in two weeks for my Quilting groups Annual Christmas exchange. Due to the lack of daylight of this time of the year I was forced to put the project down around 4pm. (That is so early!)
Above is the picture of what I accomplished, its just the appliqué, I plan to embellish the trees and gingerbread men with embroidery floss, and I may add some snow flakes to the middle I can’t decide yet.
I have my internship all day today so no dice on sewing projects or house keeping (eek!) but when I get home I’m going to do some serious sewing machine work, I have a giraffe, and a pink elephant to finish. Of course The Man gets frustrated with me since the Fish Denim Quilt is still unfinished and the Pink Elephant Quilt is sitting un-quilted on the frame in the hall, but sometimes you have to do little projects like Wee dolls and giraffes to keep the momentum going.
All in a Day's Work
Daisy
Top News Story:
Daisy the Wee turned out to be bigger than I expected, I always though the Wee girls were much smaller. I really like the pin cushion idea though and so Daisy’s face is made up of colored pins. Very Fun! Thanks for the pattern Hillary!
Other News:
Got to working on the latest giraffe last night and realized I had left the cut out belly and neck at my sister’s when we were staying with her the night before her surgery, so had to do some fabric shuffling and hope to finish that guy up tonight.
Well a whirlwind day of entertaining Team Grandma today. Both The Man’s mom and mine were in town for the weekend and we spent the day traveling around to cute baby shops. Mr. Moo scored some new crawling shoes and Christmas clothes while I got lots of ideas for new stuffed animals including a few cute elephant pictures from Humphrey’s Corner.
We hit a very small town Quilt show at a local grange and I got some great quilting ideas. This show was unique from many I’ve been to in that they actually displayed some very antique quilts that were quilted in this area in the 1880s. Very interesting! I really got into quilting because I like the historical aspect of it. Researching Quilting is very interesting past time of mine and I like be able to view old quilt, where so much personality shines through, and it wasn’t about perfection or perfect color coordination it was about making something out of what you’ve got. Very inspiring.
Back to the work table...
The Rear
Name tag
Daisy from the Rear.
Table Picture Day
Table Picture Day
I cannot believe how much Hillary at Wee Wonderfuls gets done. I mean really, between running after Mr. Moo and trying to sneak projects in while he is sleeping, I’m exhausted! Thank goodness for Tania and her projects that I can handle! Take a Picture of Your Desk Day I can do.! Taking a picture of my work area, while scary is very manageable for me. THANK YOU!
Here is my work area and the gifts of fabric for my friend in Chicago in the upper right hand corner. A picture of Mr. Moo in his pumpkin hat, the pattern for a Rag Quilt my mother wants, to the left is an oven mitt which is TOO SMALL for a normal person so I need to keep working on that. And then of course to add to my list of things to do is the Wee Tutorial project that Hillary posted yesterday. I loved the pincushion idea and I’m think they will make great Christmas gifts for my crafty friends!
Sewing Machine
And on the machine we have, another Giraffe in the making. My sister who is staying with us following her tonsillectomy on Tuesday was supposed to be going to a baby shower this week. Hopefully this giraffe will be done by the time she leaves!
I am the treat!
I am the treat!
Here is Mr. Moo in his new hat I made from some beautiful fleece I found. He was a little confused as to why we were wearing the hat inside and I managed to snap this right before he threw it in the kitten's water bowl.
Mr. Moo is also sporting his halloween bib from his New Jersey Grandma which states I am the treat , which of course we knew.
Today was a Cookie Monster Day and he ate and ate and ate while Mr. Moo was napping and then he cried and cried while I downloaded pictures. The tricky thing about two babies, is that they double team you with their nap times...its a rare day they nap at the same time..and sometimes you have to make a list of what you are doing because you may start to make bread, type a blog, clean out the cupboards and then you may forget about it for four hours while you entertain infants.
Oh well. I have pink elephants to make!
Mud
Mud
The problem with having a not so good computer screen is I can't tell if this picture is dark or if my screen is dark. Here is a picture of Mud, I may have to post another one when I get a second opinion.
He is headed off to Minnesota to live with his new owner.
Why I can't get anything done around here!
Elephant Food
Mr. Moo making off with my elephant pattern. How am I supposed to come up with a pink elephant if someone is always running around with my things in his mouth?
Travels
With the Man away for a conference in Florida Mr. Moo and I traveled north to visit family for the extended weekend. With all those adoring relatives to play with the baby I've been on a goal accomplishing binge!
Not only did I get my paper done, I finished Mud the Giraffe and made a little fleece hat for Mr. Moo.
Pictures to follow as soon as we get home and can download them!
Cookie Monster's Quilt
Stars for Superbaby
Here is the Quilt I finished for The Cookie Monster called Stars. I really like using flannels, and I like working in different mediums (I’m not a strictly cotton quilter) because it brings such texture and character to the quilt. For this one I used an old nightgown (the cows in the center of the stars) and an old plaid flannel shirt.
Mr. Moo and the Cookie Monster both started pulling themselves up into a standing position this week so we are on a whole new level of alert in the sewing room. Which is exhausting!!
The baby is down for the count, the bummer about this is I can’t work on Mud the Giraffe because my sewing room is next to the baby’s ( I hate to think what that means when baby #2 becomes a reality, I mean I need a sewing room/space/bathroom) and I can’t run the machine without waking him up. This is okay because now that I’m a blog addict, bedtime is the perfect opportunity to hang out with my monitor buddy.
Or to do homework, maybe God forbid! housework or to quilt on the Pink Elephant quilt that I actually have on the frame in the den. I’m working on a miniature elephant pattern for loobylu’s softies project. Excitement.
They Came
They Came
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemöller
SUPERFRIENDS
Fric!
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Mr. Moo (right) and I spend the day with his BABY SMACKDOWN buddy Cookie Monster (left). Here the Superfriends can be seen rocking Fric the kitty to sleep in Cookie Monster's car seat, this was right before Mr. Moo tried to eat her head. The little ones are one month apart, but developmentally pretty darn close, Cookie Monster learned to crawl last week and Mr. Moo put it together this weekend, so now they are into EVERYTHING.
Tuesday is Story Time at the Library so at 10:30 we load the Infant Mobile and head to town, for bubbles, songs, and social interaction (thats for me) the Superfriends almost always fall asleep on the way home leaving me sometime to run around with my head cut off, doing dishes, homework, and now Blogging.
Blogging is slightly addicting since I should be working on my paper for next week. But sheesh that is soooo boring! Blogging is also quiet...very important for these afternoon naptimes!
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