Barf Explosion!

First day of Spring Break and we're partying like it's 1999, right?!!! So I slept in late and came down to find my angel children watching Curious George on PBS. They're so great. Then we had oatmeal breakfast (party!!) and went to the library. Can I just say, I LOVE the laser printer at the library. I have been wanting to print off all this music by Sally DeFord from the internet but our printer is TERRIBLE, so I finally got to the library to print it off. The process was quite simple, with just typing in your library card number a couple times and inserting some money. Then there's always a librarian to sass you, though. She was all busy doing something so I was waiting my turn and she sasses up at me,"Can I HELP you??" and I was all, uh, you looked busy, because you were doing stuff. Anyway, there's always a sass waiting from a librarian. Also the school ladies, but that's another post.

So we got home from the library and had some fabulous reading time, plus lunch and chocolate cake, which Jules and Russell didn't eat. Then later, after movie time, here comes Jules up the stairs, making that coughing barf sound halfway up. We ran to the kitchen at the top of the stairs and I yanked out a barf pot. Jules, the angel-princess that she is, had caught most of the barf with her hand, in front of her mouth while running up the stairs. By the time she got to the kitchen though, she was shooting more barfs out, and with her hand in place there in front of her mouth, it was spraying all over the kitchen like when you put your thumb in front of the garden hose. Poor girl. She kept thinking she was done, after every heave. I kept up an awesome Mom-calm-yet-fun-banter with her the whole time so's she wouldn't start crying and thinking something bad was happening. She was SO GREAT about getting cleaned up and everything, just waiting patiently to get her shirt and arms wiped off. And then the funny thing was that she started asking for chocolates as soon as we got her clothes all changed and I was like,"No you dih-n't just ask for chocolate! No sir!"

Anyway, she's resting with me now and I HOPE we don't have any more barf explosions but you can't even try to hope for that. You know how great it is being a mom, always raining barf!

Sarah's Quilt

Here's the finished product for all those embroidered flowers. I just think it looks so cool with all the different colors from far away. Plus I love any Irish Chain quilt. Up close you can see the different quilters' work and the grub from being on our bed for a couple years, but you can also see the love from everyone that helped make it and how much we miss little sister. It's sideways here, and I just made it whatever size I wanted to instead of a real bed size, so it's 80 x 100.

My Boy...or Is It?!

Eric was cutting and cutting paper the other day, just working and working. And then he comes to me looking like THIS! Pretty clever disguise, eh?

So I never intended for this to be a family or kids blog but I couldn't resist this clever craft. It's his own original idea, obviously.

Something Really Cool for my Birthday

Check it out!! I got this monster lava lamp for my birthday. I've always wanted a lava lamp, ever since their re-emergence in the 80s. And, check the base: it has a dock for the ipod, so I can listen to my podcasts while I stare mesmerized at the lava, going up...and down...and up....and down...

Also it has radio tuners, but the reception in my downstairs workroom isn't too fabulous. Still, I LOVE THIS ITEM!!!! Plus, it has baby-mesmerizing effects. The other night, my boy Russell (two this Saturday!) was having such a sad time in his bed, so he came out and sat with me in the dark, looking at the lava, the hypnotic blubbery lava, which changes the light color from greenish to yellowish when it's all blopped down at the bottom. He was instantly calmer. I had to force myself away from the lamp to put him back in bed.

Why am I not a Professional Seamstress?!!

So I borrowed this fabulous apron pattern from Seth's Aunt Emma. (Thanks, Emma! You rule!) All artwork and the pattern, copyright 1952 by the Simplicity Pattern Company, wink wink. Anyway, I'm doing view #1, the reddish one, so I copied off all the pattern pieces to tissue paper, so's not to bungle up the originals. Then I laid them out and cut out the pieces. I know, I know, you're supposed to read through the whole thing before you start, so you know where this is going, right? Anyway, I got everything cut out and then went back in to read the instructions on what to do next, because I'm used to modern patterns for the ignorant, and here comes all this jibberish on the pattern about transferring notches and other identification marks, stitching stay lines on the bias or off-grain edges, and clipping enclosed seams and that's it!! There's no, "take piece A and match notches up to notches on piece F" or anything. I was just reading and reading, waiting for the thing to tell me how to put it together and feeling more and more ignorant and inept. Except that, that's all there is. It has stuff on how to finish the seams, once you get the pocket facing on, with bias fold tape, and how to reinforce the inside corners, and all this, but it never says HOW TO PUT IT TOGETHER. I sat there with all these miscellaneous pieces I had cut out, turning them this way and that, trying to match them up to pieces I could identify from the picture, and I came up with NOT MUCH. I actually shed a tear. A single, perfect tear slid down my hot cheek, just like I was in a teen romance novel. That's when I knew I had to put the whole dang thing down until I go down to "the Valley" and let Emma help me put it together. She got it at a garage sale, and she hasn't made it yet, but she's a way better dressmaker than me. In the end, I felt really defeated. I mean, usually I see stuff, start doing it, mess up a little, learn the right way to do it, and end up with something so great. I still may end up with something so great, but not until I physically take this to someone for help. The stinkin' notches don't match up to each other, so I don't feel like this is my fault at all!!!!!!! But I still feel inept.

And the Last Batch

I guess I didn't get a picture of #16. Huh. Anyway, I put in the little feetprints instead. You can't really get the sense of how tiny they were, but take my word for it, in real life they were only about an inch tall, maybe an inch and a quarter.

Other Flowers for Sarah

I think the sunflower was one of my top two or three all-time favorites of the embroidered flowers. I was so proud of myself for conquering french knots. Before this, they would either just flop apart when I would try to cinch them up or else they would pop through the fabric.

More Flowers for Sarah

I had some of the flowers from the quilt guild I belonged to, and then some of them are...don't tell the authorities...rubber stamps that I scanned in to the computer and enlarged. Then I outline-stitched them all.

Flowers for Sarah

So my daughter Sarah was a preemie, and she only lived 16 minutes. Later that summer, searching for some way to make things ok, I made a quilt. I did 16 of these embroidered flowers, one for each minute she was with us. So here are the first four.

Multi-use Card

So I went to a Stampin' Up! workshop at my friend Olivia's and they had cards that were 6 x 3, to fit in a regular letter size envelope. I thought that was pretty sweet, since envelopes can get pricey. I came right home and made some, out of my own imagination, with a stamp set I borrowed from my sister Dorothy. She hadn't put it together or used it yet, so I thought I'd help her out a little bit.

I made my cards 6 x 3 1/4 so they wouldn't flop around so much in the envelope. So my first card with the set was a birthday card for Seth's Aunt Emma. And then the second one was a sort of "Thinking of You" card for my Aunt Yvonne. And then I made another just similar "So Very Sorry" card for a friend who'd had a miscarriage. And then the last two, not using the same stamp set but using the same color scheme, was for my dad's birthday and also Seth's sister Gretchen's birthday, which are both the same day as mine.

Scherenshnitte

My friend Jessica did this papercut from the Martha Stewart website, so I did one too. I liked it so much I wanted to do more, but it's super hard to find patterns for free online. We both went to the library as soon as we could and got books on papercutting.