moms

I love Mother’s Day because I am a newish mom and the day feels like a bonus day.  An extra birthday of sorts. I also love the day because it gives us the chance to celebrate our moms and thank them for all the wonderful and generous things they do. We live very close to Grandmama (my mom) and Grammy (his mom) and I cannot say enough about how much of a blessing it is to have them nearby. Not only do both Grandmothers accept impromptu babysitting requests at the drop of a hat, but they also send over food and other goodies — just because. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Seriously. The list is endless. So, because we can never say it enough–THANKS MOMS! You are the best.

We invited our families over on Sunday for an outdoor Mother’s Day brunch. Grammy brought this beautiful apple cake and my mom brought a delicious quiche. We probably should have insisted that they take a day off from kitchen duties, but well, they offered… and they are really good cooks.

I made Grammy this bag, which compliments our strawberry patch beautifully.

I was happy with how it came out except for one small goof that happened when I sewed on the ruffle. You may be able to spot a little bit of raw edges poking out in the top right corner of the bag in the photo below. Just a tiny mistake. The kind of mistake a sewista grandmother can appreciate (and pretend not to notice).

This was my first attempt at 1) sewing a ruffle and 2) using fusible interfacing. I am always afraid of “firsts” when it comes to sewing, but neither task was all that difficult. Getting the bias fabric to go around the handle loop was a little tricky, but I used a zig-zag stitch and that seemed to hold it in place well. I think I may make another bag like this one but change the width so that it holds two bottles of wine. (I think this one is wide enough to hold three.) The bag was inspired by Amy Butler’s Chelsea Bag but I didn’t use a pattern. I came up with my own dimensions, made the handles round instead of rectangular, and added the ruffle. It is reversible and has a pocket inside. I love the lining fabric. So sweet and old-fashioned. I plan to use moreo f it to make myself a mini-quilt to drape over a certain little white rocking chair at some point soon.

P.S. That sweet little Mother’s Day flower (top photo) was made by my boy, with heavy assistance from his wonderful daycare provider. Three cheers for artsy craftsy mommy gifts!

my sister and her calf

Alpine Auntie has a thing for cows.  They are her favorite animal.  I think she once said that she would like to receive a cow for a wedding gift.  Well, her wedding came and went and no cow.  But now she finally has one.  She got it for Mother’s Day.  Best looking cow I’ve ever seen. 

The cute is just killing me. That little pocket with that little stuffed cow friend inside!  How do I wish this little one could “graze” in my backyard every weekend.  Thank goodness she will be joining us for a summer vacation in a few months.  Otherwise, I think I’d go crazy.  I miss her.  And her mom and dad.  It stinks.  And I know I’m going to feel the same way once Island Auntie has her little one.  That big event will be happening in the next few weeks.  They live even further away.  Though the Cydermaker and I have pledged that we will make a trip to visit them in the next couple of years, so that helps.  But only a little.  ***Sigh.*** 

OK.  Enough of the “poor me.”  Thank goodness for digital photography and the internet.  Because I have these to make me smile and think about my sis and her dream-come-true.  Her sweet baby calf. 

 

 

nose to nose

The little guy took a trip to the zoo with Grandmama, my godmother, and two friends recently. My godmother took this shot. She’s taken many photos of my siblings and me over the years so its nice to see her continue the tradition with my kiddo. I am pretty sure she took these photos of my sisters in 1984.

Over the last few years, I completed three projects that involved digitizing tons of old family photos. Two projects, a cookbook for my mom and an album for my dad, used photos of my family; the other featured the Cydermaker’s family. It is great to have these files at my fingertips because I am able to create all sorts of little personal gifts and decorations using them. Christmas ornaments, note cards, advent calendars, cake toppers – you name it. I’d like to make those images more accessible to the rest of our family members because it is so much fun to browse through them. For now they sit idle on my hard-drive and backed-up on disc. I’ve added that task to the to-do list. Family members, stay tuned.

On the sewing project front, Mother’s Day gifts are coming along nicely. One down; two more to go. I am enjoying my new adventure in felting in particular because it has presented the opportunity to do some hand stitching — a great change of pace. I am also getting ever closer to completing my BFF’s baby quilt. Finally, two people (with great crafty blogs) asked about how I made Adventure Auntie’s charm bracelet, so I updated that post and explained the process. The sidebar now has a link.

In BIG family news, City Auntie has plans to move closer to home! We will miss our visits with her in New York, but are so thrilled that we will be able to see her more often around these parts. If anyone knows of anyone looking to hire a talented and hardworking newspaper layout editor/designer, I know of a lovely gal who is looking for a job in the Boston area.

charming namibia

The reason why I call my sister-in-law “Adventure Auntie” is because she saw all this (and more) in person when she spent a semester abroad in Namibia.

While in Namibia, Adventure Auntie conducted field research with this organization and worked to save endangered rhinos. She’s certainly earned her nickname, don’t you think?

At Christmas time, Adventure Auntie put together an amazing photo slideshow using our computer. Lucky for me, she left copies of her images on our hard drive. So to celebrate her birthday earlier this month, I made her this little gift. The toughest aspect of the project was choosing the images I wanted to reproduce. They make you want to hear the story behind each one. If you click on some of the photos you will see a tiny ant with an orange background, a soccer match, a giraffe, a fish carcass lion skull (semi-gruesome but I love the color), the moon….

I made a little bag to hold the charm bracelet and necklace. The lining of the bag has a safari theme. Redhead Auntie pointed out that the bag looks like it is intended to hold a single can of beer. It is perfect for all those elegant college students, like Adventure Auntie, who require only one can of beer to get them through a Friday night. Man. Pretty soon people are going to think this is a blog designed to showcase custom beer totes.

HAPPY HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ADVENTURE AUNTIE! Glad you liked the silly gift and thanks for your comment letting me know about my original misinterpretation of the lion’s skull. (I should have been paying better attention during the slideshow at Christmas.

***UPDATE***

Here’s the how-to for this fairly straightforward project. I purchased Shrinky Dink brand shrink plastic for ink jet printers at the craft store. Make sure to carefully follow the directions they provide. The resizing of your photos is important. In order to get charms that were the size I desired, my original images were 1.18 inches (H) x 1.78 inches (W). They say that images will shrink to three times their original size after the baking process. If you use the same brand of shrink plastic that I used, and use the same dimensions for your photos, you will get a small charm that works nicely for a bracelet. You also have to adjust the saturation of the photos–the instructions explain this crucial step. After you print the images on the shrink plastic, you must cut out the charms and use a smaller sized hole punch to punch two holes on the top of each charm. You do this so that you have a place to thread the charms when you are ready to assemble the bracelet. I made a little template and used it as a guide so that all of my charms had their holes in the same spot.

I baked the charms on a piece of corrugated cardboard (the back side of a legal pad) and sprayed them with an acrylic glaze after baking. The baking process really is the neatest thing ever, just in case you didn’t already know. The Shrinky Dink people recommended a particular brand of spray glaze in the instructions. I don’t recall what it is, but just read their notes thoroughly. They also say that you can use clear nail polish, but I’ve tried that before and it doesn’t work as well. The images, when coated with nail polish, were cloudy. With the acrylic spray, they were crystal clear.

A clever way to set up your charms before you spray them is to roll packing tape so that the sticky side is all around the outside. Stick the “tape roll” onto the bottom of a shallow cardboard box and then affix the charms to the side of the tape that is facing up. This way, the charms will stay in place when you spray them. I don’t think I am explaining this well. Here is a photo:

Let the charms dry for 24 hours. Take a piece of thin leather or hemp cord and string it through the charms. Once assembled, add clasps to finish off the bracelet. You can buy the leather or hemp (I used leather) and clasps at a craft store. I bought extra cord and clasps so that Adventure Auntie could string a single charm on a necklace. I mean, if you are going to the trouble, why not throw in a necklace too?

 

cabin camping

This weekend we went camping for the first time as a family of three. We slept in a cabin, not a tent, which was a very good thing because there was (surprise!) a good amount of snow at our destination. The adorable one-room cabin had a roomy front porch and was furnished with a wood-burning stove, beds, a table and chairs. We went hiking, goofed around at the camp site, and on Saturday afternoon, the little guy and I went for a road trip to Williamstown, MA while the Cydermaker went fishing on his own.

We were surrounded by the beauty of nature all weekend long, but the only half decent shots I managed to capture were a series of photos of the kiddo chomping on the dregs of a bag of Doritos. In my defense, it was the most entertaining part of the trip. Can you tell that he enjoyed himself?

Yeah. Pretty disgusting. But kind of funny too.

Oh. And if you were hoping to find something crafty today, join the toy makers on their journey to Australia and fashion yourself a paper kangaroo or a dizzy koala.  Gotta love free paper toys!

shades and stunts

On my recent trip to Park City to visit my sister, her husband and their new baby, I had forgotten to bring a pair of sunglasses. Alpine Auntie kindly lent me a pair and then told me that I could keep them because I looked so spiffy in them. The little guy has taken a liking to them and grabs them off my face any chance he gets. He looks pretty spiffy himself, don’t you think?

Last night I caught my munchkin walking backwards in the kitchen. What’s up with that? I was away for four days of his life and he figures out how to moonwalk? That little bugger. This latest stunt made me feel like I missed out on A LOT while I was gone.

These photos are of some bibs that I made for Alpine Baby. The “pattern” is based on a favorite bib that we use here. The light blue/cream colored fabric is oilcloth, so food can be wiped away easily. I can’t remember the name of the maker of that fabric but I really like it.

I used the remainder of my Freshcut stash on the reverse side of one bib and a Joel Dewberry print on the other one. I decided to go with snap closures rather than velcro because I don’t like how velcro snags other articles of clothing in the laundry.

I had a really nice time last night with my BFF who is in town with her kiddo for April vacation. In addition to a belated birthday gift for Adventure Auntie, I am working on a quilt for my BFF’s baby-to-be who is due in June. I love the fabric I am using and will probably post a photo of it before the blanket is finished.

I have been meaning to note that while I was away on my trip, my freezer paper photo stencil tutorial was mentioned on a popular sewing blog called Sew, Mama, Sew. Thanks to Beth at SMS for the shout out! Visit their blog if you have a chance. It is an excellent resource.

OK–That’s all from here for now.

perfect visit

I had a wonderful trip to Utah to meet my first little niece. Most of my time was spent staring at a beautiful baby…holding her…kissing her…and just marveling at all that sweet, brand-newness and wonder that comes with a newborn. I was in awe of just how pretty she is. See what I mean?

The rest of the trip was spent trading new mom secrets with Alpine Auntie in the hot tub, laughing about anything and everything, and finishing up a beautiful nine-patch quilt with Alpine Auntie and Grandmama. It was so much fun to have a little sewing circle with my sister and mother. And you really do get a lot accomplished with two extra pairs of hands. One pair to play with the baby, another to cut and measure, and a third pair working at the machine. My sister is a very talented quilter and has a real eye for color and fabric choices. The sewing bug is something we caught from our mom.

But the best part of the trip was getting to know my adorable little niece. She smiles in her sleep, makes little kissing movements with her lips and is already sleeping 4+ hour stretches at night. Good girl. It was amazing to see my younger sister as a mom. She is a natural. I knew she would be, but it was so great to witness it in person.

Thanks for a fantastic visit, you guys. She is just perfect.

from snowboard to mini-quilt

Are you ready to hear the enthralling story about how this Burton snowboarding jacket…

…inspired a mini-quilt for my sweet baby niece?

Here goes. During our last ski trip, we were having a beer in the lodge at the end of the day and I spotted a woman wearing said jacket at a nearby table. This was soonafter I had finished Island Baby’s quilt, so clearly I had birds on the brain. Or maybe just a bird brain. Either way. I immediately thought, as any slightly crazed good sewista would, that those birds on a wire would make a nice design for a quilt. I wanted to run over to the woman and ask her about the jacket, but running after a hard day of skiing really isn’t something I do. So I simply jotted the words “birds on a wire jacket” in my handy sketchbook and carried on with my beer drinking.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was leafing through my sketchbook for ideas for a mini-quilt for Alpine Baby and decided that I should incorporate the “bird on a wire” theme somehow. Though I decided that a clothesline would be prettier than an electrical wire. It got me thinking about the clothesline that my grandparent’s had hanging off the second floor of their two-family home in Somerville, Massachusetts. Theirs didn’t connect to the neighbors’ house like the one in the quilt, but my memory of their urban clothesline gave me the idea to string it between two buildings.

The light blue printed fabric is designed by Denyse Schmidt. The windows and itty-bitty clothes are Look and Learn by American Jane for Moda. The pants and dress are double-sided and hang from the embroidered clothesline so that they are able to flap in the wind like real laundry. The birds are from a Japanese import fabric, as is the apple orchard on the reverse of the quilt. I am pretty sure the orange polka dot binding is Robert Kaufmann.

I added a little message to Alpine Baby using rubber stamps and fabric markers. That idea came from the queen of craft, Amy Karol. The apple orchard was originally sewn in place on top of one of the buildings, but I thought it looked too busy so I moved it to the back. It was one of those “its-midnight-and-i’m-still-sewing” decisions. It probably would have been just fine where it was. But I do like how it looks on that strip of stone colored cloth on the back.

I’ll be with my little sister and her new baby tomorrow! I am so excited to meet the little one. She is so stinkin’ cute in her photos–can’t imagine how adorable she will be in person. I’ll be away from this spot until early next week, but maybe with some persuasion I can get the Cydermaker and the little guy to pop in for a quick post. I’m sure they will have plenty of good photos from all the strip clubs and seedy bars they will be frequenting while I am away.

g is for girlfriends

***ADVANCE NOTICE: This post contains more sap than a maple tree in Vermont during sugaring season. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.***

This past weekend we had a special play-date with a great little guy whose goes by the nickname Goose. His mom is a good friend of mine from high school. They live a few hours drive away from here and, lucky for us, come home to visit family fairly often. It was such a nice visit but it reminded me of how much I miss having all of my sisters and girlfriends around. I live in my hometown and am surrounded by family, but I really do miss those relationships. You know. The kind in which you know what the other person is going to say before they say it. But you wait for them to finish because it feels so good to hear that they can totally relate to how you are feeling. Thank goodness for Redhead Auntie who is always around for a good dose of sister-love, and laughs, when I need it. And my runner-friend Roxy. I’d die without them.

My two best girlfriends from high school and I all have kids that are within a year of each other. My sister who is a couple of years younger than me just had her first baby, and another sister is months away from having a baby girl. I dream of the day when EVERYONE moves back home so that we can be together. My vision has us all living in the same neighborhood, within hollering distance from each other. In this make-believe place, we all meet up after dinner for walks, glasses of wine/beer in hand, while the guys are watching baseball and the kids are tucked in bed. It is such a pleasant daydream. I know this sounds kind of lame, but I really do cherish this little wish of mine. (I say lame because I hate the word cherish. But there it is–cherish, cherish, cherish.) Just thinking about it makes me happy.

Besides, if you were me, wouldn’t you want your kid to be playing side-by-side everyday with this sweet little man? Just saying.

So, my sisters (actual and figurative), MOVE HOME ALREADY! Then we can get together and make cute, goofy things like this:

easter in review

This was my contribution to the meal. Baaaaa. (Thanks to Mrs. Eckler in Munich for the idea. And thanks American-Girl-in-Berlin for doing trial runs with me when we both lived in Germany. I miss you!)

These beauties decorated Grandmama’s table.

This kiddo had himself an egg TOSS…

…while these cuties had themselves an egg HUNT.

Good food + good people+300 plastic eggs+ decent weather = GREAT EASTER

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a new niece to visit in a week or so and need to go say hello to my sewing machine.