Category: Mothering

Velcro Baby and Love Letters with a 4-year-old

A love letter “posted” in a bike basket full of flowers. All photos in this post by Lindsay Zier-Vogel, the Love Letterer herself!

 

 

I haven’t written specifically about the kids or the mothering in a while. We are truckin’ along and I am riding the ever shifting balance of being home with two energetic, gorgeous boys. Gene is now 9-months-old and he is suddenly Captain Velcro, meaning he’s stuck to me like glue every waking moment. He’s utterly content if he’s on me, but the minute I try to leave — and by leave, I mean to go, say, get the mail or make some lunch, something innocent and necessary like that — he’s panicing, weeping, wailing piercingly, heartrendingly. He falls asleep clutching a handful of my breast in case the food source should try and sneak off whilst he’s at rest! He’s realized in earnest that I can disappear and that he doesn’t know when I’ll be back. And this consciousness has led to paranoia on a grand scale! Of course it’s normal and good and I’m so glad to see him evolve, even if sometimes I find myself trying to go pee with an infant stuck to me, which is no easy feat. I surrender a lot these days and just lie on the floor or in bed and let him satellite around me, maybe fold laundry or read but often just be there (at the cost of cleanliness or order in the house, but this too shall pass!) We have lots of giggles and gazing sessions together and he continues to charm me silly.

Then there’s Rudi, now 4 years old. He’s suddenly so grown up! He’s still got his powerful will Will WILL intact but I am finding that the near constant butting of heads that we’ve been playing at for the past few months is easing up. He is more independent than ever, he makes his own toast now and is so proud to “make breakfast!” He is a little more logical, a little more worldly. He can wait when I ask him too, knowing that it won’t be interminable. And we are starting to have little moments of, for lack of a better way to put it, hanging out. As mom and son rather than mom and toddler. I take him out once in a while without Gene because even though I’m with both boys all day, my attention is divided and Gene usually gets more of me. So I jumped at the opportunity to take Rudi to go Love Lettering last week with my friend, the indomitable artist Lindsay Zier-Vogel.

Choosing his Love Lettering materials carefully.

The Love Lettering Project is a community arts project bringing love letters to strangers. Lindsay’s been at it for eight years now and gained all sorts of local and national attention last year. The project grows by leaps and bounds each year and I “love” it (a-ha-ha). This year, she’s setting up at various community events, inviting people to write a love letter to something they love about their city and then leave it anonymously for someone to find — which will surly brighten the days of all involved! Rudi and I went to The Avro in Toronto’s East end for PAL-SAC‘s (Post A Letter Social Activity Club) night hosting The Love Lettering Project. We chatted, he had water in a pint glass, worked diligently on a love letter to The Secret Park (which is near our house, but I can’t say where exactly, what with it being Secret and all) and chatted up the locals. Then we went for burnt-marshmallow ice cream at Ed’s. It was a good night!

Working oh-so carefully on his Love Letter to The Secret Park in Toronto. I love the white finger tips on his left hand!

I loved being able to chat with Rudi without the divided attention necessary when I’m  solo with the two boys. We are so much calmer together when we’re alone together. I think there’s a lesson in there for me somewhere! I’m sure it has a lot to do with my tension level. I am constantly amazed by what mirrors we are as parents. Rudi so often reflects how I am, and he’s got keen senses, because I can’t be faking calm, he’ll still pick up on the turmoil underneath if it’s there. So cheers to one-on-one dates with 4-year-olds, with sons, and cheers to love letters. And to velcro, can’t forget the velcro …

Love Letter accomplished and sealed. Now time for delivery …

Hometown, Heart and the Headstrong Baby

12 days ago my dad’s heart very nearly failed him. He lives across the country from me in my hometown of Edmonton and with this hard news came the clarity that I dearly wanted him to meet 8-month-old Gene. So Gene and I flew over the lakes and the prairies and I got to introduce my dad to his second grandchild. Happily, the docs were able to fit dad with a pacemaker/defibrillator and he’s back at home for now, heart ticking along.

In spite of it being an emergency trip filled with apprehension, it was so good to share my wee boy with my Edmonton family and friends. My own heart is overflowing with big sky and the big love of my amazing people there. Gene made some ridiculous strides in Edmonton, standing against things and cruising a bit, crawling for the first time and walking his little legs to get where he wants to go when you hold his hands. He is a ball of determination!

Edmonton was exploding with apple blossoms. I was lucky to catch those magic couple of days when the trees are full of their short-lived pink and white flowers:

I miss the wide Alberta sky. If you aren’t familiar with prairie skies, it’s hard to describe the amazing, shifting endless space. I don’t really miss it til I’m there and then I feel like I’m brimming with the aching familiarity of it.

I learned about chewbeads, silicone bead necklaces that are made to be chewed by babies yet look look like lovely, chunky jewellery, brilliant! My cousin was wearing hers so stylishly while her little guy held onto them with a vice grip, chewing and playing as we walked and caught up.

I went with the aforementioned cousin to the Duchess Bake Shop, a super fancy, high tea looking place, yet totally approachable and momma-with-baby friendly. We  ate and savoured and enjoyed our little boys, who are only 15 days apart in age. This made for an extra special, hilarious visit as we are both firmly in the midst of sleep deprivation, infant eczema, baby food and the glorious madness that is mothering an infant. The Duchess has a great ceiling, it mesmerized both me and Gene!

My cousin’s name is Tamsin, but we mostly call her Tam. And it happened to be her birthday! I opened my mom’s late 70s edition of The Joy of Cooking, found a delectable banana cake recipe and baked it up. Then I had a wave of brilliance and cut out the letters of her name in paper, sifted sugar over them and presto:

Lastly, my cousin adventures ended in a quilting shop. Oh dangerous deliciousness! She is a crafty fabric-a-holic also and we found some prints that simple could not be left behind. Here are my spoils:

And here I am, back in super-hot Toronto, somewhat jet-lagged. Back to my mothering of 2 and my sewing and my regular blogging. Happy week everyone!

Aflutter Over the New Quilt

I finally finished the bird-patterned quilt I’ve been planning and working on over the past few months. This was the project that kept getting bumped aside for other more pressing matters and crafts. But its time has come! I present the Birdie Quilt and Burping Pad Combo.

I plan to carry this set on my Etsy store when I’m up and running in the summer, so the next step is to make some more sets. I am so happy with how this design came out. I like the big, chunky blocks and have always been attracted to baby stuff made with strong colours and a pattern that’s not so common.

Unfortunately in my photos you can’t really see the leaves sewn into the black blocks on the quilt, but they’re there! I am slowly increasing my photographic skills because of this blog, but the black fabric stole the light and I couldn’t find it. Will experiment more, am open to suggestions …

On the simple, flannel side of the burp pad and the blocked side of the quilt I used green thread so that the quilted leaf design would stand out. It’s fun to quilt this pattern free-hand on the machine, reminds me of painting or sculpting. Probably my favourite of the process!

The busy side of both pieces is stitched with white thread. The leaf quilting almost needs to be felt to be seen amidst the birds and foliage. I hope the detailing invites fingers to touch and baby cheeks to rest peacefully.

I’ve been reading and thinking about pricing and perceived value. Burping pads, my speciality, are just not that cost effective. The ones I make are relatively labour intensive but there’s a limit to what people will pay for such things and it’s not a lot more than a super fancy latte! I see a lot of sewers undervaluing their work on Etsy, burping pads for as low as $2.50 with a median of about $8 per pad, which I find totally ridiculous and frustrating. I think it may be one of the great failings of such a platform, that value gets diluted with uneducated or timid artisans not really understanding how to value their work. Because mass-produced brand names versions often go for close to $20 per pad! Anyways, I’m slowly working on the math to find the sweet spots for pricing my work.

The idea to pair a pad with a quilt is something I’m going to try since consumers seem to be willing to pay more for a quilt; perhaps the overall square footage of the item persuades them?! And I like the idea of these 2 items together, perfect for a new baby gift. My slow advance on cottage industry continues …

PS: I wrote this entry with a sleeping 8-month-old draped across my arm and lap. My wrists have been performing acts contortion in order to type! Insane perhaps, but I find that getting my blog post ready the night before is more enjoyable and practical for the most part. It’s just too hard to get a long chunk of time at the computer amidst the littles and isn’t fair to them. And I really am enjoying blogging, it’s helping me keep on some kind of task creatively I am surprised by how much I enjoy the act of writing and sharing here. Over and out.

Sewing for Girl Birthdays

My 4-year-old son has 2 very excellent friends who happen to be girls. Their moms and I have become bosom-buddies through our kids and all 3 of the widgets take creative dance together at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Young Dancers’ Program. I adore having 2 boys and no girls, absolutely no regrets. But I myself am a girl, and I really do love me some cute little skirts and dresses now and again.  So I just have to buy or make them for Rudi’s friends when the spirit moves me (he’s long-since informed me that girls wear skirts and dresses, the gender-differentiation train has left the station). And girl birthdays create opportunities to make delicate, girlie things that I cannot resist!

Above is a little fairy-princess dancing skirt to flit through imagination-land in. I used a section off an extra set of $6 Ikea net curtains I have lying around and raided my extensive ribbon collection. And ric rac. I do so love ric rac, I aspire to expand my on-hand collection. I love making something that’s princessy but not Disney-princessy (shudder). Just generally wafty and floufy (technical terms, I’m all about them), cause really, it’s all about how that fabric feels when it grazes your legs, that’s what makes me feel the most magical or royal anyways.

Then of course one needs a general sceptre or wand at hand. This one I made for the princess and pink loving friend of Rudi’s — error, I had no pink felt so I went with purple. This was not the best choice but I think she may accept it eventually! I had to add the orange star ribbon for a bit of sass. Reports are that her 3-month-old sister is mesmerized by the ribbon movement, unexpected bonus!

And lastly, for Rudi’s friend who loves purple and dolls (she’s always got one in tow and cares for them like her own kids), I made a little sleeping bag and pillow set. It was so much fun and took me back to the days when I’d envision, concoct, create and finish a project over the course of a lazy weekend day as a kid. Back when a day 0ff seemed endless and rolled past slowly and deliciously, ripe with possibility.

I guess that’s what it comes down to when I sew for girls specifically, it’s a little trip down memory lane, close to my heart and my own experience.

Man-gifts and tag progress

April has been rife with birthdays among our family and friends. Including my husband Adam’s. We’ve been together for 11 years now, so while he’s easy to buy for in some ways (scotch is a good go-to), the creative lady in me always tries to do or get something crafty and handmade for him, something special and unique, unpredictable. I’ve made flannel pants with a cool basketball print, knitted iPod cases, sewed an amp cover and so on. But honestly, I find man gifts tough. I was stumped and running out of time this year, so I perused Etsy! I found a fantastic blacksmith named Benjamin Westbrook, and his shop hammeronsteel, who forges lovely, simple, rough-hewn bottle openers. Amazing! I was sold! And Adam loves it (hurray, victory!) so I had to share in case anyone else out there is struggling for an awesome man gift.

I got the opener personalized with Adam’s last name and the dates of our boys birth. It’ll be a keeper at the cottage in the summer for long lazy days full of sweaty beer bottles, dirty, content kids and that true far-from-the-city quiet that’s not really quiet at all!  Sigh.

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I continue to work towards opening an Etsy shop of my own with a projected opening date of August this year. I’m waiting to build up some stock, get my tagging and mailing and tracking, etc all organised so I can hit the ground running, and do some fall craft fairs too. Also to spend Gene’s whole first year without a bunch of hard deadlines since I have the grace of a maternity leave.

That said, I got an order for my, ahem, awesome Burp Pads from a friend and I thought I’d take the opportunity to design and make some product tags when I sent her order out. Here they are drying from being stamped. I had to go with a pocket shape of course!

I used clear labels to put the product info on the back of the tag. It’s my first time using them and I am in love, they look so clean and profesh!

And lastly, I made little Lavender Ravioli Sachets to include in my orders as a thank you. Lavender feels like the right choice with baby things, so calming and great for keeping clothes and linens fresh. Even acts as a natural moth repellant!

One thing that I love about receiving orders from Etsy craftspeople is that often they will toss in a memento or small sample of another product. It’s memorable and sweet and I love the neighbourly feel it gives as a recipient. So I’m going to join the ranks, and it’s a great way to use the ends of flannel that I hate to toss!

Cars party doodads

We made it through the friend-birthday-party with flying colours, though now I am ex-haus-ted! Rudi asked for “a Cars 2 party” and planned it together. I adore making his birthday parties personal, having a hand in loot bags and/or cake. It’s really rewarding to pour myself into something just for him, even if the cake is gone in the blink of an eye! And the crafting and baking makes the experience more tangible and exciting for him, and for me.

I think I’ve said here before that I am not really a baker, but I try now and again. And I love watching the magical baking shows where they make amazing cakes that defy the apparent laws of gravity that my cakes adhere to. So I thought I’d challenge myself and try fondant, and it wasn’t so bad! I kept the cake simple, flat, and used sugar decorations that Rudi chose/adored — who knew they still made these?! They remind me of 1980s birthday cakes. Here’s the result:

The cacti marzipan dyed with gel dye that my friend lent me — another baking revelation — and I even made my own glorious buttercream to dirty-ice the cake under the black fondant. To really go for the win, I decided to try making the inside a checkerboard flag. This was the best part for Rudi as he helped me slice thin slabs of the chocolate and white cake and place them alternately on the cake board. It worked! We were so excited! Susan Kendal, FTW!!! Check it:

And then Skor bits for dirt of course. Does it get any better? The kids blasted through our Cars cake in record time, leaving huge blobs of black fondant all over the table. Another birthday cake, sorted.

As I mentioned in a recent Rearview Fridays post about some past birthday craftinesses, above all I adore making loot bags. Or in the case of this Cars 2 party, loot CANS! If you haven’t seen Cars 2 then you might not know about Allinol, a fictional fuel that is key to the plot. I thought it’d be funny to make little oil cans for the loot bag/cans, so we started with the purchase of an obscene amount of apple juice and a no-water-apple-juice-only week in the household (it’s in the name of awesomeness kids, chug, chug, chug).

After emptying the cans and soaking off the labels, I pulled a jpeg of the Allinol logo off the web and printed it out on label paper, et voila:

And of course we needed labels so that the cans could be claimed by the 4-year-old guests. Those had to be traffic cones, naturally! I made a wee template and cut ’em out of bright orange felt with a paper one for the name:

I just love how the finished Loot Can came out. And aside from the forced apple juice drinking, it was pretty easy, and makes a great marker/scissor/etc holder!

A rewarding party it was. As I lay on the couch in the post-party haze, drinking an Allinol can of wine a glass of wine, Adam (the patient, amused, house cleaning husband in the midst of all this madness) asked me what next year’s party was going to be. I snorted and told him I needed a bit o’ time before I start thinking about the next extravaganza. Then he joked/seriously suggested that a 5-Alive party would be great for a 5-year-old, good colour scheme, automatic juice element … and the wheels started to turn …

Rearview Fridays: Knitted Organs

Today I think it’s time to share another knitting project for Rearview Fridays, 3 dimensional internal organs! I made them as costume pieces for a dance I choreographed last year called Organ Stories. The story of the dance itself will be  one for another Rearview Friday, I have to upload some video and want to give the dance it’s due here. And these organs deserve their stand-alone own entry.

This first shot is of The Uterus, with me and dancer Krista Posyniak getting organised for a rehearsal in June 2011. I was super-duper pregnant with Gene!

Inspiration: The Heart

In 2009 I knitted an anatomical heart for my husband for Valentine’s day, which he thought was weird, but I also like to think he secretly loves that I do such things! I sought out a pattern online since I didn’t really know where to start and was amazed at all the anatomical patterns people had come up with. Here’s the heart pattern I used, it’s by Kristin Ledgett of The Knit Cafe in Toronto.

I also knitted a heart that year for a wee boy named Ford, my friend’s son who was in hospital with complications from Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Sometimes when I’m at a loss when those I cherish are in a hard spot, making something is the only way I can think of to show my deep love. I pour my thoughts and goodness and hope into my hours of work, and I hope, I believe, that the object carries the weight of that love. Ford is no longer alive, but I’m glad my knitted heart sat beside him and his mom, who is so dear to me, for a while. So this piece is especially tender for me.

The Lungs

I chose 4 organs that I’d make short solos about. The dancer spoke about facts and emotional associations of each organ and then danced a little organ-specific solo — like a lecture-demo on physiology through dance!

Here are the lungs, they tie around the neck and have super-strong earth magnets on the back that stick to a blouse with magnets sewn into it. I developed my own pattern from a few different ones I looked at online, but I didn’t write it down since I modified as I went, argh! Ah well, there’s next time.

The Uterus

This one made me giggle as I made it. And it was great when people would ask me what I was making, particularly because I was obviously pregnant while I was knitting! It was a highly appropriate organ to be knitting in my condition. I worked directly from a lovely, easy to follow pattern on Knitty by MK Carroll. I’ve also made this as a gift for my midwives, the lovely ladies that saw my boys into the world. Best midwife or obstetrician gift ever!

The Brain

The Brain I concocted myself. I used a great little Blue Whoville Hat Pattern as a base, though I modified a lot of things, made it bigger, alternated knit and purl for the earflaps so that they’d be more smooth than the original and did away with the ribbed band in the original.

Then I made miles and miles and miles of i-cord that I sewed onto the hat like a brain. It was fun to tell people that I was knitting my brain, have them look at the looooooooog cord, scratch their heads and walk away wondering about my sanity … but my plan worked! Here it is:

And lastly, I leave you with a shot from the performance of Organ Stories in July 2011. Here’s the slightly frazzled Professor Posyniak with her spectacles on and her Judy covered in organs. You can see the magnets sewn onto her blouse that the organs stick to for each solo. She was just finished lecturing about the brain and was about to dance it, which as mentioned before I’ll share in video form on another day:

This photo by Andréa de Keijzer, the dancer is Krista Posyniak.

Happy Friday everyone, hope that you’ll never look at your organs the same now that you’ve made it through this post …

Sharpie tie dye & quilt progress

Anutie Maria, my lovely sis, came over today and brought Beyblades as a birthday gift for Rudi. I only know about these toys because I have a 7-year-old nephew. If you don’t know and you want to know, check ’em out. I have learned that they are insanely popular among the cool kids these days and Rudi is beside himself to now be counted among the owners of these battling tops.

We decided to try a Martha Stewart craft with Auntie M and in honour of spinning tops and battling Beys, we used spiral designs of course! Who knew you could tie-dye with Sharpies?! And I do love Sharpies, so much so that I have a huge multi-colour set. You just draw with Sharpie and then drop Isopropyl alcohol on it and heat-set the colour. For the full instructions go check out Martha and her minions.

They came out beautifully and are far more hip than I anticipated. I love the intense colours! It was a great craft to do with a 4-year-old, he was able to draw on the shirts with ease and worked the dropper like a charm. At about 15 minutes total, it was good for a shortish attention span. Then Rudi was back to lettin’ ‘er rip. That’s right, that was a Beyblade reference. Boom, dropped it in just like that.

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For myself, I went back to a project I’d set aside a while ago but which calls to me every day, ‘fiiiiinnish me, I’m so looooovely, you waaaaaant to” and so on. It’s a quilt I’m developing for my Etsy shop. Here it is with it’s seams showing!

I’m still building up product stores and not ready for the opening part of the Etsy shop, but I’m getting closer and getting excited to wade in. This lovely piece should be done by the end of the week, along with it’s matching burp pad.

Rearview Fridays: birthday loot bags!

I’m in birthday mode since I have a 4th birthday happening in my household tomorrow. So I thought it’d be apropos to dig up some crafty goodies from the last couple of birthdays I’m put together for my boy for today’s Rearview Friday.

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Rudi’s 2nd birthday party was lovely, the kids painted with water colours outside in the crisp spring air. Then we used the paintings to make frames for photos of his guests that we took throughout the party and printed up on the spot. I made loot bags out of some awesome hot pepper fabric I had lying around, waiting for just such a  moment. I adore little bags and containers, I am a squirrel after all! So I take loot bags seriously. Full Stop. No plastic junky ones for this lady, no sir. I make reusable ones that come in handy later on for, say, taking a few Hotwheels to Nana’s house!

I’m not much of a baker. But I aspire. And sometimes I reach too far. But I was pretty darn happy with these nuggets of awesome — cupcakes in cones. They were  great for newly-2-year-old hands to handle:

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Last year, for the 3rd birthday, it was cowboy time. Toy Story 3 and the ever-charming Woody were a big hit with Rudi at the time, but I tried valiantly to tip-toe around the Disney versions and keep things a bit more general cowboy-ee (thank you Waldorf for my auto “cringe at commercial” reflex!). I made “party hats” that looked like little cowboy hats (attached around with elastic):

And the reusable loot bags were small canvas feed bags. I stamped the little guests’ names on them and actually carved stamps — a cowboy boot and a horseshoe — from erasers after being inspired by the lovely Japanese blogger Mairuru. I loved carving them and remember spending one late, quiet night working on them while Rudi slept inexplicably long on the couch beside me, as happens with kids once in a blue moon.

Super Birthday Cape!

There is a birthday in the wings at my house. On Saturday Rudi turns 4!

I rarely get to my sewing machine to make 1-off projects for my own kids anymore. But I really wanted to make him something by hand from me for this birthday and a cape seemed the obvious route to go since he’s super-duper into being SUPER these days. So I burned some midnight oil and made a pattern, and it’s on it’s way to being done:

A slippery sport-jersey side with a giant, super R-for-Rudi “R”:

And a navy cotton side with an outer space patch for my “planek” loving laddie. I hope he never learns to say planet. Planek is so very cute.

Give me a half hour with this baby tonight and I’ll have the hem done and a collar with fastener made. Then the wrapping begins. And the excitement mounts!

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A few weeks ago, Rudi was wondering how to write his name, so I showed him. And he worked so hard to do it, I had to take a picture! What a wonderful revelation to find the letters that make your name and to be able to make them with your own hand. He’s so proud. Shoot, I’m so proud! Here it is:

And then my clever, amazing, ultra-productive friend Lindsay Zier-Vogel took that first scribing-of-the-name and …

… wait for it …

… embroidered it for his birthday! Rudi is delighted, I’m verklempt. What a profoundly simple, special gift  idea, thank you Linds. And here it is, being shown off by the just-about-4-year-old hands: