Tag: sewing

Adventures in …

… BABY FOOD!

My little Gene-bean is now 6 1/2 months old. He’s been gnawing on veggies, toast crusts, fruit, hunks of meat, generally taste-testing anything we’re eating for the past few weeks. With his big brother Rudi, I did the widely perscribed and accepted intro to eating through a series of different cereal, but I found it oh so bland, boring, messy and altogther uninspired. So with Gene, we’re trying something different — he’s eating what we’re eating (within reason!).

I was making soup last week so I separated out some yams and turnips before fancying up my seasoning and blended them on their own. And then I borrowed a technique from my dear friend Angela: once blended, take a spoon and throw down “splats” (splat being the technical term in this highly technical and specific process, ahem) of blended veggies on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Then freeze said splats, remove them from the sheet and have baby-sized splats stored in tupperware or freezer bags, ready to pop into a pot for a 2 minute warming and presto! Super gorgeous baby food. And I only have to make a batch every couple of weeks. Awesome. Here’s Gene’s first ever round of yams and turnips:

… TRAVELLING WITH A SOOTHER!

I was very judgemental about soothers/pacifiers/dummies before I had Rudi. Then I had Rudi. And he was a sucker. And anything that soothed my baby made sense, so I gave and a soother family we became. I feel just fine about it! To each his/her (pronouns just for you Angela, bloody capital-F Feminist!) own I truly feel. But I digress, this adventure is not about to soother or not to soother, it’s about how to hang onto the dang things if you use ’em.

Gene and I got on a plane 3 days ago. The day before, as I watched the soother fall out of his mouth and roll around and around my (obviously sparklingly clean, ahem ahem) dining room floor I remembered: I needed a soother holder, I had no time, I didn’t want to spend $9 on some ribbon and a clip, I sew. I added it up, looked around, saw my beloved sheep-and-black-sheep ribbon roll, some twill tape from a 4-pack of Beau’s beer and a sports lanyard of my husband’s.

I knew what I had to do.

The clip from the lanyard was quickly cut off, the ribbon sized up against Gene’s (unaturally, hilariously long) torso, the twill tape turned inside-out so as to appear plain and un-beer-related. I sewed, I came up with this:

It works like a charm and I got compliments all over the airport. Notes to future travelling self: 1. shoulda brought an order form, 2. need to take business cards.

… BEING QUIETLY AWESOME FOR YOURSELF!

Sometimes you need to add a little personal-awesome to your ensemble for yourself. A private joke for you. I like love adore Harry Potter.  I must not tell lies. So when I got an awesome faux patent diaper bag just before Gene was born, I knew I had to jazz the lameish logo up a bit. So naturally I sourced a Gryffindor patch and sewed that sucker right over the offending label.

And now I am infinitely cooler as I walk along with my bulging bag. Almost no one has noticed, but I love it. It’s like wearing leopard underwear, privately knowing that you’ve spiced, jazzed, expelliarmused it up a notch!

Tiny blankets & pillows

Today was the cold, windy, flying-snowflakes variety. Good for staying in, cozying up, and playing with Playmobil! There were pirates and adventurers staking out the cottagers, the lawn boy was lunching with the motocross racer and Mr. Snake got chewed by Gene … just another day.

An awesome perk to having kids is easily justifying the purchase and procurement of Playmobil, one of my favourite toys ever. I adore little things and toys, making set-ups with them and marveling at the clever detail.

Rudi and I decided that the cottaging couple needed blankets and pillows for when they’re out camping on starry nights, so that was the craft of the day:

Quilting Challenge: February

My 2012 Quilting Challenge (to myself) continues today with February’s result. It’s a little apple! I’m pleased with the simplicity of it, the detached leaf.

Simple.

I’m working on simple in lots of places — sewing, walls, dancing, writing, art, teaching, choreographing, mothering, being. Simply being where I am. I tend towards complicated, tangled. I need to unravel, unfold, see more space, feel more space, give and have more space. Perhaps that’s cryptic, but it’s what I’ve got for today. More on that soon I imagine.

And here the little apple sits beside January’s leaf:

Quilting challenge to myself

On Friday I talked about how the last week had been an intense, straight-up mothering week and a gong-show as far as anything beyond the needs of the kids went. It’s a new week and I’m hopeful, always hopeful, that I’ll get a bit of my own artist work done.

I’ve given myself a manageable challenge for the year (I think?!), to develop 12 different quilting patterns this year, 1 per month. I’m cheating a bit for January as I designed this one in the fall, but this gets me going! I need a few go-to designs for the quilts and burp pads I’ll be making and think this will be a fun way to tie the projects and the year together. I’m going to make each one on a 6″ x 6″ square and maybe they’ll become a garland for the boys room by December!

Here’s my signature leaf design, gonna try to make the square tomorrow:

If you have a favourite quilt or quilting design, old or new, tell me about it and link an image in the comments, I looooves me quilts and quilting of any kind!

Cutting, tweeting, pinning

After a lot of days spent reading about business models for crafters while nursing my now 4-month-old and stolen moments with the computer working on my website and familiarizing with wordpress, my challenge to myself this week is to actually get some production started. I need to feel the balance rebalancing — the admin matching the actual making, and admin’s been winning for a while. So I’ve been cutting …

CUTTING: … that’s right, I’ve been cutting out burping pads — next the linings, then the sewing, last the quilting, but due to small boys at home, I’m setting modest goals, and this week it’s to simply cut!

TWEETING: And I’m on Twitter at last at last – I popped my tweet cherry yesterday! It’s sort of wonderful and awful all at the same time to have joined yet another form of social media, but I can see how it’ll be useful and I admit it’s addictively fun — that’s partly why I resisted! Follow me for goodness’ sake! [Truth: I actually caved and joined for Dane Joseph McKellen, but that’s a story for another day …]

PINNING: As for the pinning, my friend, the lovely and stylish Ray Hogg told me about Pinterest, and I’m in love. It’s a bulletin board of things you find online, plus you can follow other cool people’s boards thus increasing your knowledge of awesome on the internet. I’ve said goodbye to sending emails to myself of great url’s that I don’t want to forget. I highly recommend. Here’s one of my pages!

And she begins …

Here I am, joining the  blogging world, sending my humble, ahem, brilliant (obviously!) musings and adventures into the ether. I’ve been excited, heartened and inspired by many blogs by other artists and women over the past few years and now have the impulse to add my own voice to the mix.

The plan (a.k.a. my challenge to myself) is to write 2 or 3 times per week so as to be consistent but not ruled by the blog. In particular I’ll be writing about my adventures as I create and launch my independent sewing business, formalizing and making professional something I’ve done for years as gifts friends and for the simple joy of it. I’m sure that my life and whatever’s in front of me will leak in as well and am excited to be starting this record.

I started 2012 with the delivery of my very own rubber stamps featuring my lovely logo (designed by my excellent friend Christa Couture — tangent: she’s not only a great designer, she’s also a fantastic musician!) that I’ll use for labeling my work. They were beautifully made in Canada by The Old Island Stamp Company.

If you’d like to read a little more about me, check out my bio.

I think that’ll do as a starting point, til next time!