New Babies and All The Feelings

WHEW!  

I just got the word, delivered over the miles via text message, that one of my best friends has finally delivered her baby boy.  We've been waiting for Action Jackson for about 11 extra days now, and I was getting nearly as impatient as his mama!  I'm so glad he's here, that she finally gets to hold her dream baby in her arms.

Happiness is definitely the overriding feeling right now in this moment of excitement and hype.  So much happiness.  I haven't even seen his sweet face yet, and I'm in love.

But here's my confession: ever since finding out I was preggo with baby #2, new babies have equal parts delighted and terrified me.  They are darling, yes.  They are tiny and sweet and don't weigh 34 pounds.  You can wear them and not need a chiropractor to follow you around.  They are just so... new.  And new is nice.

They are not long-sleepers, though.  They are sweet, precious little balls of nerves that are experiencing everything for the first time, and its all a little overwhelming, and they do stuff like cry and they do it a lot.  Which is all part of being a new baby, they're just doing their jobs.  But oh my lanta, I am scared to go back there, and holding wee ones reminds me that that is indeed my fate.

It is likely due to the fact that those first months with RG were hard for me.  Like way-hard.  My type-A personality was still in full swing, and I don't do well sleep-deprived.  Coupling that with a husband who was only home 3/6 nights... well, those are remembered as dark, dark days.  I know that this second time around won't necessarily be like the first (at.  all.).  I'm getting a totally different baby, and I'm a completely different mama.  I've done this before.  I know that the phases don't last, and I know that one bad afternoon is not indicative of the rest of my baby's formative years.  I know I won't have to wait until he or she is 12 before getting a full night's sleep.  But there's residual fear there, that it'll all be dark again.  

I'm pretty sure that this is the part where I'm supposed to write about how I'm going to deal with this and turn that frown upside down and ta-daaa! not be scared/nervous anymore.  But I've got nothing for you.  I'll just do it, and it'll be what it is.  I've got no extra wisdom beyond that, and I don't feel like I need any.  Feelings acknowledged, check.  And now we move forward.  And by forward, I mean I want to show you the present that I've put in the mail today for my newest (terrifying) little buddy Jackson!

Amanda requested a bright blues quilt that was inspired by this no-longer-offered Land of Nod beauty.  The fabric for the back isn't showing up well in my at-night, smashed-screen-iPhone pictures (weird!), but it can be found here, and is Constellations by Lizzy House.

I love it like crazy, its so whimsical without being too baby-ish!  Other fabrics include Pearl Bracelets, Color Me Retro, Stella Dot, and Kona solids, as well as some un-named stash fabric and of course, Art Gallery Fabric's Pure Elements Snow for the most fabulous white fabric ever.

This lovey is made from the same fabrics as the quilt, combined with some of the softest minky you'd ever want to rub all over your face.  For realz.  I don't know if its really that amazing, or if I'm just that tactile-y inclined, but its so crazy soft.  I want to have a robe made out of it.  And wear it all the time.

Boom.  It was very much fun to play with fabrics again, and to use my stellar quilting machine for its intended purpose.  And now I'm going back to the land of regularly scheduled leather-making, because it smells so good and I can't help myself.  That is, once I do this daytime thing called a "job" (soft "o").

<3 M.

Quilt-it, Quilt-it Good!

I've been slowly working some "me" time back into my days.  Of course, things like the dishes are suffering for it, but I'm happier.  And one of my "me" time activities ("Lets get bunk beds, so we have more room for activities!") is quilting.  I've had an idea for a self-designed quilt floating around in my head for, oh, a decade. I never knew how to pull it off, until I realized I could paper-piece it.  That revelation, coupled with sweet Courtney over at Bowdenisms hosting a "get a quilt, any quilt, done by January" quilt-a-long has really kicked my creating into gear.  I'm happy to report that my quilt is started!

The background fabric, well, I have no idea what it is.  I bought about 6 yards of it from my local quilt store when they *weeping* went out of business.  The little colorful parts, they're from the Reunion line by Sweetwater.  I was given that fabric, oh, about 3 years ago.  I love it, but I was afraid to use it because then I wouldn't have it anymore (hoard much? apparently.)

Shattered Rainbow Quilt & Other Things

I know I've said it before, but can I just say again, I LOVE MAKING THINGS.  Tomorrow, I've got a muffin recipe to share with you that I made up (with some help), and today, I've got some sewing stuffs to show you!  You've already seen the T-shirt quilt that I made (and love) for baby M.  I am considering making myself one of those, just because it's such a nice weight, and so soft!  Unfortunately, the robot flannel is running low, and that just seems to take something away from the whole plan...

This weekend, after some serious thrift-store shopping, I came home with some fabrics (and three mugs, and a small toy chest, and a coffee-stained screen print, and...).  Those fabrics helped me finish up what is my current favorite baby quilt I've made.  I'm calling it the Shattered Rainbow Quilt.  Hopefully, you can see why ;)  It's made with the same paper-piecing technique as the previous quilt, too.

The colored parts are leftovers from a baby quilt I made for a friend, and the white is mostly from the thrift stores!  It's not all exactly the same white, and so I didn't put this one up for sale in my etsy shoppe.  However, if you're interested, I might start taking custom orders... just sayin' ...

Neutral Colors Quilt for Baby M.

While I was in PA recently, we had some bomb-phenom baby showers.  Seriously, such wonderful food, such good times.  It was magnificent.  So many people gave us sweet sweet presents, some of which I'll be sharing with you in time.  With all of these gifts and the overwhelming cuteness, I started to become even more excited for this little bambino to join us come February.  Just looking at the little onesies and the socks (Oh, lawd, the socks!) made me want to have that thing that is supposed to fill these cute clothes :)  You know, the baby!

As you can imagine, with the whole "having a baby whose gender has not been revealed" thing, I got a lot of yellow & green.  And my, it's cute!  The duck faces and the frogs, they're all pretty darling.  At the same time, I have a fear that one day, my then-grown child will look back at pictures of him/herself always dressed in yellow & green and know.  They'll know I didn't find out, and they'll somehow hold me responsible for it.

To remedy such a situation, I've been working on a few items for baby in my own neutral color scheme - Gray & All the bright colors.  To my eyes, Gray and every-bold-color-but-pink can pass for neutral.  For some reason, once you throw in a good amount of pink (it'll still work in small quantities), I see girl.  It's sexist, it's American, but it's my eyes.

So in the Gray & All the bright colors scheme, let me introduce to you the first item I've made for Baby M!  

It's fashioned out of old t-shirts and some robot flannel circa the flannel-buying-blackout of 2011.
You know, the one where I remember looking at the fabrics on sale on Cyber Monday, and that's all I remember.
2 weeks later, 24 yards of flannel are delivered to my house.
Whoops.

Blue & Brown Quilt

TaDa!!

Look what I made!

This is called the... something.  I can tell you later.  Right now, tonight, late as it is that I type this, its called the Blue & Brown Quilt.  It took me 3 years to complete it.  That’s because it’s a really intricate design, and not at all because I have the attention span of a mouse.  Oh, and the fabric was also really difficult to find.  Nope, I didn’t get any of it at Wal*Mart, nope, not a bit...

Except for most of it.  And, since I’m revealing all here, lets not pretend; they’re rectangles.  I sewed together a bunch of rectangles.  It’s a pretty easy pattern. 

Quilt Along is a GO!

There has been minimal some interest from you, the lovely and under-appreciated public, with regards to doing the t-shirt quilt along type thinger.  So we’re going to go ahead with it.  Its not going to be every day, and I can’t give you a definite time line, since its going to depend on when I actually do things, which is pretty much a crapshoot.

Aside: My mom says marriage is pretty much a crapshoot.  You make your best guess, and then you jump in.  Doesn’t really matter how much you know about a person, the ring on the left hand changes a lot of things anyhow, and its going to be an adjustment, no matter what.  As long as you both love each other & God, and both lock the exit doors on the marriage, you can do it.  As Dr. Laura says, choose wisely, treat kindly, and you’re good to go. (I’m a pretty big Dr. Laura fan.  I’m a pretty big “My Mom” fan, too, but she doesn’t have her own webpage.)

If I had to give you a ballpark figure for how this thing is going to go down, I’d say by the end of July, if you follow what I do as I do it, we should all have a nice T-shirt quilt to spread on the grass for a picnic,or to snuggle under after you turn your AC way up.  Whatever your fancy is,I’m not here to judge.  My personal goal is to do one step per week, and blog about it.  What you don’t know is that I’m already on step two (!) soI can appear much more caught up than I am.  Its necessary for me to do that, sort of like how friends will tell Handsome & I that a party starts 1½ hours before it actually does, so that we’re not super late.  We might still be late, but the punch won’t all be gone and the cake won’t be stale.

What to do with T-shirts

If you're anything like me (not that I assume you are, but hey, we've still got Breakfast at Tiffany's, right?), you've got stuff lying around.  There's a lot of stuff lying around my house, which I will discuss at length at some other juncture.  The stuff that I'm focused on tonight is T-shirts.  Tshirts.  Tee shirts.  However you write it, most everyone wears them, and most people have a lot.  I think.

I know that personally, I have many t-shirts that evoke strong memories.  My favorite team, my hometown, my high school events.  Even ... a number of years out of high school, I have many shirts (not that I can wear them all... or should) that take me back there, to the glory days.  I have shirts from events I've participated in, and even got one from work this week.  And don't even get me started on the outrageous number of fire department shirts Handsome has sitting in his closet.  Really, it ought to be embarrassing.  

Aside: I like Handsome very much.  Just in case anyone is checking.  This house hunting process has been... unpredictable, but I am glad he's my partner in all of this.  He even offered me icecream after some disappointing news.  Because he loves me.  Thats what icecream means.

Aside: If you're concerned about the number of "aside"s in recent posts, I can offer you no promise that it will end soon.  I guess my mind is sort of scattered lately, and I like to give you my thoughts in "real time", so that you can know all of me and then decide your opinion.  I'd hate it if you thought I was a focused thinker all the time, and then met me and were disappointed.

Anyhow, about the T-shirts.  My favorite thing to do when the tee shirt monster gets too be too large is to cut him down.  And I do mean cut.

This is my baby rotary cutter.
Baby, as in "smaller than regular sized".
Not to be confused with a rotary cutter for use by babies.
Oh, and about babysitting your children... yeah, we're available! :)

Nothing can ruin tonight.

I was preparing to type this post, with that title, when a palmetto bug flew down and landed on my arm.  And you know what?  (a) I killed it dead and didn't scream, and (b) I'm still super happy and (c) yes I am a little freaked out and will be ordering a pesticide spray, as is required every 3 months down here to control the bug population.  But I'm still happy.

Do you know why?  Of course you don't.  I'm happy for a number of reasons.  Today I made a new friend (we were made for each other, it was easy), and I got to welcome an old friend back to the lovely South, and I'm celebrating with another about her recent (aka: 2 hours, 35 minutes old) engagement.  Its like I'm finally hitting my stride down here.  And it feels really nice.

The whole palmetto bug thing is still freaking me out, and I saw a cicada a little too up-close-and-personal today, but overall, it was wonderful.

Foray into Pins & Needles

On this blog, we've got a little bit of everything.

Contests

Challenges

Fire-related things

Wifery

Photography

Food

Adventures

General Life-snooping

And you've put up with a lot from me.  I appreciate that.

Now, we're going to go where some of you may never have gone before: The land of pins & needles

(aka: quilting)

I quilt.  I know, kind of grandma-esque, especially when you factor in all of the other things I find enjoyable, such as baking and cooking and making little villages out of plastic mesh & yarn (jk on that last one... as of yet...)

But I do it and I like it and I won't apologize.  However, if you want to skip ahead to something with less mothballs and false teeth, I understand.  Skip away.

I like to quilt.  I like to make most things.  In my life, I've created in nearly every way possible.  Let me count them.

1. Spinning Pottery   2. Jewelry Making    3. Chocolate Molding

4. Cake Decorating  5. Velvet Embossing    6. Candle Pouring    7. Soap Making

8. Bead Loom-ing    9. Crocheting    10. Baking    11. Paint-by-number    

12. Charcoal Drawing    13. Paper Mache    14. Acrylic Painting    15. Mixed Media Creating

This is just a brief listing.  As you can see, my mother indulged my creative side a bit.  And we are thankful.

But I got into quilting a few years ago.  I remember it well.  It was winter.  Cold.  Very cold.  And I wanted to be warm.  So I thought to myself, "A quilt would keep me warm.  I want a quilt.  I shall make one."  Fast forward 22 months, I was cold again, and finally finished my first quilt.  I did not do it correctly, OH no.  Some people might decide to take a class or ask someone for help or at least youtube it.  Apparently not me.  I blame this trait of mine to plunge headlong into a previously untried experience on an excessive amount of unearned praise received as a young girl; I really believe I can do nearly anything.