I finished another sunbonnet today, from some fabric I bought on our recent trip to Chickasha. This one will be a gift for our friend M, who we have been spending lots of good times with lately. Little Omi even had her first conversation with Little Miss M. It went like this:Little Miss M: (pointing to Sonic cup in Little Omi's hands) Ice?We hope she likes it!
Little Omi: Ice.
The theme for this week's Flashback Friday is "Your and your pet!" Hooray!
We have really experienced a peak in sewing productivity around here. Yesterday I managed to start and finish the sweet wee jacket and woodland elf hat from Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing. We're talking starting with purchasing the material in the morning, to sewing the flower onto the hat around 2 a.m. but I'm still counting that as one day. Of course none of this could be achieved without the help of a sleepy Little Omi, who suddenly decided a few days ago that she would like to sleep in her very own bed at night and for naps! (OK, maybe we gave her an incentive by removing the crib rail and attaching the guard rail and calling it her "bed" instead of "the crib.") I don't know what it is, but she seems to sleep better alone in her little bed than in our big bed. I'm not questioning it, though, instead I'm celebrating and enjoying my new-found bit of time to myself in the afternoons.
I picked up a copy of Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing a few weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to try out any of the patterns until now. This little turtle is my second attempt at making soft toys, and let me just say, I don't think I'm quite up to a third attempt just yet. I think I need to gain a bit more patience before I give it another go. Plus, I'm very bad at following written instructions. I grew up on Lego instructions, which are in my book the pinnacle of all instructions, and so I appreciate well-thought-out and very clear directions. For some reason, whenever I'm reading written instructions and I don't understand something, I automatically assume they are wrong, and then I plow ahead doing what I think is right. This often ends in disaster, or at least having to go back and really concentrate on each sentence to figure out what it means.
As you may have already guessed, this week's Flashback Friday theme is "Look what my mum did to my hair!"
Pretty much everything I ever wanted arrived in the mail today. That stack of fat quarters came from Keepsake Quilting, courtesy of a birthday gift certificate from Dad (Thank you, Dad!). There are 14 1930s prints and 14 1860s reproductions in there. What a nice birthday present! Wouldn't some of those make perfect sunbonnets? The books and T-shirt came in a box from the lovely and thoughtful H. There are some very adorable and not-too-intimidating costumes in the aptly-titled Baby Costumes. Can you believe that Halloween is just around the corner? You probably can, if you've ventured into any retail store since they cleared out the back-to-school supplies and replaced them with Halloween stuff.
Little Omi has taken a particular liking to the shirt and has been carrying it around all day. It was actually quite difficult to get these photos, as evidenced in this failed shot:
(Insert shirt-swiping sound effect here.)
So, I also picked up a used green turtle sandbox for Little Omi. Whoa, boy! If we thought the kiddie pool was a hit, we hadn't seen the sandbox yet. Today she spent the better part of an hour sitting in the sand, scooping and digging and sifting. By the end, she was up on her knees and bent over with both hands just sunk in the sand. Lovely. I see some stellar mud-pies in this girl's future.
Photo by H. Marsh
Today my mom, Little Omi, and I took a day-trip to Chickasha, Okla. We picked up some lunch and took it to Shannon Springs Park, a large city park with a pond and geese that Little Omi found very fascinating (although she found the mulch in the toddler play area more fascinating). This park is where the city holds their annual Festival of Light, which I have never been to but I think we'll have to check it out this Christmastime.
The theme for Flashback Friday this week is "Say Cheese." I didn't have to look too hard in my photo collection to find a good cheesy smile. In fact, I had to narrow it down to this one. Here, my sister (right, in red) and I are mugging for the camera on a horseback ride in Colorado. Every summer our family would go on one big ride that usually involved cooking and eating a meal in the middle. I was always the littlest kid in the group, and got to ride the smallest horse, which I thought was really neat. I loved riding along the trail, our horses in single file, imagining we were on Little House on the Prairie or Centennial. I don't think I was a very skilled rider, though, because my main memory of actually controlling the horse was pulling the reins as hard as I could to try to keep the horse from eating the tall grass, which was strictly forbidden.
Autumn, like its cousin Spring, arrives in increments to these parts. First, there are the obvious signs: school starts, football season begins, but the weather remains stubbornly hot and all the back-to-school clothes stay tucked away in drawers and hanging in closets, waiting for that perfect cool day when one can wear both a sweater and a skirt. Then one day, as you are driving through the intersection that you pass through every day at the same time, you notice the sunlight has changed. Are the shadows harsher? Is the air thinner? Are the sun's rays hitting the air at a new angle? Something is definitely different. And then, this morning, when I let the dogs out, I was hit with a short blast of cool 61°F air as I opened the back door. My mother, who lives across the street from an elementary school, said that all the kids were tardy today, undoubtedly because their parents were frantically trying to find jackets for them. Autumn hasn't really arrived yet, but it is definitely creeping into town.
I took the plunge and cut into some of my new Superbuzzy fabric today and made this sunbonnet for Little Omi. My mother had bought one for her at a farmer's market in Montana, and I loved everything about it except for the fabric, which was just a little—ehh. So, I got out my trusty seam-ripper and carefully took the whole thing apart and made a pattern from it so I could make one with fabric more to my liking, and that would match Little Omi's wardrobe a bit better. It was really satisfying (and quick) to make so I am already looking at the rest of my fabric with the notion of making several more as gifts for all of the little girls we know.
It looks a bit fancier than mine, more of a Sunday best Little House bonnet as opposed to the running-down-the-hill-with-outstretched-arms style. I like it, though. I am on board for bonnet mania. This pattern comes with grown-up sizing, as well. Little Omi probably needs a dress-up bonnet, and I might need one, too.
Oh, just look at these gorgeous letterpress cards, a joint effort from Kirin & Co. and Satsuma Press, and try not to reach for your wallet! They are just my cup of tea, and the type of card I might never, ever use because I wouldn't want to sully them with my dull handwriting. I have always been a super sucker for lovely stationery; my love of paper goes back even farther than my love for fabric. (When Big Omi and I were married, we made our own invitations and lined the envelopes with paper we had bought in Japan at a shop where I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I still have all the scraps!) I even worked at a papeterie for a few months during my "lost years" (between starting college in Oregon in 1993 and finishing in Colorado in 2000) and got a decent discount, so of course I used it to build up my now-dwindling stash. I do own a Gocco (purchased to make the aforementioned wedding invites), and I've been seeing lots of good Gocco work out there lately that it has inspired me to re-stock my supplies and perhaps try a little printing. Until then, I will have to make do with drooling over those letterpress cards while trying to think of a way to justify the expense....
The theme for Flashback Friday this week is Weddings/Formal/Sunday best. This photo was taken at the first wedding I ever attended (that little baby in the upper left-hand corner is me, held by my dad). My mother is looking on as my sister shows the bride and groom something (her necklace?). There are several things I love about this photo: the bride's blue dress, the groom's shoes, my mom's eyeglasses, and my sister's beautiful gingham dress. My sister says this wedding (also her first) was a huge disappointment to her. She expected the bride to turn into a princess during the ceremony (a la Disney's Cinderella) and when she didn't, my sister thought something had gone terribly wrong.
I apologize for my absence these past few days. Little Omi has had a fever, poor dear. She's had little fevers before, but never any that lasted more than an afternoon. This one seems to have grabbed hold and doesn't want to let go, prompting me to summon my mommy superpowers of caring, loving, and nursing to chase the bugger away. Of course the fever finally broke minutes after I phoned the doctor and made an appointment. But Little Omi still isn't back to her normal self, so I'm sure it was worth the trip, even though she screamed in terror when the doctor came at her with the little ear probe. That has been the worst part of this ordeal—seeing the look of the pain of our betrayal in Little Omi's eyes as daddy held her and I shot great globs of icky medicine into her mouth while she cried and frantically made the sign for "all done" with her hands. It breaks the heart.
Big Omi and I just got around to spending a gift card we received for Christmas (thanks, mom!). I spent my half on fabric, and he spent his half on a new board game. We just finished playing Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings for the second time, and we won! (Our first try didn't go so well. Sauron ended up devouring poor Frodo and Samwise and got the ring.) The game itself is pretty difficult, but very fun. Knizia has done a good job of recreating the Middle-Earth atmosphere. It's also a cooperative game, which can be really fun and a nice change of pace from competitive games. I would definitely recommend this game to any fan of the LoTR books or movies.
