Rest, Relaxation, and Resolutions

Eating dirt out of potted house plants is way more interesting than Christmas gifts, apparently.

Home at last! Got in around 9, and we're so glad to be here. It was really nice to visit with everyone, and to eat all the delicious Christmas feasts, but there really is no place like Home.

There was a huge rush of crafting and calendar printing before we left for town, down to the wire as always. Most of the pot holders were finished and given away, though there are still more yet that need finishing up.

On our trip home I was feeling quite relaxed about the coming weeks. I have a few major things that need doing, (passport applications, getting my learner's license, conquering my lifelong fears of driving cars and flying in planes... etc.) but not many projects that feel very urgent. In short, I was looking forward to a few days 'off.'

Then I got home. Steve and I unpacked our things, started the laundry... Tried to cram the stuff we brought back from Costco into the storage shelves. I need to re-organize. Again. But that's all good, 'cos I've been meaning to rearrange the kitchen into a more baby-safe environment. Anyways, I started a little mental list of things to pick up tomorrow.

(Side note: NEW VAN. We will pick things up tomorrow in our NEW VAN!!! Yay! It's like, 10 years old or somethin', but it's new enough for us!)

So I'm all unpacking and planning my day tomorrow...
- Recycling trip
- Don't forget it's garbage day
- Empty all your cupboards and reorganize them
- Wash duvet cover
You know, the usual.

Until I caught a glimpse of a bag of fabric scraps in my closet, and was reminded of those scrappy quilt blocks that I saw here. I've been wanting to make something like that for so long, and now I can! Eeee! Also looking forward to making Sully's big quilt, and finishing up his room. I'm thinking I'll make some little birds to hang about the room, and put up some shelves.

So I guess those 'days off' I was looking forward to will be more 'on' than I was anticipating, but I'm glad for it. There's a New Year about to start, and I'd like to head into it with a positive, energetic feeling. So much to do! So many resolutions to work on, and yes, a few big hurdles to get over. Exciting times, my friends, exciting times.

Tonight though, I'm going to maybe just jot down a few notes and drink my glass of wine. I've got a double issue New Yorker to get through and a couple books as well, including a new slow cooker book that I read a good review about. Yup. My life rocks. My cozy house has stuff strewn about it, the to-do list keeps growing despite my best efforts, and I'm not sure how many more hours my 9-monther will be sleeping for tonight, but who cares? Right now I'm feeling pretty blessed.

Happy New Year, everyone. Love to you n yours,
-C

And First Place Goes To...

Steve Hazel. For your achievements in the field of excellency.
Seriously, though, the guy deserves some kinda trophy. He stayed up all night with me finishing the calendar. All night. We're both zombies now, but all the files are at the printer's, and I might even get em tonight!

It's amazing how much time everything takes. I knew it would be a long night, but didn't think it would take until 8am! And of course after staring at the same simple little line drawings for hours on end, they start to look, I dunno, not spectacular. Whatever. It's done. Out of my hands.

Late nights early mornings

Last night at... Oh I dunno what time. Early, like midnight or something, this was the "finished" pile:



Around 2am....



3am.



I've finished about 15 pairs of pot holders. So about half of what I want to make, which means I'll be sending out a lot of mail in January.

Tonight I'm drawing. Drawing!! This was around midnight:


This is now. (2:30am)


I'm waiting for the ink to dry, then I'll be erasing all the pencil, scanning stuff and arranging it into a calendar. I'm lucky I have friends who force me into doing this art stuff, 'cos otherwise I'd be sleeping right now. And sleeping is for total losers...

I stayed up late with the sewing machine, until about 3 this morning. Like I said, Cathy's prezzies are done. I moved on from there to finish the cushion covers. Since the recipients don't read my blog I can post a photo:


I love this fabric. I started these a couple weeks ago beginning by making a little sketch on graph paper, a 20x20 grid divided into sections... Scratching the lines out and redrawing them a few times, until I was satisfied. Then I figured out how big each piece should be, with each square on the graph paper representing an inch. I added 1/2 an inch to the sides of all pieces to allow for seam allowances. Then I cut them all out, making up the fabric arrangement as I went. Next of course is the sewing em all together part. I then sewed it to a backing fabric, almost like quilting but without the batting in between. Lastly, I made them into cushion covers, with two back pieces overlapping to create a big opening to shove a pillow through.

Tah Dah!

As if I needed more things to do, at about 2am I started making 'clucky' the hen and chick pattern I got from Melly and Me. It's an adorable pattern, and I look forward to finishing it, but it's the worst thing to try to do in the middle of the night. The first step is ridiculously fidgety, with a tiny wattle, and curvy tail and comb peices. Sewing allong the curved line takes forever, and then there's the turning it right-side out part, that was almost impossible. In the end I did the tail piece twice, because the first attempt was so misshapen. The second time I did it I trimmed closer to the seams in order to turn it out along the curved parts more easily, but that just meant I ended up ripping the seam out a tiny bit. Welllll... After pressing the tail flat, I zigzagged around the edges to cover up my mistakes, and am pretty satisfied with the results. By the time I'd finished those three peices it was 3am and time for bed.


This morning we went for a walk through some trails we hadn't explored yet. It's a lovely day out there, sunny but not too cold.


Posie met a new friend, Katie the weimaraner, and Laena showed me around the neighbourhood a bit, (thank you!)

So far Sully's skipped his morning nap today, so I'm hoping for an extended afternoon nap to start soon which means I'll get a bit more of this sewing done.

And then it will be on to the beer calendar. Speaking of, I should get Steve to bike up to the liquor store, if I'm going to be up all night drawing beer 'lables', I'm going to need some beer of my own!

10:40 pm

Looks like I got over my little xmas crafting spaz. I've done a few more pot holder trial runs tonight and I finished Cathy's presents! I would cross that one off my to-do list, if I knew where it was...

I'm thinking of pulling an all-nighter tonight, or something close to it, just to get as much done as possible. We'll see how it goes.

Cathy, I need your mailing address :)

Call Me Crazy

Oh Christmas, how you drive me nuts. Every year I set unreasonable goals for myself and get let down when I don't achieve them, or when I have to compromise. Like last year, I made a calendar, 'cos I said I would, and I hated the result. But still I had them printed and gave them out to everyone, because... Why? Who knows.

This year's unreasonable goal includes making a million, (50 or so,) pot holders. Right about now I'm ready to throw in the towel and cancel all Christmas crafting. Yup, sorry folks, but you don't get presents this year. From me. Having just written that, I realize that no one will actually hold it against me if they don't receive a pair of handmade pot holders this Christmas. Huh.

There are a handful of other projects on the go that I will finish and send out. Like the cushion covers and Cathy's present. I think I'll just focus on those tonight until this little tantrum of mine is over.

In other news, I've made a new friend on the Coast, she likes to sew and craft and she's a new mom and she even has a neurotic dog, just like we do! It's been pretty awesome to have someone to talk to about different crafty projects and about parenting... I tell Steve about all the things in my head, but I suspect he only pretends to listen and by now probably thinks I'm crazy.

He recognizes this xmas pattern of mine, and just shakes his head. Personally I hope to get the motivation back in order to finish these sewing projects, especially considering the time, (and money,) already invested. I mean seriously, I've already cut most of them out, I just have to sew them together! This is just a temporary blip, due to an afternoon of unsuccessful trial runs... Positive thought will return, after these messages.

Feelin Uhhgie

Sully and I seem to have a cold again. This morning I thought if I got enough rest it would go away, but we're both feeling pretty awful, the poor man can't sleep very well with all the snot.

And so another day has gone by without the To Do list getting any shorter. It is kinda nice, though, on days like today when I'm laying in bed as much as possible, (which isn't actually that much but whatevs,) when we order pizza and I take the time to just soak in the tub... I feel so lucky. My head feels like a bee's nest, but at least I get these luxuries. Also, this new robot of ours is super sweet....



Sully's going to read the manual and get back to me on how the remote works.

My floors look nice, and all I had to do was clear some furniture out of the way and close the door. He did get trapped in the ensuite last night, which I thought was pretty cute. Good thing I was home to rescue the little guy from having to clean a tiny bathroom floor for an hour.

Annnyways. I feel crappy, but incredibly grateful at the same time. There's a machine to to the laundry, and to make it dry and warm, there's a machine to do the dishes and dinner took all the effort of Steve answering the door while I was reading David Sedaris. Life is pretty sweet.

(coughcough*snifflesniffle*ughhh*)

Finished this last night, hope it'll look a bit better/less lumpy when it's felted.

Lately

Okay, so this blog is supposed to be daily, where I post the things I've made that day, or have started making or just thought about making. But lately I've been lazy. Not that I'm not making things, I've just been too wiped at the end of the day to string a sentence together, let alone whole blog posts.

It's been a week now, so I should just jot something down. Starting with last Friday... Oh yeah, Friday I made three pies, (2 pumpkin, 1 apple) and two pots of soup. Carolyn, Kaitlyn and Dan arrived that afternoon... Here's a photo of the bebes that night:


Saturday I made a big brunch and later, a turkey dinner.

Here's Heather's review:


If it weren't for Carolyn's help I would have totally ruined the turkey. The stars of the show were definitely the stuffing and the baked creamy leeks, thank you Jamie Oliver! Gotta say though, about that cook book, I'm rarely disappointed, except the soups I made on Friday weren't all that awesome. I made the cauliflower + cheese soup for the first time and will be adding a few potatoes to the pot next time, and more cauliflower. The lentil soup came out a bit grainy, but that was probably my fault somehow, 'cos it was great last time.

Here are some adorable babies:
Just a few cousins, hangin' out on a Sunday morn.... It was so nice to have a house full of adorables.


Which brings me to this week's projects:

I'm knitting a fourth and last ball for Sully. It started out as an oval that I was going to turn into a felted dinosaur egg, but have settled on making it a giant ball. Almost done.

I also designed a patchwork cushion cover for a couple lovely ladies on my Christmas list, and have finished sewing all the pieces together. Next step is to put backs on them and make them into covers, but the fun part is done now so I'm finding it hard to get motived to finish them.

It's still crisp and bright outside so we've been getting lots of walks in, at least an hour a day. This lil' pic is from 2 days ago.



I suppose that's all there is to report. I really should have had a more productive week, perhaps finishing the calendar or whatnot, but it's been slow going. I think it might have something to do with all this sunshine we've been getting, it's just too hard to stay inside :)

Oh yeah, I made these chocolate truffles tonight. Simple recipe, but not sweet enough. The dark chocolate is too overpowering. Oh well, they'll still get eaten.

Oi.

Steve's family is arriving tomorrow, so I spent much of today getting things ready to have a house full of people, incl. 4 kids. I washed both the dog and the floors today, something I've been putting off for longer than I care to admit. And now my back is killing me. Just kinda chilling out a bit before going to bed... Resisting the urge to pick up my knitting.

Somewhere in today's craziness I found time for a nice hour-long walk up the street to run some errands, and also squeezed in a little crafty time. I started a couple of Christmas decorations using pine and cedar boughs. I used to make these things all the time as a florist, where you tie a few boughs together and wire in bobbles and ornaments. Can't remember what they're called now, kinda like a wreath. Anyways, I bought a few little cheapy xmas decs, and tied em into the boughs, also tied up a couple bows for them. I'd like to make a few little birds or other Christmas tree decorations for them, but that will have to wait until after this weekend. It's funny though, how fun it was to do a bit of decorating. I never do the whole tree thing, but I guess now that we're a little family it seems we should have something decorated. When I was walking around my house looking for places to put up the few strings of lights that I own, I was reminded of a Jenna's dad and how he used to decorate his vintage hair drier for Christmas. One of those ones that old ladies would sit under while their perms set. I was wishing I had one to wrap a bunch of lights around, but alas.

Anyways... I'm done eating my pickles n cheese now, so I should prolly head to bed. Fingers crossed Sully stays asleep for a bit! I really need some rest.
xoxo

Good Morning!

Sully and I woke up to find it had froze last night and that the world around us was covered in lovely white frost. We got outside as quickly as possible and went for a walk. Then when we came home Steve had got out of bed, so we dragged him out for another walk. It was just too beautiful to miss!

I took a few quick snap shots while I was out.
(Disclaimer: my photography skills have gone by the wayside + this camera is not really meant for beautiful/artsy photos, so they're not special, but one might still get the gist of how nice the walk was.)


Posie in the park


A frosted fence...


And a couple of my favourite horsies, taken from the trail that runs past the property they live on. Yeah, those people live in fairytale land or something, their home is so gorgeous. (A pond, the forest, the horses, a bunch of bunnies hopping around...)

Hello December!

Wow. December already, and it is gorgeous! Sully's down for a nap, but as soon as he wakes up I'm taking him out for a walk. I think we'll go up the trail to the quilt shop today. I need some template plastic for those Melly and Me patterns.

I finished this last night


Another ball, sitting on a big stack of fabric. There are a few of these stacks piled around my craft table, waiting to be put to good use.

This is a little snapshot I took while out walking yesterday:



It's the end of the street I live on, by the trail head. There's a sign on a tree right there that says 'Caution: Cougar in Area,' but it's been up since a few days after we moved here.. So I just ignore it. Not much you can do about these things, right? Just the cost of living here.. Keep your eyes out for wildlife, and watch where you step. (There's a bunch of bear scat in my front yard...)

And here's my walking buddy, strapped into his fancy stroller. You should see the stuff this stroller can go over! Plows right over stumps and roots without any trouble...


Think he's got enough chins?