Weighted blanket

Hurray! I just finished a weighted blanket for Monkey, and then woke him up so it could help him fall asleep. Yep, this is the magic that is parenting. I've wanted to make him one for a long time, but couldn't think of what to fill it with. Dried beans or rice couldn't be washed, an important quality for us. Pennies or washers seemed prone to oxidization and banging the heck out of my washer. Then Craft Nectar mentioned using Poly Pellets, tiny polypropylene balls for filling stuffed animals. Genius. It's very easy, once you actually get all your stuff together. I was very picky about fabric and looked all over the place before finding this great Alexander Henry robot print and some nameless fabric with tools. It is so nice to finally get this done.

I sewed channels into a giant fabric pocket, sewn together on three sides. I then measured out 23 grams in nine cups and poured it into each channel. I used three bags of pellets for a six pound blanket.

Sew across the top of the pellets, dividing your pocket into little squares, and repeat as necessary. I propped my machine up at an angle to keep the pellets away from the needle. It is cumbersome at first, but actually gets a little easier as less fabric is mashed under the arm.

So soothing.

Mobius

I'm hanging in there. Knitting helps.

Lunchbox

I've been meaning to do this for Monkey since before school started. Freezer paper stencils can be remarkably detailed.

Chairs

I won't lie, I am a bit lonely here in Alabama. I like it here, it is so beautiful and green and people are so friendly that as an ex-westerner it constantly surprises me. But I haven't made any friends. My neighbors all work, and I miss living on base. Church has somehow become nearly intolerable for Monkey, and by the end of the first meeting he is so agitated I would gladly chew through my own leg to get out of there. Who knows what the problem is, the lights? the upholstery? the sound of that many people breathing? Autism is a mystery that likes to kick you in the gut with it's poor verbal skills. But this loneliness is not all bad, because I am getting so much done. I am working on building an island in my kitchen. I'm sewing a quilt. And I finally recovered my dining room chairs, which were truly disgusting. The original cream upholstery was beautiful but sure did not last long. Last week Monkey bled all over several of the chairs, and that was the last straw.


I'm kind of embarrassed at how easy recovering the chairs was. I should have done it a year ago.

Cubes

I am so picky about furniture, that I have started building stuff just so I get exactly what I want (also, I live no where near an ikea). My first project was organizing the Monkey's bedroom. I am really happy with the way these cubbies turned out, and did learn some important things to remember when I start my next project.

*Refuse help at Home Depot. This rule is not for everyone, but is vital for me. Seriously, if I need help loading a sheet of plywood I most certainly will ask for it. Please don't insist just because I'm a tiny girl with a kid, you just make me feel nervous and uncertain. And then I won't carefully choose my wood to make sure it's not warped.

*Measure the exact spot where a piece is supposed to go. Just because your math says that the slot should without a doubt be x inches long does not mean it is.

*Prime plywood. You would not believe how much paint the inside of a 2'6" x 3'6" shelving unit sucked up.

Next up, debates about whether I need a miter saw or table saw more.

Shorts

This is a deceptive picture; I am not actually in Okinawa. Luckily it turns out Alabama has bamboo forests too.

This summer was loooooong and weird, and I am glad to be moved, and have Monkey back in school. Planning then canceling an international move, then moving within the country on short notice can mess with a girl. But my home is where my boys are, where I keep our stuff, where I sleep at night. And I am glad to be home.

Amongst all the craziness of this summer I did get a lot done, the very best thing this pair of capris. At 5'2" and shaped like a cardboard tube, pants are very hard to find. I have no waist. I have no ass. Even sewing them myself is no guarantee: I have tried so many different patterns, and the very best I have come up with qualified merely for "don't hate them". After an unsuccessful attempt at drafting I gave up and tore into a box of scrap fabrics containing one perfect pair of jeans that have disintegrated past the point of decency (even with extensive patching). Out came my vorpal scissors, seam ripper and craft paper, and I now have the patten for exquisitely fitting pants/shorts/capris. I am no longer a slave to the fashion industry in regards to clothing my lower half! I have actually made two pairs of these so far, exactly the same save the fabric (the second pair is dark green denim). They are the most comfortable shorts AND best fitting shorts I have ever owned.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I show off my kick awesome woodworking.

Limbo

Things are so crazy here that we are mainlining lizards. Actual updates when my brain isn't so heavy.

The arranging of Baggage

I just had the most wonderful epiphany. I was pinned down earlier today by someone whom I do not like. And just now, I realized there is no need for me to be held hostage to her negative rants. I know that in the past she has said some nasty things about me, when I was YW president. It really upset me that hours after merely speaking with her, she still has the power to make me feel bad about myself.

But just now, I remembered that there is no reason for me to have to talk to her ever again. I am not in YW anymore. I was in fact released about 8 months ago. I do not need to subject myself to her verbal poison. I have never heard her say anything that was not a complaint-frequently very personal things about people I know. I would not stand near someone who was using fire unsafely; why would I let myself be burned by her vitriol.

So I happily release myself from any misplaced sense of responsibility I might feel. It is not my job to make her feel happy with our ward. I will remain polite, but if she interjects herself into a conversation I will excuse myself and leave at once. Interactions with her will be 10 words or less. I don't need her or the emotional weight, and like a balloon I am letting it go. And it is so beautiful to watch it float away.

Insomnia

Can't sleep a wink. How many of these do I have by now?

Again with the rectangles

My quilting kick continues. This is a throw for the RS to tie, for some good cause or another (I don't get to attend RS because I'm Monkey's teacher, so I'm fuzzy on details).
My secret confession is that I started the lattice quilt for this project, but the squares were a lot of work and it seemed a waste to tie it instead of quilting it on the machine.
I am really happy with this top; my corners match up better than anything I've done yet. Which I guess means I've finally mastered cutting things out.

Quilt

This weekend my brother and his family visited from Alabama, so Monkey and I were able to hand over the quilt we made for their little boy. I am so happy with the way this quilt came together! I love the way the colors went together so perfectly and I think that the rectangular blocks make the lattice design really interesting.

I had a rather embarrassing learning experience in the early stages of this quilt: rectangles are directional. That means that when you are bisecting the blocks, half must be cut slanting one direction, and the other half must lean the other way. They can not be rotated 90 degrees, no matter how much you want to and how stupid you might feel.

This is the first thing larger than a potholder that I've machine quilted using the darning foot. I ended up using chalk to sketch out my meandering line; it was just too much space for me to think about while muscling around the quilt and looking at a small portion of the whole. Monkey helped lots on this quilt- he loves to sit on my lap and help me run the sewing machine. He also will pull out little snips and scraps of fabric and put them under the presser foot working the needle by hand when I'm up cutting fabric or ironing; it is a good thing he's too short to reach the peddle or I'd have to pick things up better.

Poem

A poem for the 4th Annual Brigid Silent Poetry Reading, penned by myself this year. Haiku, of course. Maybe by next year I'll be good enough at iambic pentameter for a sonnet.

Won Ton Soup

tasty little fish

swimming in broth, cooked on the

surface of the sun

Keeping Warm

We went to Hohenzollern Castle today. It was amazingly beautiful. And freezing cold, as evidenced by this picture featuring 6 different hand knits (you can only see five, but I'm wearing hand knit socks), also a fleece sweatshirt and jacket that I sewed for the Monkey.

Solstice

Monkey and I were going a little crazy, with the sun going down here at 4:30, so we took a little road trip. Piled in the car and visited the N.O. Aquarium. Ate biegnets. Sang along with Trogdor. Danced with buskers. Not a bad day to turn 32. It might be the darkest day of the year, but it is looking up.

Birds

It finally stopped raining Thursday night, so this morning I was able to shampoo smelly dog and acquired a large branch, broken off my neighbors tree. A firm believer in power tools, I used my skil saw to hack up a branch for my kitchen and stuck on a few fabric birds I made the other day using this pattern from Spool. I think it needs more birds, so if I'm feeling really brave I'll call a friend and see if she wants to have a bird party. I'll bring the stash.

Also, my dog stinks.

Totally Lost.My.Shit. on the phone with Lawyerguy yesterday.
It wasn't pretty.
For the first two months the deployment really wasn't bad at all. I had projects to do, visitors planned. Monkey and I went to Disneyworld. But it seems all my good ideas and projects took about two months to finish, and on a day where I had been sick for the last 6 weeks (not sleeping means you catch every single microbe to come along), it rained 4 inches preventing Monkey, the dog, or me from going outside, and a 15 time-zone move "somewhere within the next 10 months" looming heavily on my mind, Lawyerguy tactfully mentions "You sound a little stressed".

You think?

After much eye related leakage I was reminded that I need to get out of the house every single day (you forget this when you don't talk to grown-ups every day). So Monkey and I participated in a little retail therapy and came home with another Engine for his train set (Mavis-we needed a girl train) and flowers. Because a girl should remember to get herself flowers when she needs them.

Potholders

Good news! If you forgot to get graham crackers yesterday for a cheesecake crust and are too agoraphobic to brave the Commissary today, Ritz crackers make a perfectly tasty crust.
On the crafty front, I recently acquired a darning foot and practiced free motion quilting on a couple potholders. Free motion quilting is lots of fun. Crazy, holy-crap-we-are-all-over-the-place fun. The fall colors quilt top is done, and I would love to quilt it with leaf shapes (which will probably be more of a meander with vague leafy hints). At least for now I can loose the dangerously beat up (and hideous) snowman potholders.

11 years

Happy anniversary Lawyerguy!
You still make my heart go pitter pat every time I see you, even now when it is just on Messenger.

I will see you soon.

I can has mood swings?

Today while on the webcam with Lawyerguy he told me a friend in the Pentagon (I know, WEIRD) called him to say that his new orders just cleared, and next summer we are PCSing to Kadena AFB in Okinawa.
Since then I have accomplished absolutely nothing.
I am really really really excited; years ago Lawyerguy and I spent a summer in Japan on a study abroad trip and I loved the country. I think about it all the time. My kid has grown up on a steady diet of onigiri and My Neighbor Totoro (um, not that he is eating Totoro. That came out weird.) My sister took Monkey on the Finding Nemo ride at Epcot 3 or 4 times, just so I could run out to the Japan area. I was actually thinking about how much I would like to go back yesterday.

But just between you and me, I have a bit of a stomach ache. When my dad responded to my news with "Oh no!" it didn't help.

Quilt decisions

Home from my trip and life is back to as normal as it ever is. My big event today is deciding which color sashing to do on my fall colors quilt. Opinions?















The pattern on the dark might be a little too linear. But it is so beautiful, and the colors make you want to snuggle under it with a cup of tea and a good book, and listen to the leaves blow.











The light, leafy print looks better than it photographed here. The scattering of leaves is subtle and is thematically perfect. Instead of reminding you of quiet nights inside, it makes you think of walking outside under a bright sky, white from clouds covering the blue and acting as a giant diffuser.










Then there is the option of combining the two, with small squares of one color where all the corners meet to add interest. But which should be the main color? Once again I am so busy seeing both sides of an argument that I am unable to make a decision.