Busy Bee

This morning was one of those lovely morning when I woke up at about 3:30am. Went to the bathroom (being pregnant is wonderful), and then went back to my bed (fell asleep in my littlest boys bed). I tried and tried to fall back asleep, but my mind was anything but tired.

I was creating a mental list of things at 3 something in the am, that's how my brain works sometimes.

What is a mommy to do?

Well, for starters, the smell of fresh bread was in the back of my mind, so here's what was for breakfast today:

This little heel was all that was left of my ham & cheese bread. Next time I'm thinking much more ham & cheese, I'm talking gooey.

I also have quite a UFO list, and an even longer list of projects that I want to get done. Thankfully I was able to cross a total of 4 things off those 2 lists.

The first item being the sashiko sampler that I have been planning on turning into a pillow cover.

I am planning on adding a few buttons to keep the flaps on the back closed up nicely. Other than that she's done. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I didn't want to take away from the sampler, but didn't want a boring back either and I think I nailed it.

In my opinion, one can never have too many pillows. How many pillows do you have on your couch? On your bed? I have an L-shaped couch from IKEA, the Ektorp one I think, and I've got 7 to 9 pillow on it in addition to the cushions. I think there's about 8 pillows on my King-sized bed, and none of them are just decorative. I heart pillows, even have a pinterest board just for pillows. Clearly I need to add some more to it....

The other 3 things were: making a pair of leggings for my Little L from a shirt that was way too short for me, mend a pair of yoga pants for Miss A, and make PJ pants for a little boy who is a good friend of the family. I'll get a photo of this guy in his pants soon, I can bet it will be a good one, he's quite a character!

To top all of this off, I actually put together a post about it and on the same day to boot, with pictures.

Ok, can I go take a nap now??

But first, check out some more of our creative spaces.

Ripple It

There are a few blogs I like to follow (ok, quite a few blogs...), one of them being Attic24. I love Lucy's color choices and her style.

Crochet was the first handcraft that I learned as a child, I believe I was 5 or 6. Not quite sure when I started because I nagged my mother and grandmother for quite a few seasons before they felt I was ready to learn (or they finally felt ready to teach - not sure which).

Either way, Lucy is doing a ripple-along right now. I've been eying her ripple pattern for some while now, and with it being baby crazy in my neck of the woods there are plenty of baby gifts to be made.

I think this ripple-along will help me stay motivated to finish this gift before it's needed.

This is indeed reviving my love for crochet and it's relaxing powers. Sitting and crocheting reminds me of the time spent with my grandma crocheting. She taught me to make tiny finger puppets when I was about 7. It's funny because stuff like that is all over the internet now.

If you feel so inclined you should join it! There's a Flickr group for it and everything.

Here is the project on my Ravelry.

Linked up with:

Happy 9th Birthday A!

Happy Birthday Girl!!

Thank you for being the motivation to get my life turned in the right direction, at 19 that's hard to do sometimes.

I love you, and I'm not sure you'll ever understand how much you've helped me and changed me.

Just Make a Choice

This morning was a busy one for us, or me mostly. Of course, most days are pretty busy for a stay-at-home-mom of 4 kids with one on the way.

Anyway, I was at the grocery store in the checkout line. This was my last errand for the morning, and I was to the point where the thought of being at home was a very nice feeling. The lady at the checkout asked "how are you today?" (she's the lady I go to just about every single time I'm in this store).

I didn't know what to say. I was tired, stressed, and thinking about the list that is 9 miles long waiting for me to do, at the top being: clean the kitchen where pots have been accumulating for 2 days and laundry.

I looked at her and smiled. Then I said "I could complain, but not today."

You see, I'm really trying to be much more of a positive person when I get really tired & stressed.

She smiled and said "sometimes it feels better to vent". So, my response was "well, I am a little bummed that it's rainy and the leaves aren't crunchy today to go play in."

She laughed.

I'm not quite sure why this was so important for me to blog about, but it seemed to be a turning point for the day.

Putting 'the list' aside, and all the stress. I had a great morning!

I finished the bobble blanket I've been working on since late July of this summer. It's the one that my grandmother passed along to me, and I love how it turned out. I am usually a very colorful, random matching of things kind of crocheter for blankets that are done with squares, but the single color of this one works wonders.

My photo isn't so great, super overcast-y and drizzly day here so not really good light. Maybe once the sun shines again I can take it outside and get some good ones.

I also scored BIG at the farmer's market (Willey's in Townsend) this morning. They had local cauliflower that was huge and simply beautiful, 2 crowns for $6. Must have weighed at least 2 pounds each. The real reason I went was to get my supply of apple seconds:

50 pound bushel for $10. Last year I got about 16 quarts of applesauce and 8 pints of apple butter out of it (as well as eating just a few), and we just ran out of applesauce last month. I'm thinking of not making the apple butter this year though, no one here liked it. Maybe some apple pie filling is in order. Some smaller portions of applesauce would be a good idea too since we'll have a little one in need before this time next year. I have been thinking about getting another bushel, but I'll save the final call on that one for after this one has been taken care of.

My house smells so nice with the addition of this bushel of apples.

Did I mention that the gentleman who helped me take it to the car carried it on his shoulder like it was a beach towel? You should have seen me carrying it up the 6 steps to get it into my house, it was probably quite hilarious to any onlookers....

Besides, Thursdays in the fall can't be all that bad, Project Runway is on tonight!

My First Pouch!

Yes, I am a little behind the wagon with cute stuff to make. And, I usually skip the easier things to make in the process of learning a new craft. For whatever reason, I go big or go home (not always intentionally).

Anyway, on to the pouch:

How cute is that??

It is a present for a very special 9 year old in our daughter's life (aka: her bestie from birth). I asked my daughter what her friend likes: nail polish.

Naturally we just had to make her a cute little pouch to carry these nail polishes in! I hope she loves it, and since she's not the 'everything must be pink' kind of girl I'm thinking these colors are right up her alley.

I used the zipper end cover that Florence at flossieteacakes did on her pouch tutorial (her pouch is adorable!).

I changed this up a bit, and squared off the bottoms so it would sit well with the nail polish in it. I wanted to quilt it, and I think I definitely need to use double batting, or quilt both the outside and the lining. Other than that, I am really excited about making some more!

Very happy with how it turned out.

October's Welcome Here

There are quite a lot of things that I love about October. I do live in Delaware so the colors can definitely be enough for me to be in heaven most days!

The 10 degree outside temperature drop is definitely a bonus this year with all the heat we had this summer!

October, for our family, always starts with Conference Weekend. The thought of being able to sit on my couch in yoga pants, a fire blazing, and plenty of snacks and watch church on TV most of the weekend is simply glorious! This years Conference was no different than all the others we've watched, there was a message for each of us that we needed to hear without even realizing it. There were moments of happy tears, and moment of reflective tears for me (always more tears when there's a bun in the oven).

Saturday morning before Conference, I took the kids over to my oldest son's elementary school for their Fall Festival. This is something that the school has been pushing pretty much since the school year started. I have to say, I was rather disappointed. I felt like it was a drive-by yard sale, you know the one that you see fliers for everywhere and even see in the paper then you get there and it isn't even worth getting out of the car... yea it was a lot like that. They did have a moon bounce, so the kids could've cared less about everything else (or the lack there of).

I did get a few good pictures tough.

Dancing, she would NOT go on the moon bounce.

This weekend I also got lots done in the kitchen, which felt so great! I feel like I got my umpf back, finally!! I baked 6 loaves of pumpkin swirl bread, ohh the house smelled so good. Of course, I gave away 5 of them (I don't need to gain that much weight before the holidays...). And I canned about 5 pounds of dried beans. I know, dried beans store for-e-ver, but I find I hardly ever ever use them when they're dried. If I'm making a huge batch of something then I might use a pound here or there, but I like to can them (it's super easy) and I use them up that way for sure. I found the 'recipe,' or instructions really, that I use online at a neat site called The Recipe Link, they have a whole section on canning & preserving. It's got tons and tons of stuff! I'm planning to do another batch of beans this week and hopefully go get my mass of apples to do applesauce too.

Clearly I need to work on taking photos indoors!

For some reason I woke up pretty early both days last weekend. So, Saturday became baking day and Sunday morning I started quilting the Pink n Green Quilt I'm working on for my Mom.

I was originally going to do straight-line quilting for two reasons: 1- it's much faster than any other type I do, and 2- I thought it would look really nice to echo the white squares that the corners of the snowball blocks made. Didn't like it. So, I'm going to stipple it, avoiding the white square all-together since only some of them were trimmed so there is 6 layers of fabric in their intersections (yikes).

I quite like how it looks, and of course my photos are horrible because my lighting in the basement is lousy (to put it nicely). I do have lights that focus on my sewing area, but that's all and it's just no good for photos.

(This one shows the colors more true)

(And this one shows the quilting better)

Either way, it felt good to get started on quilting this monster. Honestly, I was avoiding it for a few weeks... I know, I know, I need to get cracking on holiday gifts. The thought of quilting another king just wasn't appealing... can you blame me?