Art history

First, good news: we picked a new realtor! Although we were very fond of our last one, we thought for various reasons that it was a good strategy to relist with a new person. So we are. And it was great to have the break from the house-selling, and now it's great to feel like we're going at it fresh again! When the for-sale sign first went into my frozen lawn last January it made me feel nervous, but eight months later we have a lot more clarity on the issue (as well as an additional human living here) and I'm going to celebrate when the new sign goes up!

In preparation for the (hopeful) showings we'll be having, I've been clearing out the spaces where Stuff collects around our house. A bag of toys is ready to go to Goodwill, and a great number of priceless works of art by the resident 4-year-old are being recycled. I can't feel bad about this, because if I kept all of her artwork we wouldn't have any room to live. She's very prolific, and her grandparents, father and I are supportive patrons. But we can't keep it all. No way. So I have a cubby where I stash art once she gives it to me, then periodically while she's out I go through it. The pieces that are really memorable--ones she worked on for a long time, are particularly original, or are representative of a stage of her art--I date and file in a large plastic paper organizer (marketed to scrapbookers for organizing their supplies) that I bought when she was a small baby. I have one for her and I recently bought another for Worth. Then I take those and several particularly nice other ones, scan them, and include those images in our family photo albums, ordered from Blurb.com. On the most recent album I ordered I devoted the first section just to her artwork and the text of my family-related status updates from Facebook. Since I'm one of those obnoxious people (sorry!) who thinks all my "friends" must surely be interested in the charming things my children do and say, I often use household episodes as status updates. To be sure that I don't share them with several hundred of my closest friends and then forget them altogether, I comb through my Facebook profile every few months and copy and paste the text of the updates into my photo album in progress. This seems to be working pretty well, and I don't have to be particularly organized about it but can catch up on it in a hurry as I have the chance.

Thinking ahead

Yes, it reached 102 degrees around here this week, but inside the air-conditioning I was working on a new hat and scarf set for Dorothy. When I went to Joann last weekend I knew I better come home with more than just fabric for Worth, so I also picked up some inexpensive yarn for Dorothy. It's just acrylic, but it's soft and should wash well, and with her fickle tastes there is always the possibility she will never wear it--I've wasted good wool on her before. I paid all of $4.50 for the yarn (at half off) and there's enough left for another project, so I feel good about not making any particular investment in it. It's a simple bulb-shaped hat that I fitted to her head as I went, and the scarf is just five rows of double-crochets with a little scalloped edge. I love how quickly bulky yarn works up! I used double-strands on the hat so it would be extra warm. The flower is an oversized version of the flower from this pattern. It seems a little overstated for the cap of a four-year-old, but, well, that's what four-year-olds like. It's adorable on, and I told her I will now always be able to spot her in her rainbow hat playing on the school playground once cool weather comes.

Some projects and a nap strategy

This tank was an embellishment from earlier in the summer. I thought I'd photograph it on me to show how the sun design wraps around, but I never remember to. I love how it turned out and I've worn it over and over. It was another $5 tank top from Target, and I used a compass to make pencil circles on fabric for the sun design, cut them out and attached them to the shirt with double-sided fusible web (Wonder Under), then zig-zagged around them on the machine. It was inspired by a beautiful shirt I saw on someone at an art fair last year.

And after all my fussing over kids' sunhats earlier in the summer, Baby Worth went and outgrew his and I had to go at it again. At least by now I think I've been able to establish a good work flow for hats and this one came together quickly. I used Simplicity 5695. It looks very New Orleansish to me, in a good way. Definitely not a sweet teddy bears and bunnies kind of hat, but I think he likes it.

And speaking of that baby, he's taken a high-maintenance turn the last few days. He's waking up screaming at night, is spending less time contentedly playing with measuring cups on the floor, and is refusing to nap for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I'm not sure if the source of his discontent is teething or a new develpmental milestone (he's creeping backwards--watch out world!), but I'm trying to strategize how to keep us all sane and happy and I seem to have worked out a good nap plan, at least. He seems to be sleeping lightly and will wake up fully after just a few minutes if he doesn't see me there with pats and reassurance, so today I put him down for his nap on the sofa next to me and I sat there with my crochet and coffee for an hour while he slept. It ended up being a sweet hour where I got to admire his perfect little sleeping body, take a quiet and restful hour myself, and make some progress on a crochet project too. Now I might be disappointed after this stage passes and I can tuck him in upstairs by himself again!

Two kitchen experiments

The kids and I spent a lot of quality time in the kitchen today, partly because I figured that way we'd only mess up one room of the house we'd just cleaned for last night's realtor interview (it went well, one more to go). I dearly love mixing up sweet concoctions and then running the through our ice cream maker, which is the easy-to-use electric kind with the bowl you just freeze in the freezer--no ice or salt required. You can dump just about anything liquid in the ice cream maker and make a nice slush--margaritas, ice creams, even instant pudding (before it sets up!). When Dorothy was a baby I used to puree fruit and plain yogurt together and turn that into "ice cream" in tiny little individual jars for her. She loved it! Today we made purple ice cream, and it's been a hit. I blended a cup of blackberries with 3 cups of milk (skim is what we had on hand) and 1 cup of sugar, then poured it into the ice cream freezer with 1 cup of half and half for a little richness. I could have strained out the seeds but didn't bother--we don't mind the seeds. It's light, not super creamy (what with the skim milk and no heavy cream), but it's still delicious and we don't feel too bad eating a lot of it! And it's purple, which is the current favorite color of Dorothy.

Today's other kitchen experiment was sweet potato chips. I'd read somewhere online recently about making really healthy sweet potato chips in a food dehydrator (our model: thrift store, $2), so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not a big salty snacker myself, I'm more of a sweets girl (see above) but Dorothy is quite fond of chips and I thought this might be a good snack for her. So I dragged out the mandoline, which is kind of a neat kitchen toy but not one I get out often, given how it is a fun-looking gadget that involves super-sharp blades, and my assistant chef is four. Anyway, I used the mandoline to slice up a sweet potato into reaaaaally thin little slices, then Dorothy and I loaded up the dehydrator trays with them and salted them (you can't use oil in a dehydrator because it doesn't dehydrate) and waited eagerly for the results. An hour and a half later the chips looked beautiful. I took one out and broke it to see if it was done--lovely, crunchy brittleness! We each bit into one. Wow. They were totally nasty. Ick. Like orange cardboard with a whiff of sweet potato. More salt didn't even help. Don't they look pretty, though? You can't win 'em all...

Intruder

Ok, I must interrupt my usual flow of blogging about my crafty projects and my children to bring you: WTF is floating in my iron??!

A sewing frenzy

We're interviewing a couple new realtors before we decide what our next house-selling steps are, and the first one comes tomorrow. That effectively means that my time to mess up the house with thread and fabric snippets is coming to a close, so I'm in a frenzy of stitch-witchery over here, getting things really good and messy. (Until tomorrow.) Last night I made Worth this little puppy dog romper, based on the same pattern and the 4th of July one, but this one actually fits. It's cute on and comes together quickly, but I do think the rounded straps look slightly feminine. If I get a chance to make another one I'll probably square off the straps.

Then I made these sweet little shorts, which are deliciously soft and comfy, with more useless cute buttons. They also fit him nicely, but I'm a little worried the fabric won't wash well. There is no way I'm ironing shorts for my 5-month-old.

And I finally finished this shirt for myself. It's based on Butterick B4549, and it matches the brown skirt I made earlier in the summer. I shirred the tops of the sleeves to make it more flattering, and I finished all the edges in bias tape that I made from the scraps of the skirt, so it's all matchy. I'd actually sewn the shirt a while back, but when I put it on there was a wicked sharp little edge jutting up from the zipper, which is under the arm, and it hurt. The shirt then lay on my sewing pile for a month or two, and now I finally sewed a little tab on that snaps over the sharp zipper so I can wear it.

On a completely different subject, I was reflecting on how quickly the last five months have gone, and how painfully slow were the nine before that. I just don't love pregnancy. I'm so happy to be unpregnant now, yet in some ways the pains of pregnancy are still dogging me. All those magazines say it's "perfectly normal" to get horrid brown spots all over your face while you're pregnant, called "mask of pregnancy." What they don't tell you is that it's also "perfectly normal" to spend a bunch of money on creams once your pregnancy is long over, trying to get rid of those same "normal" spots. And that breastfeeding helps you lose the baby weight--so long as you eat fewer calories than it takes to sustain your baby and maintain your current weight. Sigh...

But I love my baby!

A big deal

I had a birthday a couple days ago, and although I truly feel fine about being 34, for some reason the song stuck in my head all day Friday was Thunder Road--not the whole song, just the bit about "so you're scared and you're thinkin' that maybe we ain't that young anymore." But truly, I feel fine about where I am in life and that I'm 34. Show a little faith! (Thank you Bruce.) I had a great day with my family.

Today I'm at the sewing machine with Baby Boy in mind. He's grown so fast almost nothing weather-appropriate fits him anymore, and I continue to be pretty unhappy with store-bought boy clothes (football, anyone?). I also can't just head off to the thrift store and find good sewing fabric for him like I can for Dorothy. But luckily it doesn't take much fabric to make baby clothes, even for babies the size of this one, so I journeyed to Joann last night and came home with a nice little selection to keep me busy for a few days. Today I made him a pair of shorts and a matching t-shirt. I don't think the picture shows the detail on the shorts, but they turned out pretty cute. They are long, like surfer shorts, and I sewed faux pockets on the front and a useless but cute little front button for decoration. They fit nicely over his cloth diaper. The tee is an old onesie from Dorothy's babyhood that I cropped to make a regular shirt (because I wouldn't Worth to look dorky with a onesie tucked into his casual shorts) and then ironed on printer transfer paper. I created the transfer by scanning the shorts fabric and using it as a border for my text. It ain't a beauty, but hey, it's all right.