Books and other treats

First of all, I have to say thank you for all the kind and supportive comments about my last post. Amy said it was moment by moment and she is right. I know it will be that way for awhile as we watch this all unfold. Its nice to have somewhere to come to help me process. So thank you all!
Time for something lighter. My sweet unbelivable baby boy will be 7 on wednesday . Or in "4 sleeps" as he says. I told him about what I did with my birthday- the drawing for the treats and he wanted to get in on that. So what we decided is that we have a few extra goodie bags from his party that he would like some lucky kids in blogland to end up with. I will say that he is a lover, this kid, so his treat bag goodies are pretty sweet and unisex. I will leave the contents a suprise , but I will say that a copy of one of our favorites, "Diary of a Worm" will be included. I am a plan ahead kind of gal so when I saw that book in the Scholastic book order months ago for only 95 cents each, I ordered 18 of them to use as party favors and little gifts. I have three treat bags so leave a comment with the ages of your kids and how many you have and he will draw a winner on his birthday. He is so excited! He loves to get things in the mail and I love that he wants to do this for some other kids.
Speaking of great books- I was at a garage sale a few weeks ago and it was like winning the book lottery. I got to talking with the woman and her daughter had had a brain tumor when she was young (she is now 23 and wonderul- didn't want to keep you in suspense!) so they had to spend a ton of time at home and in the hospital. As a result, they joined several book clubs for kids. They had so many books! And they were all between 10 and 25 cents! We bought a set called the "lets talk about " series. Its all books about different issues a kid might face, like, "lets talk about bullying" Lets talk about tattling" that sort of thing. The kids love them! I was amazed how easily they took to them and thankful because they really do frame up certain things that I don't always have the best explanations for. We also found these great books- a whole series of science books with the most amazing illustrations (the photo above). I found a few old craft books and other children's books not in sets and they have all been a huge hit. Plus I found a brio wooden loom for $3! So much great really useful stuff. The best part though was just talking to this woman. We bonded over the whole child inthe hospital thing and talked about how isolating that can feel and how amazing it is to have your child get well after worrying so much. I love when you connect with a person that way. We hugged and I left her sale and have not seen her since , but I have thought about her.
Finally, here is a photo of the lovely morning glory that reseeded itself in our yard. L and I planted these last year and they were so nice. I had always heard that the intentional morning glories you plant from seed do not re seed themselves. I am here to tell you that is crap. Everywhere we planted them last year is full of them this year. Only the dark blue though. The Heavenly Blue we planted did not come back. M looked at them the other morning and I told her that they would be closed by dinner and thats why they are called Morning Glory and she just kept saying, No, they can't close, they are too beautiful. It was sweet. She is a four year old who is a bit rough around the edges so its always nice to see this side of her too.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. We are looking forward to being home and having a little fun and getting a few things done around the house. There is a Hawaiian festival tomorrow so you know where we will be! Aloha nui loa!

Does this have to have a title? I can't think of one. This is a photo of a small collection of teacups I have. It started years ago when I was at an estate sale and I saw the prettiest tea cup. (That one 2nd up from the right). Then I found another one at another sale. By the time I had bought four or so , over the course of a couple of months, I realized they were all made by Aynsley China in England. So I decided thats all I would buy. (with the rare exception twice of Royal Albert because it was my Grandma's favorite).
I haven't been very bloggy lately. Long story short, someone extremely important to us will not be with us much longer. I still feel sort of speechless at the very thought of it. Like it is the most absurd thing I have heard. I am still really navigating my way through all of these painful layers. It feels weird to come on here and start talking about my knitting when I feel like my whole heart is a huge wet sponge. And the sponge is so full of wetness that it is just dripping all over. Does that even make sense? Well, sense or not, its how I feel. I guess the good thing about talking about my knitting is that it reminds me that its o.k. to not be completly eaten up by all of this. And truth be told, thank God for my knitting and my sewing because it is a wonderful distraction. One day at a time, right?
I guess times like these are also great reminders of the greatness in our lives as well. And I am really really really thankful that our lives are full and abundant and wonderful. But it also reminds you that really, the people you love are about it. The most important. I will be back soon , talking about my knitting. Goodness knows I have been knitting a lot.

Quilted treasure bag

Yay! Whiplash is here again! The thing I love about Whiplash is that it gets me going on projects I might not otherwise have made time for. I have been wanting to make a bag out of some of these fabrics for some time and here it is. This week was rife with challenges and sewing this proved to be necessary therapy and a break in my mind from the things I didn't really want to think about. I intended to do a tutorial but the further I got in this project, the more I realized that I sew the way I cook and I know I will end up where I want to be, but explaining how I got there is not always very clear to those not living in my brain. I love the sight of M, running about town, with her bag on her back. I found one of her purses in my bag the other day and it tickled me to open it up and discover the items of such importance that she was compelled to carry them around with her. I love to find her purses and bags around and dig through for a peek. She loves her bag and I love that she loves her bag. I love all these fabrics and have really been itching to get something made out of them. I guess I will enter this in the "fancy" category for Whiplash because it was a bit involved and the details , like these little ends to her drawstring, while not truly fancy, are afforded a bit of extra effort to make this a bit more special. Maybe its skill though, since I made the pattern up and that took some skills. Either way, I am happy to say that it turned out just as I wanted. L is already going through the shelf of fabrics to pick his out so I can get started on his bag. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Finished!

And just in the nick of time! Our little friend is on her way over! I think they turned out so cute. The doll was pretty easy though the hair took a little extra thought. I love how the hair turned out and it is yummy yummy yarn so it feels nice and soft. I will surely make more of these skirts- it took less than a half an hour. The fabric I bought for about $3 a yard and I think it is such a darling print. Nor much else to say except that this weekend we will continue with the other side of the yard and I am hoping to cast on a halter top for M out of the blue yarn Iused for the doll's hair. Have a great weekend! Pirates of the Caribean comes out this weekend- I am so excited to see it!

Independence Day!

Actually it was "Independence Weekend". Independence from the clutter in our house, Independence from some of the huge backyard projects we have underway, and Independence from the clutter in my studio room. We have had so many projects going on and we decided to just suck it up and go head first in completing a few off them over our four day break. Needless to say, we are exhausted and will spend the coming weekend doing very little that is work related.. If we don't have some fun this weekend, I think the kids might try to trade us in for some fun parents who don't make them do yardwork!
For starters, I reclaimed the corner in my office/craft room so that my sewing machine could have a permanent home. I love this- I don't think I need to explain this to most of you reading-the joy that comes with a space dedicated purely to sewing things. Ahhhhhh! I almost showed a before photo but I just couldn't. It was so bad! So here is the after: Then, after the kids were tucked snug in their beds, we went through the playroom with a fine tooth comb and purged 2 huge boxes (HUGE!) of toys. They haven't even noticed. Their Grandmas have very close personal relationships with Target and Toys R Us and as a result we were drowning in toys. Ridiculous! Now they are at the Salvation Army. The big project this weekend though, was finishing up the one end of the yard and starting on the other. Here are the befores:
Actually, these aren't truly before as to get to this spot, we spent a few weeks pulling out misc. trees and shrubs, rolling up the old sod, clearing things out and prepping the ground for the new grass seed. We hauled several huge truckloads to the dump, several truckloads of mulch to the space and then even more truckloads of rock. So this is where we landed-

It was so nice to sit out there last night and have it beautiful and functioning. For the rest of the weekend we worked on the opposite side of the yard. There is a pretty large overgrown perrenial garden that we did the mass weeding on. I also moved and took out some plants and added new ones here and there. The space adjacent is jut a huge empty space so we took out all of the weeds and suckers, leveled the ground and tonight we will start putting down landscape fabric and then come the cedar chips. We are going to have the kids playhouse and big plastic climb on pirate ship back there. We will also be landscape fabric-ing the garden because the weeds are out of control and we refuse to use chemicals and poison. Ahhhhh. A weekend well spent- though I am beat! No sewing but tonight maybe...