undone

So much accomplished, yet so much left undone!

Finished my Briar Rose lattice quilt top that I was working on, plus finished another quilt top last week....which leaves me with three quilt tops that need some backs and finishing.

This wee sweater, Coolbreeze Baby by Tanis Fiber Arts (intended for The Plaid Baby!) needs some seaming and some buttons to be in the "completed" pile.

Meanwhile, I am driven to distraction by the adult version for me!

I had high hopes of getting to some of this on my days off this week, but with a string of nights tending to puking kids and one home with me today, I am thinking that I may just come undone myself!!

Funny things my kids say- the "where do babies come from?" edition

It has been awhile since I shared some of my funnies with you, and this one is too good to skip (though my son may kill me later in life if he reads this).

And I am at a total loss as to what kind of picture would be suitable for this post, so I am going imageless on this one (you can thank me later).

Ever since my niece was adopted, our kids have understandably had many questions about where exactly babies come from.  My 9 year old son, Big G, especially.  Finally, he wore me down and I decided to give him the low down.  I gave him a somewhat flowery description of the biology of making babies.  To which his reply was, "you know that is totally gross, right?"  Um, right.

Anyways, it remains on his brain because every now and then a question pops up out of the blue.  He and I were driving alone in the van one day when one such moment occurred.

Big G:  Mom, when people have sex, does the man or the woman go on top?
Me (sweating bullets but trying to look calm): Well, that depends.....
Big G: And is there penis rubbing involved?
Me: (Gulp) There CAN be.....
Big G: Now would I do that part or does the doctor?

Silence.

Me:  Um.....there isn't a doctor present when you have sex, Buddy.
       (side note- there is for me, but I am married to one.  haha!)
Big G: WHAT?!?!?  You mean you don't do it in a HOSPITAL???
Me: No....most people go to the hospital for the baby to come out, but not to put it IN.
Big G: So you can do it ANYWHERE??  Like, OUTSIDE?? (waving arms frantically to the street outside our van)
Me: Well, usually in the privacy of your home is a good idea.  Otherwise, you can get arrested....
Big G, crossing arms and shaking head in disgust: I just do NOT understand this sex thing AT ALL.

What I did on my Summer Vacation! by Kristie :)

Well, hello!  It has been a long time.  I certainly didn't mean to take such a long break, but have been busy enjoying an excellent summer and just never really made my way here.  Am looking forward to catching up with you and visiting some of your blogs that I haven't been caught up on in months!  Hope you all are well.  I HAVE been checking in regularly at Instagram, however!  So if you are there come say hello, my user name is Kristieocd :)

Getting right to it- I haven't really done any kind of crafting.  A bit of knitting here and there, but nothing finished to completion.  I didn't even touch my sewing machine for a record breaking 3 months!  But now that we are back to school and back to routine, my sewing mojo has come back with a vengeance.  Hope you have lots to show you soon!

So what DID I do?  Let me bombard you with pictures ;)

The Hubs and I enjoyed a KID FREE (!!) long weekend in Boston, for my cousin's wedding.  It was our first time to the city and I must say I fell in love with the area.

It was a whirlwind visit- a city tour:

A day in nearby Marblehead.  We spent a great day hanging out with my parents, can't remember the last time we got to do that!

Also spent a couple days visiting the beaches and shops in Cape Cod (and eating lobster, naturally), after all the wedding festivities!

Our other big summer event- we bought a cottage!!

If you have been around awhile, you may remember that our previous cottage was destroyed in a flood.  So, after a couple years of waffling on whether or not to rebuild, we opted instead to buy something else in another area altogether, close to where the Hubs grew up.  It is a great place, a 4 season home, really (it's been nicknamed it "The Lakehouse"- very tongue-in-cheek!),  It is on a beautiful lake in the rocky Canadian Shield, and has the most spectacular sunsets :)

We spent a wonderful few weeks, and some weekends, too, at the new place so far and we just love it.  What's not to love?  A gorgeous lake view, sunsets, swimming, boating, water sports, and a new place to make quilts for?  Talk about heaven!  We are very lucky.

So I guess you could say my creative energy this summer has been put to use nesting in our new place. Little touches, here and there, to make it feel like home.  A little painting here, some decorative touches there.  My cottage Pinterest board has gotten a little out of control.

A basket next to the slipcover couch for storing quilts.  Gotta have quilts to snuggle with on those chilly days!

I found a home for my Emerson quote mini quilt near the front door, along with a new twist on a guest book. We collected stones and have visitors sign them with notes about their favourite memories from their stay. We collect them in a large vase for display. It is a great way to make fun "decorative memories!"

I am also collecting wine corks and caps, having friends sign them to remember the glasses shared over sunsets and laughter!

After all, sometimes the memories get a wee bit foggy after a few bottles.....

An eclectic photo wall of happy memories.

But the best part of the cottage is what is outside, not inside!  The kids absolutely love catching all sorts of critters- frogs, bugs, garter snakes and crayfish are hunted down daily, and returned to nature every night :)

          

Swimming of course!

Tubing, waterskiing and knee boarding.

Boats of all varieties.

Fishing (it's all about using the right bait).

Spending time with friends and family makes it all that much more fun!

           


I have a perfect place to do some fabric cutting or sewing:

Last But Not Least lost her first tooth at the cottage!

We re-hung our "measuring oar."  We had a tradition at the old cottage to measure the heights of the kids on it every July, so we reinstated that here. Amazing how they have grown!

Speaking of that, this fall LBNL started grade 1!!  Hard to believe.  Which means (drum roll....) this is the first year that all THREE of my kids are at the SAME school, on the SAME schedule!  No more lunch hour pick ups, shuttling to daycares, etc.  Nope, all in school, all day long (and 2 out of 3 are excited about it ;)

What does this mean? Well, now when I have a day off work, I MAY just get some time for some sewing!  In fact, took advantage of that yesterday, and worked on this Heather Ross Briar Rose quilt top:

Well, that concludes my report on my summer vacation :)  Hope your was just as spectacular!  Looking forward to catching up with my crafty friends!  Thanks for stopping by!  And if I go AWOL again, you can likely find me here:

A quilt for Ryker

A friend approached me to commission a quilt for her friend, who I haven't met.  She is pregnant with their second child, a boy they have already named Ryker.   However, they were recently given the devastating news that the fetus has a condition making it incompatible with life.  Instead of terminating the pregnancy, the couple has decided to carry the baby to term, hoping to maybe have a few hours to hold their son before he passes.

They call Ryker their little sunshine, so I decided to base the quilt top on sun and sunbeams.  The top is one big paper pieced block.  I had never paper pieced before, but I did a few practice blocks, then sketched this out on freezer paper, roughly using this free tutorial on Craftsy as a guide.  I gotta say, I see more paper piecing in my future!

The top piecing is really quilte simple, and my plan was to do some fancy free motion quilting along the beams to make it meaningful.  I used a nylon "invisible thread" for the first time, this one by Connecting Threads, and was really pleased with the result.  It blended well with all the bold colors here, letting the texture steal the show.

In the sunshine, I tried my hand at some curve-on-curve quilting.

In the orange, I did some "ribbon candy."

In the lighter blue beams, I quilted radiating waves, and put words in them.  I stitched in "Ryker", "you are my sunshine,"  "love lasts forever," and a simple heart.  The alternate navy beams are each a different pattern: a quilted plaid, a stipple, pebbles,  radiating circles and clamshells.  The result is a quilt filled with lots of lovely texture.

I used a DS plaid for the back and Joel Dewberry herringbone in navy for the binding, which was machine stitched in place (getting better at that).

I am hoping this quilt provides some comfort to Ryker's parents; something to hold when he is gone.

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

This is 39.

I read Amber and Jennifer's posts today, and having recently watched the movie This is 40 with the Hubs, I have been thinking about "age" a bit more, and what it means in my life.  Or doesn't mean.  So, I thought I would use this space of mine to record Me, today, in time :)

This is Me.  39.

I gotta say, it's not so scary.  Jump in, the water's fine!  39 is true mid-life territory.  The Hubs and I made the realization the other day that "Freedom 55" is just 16 years away.  When did I get so old?  Why do I still feel like a kid?  Will I ever stop feeling that way?  Somehow, I doubt it.

39 is talking like girlfriends about Twilight with the teenage babysitter. Then my husband rolling his eyes at me afterward and reminding me that I am old enough to be her mother.

39 is creaky knees during my morning workout.  Which I often skip, because really, are those extra 15 pounds such a big deal anyways?

39 is security: personal, emotional, financial.  Knowing there will be few surprises left in life. Decisions made in my twenties and thirties are now set in stone, more or less.  I know "what I am going to be when I grow up", who I married, have finished having my family, know where I am going to work and live.  I can see it all stretched out ahead of me like a highway, and I like what I see.  39 is also having shared the slow dance with Loss, and being fiercely protective of my life, sadly knowing its path can only be changed by tragedy.

39 is not bothering to read the newspaper or watch the news anymore.  Who has time, we have hockey practice!!  Anyways, it is usually just about the bad things that people do to other people, and it is too hard not to take those things to heart- what if that happened to my child?  My family?  My neighbour? It is realizing that I may not be able to change the world, but hoping I can make it a better, safer place in my immediate proximity by striving to be a good person myself.

39 is being married 13 years to a man who is perfectly imperfect, and just for me.  It is remembering the accumulated memories that 20 years together brings, and knowing we have moulded each other into who we are.  And that we are now too weird for anyone else to understand or put up with.  It is knowing that he is more likely to make me laugh because he farted in bed than swoon by bringing me flowers, but really, who cares?  I will take a laugh any day.

39 is three kids that we made together that make us swell with pride and pull our hair out in frustration in equal measure.  It is being overwhelmed with the awesome responsibility of guiding them to adulthood, and at the same time knowing they with make it there in spite of our parental screw ups.  It is watching them become individuals and following their own paths.  It is hoping that they can realize the potential that we see in each of them.  39 is not worrying that our 6 year old continually crawls in bed with me at night but actually enjoying it; after all, 16 is just around the corner.  It is hoping they are getting enough vegetables and not too much internet.  Wanting them, above all else, to be happy (whatever that means).  It is feeling protective to the point of violence to anyone who harms them. It is our 8 year old dropping the F-bomb in front of me for the first time, and me doing the same in front of them.  Oops.  Because, after all, I was a much better parent when I was 20 (and had no kids).  It is a whole new appreciation for my own parents- how did they do it?  And hoping that I do it half as well.

39 is the wonderful friends that I have accumulated in this lifetime... the childhood friends, the university friends, the work and the "Mom" friends.  And my crafty friends like you!  And loving what they all bring to my life.  It is never going to the grocery store without seeing a familiar face.  It is about cutting the crap and being real, inviting those into my life who like what they see and not worrying about those who don't.

39 is realizing Dad was right (again) when he said there are only 2 rules in life:
1. Don't sweat the small stuff.
2. It's all small stuff!

39 is having our youngest child enter first grade...maybe I will have some time now to have my eyebrows waxed regularly?

Bring on the 40s!  It just keeps getting better :)

last of the purple sweaters, I swear!

Okay, I may have finally gotten the "purple sweateritis" out of my system.  Though I love this one as much as the others.  If you missed the boat on the other three , they are posted here, here and here.  All with my favorite ever super soft purple Malabrigo yarn.

 

I made this sweater as a thank you gift for my sweet friend, Tracey.  Well, it is actually for her adorable daughter, Scarlet, but seeing our babes all dressed up does a mama's heart good, doesn't it?  I wanted to send her a little something in thanks for all of the time she spent on the graphics of my hockey quilt pattern.  Lord knows it would have never came to be without her!  She is always cheering me on with my knitting, so I decided this would be just the thing.

I used the tiny tea leaves pattern, which I have made a couple times before for my girls, but this time modified it to make the neck not so wide.  I added a few lilac pearl buttons, since Tracey was such a fan of those on my niece's sweater.  Inside, I stitched in a label by Izzy and Ivy I still had from my Sewing Summit grab bag in 2011.

And speaking of Tracey, not sure if you saw her Blogger's Quilt Festival post, but she has now finished and gifted the amazing scrappy sprouts quilt to her good friend, Chelsa, who is fighting cancer.  This is an absolutely gorgeous quilt and sentiment, and I was so happy to be able to contribute some blocks to its making.  I think I need to make one for me!

 

(photo by traceyjay quilts, used with permission)

my new favourite quilt.

Okay, it is not so new.  I have been sleeping under this for a month or more now.

My favourite Anna Maria Horner Good Folks fabric.  Pieced with love on a weekend away in Atlanta, it will always remind me of that trip and bonding with my quilty friends.

Quilted by the amazing Krista in an all over loop pattern.  The texture is perfect on this monster sized quilt, a large king at 120" by 90".

Buttery voile on the back, so soft on the skin. It is the perfect weight for summer. I love how it welcomes me to bed every night.

My favourite. Now I just need to make me some matching pillowcases and shams :)