The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Crocheting

I, like so many of us in the northeast right now, am rather over snow for the year.  We have roughly 800 feet of snow outside.  Really.  Rather than travelling above ground, we now tunnel to the grocery store, to school, to work.  It was fun at first, but now it’s getting old. 

Okay, I exaggerate, though I am shorter than the snow piled up at the foot of our driveway.

The above picture is of one of the lights outside our front door a few early mornings ago.  I had gone out to start the truck – it is old and really needs to warm up well before we back out of the driveway.  Anyway, I noticed the icicles hanging from the light and while I’ve had enough of winter and snow and cold, I still love the look of icicles…of freshly fallen snow (it’s so clean), of…of…okay I guess that’s about it at this point. 

I think I mentioned my crochet multitasking somewhere in my previous post.  I started working on an afghan several weeks ago.  The yarn is teal, and Julia claimed it.  (“Is that for me?  Can I have it?”) 

I’ve moved into the next color – a darker shade of teal – and here’s how it looks thus far:

(See the ugly tile floor behind it?  Pretty, huh?)

About a week or so later I also started a second afghan.  This one’s for Alex.  Here it is:

I’ll be switching to a mustardy yellow next, and then a cranberry.  Then the yellow, then the green again.  And so on.

Alex’s goes more quickly, with the bulky yarn and larger needle.  But I will try to keep the progress at an even pace between the two.  Last night Julia saw me working on Alex’s and shot me a glare and demanded to know when I was going to work on hers again. 

Speaking of which, I have some crocheting to do now.

What are you working on?

Projects Planned and Unexpected, Part 2

Once upon a time two days ago I was looking forward to my two days off this week.

Once upon a time two days ago I was looking forward to tackling some big projects and some small projects, some projects around the house, and some projects just for my own personal creative satisfaction.

Once upon a time two days ago I was selfishly looking forward to some very quiet me time while Bill and the kids would be at work/school on one day and gone skiing on the next day.

Once upon a time yesterday I got everyone fed and lunches packed and out the door to work/school, and was planning to make breakfast for myself (finally) and do some laundry and the dishes and some decluttering and some crocheting or something else creative.

Once upon a time yesterday when I was booting Julia out the door kissing and hugging Julia and wishing her a good day at school, I noticed a few beads of water hanging from the frame above our kitchen door.  One dripped onto Julia’s head.  I wondered if snow had somehow leaked in and melted from the warmth in the kitchen…no…that didn’t make any sense.  Maybe…maybe I should look online and see what other people thought.  So I did.  And the main suggestion I saw had to do with old flashing outside and above the doorframe, that allowed melting snow (it was warm yesterday, mid-thirties) to drip in and bead up along the underside of the door frame and drip on the heads of school-going children. 

Okay, not a huge deal.  Just get some more flashing and replace the old stuff. 

Breakfast was still doable.

So once upon a time yesterday I thought I’d throw some laundry in first, then make some french toast for myself, and watch whatever crime drama show was on tv while I ate and then get going on a project.

Once upon a time I lived in a fairytale world.

I got downstairs and heard the waterfall and my stomach clenched into a knot as I had PTSD flashbacks to a whole bunch of years ago – Alex was a baby, Julia was a future issue – when a pipe in our main floor bathroom burst while Bill and I were at work and I just happened to come home for lunch that day and just happened to hear what sounded like Niagara Falls inside my house.  The water had poured down through the ceiling to flood the floor of our finished basement with about 4-6” of water.  After the cleanup came the fun (said with heavy sarcasm) of having to get everything fixed/replaced. 

At least the floor wasn’t flooded.  In fact, in a little unemotional corner of my mind I knew the water couldn’t have been pouring for very long.  Julia had been downstairs hunting for something to wear not too much before she left the house.  If water was pouring from the ceiling, she would have mentioned it.  Loudly.

Anyway, I rounded the corner and sure enough, water poured through the light and also through the frame around the little washer/dryer nook.  I put trash cans and buckets under the drips, shut off water, and called Bill at work.

I also pulled the frame around the light fixture out of the ceiling so the water could drain better.  And I tried figuring out where the water was coming from.  I couldn’t find any burst pipes anywhere.  Bill and I both suspected the roof.  Ugh. 

So Bill got home and helped shut the water off better than I’d been able to – the pipes and spigots are old and gunked up apparently, and hard to turn.  He used a wrench at one point.

And the water slowed noticeably once the water was off.  When Bill got home he drilled some holes in the basement ceiling to see how much water was pooled above it and to see how far the pooling extended.  I got more cans and buckets to catch the new rain. 

Finally, it stopped.

We took another look around the door frame and tried to figure out where the roof was leaking.  We both had a feeling it was somewhere along the seam where the lower roof joined the main part of the house.  Annoying, but probably fixable, at least until we can afford to redo the whole roof.

Bill called his nephew, Joe, who has a ton of practical knowledge about a all sorts of construction-related topics, and when he came back into the kitchen and was talking and I was looking up (because he’s considerably taller than I am, in case you don’t already know that), I noticed, above his head, along the ceiling, more beads of water. 

I just pointed.

Bill got his drill and made some more holes.

I got an assortment of pots out to catch the newest indoor rain.

So the newest thought was that it was something to do with the shower in the second floor bathroom.  The faucet has dripped for some time, and the pipes for it are hidden behind the wall of the little bathroom closet.

By the way, that seems to have been a favorite trick of the people who prepared this house for sale before we naively came in and bought it.  It’s a lovely house, and a great neighorhood, and we’ve got a nice back yard, and we’ve done all sorts of wonderful things here.  But back then we had never bought a house before, had never been through the joy of troubleshooting problems before, never been through the unjoy of discovering all the problem issues covered up by paint and sheetrock and pretty ceilings and less than scrupulous people.

ANYWAY.  We shut off the water (again) and watched the water slow to a trickle.  Then we turned the water back on, just to see what might happen. 

Guess what.  More water. 

Joe suggested pouring a whole bunch (ten gallons or so) of water down the shower drain, just to see if the water was a drain issue or a leaky pipe issue. 

Oh, and then water started beading up on the ceiling near the kitchen door, kind of almost above the fridge.  ACROSS THE ROOM from the other beading that had occurred above the stove.

More drilling.  Lots and lots more drilling, just because hey, why not find out how much water there is and how far it’s travelled.

When I was in the second grade, we performed a musical version of the story of Bambi.  Mainly it consisted of a bunch of songs separated by some narration and some cardboard cutouts of deer and forest creatures interacting as much as two-dimensional creatures can when toted around by shy seven-year-olds.

One of the songs was “April Shower” or something like that, and some of it went like this:

“Drip, drip, drop, little April Shower/beating a tune everywhere that you fall/

Drip, drip, drop, little April Shower/we’re getting wet and we don’t care at all….”

Those lines kept dripping through my mind as our kitchen was transformed into an ugly rainforest.

I also remembered this (my memory frightens me at times) from a record of Captain Kangaroo songs:

Though April showers
May come your way,
They bring the flowers
That bloom in May;
And if it's raining,
Have no regrets;
Because, it isn't raining rain, you know,
It's raining violets.
And when you see clouds
Upon the hill,
You soon will see crowds
Of daffodils;
So keep on looking for the bluebird,
And listening for his song,
Whenever April showers come along.

And I just discovered that that’s actually a song by Al Jolson.  Didn’t know that – I only have the voice of Bob Keeshan singing it in my head.

Anyway, all sorts of rain-themed songs drifted through my head as I determinedly remained positive about the whole soaking experience.  I can be very determined.

Besides, there were things about the kitchen we weren’t too thrilled about.  Like the stains that came through the ceiling over time – stains the Other People had simply covered up with a couple coats of paint, without doing anything to really block those stains first. 

And the basement ceiling is all pretty swirls but totally impractical, especially if you have water-pouring-through-it issues like we do.

So this was ultimately A Good Thing!  Right???

Right! 

So Bill started ripping down the kitchen ceiling.

A lot of the ceiling. 

I took pictures when I wasn’t helping clear up the soggy sheetrock and insulation.

And we eventually figured out several things:

A.  The water was not due to a shower drain issue. 

B.  The water rained more when we turned the water ON at the source.

C.  The main dripping seemed to occur at the last spot we discovered – almost above the fridge.

Joe came over after work and we shared with him all our exciting clues and showed him how we could make it rain! in the kitchen! 

And he looked at all of this and thought about our house and how the rooms are and why the heck would anything leak THERE – only Alex’s bedroom is up there and there’s no plumbing in Alex’s room and…

No, no plumbing, but there were heating pipes that ran along the sides of the house, and where Alex’s and Julia’s room joined, there was also a little crawlspace under the eaves.  Joe and Bill and I cleared a path through all of Julia’s can’t-throw-away-for-sentimental-reasons piles of…STUFF…to get to the door of that little crawlspace, and Joe took a look inside and our search was ended.

A cracked pipe from the baseboard heating element.  It wasn’t actually in a bedroom, so it wasn’t warm unless there was warm/hot water coursing through it.  AND, we’ve had some geriatric furnace issues (which Joe helped out with a couple of weeks ago) that have meant that the heat hasn’t been reaching the second floor, and so the pipe was cold and lonely and cracked under the strain. 

Well, okay, cracked from the freezing and expanding cold water stuck inside.

Anyway, it was fixable!  That night!  Just a trip to get some copper pipe, a pipe cutter, soldering stuff, other stuff…and we would be free of rain!  Yay!

Best of all, it shouldn’t take long!

And while he was at it, Joe offered to install a shutoff valve for our water so we wouldn’t have to break our hands on stubborn old spigots.  Yay!

And five hours later, ‘round midnight, it was mostly done.  The shutoff valve worked, and, second time’s the charm, the pipe in the crawlspace had been replaced with an uncracked piece of copper.

We could run the water!

We could turn the heat back on!

We could go to bed!

While Bill and Joe were working on all the pipe issues, and the heat was off, I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.  Most of it, anyway.  That helped, psychologically, too. 

So here’s where we are as of 3 pm on Saturday. 

Saturday, my second day of peace and quiet. 

And so now we have a few new projects that were not on our lists.

Finish pulling down the kitchen ceiling. 

Replace the ceiling.

Paint the ceiling.

Maybe tile behind the stove.

New vent/fan above the stove, because it’s overdue anyway and so why not?

Probably peel off the wallpaper that was hidden UNDER the paint in the kitchen. 

Paint the walls.

Cut out a section of the basement ceiling to see how much damage there is and create a new section of ceiling that is removable so if/when we get another waterfall in the house we won’t have to DESTROY the ceiling to drain it.

And it’s not like we didn’t have any house-related projects planned…both kids are ready for new paint in their bedrooms.  When we originally created their bedrooms (Joe was instrumental in all of that, too) and painted them, the kids were little and so the décor was kid-themed.  Rainforest for Alex, stencilled butterflies for Julia).  But now that they are older, they want less cuteness.  And that’s fair. 

We also planned to paint the second floor bathroom.  The paint has peeled and Bill has sanded it down, so now it’s a kind of collage of old and newer paint.  We would like just one color now.

The walls on the main floor need a breath of fresh color, too.  And we had wanted to redo the hardwood floors….

And so that’s the update.  The unexpected plans. 

To be honest I kind of like the kitchen right now.  We moved everything that was on walls or counters or any other exposed surfaces into the dining room and the living room, so the kitchen now looks quite bright and airy and uncluttered.  And with the great big holes in the ceiling, it’s become even more spacious. 

Maybe we’ll just leave it the way it is.

For now.

Projects Planned and Unexpected, Part 1

 

That’s tee shirt yarn in the above picture.  I took tons of old tee shirts, ours and some donated by friends and family, cut them into strips, connected the strips, and rolled them into balls and balls of color.  Finishing all that prepping was a huge project in itself, but now the fun part has begun – I can make things with all this “free” yarn.

Where to start?

A few weeks ago I brought a couple of big wagonloads (kids’ wagon, not the horse-drawn kind) of seasoned wood into the house.  We run our fireplace as our primary heat source on days when we will have someone (adult) at the house the entire day to maintain the fire.  I was off of work that day, so I brought in more than enough wood to keep the house cozy, and I brought it in through the front door instead of through the kitchen because it was a shorter (and less messy) trip to the fireplace that way.  In order to avoid tracking dirt and moisture into the house, I put a towel down on the floor, and that reminded me that we probably really should have a welcome mat of come kind at the front of the house so people coming in could wipe their muddy boots.

So that became my first tee shirt yarn project, after the Rolling of The Balls.

I chose fire colors – reds, oranges, yellows, a bit of blue, pale gray (ashes), and dark brown (wood).  I decided to try an oval-shaped rug, rather than the round, or roundish, ones I’ve made so far.

I began with red…

 

I like working on large projects.  They go quickly, and so there’s that instant gratification thing working for me.  Plus, big projects are…BIG!

Unfortunately, I was impatient at the turns, and I chose (stupidly) to ignore the beginnings of ruffles that were starting to form.  And so eventually the ruffles grew so big they could not be ignored, and so I had to pull out a ton of stitches and almost start over completely.

Twice.

Or maybe it was three times.  I don’t remember.  I may have blocked it out.

Anyway, I finished most of it, laid it out on the floor and finally accepted reality.  I’d rushed and not paid attention at the rounded ends, and while ruffles are acceptable on baby girls and pillows, they don’t work so well on rugs.

So, resignedly meeting reality’s eyes, I pulled it all apart.  The whole thing.  The WHOLE thing. 

I had four large balls of fire-color tee shirt yarn.

And I started over.  Slowly and attentively this time.

 

At first I had this kind of multi-sectioned idea but in the interest of time and sanity, I opted for a simple – but correctly executed – oval.

I’m happy with the result.  A bit larger might have been nice, but I’d run out of fire colors.

Why the fire colors?   Warmth and welcome to people entering the house…and because I got the idea on a day when I was going to have a fire going…and because the fireplace is close by. 

You can see it curling up a bit at the edge here and there, but over time that will stay flattened.  You can NOT see ruffles.  :)

~~~

I like crocheting rugs.  I also like baskets. 

A few weeks ago I made this little basket – no pattern, just playing around.  It’s about six inches or so in diameter at the bottom, all single crochet until near the top, where I alternated double crochet and chain stitches to create the pattern around the top.  I finished off with one more round of single crochet.  It sits near the sink in our upstairs bathroom and is filled with hair things – rubber bands, scrunchies, barrettes. 

More recently – earlier this week, actually – I decided to try crocheting with multiple strands of yarn at once.  I chose two shades of teal and some medium gray, a large hook, and I started single crocheting a circle.  Then when the diameter was wide enough (maybe 8”?) I started forming the sides.  I did a few rows of single crochet, then experimented with a sort of wavy pattern of two single crochet, two half double crochet, two double crochet, two half double, two single, over and over for several rows.  You don’t really see the waviness as much as I’d hoped, but it does add some interest and dimension, I think.  And instead of weaving the ends in when I finished, I braided them instead. 

Here’s the result:

Julia loved the colors, so I’d promised her the basket.

Basket.  I did say basket, right?

But, you know, mothers and daughters often see things differently.

~~~

And then, after that very quick project, I decided to go small. 

Right before Christmas (or maybe it was the morning of), my sister told me she still didn’t know what to give me besides canned stuff she and my brother-in-law had made with their garden bounty.  So I asked her for yarn scraps!  I think I will always ask for yarn scraps.

Some of the yarn was hers, and some had been part of our grandmother’s stash.  Our grandmother was a multi-talented woman who played piano, drew in charcoals and pencil, painted in oils, watercolor and acrylics, and could crochet and knit and sew and quilt.  So much talent packed into a small and quiet woman! 

Anyway, one skein of yarn was this strange looking stuff that resembled string wrapped in colored thread.  It’s called “Aunt Lydia’s Beadies Crochet Thread” and apparently Aunt Lydia isn’t making it any more because I couldn’t find something good to link to.

Anyway, I thought it would be perfect to make something small.

Like…a Very Small Basket!

Here’s my awkwardly-positioned left hand holding the Very Small Basket-in-progress.  The hand is there for size comparison only.  Or to make me wince.  Take your pick.

Anyway, I crochet a tiny little circle for the bottom and then started up the sides, all single crochet, until it was the size I wanted.  I should tell you I crocheted into the back loop of the stitches, not the whole loop.  It gives a different look that I have now decided I like a lot for Very Small Basket-Making.

When I decided the basket was tall enough, there was the matter of finishing it off.  I could weave the end in, but it’s actually kind of hard working on Very Small things – my hands, carpel tunnelly and ornery as they are, don’t like working on projects where I have to hold thin things, like the skinny crochet hook in the picture above.  I could have made a little tassle or tail of some kind, like I did with Julia’s basket-hat, but I decided, instead, to make a handle.

And then, after making the handle, of course I still had the tail end of yarn to deal with, so I wove it in and out of all the single crochet stitches in the top row of the basket, and it ended up looking like this:

Wait, here’s a closer look:

Reminds me of the fluted edge of a pie crust.

Anyway, that’s that.  Oh – and in case you were wondering, the basket is about 2” in diameter at the top. 

~~~

So those are some of my most recent crochet projects.  I am so glad I finally learned to crochet, and annoyed with myself slightly (although there’s really no point) for not learning years ago.

I have other project ideas bouncing around in my head, and I’d been looking forward to starting at least one on my back-to-back days off this week.  One one day Bill and the kids would be at work/school, and they were planning to go skiing on the next, so I’d have just about two ENTIRE DAYS to get all creative.

Or so I thought.

   …to be continued…

Another Quick Crochet Project

Last spring or summer I made strips of “yarn” from old tee shirts, and finger-crocheted them into long strands, and then started stitching them together in a spiral to make a rug for Julia’s room. I had another bunch of yarn ready for a rug for Alex’s room too.  My problem – which happened again and again, after ripping out stitches and starting over…and over – was that the rug kept bumping up in the middle.  I know I was pulling the stitches too tight, and no matter how loosely I thought I was stitching, it happened again and again.

So the other day I thought – hey!  I know how to crochet now!  I could just…crochet a rug!

And with the accompanying enthusiasm, plus a couple days off from work, I unraveled alllllllllllllll the yarn in the rug and the rug-to-be, and got my biggest crochet hook and started crocheting in the round.

Well, I still ended up with problems…bumping up…buckling…and so I kind of stopped trying to be consistent in my stitches.  I would do some double crochet, then if I thought the situation warranted it, I’d do a chain and then a single crochet…I abandoned a pattern and just free-formed it.

And the above picture is Julia’s rug.  I think it sort of looks like a flower.  Or a really colorful lily pad.

Anyway, I also did one for Alex, his began as more of an oval shape but still ended up freeform.  But it’s finished, which was my goal.

I’m trying to ignore some of my perfectionist tendencies.  I think they cripple my productivity.

Last thing I had to do – make them non-skid.  I’d heard you can use caulk on the underside, and then I read that you can use a hot glue gun.  I didn’t have caulk, but I’ve got the glue gun, so just moments ago I ran strips of hot glue on the backs of the rugs.

And, minutes later, the glue had dried and the rugs were finished!

Here’s Alex’s from the top.

So that’s that!  Rugs are in bedrooms now, and I can cross that little project off my to-do list.

On to the next one….

From December

I haven’t been crocheting for very long, but I’ve practiced some stitches and I’ve successfully made a few things.

My first great success was a hat:

 

I learned to make a flower and a granny square:

 

And then I made a hat and a scarf for Julia.  The hat was double and single crochet stitches, and for the scarf I learned a shell stitch.  You can’t tell from this picture, but the yarn is sparkly, like newly fallen snow…:

So with all that expertise, I was ready to create something on my own.

But I have to back up a bit first.  My fabulous niece, Natalie, has a wonderful and quirky sense of humor.  And she likes cats.  Both of these attributes are evident in a hideous sweatshirt she owns – it’s gray and is covered with…cat heads.  Yes.  Disembodied cat heads.  It’s…well, it’s weird.  A bit disturbing.  And funny.

Oh, and also, she likes boots.  She has something like twelve thousand pairs of boots.  Okay, maybe not quite that many.  But lots of them.

So I thought I’d make boot cuffs.  You know, they look like the tops of really tall socks sticking out of the tops of boots…but they don’t cover your feet, and are therefore less bulky inside the boot. 

Or you could think of them as smallish leg warmers.

Anyway, when I do Pinterest searches for crocheted things, boot cuffs frequently appear.

And…because I have my own quirky sense of humor…I decided the boot cuffs should include disembodied cat heads.

So I made boot cuffs – beautiful brick red cuffs – they weren’t terribly difficult, and I used this pattern but without buttons.

And then I looked around online some more and figured out a way to make some cat heads…

 

 

If I were to do them again, I might make a change or two, but overall I was pretty happy with them.

So next, I attached them to the boot cuffs.

Oh – and I decided there should also be tails…

I had plenty of red yarn leftover, too, so I made a scarf to go along with the cuffs…

 

I had a lot of fun making the cat cuffs.  They were silly and a good learning experience and they made me laugh at a time when I needed to find things to laugh about.

And best of all, my awesome niece, Natalie, liked them.

 

 

(That’s Julia in her own boots, posing next to Natalie.)

~~~

I’d had another crocheting project I wanted to make for Christmas, but I just couldn’t get to it.  Them, actually.  But I finally made them both and delivered them yesterday.

For my nephew’s son.  (I know…that would make the child my great nephew.  And I am, therefore, his great-aunt.  And while I like the “great” description, it makes me feel old.  So I prefer “Awesome Aunt.”)

Anyway, my nephew and his wife have an adorable little boy. 

In November, I think, or maybe early December, I went to their house to take pictures of their adorable son to use for their Christmas card.  While I was there, I noticed several owls in the nursery. 

So that put the idea in my head.

And after looking around online, and finding a couple of patterns, here’s what I made:

An owl hat:

 

And a matching little owl:

 

So technically these owls weren’t from December, but they were supposed to be, so I’ve included them.

And currently I’m working on window quilts for the two windows in our bedroom.  As you may or may not know, I made four window quilts last year, for the two bathrooms and for my kids’ rooms.  Finally getting around to ours.  I’ll show you when they’re finished.  Or at least when the tops are both put together. 

That’s about it for the moment.

It looks like I’ll be back.

Pictures of Scratchy and a Little Story

We’ve rearranged the living room a bit.  We’re using the fireplace now, so I moved some of the furniture so it faces – or is at least angled toward – the fireplace and the warmth and the ever-changing collage of glowing embers and dancing flames.

Scratchy likes this time of year, and he especially loves this loveseat because it’s closest to the warmth.  Perfect spot for napping.

And his companion?  That’s Zulu, a wild African Dog, adopted from the local zoo.  Usually he hangs out in Julia’s room, but this evening he was snoozing on the couch.  Scratchy thought about reminding Zulu that cozy spots by the fire do, by long tradition, belong to cats, not dogs…but Zulu’s teeth showed occasionally while he snored, so Scratchy, whose teeth are certainly sharp but nowhere near as big, decided that sharing was much nicer than bleeding.

And they snoozed happily ever after.  The end.

Random Stuff

So the other day at dinner Julia said, out of the blue, “I don’t like eating raisins because it’s like eating tiny old people.”

I have no explanation. 

~~~

The baby quilt I’ve been working on has conjured up memories of other baby quilts I’ve made, especially one of the first ones.  Not sure if I’ve told this story before, but here goes…

This was back when ALLLLLL my quilting was hand-sewn.  Piecing AND quilting.  Everything.  I loved it.  And I still do, though too much of it bothers my hands.  But this was a while ago.

Anyway, one of my sister’s friends, Betsy, was having a baby – I believe she was the first of their group to do so, and I was invited to the baby shower, and so I decided to make a quilt.  I kind of blended aspects of the styles of Monet and Seurat, with colors from Monet’s Water Lilies.  So I used soft greens and pinks and blues, and all the pieces were hexagons.  I can’t describe it better, and I don’t have pictures, but I remember loving the creation of it…the artists, their styles, the colors…and yay – a baby!

Anyway, because I was a card-carrying member of Procrastinators Anonymous (still am, but not as bad), soon it was the night before the shower and I still hadn’t finished the quilt.

But I DO finish things.  And the shower was at something like eleven o’clock the following morning (a Saturday, I assume), so, hey, I’d just stay up kind of late and get it done.

I was up all night.  All.  Night.  I had the tv on, I was in the living room with my quilt on a table, and I was stitching my fingers off.

And yes, dammit, I finished that quilt.

I don’t remember if I took any sort of nap that morning, before the shower.  I kind of don’t think I did.

Anyway, to make it even better, I had to drive, because my mom, who was also invited, had had surgery on the bottom of her foot and it was still in a cast or boot or something. 

The shower was half an hour or so from where we were both living (and my sister wasn’t even able to come to the shower for some reason…she was living up in Boston at the time, so maybe it was because of work or something?) (and, as yet another side note, I now live just minutes from the church basement where that baby shower took place) …where was I?  Oh yeah, half hour drive.  So here we go, my limping mother and me with most of my brain wrapped in fuzz.

We put our gifts with the others and found seats sort of near the back.  I propped my eyes open with paper clips.  And the shower was under way.

While other gifts are being opened in the story, I’ll take a moment to explain the weirdness going on in my head during the shower.

I was big.

I felt, as I willed myself to remain upright on that folding chair in that church basement, with all the many sweet church member ladies and family members and friends, like I was twice the size – at least – of my usual self.  Not fat.  Big.  A giant.  That’s how sleep deprivation was distorting my world.  I tried not to move so I wouldn’t frighten anyone with my big-ness.

And eventually Betsy got to the baby quilt.  She pulled it from the bag (or unwrapped it – I don’t remember) and held it up for all to see, (as I tried to shrink down so I was normal-sized) and said, loudly, “JAYNE W MADE THIS!”

And the word loudly doesn’t do it justice.  Her voice THUNDERED the words, and as she said them I seemed to grow bigger and all the little old ladies and moms and cousins and friends turned, as one, to look at me as I was contorting into something that might pass for normal-sized in my metal folding chair.

I hope I smiled politely.

No one ran away screaming, so I guess I looked harmless.

And the shower proceeded normally, with the rest of the gifts opened, lots of oohs and aaahs and smiles at all the adorable baby things…lots of thank-yous from Betsy, and then, of course, food.

That is my best baby quilt story.

I made baby quilts for my sister’s two kids, both of which were late.  Not sure how late my nephew’s quilt was, but my niece didn’t get hers til she turned two.  Hey, there were a lot of appliquéd flowers on that one.  That sort of detail takes TIME.

Anyway, so that’s the baby quilt stuff.

~~~

Like I said in my previous post, all this quilting has resulted in a resurgence of my love of designing and sewing.  So naturally I had to rearrange my sewing/jewelry-making/other stuff-making area.  (For some reason I can’t stand the term “crafting” or anything “craft-“ related.  I can’t use it.  Ick.)

So that’s what I did yesterday.  I’m still not completely done, but that’s today’s job. 

Both pictures were taken in bad light and with my phone, so please excuse the poor image quality….

Before:

After:

The biggest change I wanted to make was to have that tall work table sticking out from the wall so that I could walk around it and work on big projects.  It’s a bit of a tight fit back there, but I made it work and I’m SO happy about it.  There are still areas that need to be tidied up or reorganized, but that’s the easy part.

The hardest part was moving the rolltop desk.  Now, it does come apart, so that helps, and I remove all the drawers, of course, but still – it’s heavy, even broken down into sections.  But I did it.  I’ve done it so many times over the years, I’m actually pretty good at reassembling it, which is tricky because the center writing part has to slide in between the two drawer portions, so those things have to be just the right distance apart, and that middle writing section is HEA-VY because it’s got a huge piece of some sort of stone inlay as the writing surface.  And, of course, there’s maneuvering the whole roll-top section – which is one enormous unwieldy piece – and fitting it onto the pegs that hold it in place (the pegs jut up from the corners of the two main drawer-holding parts of the desk).  Anyway, putting that together successfully is always cause for high-fiving oneself.  Not that I did, of course, because that would be weird.

And that’s about all the writing I have time for.  I’ve got some laundry to hang outside, and some reorganizing to finish downstairs. 

And, of course, that baby quilt isn’t finished yet….

So what have you been up to lately? 

Arrrrrgh

It’s been reading week at the elementary school, and yesterday was “Dress Like a Pirate Day” (because of the treasure in books, I believe), and because we are the Last Minute Family lately, Julia and I put her costume together about twenty minutes before she had to leave for school.

Not too bad, I think.

A Cat and His Elephant

I walked into the living room earlier today and this is what I saw.

Actually, what I saw was Scratchy sort of wrestling with/chewing on the little pink elephant.  When I came back with my camera, Scratchy saw me and froze.  Like that.

The elephant’s name, by the way, is “Purple Ears.”  It’s Julia’s, in case you hadn’t figured that part out.  Or, rather, it was Julia’s.

Woven Denim Potholder Tutorial

Three and a half years ago I made one of these potholders and wrote about it in this post.  At the time, I planned to make more and sell them on Etsy.

Making Cough Drops

(Enlarged close-up of hardened foamy section of a cough drop.)

I’ve never made cough drops before, just so you know.  But I happened upon this post about making cough drop lollipops and coincidentally my husband is sick, AND I forgot to pick up cough drops at the store yesterday…so I just had to make them. 

That makes perfect sense, right?

I thought you’d agree.

Four Eyes

Julia has wanted glasses for ages. 

She doesn’t need them, she just likes them.  She likes to “borrow” mine now and then (when I let her…and if I don’t need to see for a while), but since I don’t let her keep them, her glasses-wearing has been minimal.

Until, of course, now.

Candied Citrus Peel

I had two days off, back to back, last week, and figured I’d use them for a baking marathon.  That time of year, you know.  I try (really, I do) to get the German cookies made early enough so we can ship them off to various far-flung family members so they arrive BEFORE Christmas.  (Without having to overnight them, heh heh.)

Anyway, one of the cookies that’s part of that collection is Lebkuchen, a traditional German spiced cookie that includes candied citrus peel – what kind you use depends on the recipe you’re following.  Bill’s mom’s version has candied orange peel and candied citron, the kinds that come in those 4 oz. containers in the grocery store. 

I generally make more than one batch of these cookies, because they’re one of the favorites, so that means several containers of each kind of candied peel. 

Now, this year, for various reasons (including the Scratchy saga), money is tight.  And those candied peel containers are pricey, for the amount you get.  And they’re also probably loaded with preservatives and additives and other “-ives” that aren’t at all good for you…so I decided it would be both healthier and cheaper to make my own candied peel.  And it’s a cool thing to do.  And pretty.

I’ve thought of doing it in years past, but then I’d get lazy and just buy the containers.  This year, with two days off IN A ROW! I decided to candy some peel. 

So here we go…

Productive Chaos

My dining room, right this very minute.  And probably into tomorrow.

Those jars – marinara.  Two kinds – one with a lot of basil and oregano, one with a lot of garlic.  The rest of the table?  All sorts of stuff, most of it food related.  Scratch that – all of it food related.

Spelly Putty

That’s Julia’s work.

She’s got this hideous blob of silly putty that she’s had for I don’t know how long, and lately I’ve been finding it wrapped around plastic tigers on the small table in the living room, or in a blob on my kitchen work table, or – the other day – right there on the arm of a chair.

I’m a terrible housekeeper – I left it there.  And I took a picture.

Yesterday morning when Alex came downstairs, he sat in that chair and put his arm on the silly putty.  “Julia’s silly putty!” he announced with an older brother sigh.

“I wrote your name!”  Julia told him.  “It was for you!”

“Oh!” he said, in a much kinder voice.

And Then I Went Back to Bed

Found this in my drafts folder.  I’d written it on August 10th, but never posted it.  Don’t know why.  Anyway, figured I’d share….

I haven’t been sleeping well. 

There’s a lot on my mind, and it gets kind of hushed during the day when I’m busy with other, more immediate things, but then at night it senses the silence, the lack of motion, and, like a baby in my belly, it starts kicking.  Hard.

So I woke up sometime after three this morning.  Couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up in a feeble attempt to flee the babble in my brain.

I didn’t escape them, of course.  They came along for the ride.

I went downstairs and switched on the tv more as an aural distraction than because there was anything to watch…and I puttered.  I folded laundry, started another load, wished my cousin a happy birthday on facebook, read stuff online, added a rosary posting to my etsy store, and tried to feel like I was accomplishing something good.  Something to make getting up worth it.  Not sure if I accomplished that or not.

I did get drowsy again, though, and at about quarter to six, when I couldn’t form intelligent sentences for another etsy upload, I figured I could go back to sleep for an hour or so.

So up I went.  I fell asleep, wrapped in a blanket (the fan was on in the room because Bill and I have different air temperature requirements to sleep well, at least in the summer), and dropped deeply into a dream.

Bill and I had gone…somewhere.  To something festive, it seemed…a wedding, a party…somewhere away.  And during the course of the festivities, whatever they were, Bill ended up hanging out with a bunch of guys that were there and I ended up heading back to whatever room we were staying in that night.  The next morning, I texted him because I didn’t know where he was, and then somehow I was home, in the basement, and I found his cell phone there, plugged into the charger.

So he didn’t even have it with him.  And I didn’t know how to get in touch with him, or where he was, or anything.  I worry all the time.  Even in dreams, apparently.

And then, I heard his voice.

It was saying “Jayne!  Jayne!  It’s trash day!”

I swam up, up, up through my unconsciousness and emerged, still wrapped in a blanket, still foggy-brained.  I opened an eye and looked at him.

“I heard the trucks,” he said urgently.

So my body rolled out of bed, dragging my sluggish brain with it, and we hurried downstairs to get our trash and recycle bins to the curb so we wouldn’t be stuck with smelly garbage fermenting in the sun for the next week. 

I tilted the gray garbage bin back on its wheels and started rolling it toward the street.  Bill was behind me, hopefully planning to carry the lawn bags, which were still wet from recent rain.  I hate carrying wet lawn bags – I’m always expecting them to break, and I really don’t want to have to deal with that.

Anyway, I’m also thinking, which week is it, green or blue?  Green is paper recyclables, blue is bottles and cans and metal things.  I’m pretty sure last week was green, but I scan the street to see what the other, more organized, neighbors have done.

Hmmm.

I see one gray bin over there.  But nothing else anywhere. 

It crosses my mind that everyone else on our street is SO efficient that not only did they put their bins out the night before, but they also ran outside IMMEDIATELY after the trucks ZIPPED THROUGH and returned the bins to wherever they keep them the rest of the week.

But that made no sense.  More foggy thinking…it IS Wednesday, right?

And then just as the dim bulb in my brain was starting to glow a bit, Bill said “Monday holiday!”

Rhode Island is the only state still observing “Victory Day.”  It used to be VJ day – Victory over Japan – but then a lot of states stopped celebrating it and then I guess the name got changed to sound more PC. 

Anyway.  Aha.  Monday holiday.  That meant our trash pickup would be…tomorrow.

I just looked at Bill, who kind of smiled and said “Sorry.”

I wanted to glare, but I laughed instead and headed back inside, up the stairs, and back into my blanket cocoon. 

I figured it might make for a good story later.

Scratchy Update and Other Catching Up Stuff

Look at that face.

Granted, it’s not a good picture – lighting is bad because of where he was when I took it a few minutes ago, but I didn’t want to force him out just to take a better-lit image.

Anyway. 

The feeding tube.

BLT with Basil Mayo on a Claffle

On a what? 

I’ll get to that in a minute.

But first, the innards of the BLT:

Homemade Bacon

Home grown Lettuce

Home grown Tomatoes

The basil-mayo is made with home grown basil.  No, I didn’t make the mayo.

And, finally,

the Claffle.

Stealth Mama

Remember our corn with the pink hair?  Part of the 3 Sisters gardens?  Yeah.

Well, we picked a couple of ears a little while ago and though they looked fully matured on the outside, the kernels were still small and flavorless.

Ah well, lesson learned.

So we waited a bit longer, and watched, happily, as more ears grew to full size.

Earlier this week, on one of our morning meanderings through the yard, Bill decided to check an ear to see if the kernels were mature enough (you know, they cleaned their rooms without being asked, didn’t roll their eyes when we said stuff, made sound financial decisions) to be harvested.  He peeled back the husk and pressed against one of the kernels with his thumb nail.  It was not milky yet – the innards of the kernel – so the corn wasn’t ready.  Oh well, what’s another day or two?

And then he noticed this:

Lazy Little Lobster Soufflés

July is the month of Visiting Family Members From Outside New England, which means, in addition to Alex and Julia having to share a bed, lobster.

Now, there are several types of lobster eaters.  There are the Big Claws and Tail Only people.  There are the I’ll Eat Other Parts of the Lobster As Long As I Don’t Have to Pick Through All The Body and Squeeze Out All The Meat in Those Skinny Legs Myself people.  There are the ICK, What’s That??? people.  And there are the people who will eat every last scrap of edible lobster – meat, fat, coral (roe) and tomalley (liver) – and will suck all of this down faster than the Big Claw and Tail people can get their crackers and picks going. 

I belong to the latter group. 

But.

There are times when I curb my impulses and leave the body and little skinny claws alone, just so we have meat to do something with the next day.

This post is about one of those times.

Over the Shoulder Galeux d’Eysines Holders

Well not exactly.

There are no shoulders involved.

Just the picket fence.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Night Out

Last Friday night Bill and I went Out.  We don’t get Out very often, and this night Out was much anticipated, not only because it was, as I already indicated, a rare night Out, but because it was to be a night Out at Chez Pascal.

Many thanks to our dear friends John and Phoebe for the gift certificate AND for watching Alex and Julia that night.

That night. 

Truly one of the best dining experiences we’ve ever had. 

Little Red Fish

I was playing around with new beads earlier today, and this is my favorite result.

Rings

A bit of what I’ve been up to today.  These are the good ones.  I’ll be putting them in my etsy store later today or tomorrow, once I’ve cropped the individual pictures.

I’ve also got a bunch of sub-par rings that I’ll cut up so I can salvage the beads.  Except one that I sort of like and might just keep for myself, as I don’t mind the flaws it has.

Here are some individual shots….

Big Violin

I don’t remember if I’d ever mentioned that Alex is learning to play the violin at school. 

We’ve decided that it’s about time Julia, who is learning classical guitar here at home, should quit slacking and learn another instrument, too.

Wrapping Wire

I should have been born second.

In all the books I read, it was always the second sister who looked up to and admired her fabulous, amazing older sister.  Of course, some of the time these older sisters were horrible and shallow, but I didn't pay attention to that.  I just wondered what I was doing wrong.  I didn't see anything fabulous about me, and I wished I was more like my younger sister.

That doesn't seem to have ended.

The other day I was talking to her on the phone and she said she needed to buy a mandrel because she'd been making rings - wire-wrapped rings - and was having a hard time getting the sizes right.

Wire wrapped rings?

I wanted to make rings, too!

Four Cooks, One Fondue Pot

Ever had oil fondue?  If you haven’t, you really should. 

And last night – for the first time in this home – we did.  What a fun meal we had!

Make Your Own

We had salad for dinner last night. 

All four of us.

Salad and some leftover rice Bill had made the other night.

That’s all.

And everybody loved the meal.

I feel like I need to say “even the kids,” except that I don’t have that problem, for the most part.  My kids like their vegetables.  Most of their vegetables, anyway.  Enough so that if they dislike one or two, I don’t worry about it.

I know.  I’m lucky.

Out With the Old

That’s how our fireplace looked a little while ago.

It doesn’t look like that now.

Now it looks like this:

Held Captive by a Hypoglycemic Squirrel

I’ve been baking cookies over the last few days (in a frantic attempt to get caught up), and I decided to save the final trimmings from the cut-out cookies to bake and toss outside for the birds.

Yes, I could just throw those last few scraps away, but it just seems so wasteful.  So I made cookies for the birds.

Well, and for the squirrels.

I baked the little bits, let them cool, tossed them out the window onto the platform outside my kitchen window, and went back to the next batch of cookies.

I was scraping down the stuff inside my stand mixer when all of a sudden I heard a THWACK!

And here’s what I saw:

Fortunately I had the sense to pick up my cell phone and fortunately the squirrel had the courtesy to freeze in position every now and then.

What the heck was he doing?  They don’t usually behave this way.  They sit there, cutely nibbling seeds or crusts of bread.  They don’t ATTACK THE HOUSE.

But then, I don’t usually give them freshly baked cookies, either…

“Please, ma’am!  I want some more!”

But I didn’t have any more.  I shook my head regretfully and the squirrel scampered away.

I thought he (or she) had accepted my head-shaking and was okay with that, but apparently not.  Because several minutes later I heard another THWACK!

And I looked behind me and saw this:

Um, buddy, I’m sorry, but I really, really don’t have any more cookies for you today.

“Yes you do, lady, I can smell ‘em!  Let me in!”

No, those are cookies for my family and my friends.  Not for squirrels.  Sorry!

The squirrel made a rude gesture and fled.

That was weird.  Maybe I shouldn’t

 

THWACK!

Not again!

But yep.  Again.

This time at the kitchen door!

 “I know you’re in there, lady!  I NEED THOSE COOKIES!  And stop taking my picture!”

“Please?”

Fixing My Dryer

Warning:  All photos in this post were taken with my little cell phone.  There will be blurriness.  And poor lighting. 

But!

There is the replacement of the drive belt in our dryer, so it will all be worth it!  (Well, to me and mine, at least.)

Anyway – this was not really difficult at all.  I did it solo, so you probably can, too.  If you haven’t already.

Shall we?

I Fixed It

I just fixed my dryer.

I replaced the drive belt that spins the drum that tosses the clothes that lives in the house that jack built.

My dryer is now running properly, and there are wet clothes being thrown about inside it and soon they will be dry and fluffy.

YAY.

I will post pictures of the whole thing but first I have to email them all to myself from my cell phone.  Yep.  Didn’t even bother to use my real camera because I don’t need any more frustration at the moment.  My kids’ cameras?  Dead batteries in both.  No wonder they haven’t been taking pictures of their butts lately. 

Anyway, I found a FABULOUS how-to video on youtube, which I’ll link to as well.

But right now the main thing I want to convey is this glorious sense of accomplishment bubbling inside me.

I told my sister it’s like that scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where Dick Van Dyke has been working night and day on the car and then finally, FINALLY, the workshop doors open, like the splitting of a chrysalis, and out comes the transformed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And (this is the part in my head now) you hear the high-pitched English voices of his children shrieking delightedly “He fixed the cah!  Daddy fixed the cah!”

Only in my head, they are shrieking “She fixed the dryer!  Mummy fixed the dryer!”

I wonder if it would be acceptable for me to get my kids out of school early, just so they could shriek for me…..

The Hair of Julia

(for Donna B, who asked)

Here’s what I did with Julia’s hair this morning.  Sort of a strange criss-cross braided thing.   It wasn’t what I set out to do; it kind of just happened.

Post Ponement

I started working on a post this morning (another sausage-making post), but it’s on hold for now.  I’ve got a little project to take care of, and also, our dryer isn’t working at the moment (it’s been such a year), so I’ve got clothes out on the line “drying” in the thirty degree air, and next I’m going to hang our unmentionables in front of the fireplace so they will dry by the time we go to bed, perhaps.

Anyway, for your entertainment, here are a few pictures I took at Capron Park Zoo this summer. 

Reluctant Caroler

But I don’t want to go a-caroling…

Camera Issues

There’s some annoying issue going on with my camera.  At first I thought it was a battery issue, but it’s still continuing.  So now I’m thinking it’s some other issue, and since I am not a camera repair pro, I think I need to have a professional look at it.

Nail Art

Julia wanted to do her nails in Christmas colors – red and green.  Alternating – red, green, red green….

But I got involved and took it a step further.

One Last Bit of Thankful

Julia brought this home last Wednesday.  I meant to share it earlier, but I kept forgetting.

Anyway, it starts out traditionally enough with

“T is for the turkey I eat on thanksgivin.”

H is for hapey pepale.” (happy people)

and then…

Hearthside Bananas

Do you remember making these when you were a kid?  I know I first had a version of these warm chocolate and banana treats at some sort of camp when I was young, but I don't remember anything else from that time.  I figure I retained what was most important.

I taught Alex and Julia to make these the same day we cooked ribs and beans in the fireplace.

Hearth Cooking Day – Beans and Ribs

Doesn’t it look gorgeous? 

Looks like there’s got to be something special inside.

And after six hours, there had better be.

Some Images from Hearth Cooking Day

I soaked the beans overnight.  This time I used a mixture of pinto, black, and navy. 

But first things first – we need fire.

Billy and the Blue Butterfly

Here’s Alex, aka Billy the Exterminator.  I made the costume for him last year, and he decided to wear it again this year.  It still fits, after all.  His beard is slightly different – it’s made with his own hair, saved from his last trim.  And Bill decided to superglue it to Alex’s face. 

Moving along…if you look behind Alex, in the right of the picture, that blue (and barefoot) creature?  That’s Julia. 

October Wonderland

Snow?  How could there be snow?  It’s 62 degrees outside!

And has been for weeks….

Lizard Cake

Alex’s birthday was months ago, but for an assortment of reasons his birthday festivities were delayed.  And delayed.

Finally, he had a couple of friends sleep over (friends who haven’t slept over before – that was his criteria), and I made his cake.

Inside, it’s chocolate.  And that’s peanutbutter frosting.

And those are lizards.

Halloween Hair Clip

Just made this today.  It’s one of my little polymer clay spiders and wire and some black tulle and embroidery floss and a plain little hair clip and glue.

And cuteness!

Making Sausage – And Other Things

It’s a big food production day here.  Not only are we making sausage, but we’ve got a few other projects under way.

Bill brined a turkey breast overnight in a mixture of water, salt, sugar, limes, bay leaves, thyme, black pepper, and I don’t know what else…

This morning he rinsed it off, dried it, and now it’s on the grill – it should smoke for about an hour and a half to two hours.

When that’s done, we’ll trim the meat off the bone and slice it up for sandwiches.  Most of it will go in the freezer.

And…

Ribs.

Trimmed from the pork belly, we’ve got two sets of ribs.  One will go on the smoker and the other has been cut up for an Asian recipe Bill’s made before. 

Yes, this is man’s work.

After Bill and John sawed the ribs in half, John separated the ribs like this:

At the moment, Bill’s got water on to boil, and I’ll let you know what happens next with those.

Oh – and last, but definitely not least, John’s smoking a batch of bacon.

I think that’s everything.

Oh – and I’ve got a batch of baked beans simmering in the oven.  They’ve been in there since a little after six this morning.  We’ll have them with lunch.       

Paws

Scratchy was curled up on a chair the other day and he looked so cozy I couldn’t just let him be.

Clay and Wire and Beads

Just figured I’d share a few pictures of some of the things I’ve been doing lately….

First, there’s another spider.  This time, the head and body are clay, and the legs are wire.  (Pictures at the end of the post.)

I also watched some videos on youtube about different wire projects and had some fun making a few hair vines for Julia.  (Hair vine?  I’d never even heard the term before yesterday.)

Here’s the one she wore today:

Happy October!

I went around the house – inside and out – looking for a suitable banner image for this month.  (As usual, I am not ready BEFORE the new month.)

Not much was happening inside, so I prowled around outside looking for signs of October…

Webs in the Windows

Okay, I know, it’s not even October yet, but we’ve started putting up Halloween decorations anyway.  For whatever reason, we felt the urge earlier than usual.

Alex and Julia scattered skeletons and skulls throughout the house, and I made spider webs out of nylon cord for some of the smaller windows.

As I was struggling with my project – it’s not easy to make a web – I kept thinking of the illustration in Charlotte’s Web of Wilbur leaping around with a bit of rope in an attempt to show Charlotte he could weave a web. 

He failed, of course.

And while I don’t have spinnerets, at least I have fingers and opposable thumbs.  That helped somewhat.

I don’t plan to use nylon in my next web-weaving endeavors – it’s slippery and doesn’t hold a knot really well.  But still…I think they look kind of cool.

I’ve put them below the jump, just in case webs (with fake spiders dangling in them) creep you out.