Bad at Finishing

This has been a slow year for me, creatively, with lots of stalled projects and unfinished business. Today, though, I am showing off two things just completed, and only with the help of others!

One year ago I saw my Aunt Lois, who came to Salt Lake City for my dad’s memorial service. I don’t get to see Lois very often, but when I do, I am always impressed by the way her engineering mind interprets and deconstructs art. She has taught me many new skills over the years.

Lois, like many women in our family, cannot bear to have idle hands, so she brought with her the ingredients and tools for assembling these soft, 3D fabric magic cubes. I flipped for them, and marveled at how she figured it out. I later looked up a model, so that I could understand it more fully. Instructions for building one made from wooden blocks can be found here. She gave me an assembled cube with bright fabrics pinned to the foam blocks, and all I had to do was stitch up the seams.  I am embarrassed at how long it took me to finish, but my kid and all visitors are delighted with the finished product! Thanks Aunt Lois!

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Two years ago, I went into a tiny yarn shop in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. It was near closing time and I rushed to choose the best yarn in the place. I bought an expensive skein of Tilli Thomas Flurries named Chocolate Cherry, a supersoft deep brown merino with bright cherry red beads, with the intention of making a purse. I visited a fabric shop in Panama City Beach and purchased a red-on-crimson koi print for lining and a chocolate brown zipper. I knitted a rectangle, coaxed all the beads to the knit side, watched a youtube video on making lined wallets, sewed the zipper to the lining (incorrectly), and …. stopped. There is sat, in the quilt shop plastic bag for two years. My mind could not fathom what I’d done wrong or how to fix it.

A few days ago I showed it to my new friend Daniela, who knew how to fix it, and was willing to pick out the stitches for me. I took the dog for a walk, had an epiphany about how it should have been sewn, and came home to a completed purse!

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Finally, here is a new embroidered purse my mom made for me! Perfectly timed, too, since I just wore out my everyday purse while camping. It’s still unfinished; my mom only secured one end of the strap, so that I could adjust it to my size and sew it in. I’ll finish in the next day or two, because I need it!

Stripey Monster Redux (and a Pretty Sweet Trade)

Kelly and Adam made me this gorgeous two-piece nut bowl set. I requested it as a special piece after I saw this pistachio dish and wanted something handmade.

Kelly offered up a trade, so I knit this Stripey Monster Mama and Baby set for her boys.

The true colors are closer to red-violet and a peacock teal. The pattern is by Rebecca Danger, and you can see the set I made nearly 2 years ago for the Boogedy Here.

Here are the Boogedy and his friends S. and S. at the pottery studio!

Late July Adventures

I checked out this awesome book from the library,  because Zach is going through a ‘no-white-flour’ kick. It’s the first cookbook I’ve ever read that truly addressed the challenges of cooking with whole grains, and not just substituting 1/2  a cup of whole wheat flour but still making essentially fluffy white breads.

Thanks to this YouTube video, I now know how to make a 6-braid challah! I also know now that I don’t really care for poppy seeds on top of bread.

Here is the poor Chibberty in my shirt, which I had heard can calm a dog down in a thunderstorm. I don’t believe he was calmed by our laughter or this photoshoot.

In our little town, the moving of this house from its place by the cemetery, across the busiest intersection in town, and into the lot next door to the cupcake shop, was big news and a spectator event.

Hee Hee. A modification of the Fleming Street sign downtown where the road begins.

I bet my Walgreens is cooler than yours. Formerly the Strand Theater. The place where I spend buckets of money on athletic tape for my poor, injured footie.

As a reward for learning to swim, the Boogedy received Perplexus. Possibly the coolest toy ever invented. We are all addicted to this game. As Zach says “there’s no better reward for a physical workout than a toy that will put you on your butt for hours”.

New Games to Play

I spotted this game while looking for parking the other night. It was displayed on a table for FREE! This is a product that has been “girl-washed”…a toy that I’ve only ever seen in bright primary colors is now being marketed to the princess set. I found this a little bit gross, but will admit that I LOVE valentines day colors.

Prickly Pile Up is a game we’ve had for a year, but the Boogedy is just now getting enough fine-motor skills to enjoy it.

The game of setting these dice into patterns was good for a full hour of play. He got really upset if I messed this up. So I couldn’t help but make some of these “twos” when he wasn’t looking, just to see if he would notice.  He noticed.

This is not what the health department means when they offer free safety checks for carseat installation.

All of my neices and nephews should recognize this type of two-string pull-toy. Mom and Dad made chunky wooden ones shaped like stars and other fun stuff. This is a light-weight fairy at my friend Miss C’s house!

Last week when I went to the laundromat, I heard an adolescent chicken outside, in a panic….sqeaking for his mama. I found her inside, atop the laundry cart. Was she trying to teach him a lesson about staying close? She flew back out to lead him around a moment after this photo was taken.

Miss P got a package from her mother while I was at her house…a childhood Sunbonnet Sue quilt her late grandmother made. Now it will rest on the bed of one of her adorable girls!

 

 

 

Holiday Wrap Up

In our neighborhood there is a great big sand box where you can take lessons in sand sculpture. The artists who run it usually have something amazing in progress (see their Gallery here), as well as amatuer works. Just before xmas, they were working on an 8-foot tall sculpture of the ghosts of christmas, when vandals smashed the faces and left their beer bottles. A few sad days went by with just an etched notice that no more sculpting would occur. Then, one day, there appeared a life-sized sand Grinch, drumming his fingers and hating the Whos.  Very funny.

The Grinch is gone now, and last week I saw them working with a little girl who was probably 9 or 10, and I snapped a picture of their finished fantasy castle, which I think is adorable.

We ate at Pepe’s Cafe, a local institution since 1909, and look what was on the menu! My dad’s favorite. My mother likes to tell me how the military men have a less appetizing name for it.

We had tea, hot and sour soup, and green curry.

Oh yeah, here are the stockings I made for the boys. I left our felt stockings in Salt Lake City, thinking I’d be back there at xmas, so I knitted these up and let Zach and the Boogedy choose which they wanted. The little fellow chose green and orange with beads (“mine fravorite!”). They’re resting atop a beautiful “Shoo-fly” quilt made by my mom.

Auntie Marian’s present of spelling puzzle cards was a BIG hit.

As was this fun playmat from Grandma.

He bought himself a “Pyew Pyew” with his xmas money from Grandma Gipson. We had to tell him not to lick the suction cup bullets while the thing is loaded. Man, the things that make a mom cringe, that a little boy would never, ever think of. This picture shows how big he’s looking.

Stripey Monster

I knit this toy for The Boogedy during the course of our 5-day cross country move. The Boogedy has decided that this is a Mommy-and-Boogedy dolly, not a Daddy-and-Boogedy dolly. He ordered me to make a Daddy dolly. I asked him to say that in his nice voice, so he said “please?”

I used a pattern by Rebecca Danger, available here. This was a Really fun pattern to knit!

Finger Monsters

I made up a really quick, simple pattern for these little guys. I’ll be teaching a class at the Black Sheep Wool Company here in Salt Lake in October if you must know how to make one! See the pink and green fellas, featured on the yarn shop’s homepage!