November 30, 2008

Where Mama's Been - Quilting!

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I don't know if I can express my delight at having finally completed this Old Mac Donald group quilt. This quilt got me stuck so many times. The baby it was made for is almost 13 months old! One problem I encountered was getting utterly stuck on the back. Nothing seemed right. I finally decided to do the free pieced letters, but that was basically making two quilts. Another excuse for the long gestation of this quilt is that my Bernina was dead for about 5 months and the Singer won't free motion quilt (yet). Bernie's back now though! She is a little more finicky about tension than previously and many swear words were uttered during the quilting process.

It felt so good to give it to my mama friend today. Everyone did such a great job on their squares, and in the end I am really proud of it and know that it's a one of a kind piece of art. She tells me her son loves it when she sings "Old Mac Donald" so it is worth all the extra effort for that backside. When quilting I used a pale green thread in the bobbin. I really liked not having to change the bobbin thread when I changed the top thread. It made things go much quicker. My favorite detail is the use of the inset yellow squares with tone on tone four patches. I liked quilting these in the close-set lines, this is something I picked up from flickr quilters!

And yes, there is more quilting news to come. Having one's due date approaching can really get a quilter moving on her WIPs! All this work on quilts for others has me just wanting to sew for myself for a while.

November 09, 2008

Where Mama's Been, Part 2


First I need to brag about my awesome maternity costume for Halloween - I thought for a long time before settling on the giant eyeball. It was so easy to make, easy to change into, and got the smiles and laughs that I hoped for. Bonus, this counts as a belly pic!

Now to continue recapping summer: when we got back from Burning Man I slid seamlessly into a new obsession: prepping for babe. Admittedly, this natural and necessary obsession continues. But it was at its worst at the end of September when I realized how very difficult it will be to keep us in healthy dinners come the holidays and the arrival of our little one sometime around then. I decided we could make meals and freeze for later. I could hardly sleep for planning and plotting shopping trips, recipes, cooking. I went on a three week cooking and freezing adventure and have hardly cooked dinner since then. Despite having eaten out of the freezer for the past month it's still got 2-3 weeks worth of meals to give!


I'm really enjoying not having to think about dinner much more than putting it in the fridge the night before and putting it in the oven and setting the timer. And now that we've figured out what recipes work and what don't, I plan to do another major cooking weekend after Thanksgiving to keep us from living on pizza and burritos when bebe shows up. Favorites so far: stuffed peppers, chicken pot pie, moussaka, stuffed shells and any of a number of chicken breast recipes.

And then of course there was learning all about cloth diapers and madly planning which styles we should try. Reading reviews, making lists, comparing costs, ordering from assorted online retailers. When the diapers showed up in their boxes and bags, I had to spend about two hours fondling them and snapping/unsnapping/velcroing/unvelcroing the things over and over. For some reason I haven't managed to take a picture of these.

Finally, I've been combing the kids resale shops and buying colorful baby clothes. I've been scouring Craigslist for a co-sleeper, searching high and low for a vintage dresser/changing table (found and found!) and turning my penchant for reconstructed clothing towards baby hats and booties.

See you next week for my final installment of Where Mama's Been!