old friend, peekaboo and a new pile

this is my favorite bag i have ever made. it was from an old fisherman style sweater that i cut up, reassembled and added wool applique and embroidery. it doesn't get used much when it is warm out but since the weather has changed it is in full use. it is nice and big, big enough for a sippy cups, diapers, snacks and the occasional portable craft project or camera.


looking out another window, and climbing on the couch. our games of peekaboo have become much more physical including running around the house and rough housing. he really is turning into a boy!

here is another pile that will be born into an owl, hopefully by the end of the day. i love wool so much, maybe i should dream of a sheep farm instead of goats..

cards

one step closer to being finished for the craft fair... i printed up some hang tags and business cards today. kevin thinks thinks is a very boring post.. he might be right but since he is giving me a back rub i will let it slide.

crafty work

working hard on the A Little Bunny items for the fair. here are a few details. forgive the bits of string and fuzz, i havent had a chance to completely trim them!




and a picture of eliots new favorite toy...a cell phone. it is bilingual no less! helps with the whining and tantrums when we won't give him our phones :) thank you teri!!

catch up

a start on the picture posting:

::keeper of the scraps::

::pile of hats and linings::

::everyone needs a cup o joe (empty of course)::

::thanksgiving day walk::

::to go bag::

::pile of pants to be sewn::

::new pants with vintage sheets for linings::

long time no see!

whew, we are back and pretty much on track. we had a great thanksgiving down in the cape, lovely weather, company and food. our bathroom is pretty much done..of course then last night the ceiling leaked...again!!! this time in the bathroom and the bedroom. so, another round of contractors has come through the house and we had to move everything around again.

we have decided to move. i think the universe is trying to tell us something.. sending up bright red flags all over the place that this is not the place for us. as luck would have it another place has opened up just in time. we will probably be a little crazy for the next few weeks..as usual :) but i am going to try to post as much as possible. i really do have some nice pictures to share i just haven't had a moment to shrink them down and label them! i miss reading my usual daily reads.. when it rains it pours right?

P.S. Promotion has started for the Shop - a - Do craft fair! (Scroll down for the listings). I can't wait to check out the other vendors.

a slow post

a slow post for a slow few days. our bathroom is in pieces, mostly out on our back deck and our house is in major dissaray. we are trying to play it cool and hope all of the work goes as planned and we have our apartment back to ourselves by wednesday. we will be going down to the cape for thanskgiving and wont be back until friday so it will be a little quiet around here for a few days. i have lots of neat things to show off so when i do get my camera out it will be a landslide of photos!

on a side note.. it snowed today for a good hour or two! nothing is still on the ground but it snowed none the less. i guess winter really is around the corner.

looking for inspiration

i have been looking for inspiration for a little christmas commission coming up. i am going to make an owl and a dog. i think this is my number one chose for the owl and then something along the lines of this for the dog.

i have some pictures to post but i forgot to download them off my camera.. i have one of my hat pattern that i worked out. i can start working on those soon. making progress!

there are a lot of interesting owl links out there:

ann wood
one red robin
little birds

nature

some nature from our walk up bradbury:

rare

a rare afternoon nap for eliot today. i had him all ready to go for a walk and whamo.. he fell asleep. i probably should be crafting but instead i am poking around (wasting time) on the internet and drinking a beer. a mama deserves a break once in a while right?

i took some pictures of the crafting i am working on for the holiday fair. i am making little wrap jackets first. they were going to be sweaters but they are heavy enough to be jackets. i think i will do a little embroidery or applique on them once i get through the stack. they still need buttons.. have about 7 more to go.. halfway there. then it is on to pants and hats. everything else will be a bonus i think!




he loves looking out the window!

bradbury

we climbed up mt. bradbury this weekend. it was a nice easy hike up to a pretty view of the surrounding area. you can barely see a sliver of the ocean from up there. i wish we had climbed it a few weeks ago when the leaves were peaking! eliot was happy on the way up and not so happy on the way down. all in all it was a nice cold day out. my mother at one point proclaimed that this was, to her, like climbing everest. i thought that was definitely the quote of the day so there is a picture tribute below.

God wants a bride, not just a one night stand

here is a silly link for you today, crummy church signs. the commentary is a little labored but the signs or quotes from signs are pretty funny. it must be hard to be creative with such a limited amount of space and letters. if i had a sign in front of my house im not sure what i would put on it. maybe this is my sign? humm.. the psychology of blogging...

no pictures today but, i have done a fair amount of crafting so i will take some pictures of the progress tomorrow. im trying not to freak myself out about getting stuff done for the craft fair :)

challenging day

it has been a particularly challenging day today. with very short notice our land lord is demoing our bathroom to replace a moldy ceiling. it is going to take a few days wherein we will be in and out of the house to avoid dust and contractors. eliot managed to spike a 102 fever today to add to the mix. the poor guy is in good spirits, i think it is related to the teething. i wasnt feeling well last night either so my mother was kind enough to come over and keep eliot entertained while i lay on the couch and complained.

so, not much crafting done and it will, very likely, be a little sparse with the posting over here for a few days. this has spurred on more conversation about buying a house rather than continue renting in other peoples houses.

i did find some nice poems in eliot's children's books this evening.. here is one i particularly liked:

Sweet and Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea,
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

oprah

i finally found out the picture that i had in Oprah magazine for the farm i mentioned last post! it was the february issue i think..i tried to get a copy but they never got back to me. if anyone has it kicking around let me know!

i knew it was a picture of a cow but i wasn't sure which one it was. i also though it was going to be a teeny postage size picture but it is quite large at about 3 or 4 inches across in the mag. pretty cool. i like taking pictures of animals and i had actually thought of livestock photography as an option for me at one point. i guess there is a picture that i took in a cheese book that just came out too. i'll have to find it and post about that at a later time.

on a side note the boys upstairs are driving me NUTS tonight! there are 2, 17 year olds (twins) that have very heavy feet. i try to remember that they are young and don't know what it's like to spend lots of time getting a baby to sleep only to have them wake up after you sneeze 3 rooms over....but it has spurred conversations between kevin and i about making sure to teach eliot respect and consideration for your neighbors. deep breaths...will eliot every really be 17?? oh my..

busy day!

a nice busy fall day today. after i came home from work the family went over to Smiling Hill Farm to visit the lovely jennifer of Silvery Moon Cheese. we had a lot of fun catching up. i felt very nostalgic. i miss making cheese! i miss the physical part, the farmers markets, the sense of creating something at the end of the day. there are a lot of parts i miss about it but i am happy i can always go back and visit.

i also received my lovely swap package from the fall swap i participated in. i will post more about that when i take some nice pictures.

i found out that i have been accepted to sell at the shop-a-do craft fair through space gallery here in town. i have a LOT of work to do between now and dec 13. i am cutting out and sizing patterns and hopefully clearing out a huge chunk of my stash. i need to fill a 6 foot table! busy busy me. this will be a good challenge for me and a good way to work out some ideas i have for the a little bunny line. plus, i'll get to see what sells and hopefully get some constructive criticism along the way..feel free to chime in!



a sad teething boy. poor guy is getting a couple of molars all at once. im glad to get it over with though and at least he will be able to eat more crunchy food :)

Happy Halloween!

We had some fun dressing up and gallivanting around the West End of town following the Shoestring Theater parade. They put on a fabulous parade with lots of amazing, huge, puppets, stilt walkers, drummer and various other noise making devices. They invite the public to join in and join in people do! We saw lots of creative costumes and people of all ages dancing in the street enjoying the crisp, clear night. Eliot had a great time clapping to the drums and trying to dance right out of his carrier.

We dressed up as Thing 1, 2 and 3 from Dr. Seuss fame. Good thing for union suits and quick thinking :)

house keeping

been doing a little house keeping around here. i think i am happier with it now. i should really be doing some 'real' house keeping : ) i received a few awesome retro patterns today from etsy. i will post them and hopefully some results soon!

cold beach weekend

we went to the beach yesterday and quite a cold picnic. the temperature has really dropped to feel like serious fall. it is nice to feel that crispness and to dig out and cozy up in nice warm sweaters. it makes me much more inclined to stay in and hunker down at the sewing machine.

i have a little sweater i am working on right now and i got some nice soft cotton to line a little jacket. hopefully soon there will be a post about those. for now, cold beach pictures:

urban wildlife

a beautiful sight narrated by a complete nutter. we were walking down town today and saw a lovely barred owl just hanging out and taking in the city in front of a local bookstore in the heart of downtown Portland. there was a crazy guy narrating the owl sightings to top it all off. not often you see an owl in the city..im sure the pigeons were not happy to see it.

Birthday Girl

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I had a nice mellow time with Kevin and Eliot including the yummy carrot cake above. I have been thinking a lot about what turning 30 means to me and reflecting back on the last 10 years.

I have really come full circle in some ways since I was 20. It took a move clear across the country for me to realize Maine is where home is. Wearing lots of different hats including cheese maker, photographer, nanny, sales person...has provided me with many experiences to draw from. I don't think I will stop the learning I have been doing but I will do it knowing a lot more clearly who I am and how I tick. So many things have changed, especially at the dawn of my 30's, that I know I will never be able to completely know what is going to happen but I can direct it in a much more thoughtful way than I had been able to in the past.

I am delighted to see where my 30's will take me! I feel very blessed to be able to really be happy with my life the way it is right now and to only imagine how amazing it will be down the road. Here's to the next 10 years!

morning light

i was up at the usual 5:15 this morning and i was feeling a little sorry for myself that i was up before the sun. don't get me wrong, i love being with eliot in the morning, he is so loving and happy at that time, but its early! then, as if to talk back, the sun started to sneak up over the horizon and gave me a beautiful show while i was feeding eliot his breakfast. i had to interrupt him to get my camera and then i kept interrupting him to continue taking pictures. he was a little annoyed and at one point he got a hold of the applesauce bowl and dug right in. i suppose it is about time i let him experiment with a spoon on his own : ). after that i felt much more in tune with the day and glad that i was up so early after all.

we rounded out the afternoon with a much needed trip to the grocery store and some time at the park. it was absolutely the most perfect weather day outside with no humidity and about 72 degrees. perfect. i also got a lot of crafting done during nap time. i am almost done with my swap goodies. i am much more excited about them now that i have committed to an idea and they are taking shape. although, i have about 6 more ideas that have come along during the making of these, heh. i cant wait to show them off!

enjoy these pictures of the morning light! i didn't edit them at all and tried to get the color balance to be exactly like it looked...