Living the Spacious Life

End radio silence. Ask a bunch of questions. Resume radio silence.

2011-04-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

First question. Is there anything cuter than this?

Wait. Before you answer, look at this.

Eric won tickets to Sesame Street Live and Rylee and I went last night for a girls' night out with some BFFs. I didn't make an Easter dress for Rylee this year so I would have time to make matching Elmo groupie outfits. It's about priorities.

The top is a simple pillowcase shirt made from a yellow poly-blend knit with the cuteness pumped up by a lettuce edge.

I got the Elmo applique pattern from this Etsy seller and you should go buy many appliques from her because they are adorable and easy to make AND she lets people sell things made from her patterns. Skill and generosity should be rewarded.

The skirt is my third attempt at a Kitschy Coo pettiskirt and this time I used some stretch mesh based on Amanda's suggestion. Less puffy, more swirly. Observe.

I only used three layers of mesh with a satin underskirt because I could only scrape up 2 yards and a few inches of the wonderful stuff. Three layers was plenty and allowed me to make two skirts. The Sesame Street Live motto is GO BFF MATCHY OR GO HOME.

A few more questions, inspired by this picture.

Q. Are you really that excited to see Elmo's Healthy Heroes?
A. No. But it was actually pretty cute. Lots of showtunes and other adult references to keep it tolerable.

Q. Since there was only one camera taking your picture, where are you looking if not in the lens?
A. No idea. I didn't even have a margarita at dinner!

Q. How much sunscreen are you wearing at the pool these days?
A. Not enough, apparently.

It was fun and the girls had a blast. And seeing them swish around like manic muppet twins was worth gathering more yards of mesh than I care to contemplate.

*******************
Now about that radio silence. In late February I actually got a short-term contract and spent some time Working For The Man. No time for blogging or even sewing, and since I was doing a lot of writing there weren't any excess words for blogging even when time allowed. I'm hoping (and they indicated) that they'll have me back on a semi-regular basis so I think I'm hanging up the keyboard here. Thanks to everyone who spared a moment to read my ramblings when I was going toddler-mommy stir crazy. You can find me on Facebook with my handle (auntninn) attached to an email account at gmail.

Tutorial: Lazy Bubble Skirt

2011-02-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

Skirts were the very first thing I ever sewed for Rylee, mostly because toddler skirts are about the easiest things in the world to sew. There was a period where she didn't wear them because they got in the way of playing, stooping and crawling. Now that her legs are much longer she can wear them again without interfering with all the glorious rampaging and mess making that compose her days. But A-lines and twirly skirts started to bore me so I decided to try a bubble skirt. I searched around and found a number of tutorials that, while good, seemed needlessly complicated. At the rate she's growing I want a minimum investment for maximum cute.

Thus, I give you: the lazy bubble skirt. I hesitate to say *easy* since one step is a little tricky but it's the laziest possible way I can think of to construct a cute, poofy skirt for a little girl from about 12m - 5T or so.

You will need:
* Approx 1/2 yard of shell (main) fabric
* Approx 1/2 yard of lining fabric
* 1/2 yard of VERY soft and stretchy 1/4" elastic. I like knit elastic for this. For a stiffer elastic you might want to allow a little more.
* Approx 1/2 yard (waist measurement) of 3/4" elastic
* Waist measurement and skirt length measurement of the child to be clad

NOTE: Because I really, truly mean it when I say I wanted this to be a lazy undertaking I give myself a lot of "slop" in the yardage so I don't have to do things like iron 1/8" hems. Because who wants to do that? So if you have a piece of fabric that you are just DYING to use but it's a little bit short you can get by with less if you use narrower elastic in the waist and narrower seam allowances.

Step 1: Measure child from waist to the desired skirt length. I love to have these hit around the knee. I made the one in the tutorial a little longer because I want it to last. For Rylee this was 12".

Step 2: Cut your main fabric four inches longer than your desired skirt length. E.g. for this skirt I cut the main fabric 16" long. One full fabric width (usually about 44") should be right for 12month - 5T. At the outside edges of that range you might have to play around with cutting it narrower or sewing a few extra inches on the edge.

Step 3: Cut your lining fabric two inches longer than your desired skirt length (or put another way, two inches shorter than your main fabric). For Rylee's dress that was 14". Trim the fabric if necessary to make the lining and the main fabric the same width. I also trimmed the selvage here to avoid a huge seam allowance on the fashion fabric.

Step 4: Right sides together sew the short edge (marked with a red line in the photo above) on the main fabric. Repeat for the lining fabric. You should have two tubes (i.e. you are not yet sewing these together). Make sure to use the same seam allowance to keep the tubes the same size. Press the seam allowance open.

Step 5: With right sides together, aligning seams, slip the lining tube into the main fabric tube, aligning the bottom edges. NOTE: Very important that you align the BOTTOM edges, especially if you have a directional print. I had to check with my video game geek husband AND the internet to make sure I had my invaders going the right way. In the photo below I am pinching the BOTTOM edges of the fabric.

Step 6: Divide the bottom edge into quarters. One mark will be the pressed seams. Mark the opposite edge with a pin (show above), pinning fabric and lining together. Mark the points midway between the pin/seam by either folding the tubes in half again or measuring. Your fabric should now be pinned together in three places.

Step 7: Cut 18" of your soft, 1/4" elastic. This will be stretching around the entire circumference of your skirt (approx. 44"). This is also the part that will be around the little knees and you want to make sure there is still room to run. If your elastic won't stretch that far then cut a slightly larger piece. Divide the elastic into quarters by folding or measuring, marking with pins.

Step 8: The only tricky step in the whole process. The one place where speed and slapdashery are NOT your friend. Go slowly in this step and you will be amply rewarded because it is really 2-3 steps in one. You are going to attach the elastic AND seam the shell/lining together in a single step. I use a triple zizag for this to make sure it's nice and stretchy. If your machine doesn't have a triple zigzag then double should be fine. Starting at the pressed seam(s) lay the elastic down just inside the aligned edges of the shell and lining. I like to line the fabric edges up with my presser foot and have the elastic just slightly inside that. You might need to mess around with the stitch width to make sure you are catching the elastic. Hand crank a few stitches and stop with your needle down in the fabric. Now stretch the elastic until you align the first pin in the elastic with the first pin in the fabric as shown below. S-L-O-W-L-Y sew the elastic to the first pins.

Step 9: Repeat for each quarter section of fabric and elastic ending back at the pressed seams. The last section won't have aligned pins, you'll just be finishing up the last piece aligning it with your starting point.

Step 10: Check and make sure you seamed all the way around. If your elastic doesn't quite reach it's ok. Just make sure you complete your seam all the way back to the beginning and do a few reverse stitches to secure. At the very end of my seam here the elastic snapped away and I couldn't quite make it reach. It doesn't matter as long as the fabrics are joined all the way around.

Step 11: You now have a gathered "bag" of your fabrics.

Step 12: Turn the skirt so that the wrong sides are together and your lining fabric is to the outside. Line up the top edges of the fabrics.

Step 13: To make the waistband first turn under about 1/2" on the top. If you are short on fabric you can serge the edges together here, but I like a neater look. You can also make this first turn a little narrower, but it's hard to turn both much narrower than this and an extra 1/2" of fabric is worth it to me to be lazy.

Step 14: Turn again about an inch to an inch and half. A little less if your waistband elastic is narrower than 3/4". Again, lazy wins the day for me here and I make a very generous band. Sew around the lower edge leaving a 2" opening to insert your elastic.

Step 15: Cut your waistband elastic about 1" shorter than child's waist measurement. I sometimes do a little bigger if the elastic is stiff and I want to make sure it doesn't pinch. Bonus tip: Use tailor's chalk, pen or marker to mark once side of the elastic so you can check to see if it twisted while you pulled it. This happens to me all the time and I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out.

Step 16: Using a safety pin or bodkin, pull elastic through the waistband, secure it and then sew the seam shut. Done!

Side note: I'd love to say that this was all part of sewing things up to match Rylee's orphan garments, but the plain truth is that I bought the fabric because I was coveting. BUT, I did just buy the shirt at a Just Between Friends sale and both it and the baby legs *were* orphans. And I really dig the demure plaid collar with the over-the-top geeky fabric. So we'll call it a win.

McCalls 6155 or Bamboo Jersey, where have you been all my life?

2011-01-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

This shirt has already been through the wash twice, so I guess it's about time to blog about it.

I've been trying to sew pieces for Rylee that go with orphans in her wardrobe. I'm a total sucker for discount and clearance shopping and I tend to buy things just because they are cheap. She has a pair of Gymboree teapot leggings I got for something like $2 but they have been languishing with no match.

I bought THE most beautiful fabric from The Fabric Fairy. They say it's made of bamboo with 8% lycra but I suspect it's actually spun from sunshine and puppy kisses. It's gorgeous to sew and moves beautifully. Just holding it makes me happy and it was embarrassingly difficult to throw out the scraps. I think I might make myself something out of it.

I used McCalls 6155 and I agree with the comments of the first reviewer at that link. The cut is very pretty but I hated the neckline, which was folded over and sewn down. The pattern also calls for interfacing and putting buttons in the back. That sort of misses the point of a knit in my world, so if I sew this again I'll just cut the back on the fold at the center and use ribbing at the neck.

To embellish the front I bought some pre-made fabric buttons on Etsy. Not because these buttons are hard to make, but because it was cheaper than buying this obviously awesome teacup fabric. More precisely, it was most likely cheaper than starting a hunt for this fabric that would certainly have lead to a purchase of at least five other fabrics.

I made size 2 and the fit is absolutely enormous on her. She's tall, lean and lanky so the shoulders in particular are huge. She runs around rocking the Flashdance shoulder reveal and you can see by the pooling of the fabric how long the sleeves are on her. But it's wearable now and will probably need a matching set of leggings soon since she's sprouting out of pants every time I turn around.

I've quit telling her to smile in pictures and tell her to laugh instead. It makes for a better shot and also gets me poses like this that tell me quite clearly what kind of teenager I'll have.

Just a note to say we are ok

2011-01-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Since The Pickled Weasel was sweet enough to wonder after us I'm posting a quick note.

Along with everyone in Tucson we are still reeling with shock and sadness over what happened here over the weekend. But our family is ok and was not involved. Thanks for thinking of us. And please continue to pray for the families of the people who died and for the recovery of the injured.

Covered in glitter and recriminations

2010-12-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

In spite of my Big Plans to make more felt toys and other handmade goodies for Christmas my two-year old niece Ella is the only one getting a handmade gift this year. Armed with my lessons learned from my first attempt at Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt tutorial I got to work.

The first time around I messed up my seam allowances and ended up with something very poofy due to short layers. My tulle was also too lightweight and wispy (read that: cheap). This time I got stiffer, sparkle tulle. So stiff in fact that I still ended up with something way poofier than I was aiming for.

I've had the sweater for months and wanted to make a pettiskirt to match. Due to the weird effect of a flash on the sparkle tulle and the seafoam underskirt you'll have to take my word that it *does* match.

The satin underskirt matches the tutu of the ballerina on the sweater. Which also matches the top cuffs of the baby legs I made.

As I was pulling the elastic Rylee walked by and saw the pile of princess craziness on my lap and proclaimed "That's mine's."

When I tried it on her to check the waist fit she immediately began to switch her hips and declare "I'm the true princess!" She was also willing to model the underskirt, if not change out of her favorite monkey pants.

She was finally willing to grudgingly concede that it was "Lella's" and mommy would make her one soon. So I'll be blogging a third attempt at some point in the near future.

And lest you think I'm the worst mother in the world for letting her be barefoot outside in the winter I'll just add that it was almost 60 degrees. So I'm only a moderately bad mother. For that reason at least.

This goes down in my house a few times a month

2010-12-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

We have two golden retrievers, a female named Gala and a male named Marc Anthony. We call Gala our nanny dog, because she's always taken care of all of us as best as she can without thumbs. Sometimes when something terrible happens to Rylee - getting her milk in the wrong cup for example, as happened in the video - it makes Gala very, very sad. She will come from anywhere in the house to be sad near Rylee, as you see her in the video. Sometimes this will make Marc Anthony sad. And the result is funny and sad, in proportion to the amount of sleep I've had.

As a bonus you can hear the best Christmas album ever at the beginning before the family starts in. Enjoy!

When favorite things collide

2010-11-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

I love sewing for Rylee and had a few ideas for a handmade costume this year. Then someone offered me this free, new-with-tags pig costume.

I love free stuff almost as much as Rylee loves the first piece of Halloween candy.

I made the bag. Last year. It counts.

Mmmmm.....

Sung to a tune I think only my sister knows

2010-10-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

Where are you going, my little one, little one?

Where are you going, my baby, my own?

Turn around and you're two. Turn around and you're four.

Turn around and you're a young girl...

...going out of the door.

Turn around, turn around

Turn around and you're a young girl...

...going out of the door.

I wish I had before pictures

2010-10-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

We've been (finally) tackling all the storage needs in our house over the last month or so. We got new desks, re-arranged the office/sewing room and re-did the closet in the Master bedroom and Rylee's room. It's still a disaster area, but we're getting there.

I'll post pictures when it's all done. I'm so excited!

Doing my civic duty. Possibly for the wrong reasons.

2010-10-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

Arizona has an early ballot system where you can vote by mail and not have to go to the polling place on election day. As the stay-at-home mom of a two-year old, this appeals to me greatly.

When we were out walking the dogs the other day I said to Eric "I like the convenience, but I wish I could still get my little sticker for voting." And yes, I was pretty serious.

So imagine my thrill when the balloting material came. They have my number.

Thinking

2010-10-08T14:56:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking, more and more, about maybe, possibly, could-be-willing-for-the-right-thing, going back to work.

Here's how that's shaking out:

Angsty posts to Facebook about applying for a job: 1
Supportive comments from friends saying GO FOR IT: 28
Days since I applied to the first job: 2
Number of times Amazon has contacted me about a job in Seattle: 2
Number of times the company I applied to has contacted me: 0
Day care facilities I've contacted as part of my process: 2
Number of times I cried watching a virtual tour of a day care: 1
Number of times I've changed what I think I want: 387478329783474938283744389
How many minutes since I applied to a second place: 5

Don't know what I'm hoping, but here's hoping!

Skinny and powerful, I'll take it

2010-10-02T07:39:00.001-07:00

Since I chose to have children with someone who gets up at an uncivilized hour I have a child who gets up way too early for my taste. Most mornings Rylee and I spend a few minutes snuggling in my bed watching The Incredibles. It's "mommy's resting time."

This morning she announces excitedly, "Here comes Dash and Mommy!"

Fall paisley and philosophy

2010-09-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

I made this dress a few days ago and I've been wanting to get a modeled picture of it. But Rylee and I are both sick so there's no energy or patience (on either of our parts) for that.

The picture doesn't really do justice to the colors which are lovely, creamy browns and pinks. I bought them for her fall wardrobe but with no particular pattern in mind. I finally decided to use Simplicity 5695, which I originally bought because I couldn't get hat measurements quite right.

Because it's for fall and temperatures in Arizona in the fall can drop all the way into the low 70s, I made the sleeves slightly longer. I had my Cool Girl confidence to do something so simple and I like how they came out.

Sewing this pattern coincided nicely with a philosophical discussion over on Amanda's blog about non-technical sewing. My first official foray into sewing was helping my mom, just a tiny bit, sew a prom dress for me. She was an accomplished sewer and made a lot of our clothing back when it was something you did to save money rather than the complete money-sucking hobby it is today. She was very clever with mixing and matching patterns and I remember picking out a couple patterns to merge for that dress. (I also vividly remember being tortured as a smaller child by long trips to the fabric store, a tradition I have happily continued). She could make anything. Anything. She once made my dad a suit. Although I don't think she ever drafted anything from scratch.

After she died I sewed a few costumes for my nieces because that was something she had always done and I wanted to continue that. Sewing costumes can be low stress because as long as they last a single night or two you're good. The most involved modification I ever did to those patterns was replacing all zippers with velcro. I also made a very easy vest or three for my sister's girls, cutesy little things made from holiday fabric with festive buttons. Back when I was super skinny I made a few sundresses for myself but with no knowledge of FBA even skinny-me wasn't going to get a big wardrobe by my own hands.

Fast forward to now when I'm starting to sew more for Rylee. So far, this time around has been a LOT more fun. Why? Because of the wonderful, generous non-technical (and technical) sewers on the internet. There's a post I've been meaning to write for awhile called "Why Commercial Patterns Make Me Cry" and it will be heavy on those line drawings that purport to show three steps in a single picture. Because I usually have to stare at them for a good hour or so to figure out what is actually going on. The instructions usually make that worse. I think this is why I stayed away from sewing for so long (that and the FB with no A :-)

As I sewed the dress that is ostensibly the topic of this post I was thinking "This is just like vegbee's peasant top and I can make two of those in the time it's taken me to trace the pattern, cut out the tissue, pin the fabric and cut it out." And you know what? Vegbee's tutorial was just as cute, way more fun and a LOT less stressful. I'll probably make the next dress like this one from that tutorial plus a few rectangles for the gathered tiers. Because do perfectly squared off corners REALLY matter in a dress for a two-year old?

I'm so grateful to and indebted to those I've met through these sewing blogs not only for the support and friendship but for the loads of free information. And this isn't limited to tutorials and patterns, either. I also now know that the Big Four aren't the end-all of commercial patterns. I bought my first Jalie pattern earlier this year and I'm going to put some Ottobre issues on my Christmas list.

So there, Butterick.

Sharing

2010-09-24T08:06:00.001-07:00

I made another dress in Rylee's fall wardrobe and I think it's super cute. But I'm too lazy to take pictures of it today.

Go watch all four videos by this woman instead. You're welcome.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7148143/

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7179585/

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7191147/

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7205061/

Scotty dog plaid in peek-a-boo pleats

2010-09-18T18:10:00.002-07:00

Rylee foiled my plans to reuse a lot of last winter's wardrobe, purchased a bit large, by having a growth spurt over the last few months. I recently inventoried her warm weather clothing and came up with several pieces that still fit, but precious few outfits.

Being a ~~crazy, anal-retentive, list-making psycho~~ prudent shopper, I made up a list of everything she has that still fits and what she needs to match it. I then cross referenced this against my stash, my patterns and my lusty sewing dreams and came up with a pretty big project to get her outfitted for the winter with minimal outlays of cash.

Here's how the first one of those projects shaped up.

Had this shirt which should still fit this winter:

Had these in my stash. The dogs from an impulse purchase last year and yards and yards of the black for making boys bowling shirts:

Found this on Etsy. And after purchasing it even saw the same style skirt on Peggy of Mad Men wardrobe lusciousness.

And had this today:

I'm planning to add black quilted buttons to the top of the pleats. Those need to be purchased and coupon commotion starts tomorrow.

Note to self

2010-09-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I got home from playgroup:

At least I remembered Rylee's lunch and the frozen meals for the new mom. And the banana bread.

Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt, Version One, Lessons Learned

2010-09-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

Because princess-itis has seized our household - earlier and with greater intensity than I could have ever imagined - I decided the time has come to venture into tulle territory. I didn't enter lightly, having wandered on these plains of desperation, climbed these cliffs of insanity while sewing a Tinkerbell costume ten years ago. But motherhood has its costs and pay them we must.

I armed myself with the high quality Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt tutorial and took Rylee shopping to pick out the tulle. I have to thank Amanda here not only for a great tutorial but also for her unwavering support as I begin life in a princess inhabited household. It's nice to know we're not alone in our trials.

My first attempt will be for At Home Dressing Up and not for Public Wearing or Viewing but I do have some valuable lessons learned.

1. Gathering on the serger does make quick work of the gathering but it will certainly eat into your seam allowance if you're dumb enough to forget to add extra for the necessary trimming of the ugly serger seams. This will render your pettiskirt a tutu.

2. Cutting tulle while it's still warm enough to require ceiling fans running will make you cry.

3. Things that are more fun than gathering yards and yards of tulle.

4. Even if you spend an entire nap time (PLUS some) sewing something you already spent an entire nap time cutting out, right after nap is not the best time to present a ~~bratty little ingrate~~ slow to wake toddler with her new princess dress.

5. Things that are higher quality than the tulle I bought.

6. Things that are sadder than watching your rolled hem fall right off the skirt because it was too narrow and the satin frayed away right underneath it.

7. The smirk that makes it worth it and might even make me try again.

Circle of Life, US Mint style

2010-09-11T10:03:00.002-07:00

I finally completed my set of the 50 State Quarters. The program ended in 2008 but it took me a long time to get that final Hawaii quarter. I had one last summer and accidentally spent it. A year later my sister gave me one when we were shopping together.

It was an odd feeling looking through the book. I put the first quarter in it in 1999. The dot-com market hadn't crashed yet, let alone the housing market. The twin towers were still up. Skirts were short, unemployment was down. More personally, my mother was terminally ill but still alive. It was two years before I would meet Eric, and Rylee wasn't even a dream.

The antepenultimate quarter is Arizona, a state I never imagined I would move to and my state of residence when I put the Arizona quarter into my book.

I've been putting quarters into this book at four different homes, doing five different jobs, in two different states, single, married, childless, pregnant, a ma-ma, a mommy.

I can't think of anything else that I've done for 10 years. I've only been married for eight, never lived at a single address more than seven, never worked a single job longer than four. I felt a weird sense of accomplishment.

And then I popped out the first eight so Rylee and I could buy carrots to feed the giraffe at the zoo. Because come on, it's over ten bucks and I'm no sucker.

Eyes on the prize, or being lazy with clip art

2010-09-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

This is me, cutting tulle under a ceiling fan and gathering it under same.

This is Rylee, dancing with a scrap of tulle she found when she got up from her nap (Joy shown 1/10000000 scale).

I should have a pettiskirt in a day or two.

Apples and Pears shirtdress

2010-09-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, one post in two months is pretty pathetic, even with a long vacation thrown in there. I keep planning to post some pictures of what we've been up to but we didn't really take that many on vacation. And sewing is dragging right now.

But I did manage to sew something with the Alexander Henry Apples and Pears that I coveted for so long. Thanks to KID, MD (the sewing goddess) for the idea for this adorable shirt dress. So super cute!!

Because I just took a serger class and was all geeked out with new techniques, I did a rolled hem on the sleeves and bottom. I wanted a more casual look and thought it might be cute. Eh. It does look cute enough, but I'll probably save it for knits from now on.

I also tried cloth covered buttons for the first time. I don't know why I waited, because if you can put the lid on a bottle of ibuprofen, you can make these things.

I made size 2, even though Rylee is very small in the chest. It came out a little long, but not ridiculously so. She refused to hold still long enough for a picture so all the pictures from the front are just of her lunging for the camera with a maniacal grin on her face. So here's the length from the back. With all her newly grown curly hair.

A glass is half-full kind of morning

2010-08-12T12:46:00.002-07:00

We'll just call taking your diaper off so you can surreptitiously poop by your art easel a "potty training readiness sign."

And hey, if I hadn't caught the dogs eating it, who knows how long before I found it?

Off we go!

2010-07-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

Rylee and I are taking wing to Michigan again. Some cousin-y goodness, some grubby camp fun and then some beach time with Daddy. Should be a hoot!

I'll try to post pictures and what-not.

Disney Princess Dress

2010-07-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

My very first commission! I made this for a friend for her daughter's birthday. She bought the fabric and paid me in a precious barter more valuable than gold: a night of baby sitting. Woot!

It's the same design as Rylee's ladybug and monkey dresses. Time to get away from licensed fabric for awhile, but children want what they want. :)

A certain, covetous two-year old had to keep repeating the mantra "is add'son's pre'cess shirt"

An object lesson

2010-07-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

Since I was up - courtesy of my beloved daughter - at 6am on a Saturday I figured I might as well make pancakes. I retrieved all the fixings from the fridge and Rylee asked to see the eggs.

Figuring it's never too early to teach her to cook I opened the eggs and let her carefully examine the four in the carton. She wanted to hold one so I pulled one out and handed it to her, all the while admonishing her to be careful and gentle.

As I was explaining that eggs are fragile and will break if we drop them, the remaining three eggs fell out of the carton and on to the floor.

And we thought our babies grew up fast

2010-07-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

On June 7th I first noticed our hummingbird mommy sitting on her nest. I had noticed her flitting about a day or so before and I think she laid her eggs right about this time.

On June 24 I took my first peek into the nest and found a little blob already about 3-4 times the size of the egg (or shell) in the nest with it.

Things moved quickly after that. Mommy sat on the nest less frequently, but came by often to feed the baby. I never managed to capture her actually feeding, but here's a picture of her on June 26th.

I did catch a video of the little one giving himself a bath, though, on July 3rd.

And we started seeing a lot of this greedy little mouth sticking up higher and higher (June 29).

Yesterday I noticed he was getting a bit too big for his quarters. Beak and bottom were both sticking out all the time.

Today I noticed him trying his wings a little and I thought it might be The Big Day. But then he snuggled down back into the nest as if perhaps the thought was still too scary.

When I saw him venture out of the nest onto the light I grabbed the camera again.

I watched for awhile as he screwed up his courage. I put the camera away and came back to the window to watch just a little bit more.

And as I was watching, he flew away.

Decisions, decisions

2010-07-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

We finally got a decision on wearing yesterday's character tops. And the winner is...

Dora!

But wait. What's the touch of green at the neckline? And why does Rylee look a little puffy. And what's that green bit protruding from the bottom...?

And at the sleeve?

Yes, indeed. We've reached the stage of life of a toddler dressing herself and her choice today was not to choose! It was too hot for two shirts, though, so before leaving the house we had to wrestle her out of one of them. She was distraught until handed two scraps of fabric. Then all was well. I should have kept my scraps and sewed a big, makeshift lovey out of them.

Happy 4th!

These tops are licensed for home use only

2010-07-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Rylee's current obsessions - held with the ferocity and transience typical of toddler obsessions - are Dora and Toy Story. So what's a mommy to do but bust out some licensed fabric for her precious?

Behold the Dora top, with another pair of shorts made from the same pattern as her birthday shorts.

The polka dot fabric was supposed to be for a dress someone asked me to make her daughter, but it didn't match the main fabric for that outfit. The perils of online fabric shopping. Lemons into lemonade at the neckline and in the britches.

Woody and Buzz don't have matching bottoms, but we have plenty of shorts to match this peasant top.

Here was her reaction when I showed them both to her and asked her which one she wanted to wear. We have the same problem when she's trying to decide which one to watch. Why not both?

And here's her reaction when she figured out I was taking pictures of her reactions.

Butterfly Mini-Mod

2010-06-30T19:16:00.001-07:00

I felt like sewing this weekend and even found myself with a nice bit of nap time to do it. I made another Butterfly Kitschy Coo Mini-Mod Dress. (Since the lovely Amanda is on holiday I can't link directly to the pattern in her Etsy shop, but it's one of my FAVORITE dresses to make for sun dresses or layering.)

It was only after I cut it out that I realized this would be Rylee's second in the butterfly genre. But the first one was black with jewel tones. So.

This one is pink, lavender and brown. And has ladybugs. And I did the middle panel as an outtie rather than an innie. So am I boring and repetitive? Perhaps. But oh well.

I wanted to try something new, so I did the facings right way out just to see what it would look like. It looks cute!

And since a) I'm spatially challenged and b) I only had naptime I didn't try to puzzle out beforehand a new way to do the back since the facings would now be "inside out" in back. So there's just a teeny, not-very-professional twist in back where I folded the back slit over to hide the raw, serged edge. You can't see it and I think it looks fine.

A little girl's sundress. Not for the Grammies red carpet or anything. :-)

Birthday Model in motion

2010-06-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

We finally had Rylee's postponed birthday party and it was a blast! And I even got a few pictures of her birthday outfit before she spent the rest of the party in a bathing suit. I should probably quit making special outfits for her party since they're always pool parties.

Mommy got the gift of catching her playing with her handmade tea set. We've had a few impromptu parties with it and she will seek it out on her own. Score!

Although I love to bake and even showoff by creating the fanciest desserts my skills can muster, this year's cake was made with the guest of honor in mind. Behold, the cake that love baked.

And here's the good side of having her in her bathing suit instead of her fancy birthday clothing by the time cake rolls around.

Alas, she had a 2nd piece after being changed into dry clothing and in spite of mommy's careful pre-treating the new top came out of the washer with mysterious blue dye stains. :-( I washed it once and it came out with no stains but some ground in dirt, so I tossed it back in with a second load. I'm not sure if there was frosting left over from the Backyardigans cake or something in the second load that stained it. Bummer!

So far the stain treating is promising, so maybe this won't be the last picture I have of it unstained.

Purple Funks and tiny lumps

2010-06-24T18:13:00.004-07:00

I haven't felt like blogging because I've been in a deep blue funk. So deep it's purple. I'm not sure if I can even blog about it, but it concerns the loss of self, identity and life that comes from having a baby, quitting your job and moving thousands of miles all at once.

Anyway. I did have something nice to blog about but couldn't get a picture.

Faith and patience have paid off for mommy hummingbird. Eric had the ladder out so I carefully climbed up and took a peek into the nest. It contains an egg the size of a jellybean and a little brown lump, softly dusted with feathers and breathing lightly.

The lump is much larger than the egg so it's either the empty shell or one that sadly won't hatch.

I'll keep trying to get better pictures.

Guest Blogging

2010-06-18T20:39:00.005-07:00

The lovely Daisie asked for birth stories over on her breastfeeding blog. She was looking for stories to inspire mothers who might have a hard time getting started, particularly after a traumatic delivery.

So I poured out my guts in a story that she was kind enough to post. It's all the words I have for awhile.

If you read it and want to see how far Rylee and I actually came in breastfeeding, check out my little piggy at about 10 months old.

Raising a toddler, a parable

2010-06-18T08:13:00.002-07:00

Once upon a time there was a lovely castle in a magical kingdom. And in this castle lived a scullery maid. She didn't dream of being a princess or finding a knight in shining armor. She was just a scullery maid and pretty happy and content.

Because this lovely castle was in a magical kingdom there were the usual comings and goings of fairy godmothers, eccentric sorcerers and the like. One day a visiting fairy wandered into the kitchen to see if there was any pudding left over after dinner. She started chatting with the scullery maid and asked her if there was anything in her life she would like changed.

The scullery maid thought for awhile - she was pretty happy - and then said "You know, there never seems to be enough chocolate around. I'd really like to have more chocolate." The fairy grinned a mischievous grin and said "I can certainly do that for you." and she offered the scullery maid a deal.

For three years the scullery maid could have chocolate in any quantity and variety she desired. There would be milk chocolate, dark chocolate, some bittersweet, even white chocolate (which some people say is not chocolate at all). The only catch was, chocolate was all the maid could eat. "And," the fairy added, "I'll even make it nutritious. You won't get fat." The scullery maid considered the deal and eventually accepted.

At first it was wonderful! The scullery maid never imagined anything as delicious as that magical chocolate. It could be creamy and sweet or dark and rich. She even enjoyed the bitterest of the bittersweet. But some days she felt weary at the thought of eating nothing but chocolate, day in and day out. The other kitchen workers told her not to complain. Not the king, nor the princess nor even the conniving wicked stepmother ate such sumptuous fare. And, they pointed out, in three years it would all be over and she would be back to the non-magical beans and potatoes eaten by the castle servants.

Deep down the scullery maid knew they were right. And most days she thoroughly enjoyed the lovely, if limited, menu. But in other moments she thought to herself "I'd kill for a piece of cheese or a popsicle."

Open

2010-06-15T19:06:00.001-07:00

Well, for what it's worth I re-opened my Etsy shop.

How much do I (heart) these birds? A lot.

I want to move away from the ready-to-ship model to the sell-it-then-sew-it model. So I listed my two new dresses and a few of the (MANY) things I have hanging around from last year's craft fair season. I still need a lot of work on photos, but it's a start.

Fretting

2010-06-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

We're having a BBQ today and it's gorgeous. Relatively cool for Tucson (high of 87 predicted which is almost cold in June).

Mommy hummingbird is right outside the door and she flies away whenever we open the door. She's getting braver and I really hope she screws her courage to the sticking place today. With the relative cool and the high traffic I'm fretting.

Modeled dresses

2010-06-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Rylee has croup. It's the sickest she's ever been and what's really crummy is her birthday party was supposed to be tomorrow. Postponing is the pits!

We got to the doctor yesterday and the steroids they gave her are making her feel much better. Before she was struck down with fever and wheezing I was able to persuade her to model the two dresses I made to sell.

The monkey is my favorite. The kind of print I would buy five times before I bought ladybugs. I have a bunch of it. But I already sold a ladybug one just from my blog post and I predict it will sell much better.

Outside my windows

2010-06-07T22:19:00.001-07:00

We live quite near a large park, but I'm still occasionally stunned by the amount of wildlife we enjoy in our yard.

Outside one window today, a mommy hummingbird on a nest. I'm so excited!

Outside the other window, within minutes of noticing the mommy, I saw a hawk having breakfast. It's kind of hard to see in the picture. I didn't want to go outside and disturb it. Whatever it was eating is in the tree down and to the right of it.

It wasn't the hummingbird. I checked.

Monkeys, and dots and bugs

2010-06-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

Oh, my!

I made two dresses for Rylee, both sample dresses of items I intend to post to Etsy. It's a simple contrast yoke dress, but I made the back a little wider and sewed in some elastic. Buttons and the way stupid CPSIA don't mix. So this goes over a little round head and still fits nicely in the back.

Between you and me, the elastic looks a little wonky on the monkey dress (first attempt) and better on the ladybug dress (second attempt). I sewed clear elastic inside the yoke as I was finishing it and I like the result. I need to practice to get it even so the ones I sell are PERFECT.

I sewed one with elastic sleeves.

And one with flutter sleeves.

And I *really* need to re-take pictures of the ladybug dress in the morning light. Cause even with Photoshop...yeesh. And yellow is pretty unforgiving.

I'm also going to really try to get my favorite model to cooperate, too.

Tea and festivities

2010-06-05T21:27:00.001-07:00

For your 2nd birthday you absolutely need a fancy new dress. Bonus points if it includes your brand-new BFF.

Cheesy, pre-shirred Dora fabric? Check. Five inches magically cut from the middle and re-sewn? Check. Fit through the chest? Check. Toddler proof?

Um....

...no.

Ok. I'll re-try the ribbon straps I made initially. At least I got the tea set done. In addition to the scrumptious Strawberry Lemon Cake there are some lovely chocolate tea cakes available.

Yum!

And a choice of lemon or herbal tea. Great!

What a fancy party we can have!

I know she'll love some of her other presents, too. Like the Backyardigans sticker book.

And the DORA!!!! coloring book.

(Twenty Minute Interlude. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.)

Rylee's teeth: 0. Mommy's sewing skills: 1

Or as my two-year old has been saying for months now...."Mmmmm! Tasty!"

Dear Mom

2010-06-03T19:23:00.001-07:00

Dear Mom,

Tonight your youngest grandchild is going to go to bed one and wake up two. I've had two years to get to know this amazing little person.

She is joy, mischief, wonder, temper, dependence and independence.

She's so fearless sometimes my heart stops and so brave it skips a beat.

She loves birds, berries, cheese, swimming, shoes, purses and raw flour.

She'll take calls from the Backyardigans, but not a real person.

Sometimes I don't know which is harder to fathom: how long she's been here or how long you've been gone. I'm so sad that you haven't met her, because you would love her. And I know she would love you.

I bet you didn't know...

2010-06-02T19:56:00.001-07:00

...how super into Chuc Tet Dau Xuan I am. Don't believe me? Check out my latest receipt from iTunes.

Oh, wait. No I'm not. And these aren't my games, either.

Got hacked. People suck! :(

Birthday Outfit. Fin.

2010-05-31T19:53:00.001-07:00

I was hoping to finish these little shorts yesterday, but Rylee decided not to nap, then to wake up early, then to be a whiny barnacle, then to cut short today's nap...

Oh well!

Here's the bottoms for the spun-sugar birthday top.

I forgot to mention in the first post that I made them both as-is from Simplicity 4203. I was in the creative slump of a lifetime and just couldn't muster any ideas for modifications. With the exception of sewing a dummy button on the shorts.

Because how delicious is this button?

Birthday Craftapaloza

2010-05-29T18:04:00.002-07:00

Continues!

A nice long nap from my sugar plum yielded the top half of her birthday outfit. She slept so long, in fact, that I probably could have finished the shorts. But I also need to - you know - take pictures and blog the progress. And the little hot pink shorts will probably take 30 minutes, tops.

A bit more tiny confection than I normally make. But if a girl can't feel fancy on her 2nd birthday, well when can she feel fancy? It needs a quick pass with the iron, but you can get the flavor of fancy here.

Start. Stop. Start again.

2010-05-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

Last fall I started dabbling in making things to sell. I bought WAY too much fabric, so much of it the wrong kind, in a ridiculous variety. I had one disastrous fair, one good fair and a few friends/family and two stranger sales in an Etsy shop that I let sputter to a halt right after Christmas.

I've been trying to decide whether or not to get back into it. I have no delusions that I will ever make a major going concern out of ANYTHING I do with my hands. I'm just not that talented. It would be more of a hobby that generated a little cash if everything went well.

So I've decided to make another go of it. Ideally I will learn from my mistakes and put a little more thought and planning into deciding what fabrics to buy and what types of things to make. I'm going to try a few more fairs with my good friend Hazelmoonfly who is MUCH more talented and creative. We'll see how that goes.

Etsy is tougher because there you either make things ready-to-ship (necessitating taking a billion photos and using up fabric on things people might not buy) or listing custom items (necessitating larger fabric purchases and one sample in Rylee's size). I'm going to try the 2nd route for now.

Here's the starting line-up. I have enough to make 2-5 items in each of these. Monkeys sold really well the first go round...

Lee wins, I lose

2010-05-26T22:57:00.001-07:00

Bummer. By the closest margin yet (25 to 26) I lost this year's American Idol Home Game. One lousy point. I put Aaron way too high - counting on the tweeners to text him through -- and Crystal a little bit too low. I figured she would go home about 4th or 5th since that's when talent usually goes home on this show.

Poop.

The worst part is, I lost the series 3-2.

The best part is, they're fat free!

2010-05-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

Strawberry Lemon Cake

Ingredients:
White Felt
Hot Pink Felt
Yellow Felt
Thread
Stuffing
Several hours of TV time
Patience
Reading Glasses

I got the tea set itself done. Two more of these, a chocolate cake and two heart cakes and the felt present is complete! They're both easier and more time consuming than I thought.

Apple's monitoring my brain again

2010-05-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Simple Rylee Tunic, Take Two

2010-05-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

The 2nd tunic I sewed up last night fit MUCH better. I was able to finish the neckline before we left for our gadding today. Unfortunately my model was in a less cooperative mood.

Getting on with it

2010-05-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

After Wednesday's whine I looked over a bunch of patterns to try to decide what to make for Rylee's birthday. I spent one hour doing this and did not arrive at a decision. More of the same.

So I decided today was the day to get back on the horse, one way or another. I was determined to sew something, anything. And it ended up being this:

It's vegbee's peasant top lengthened to a dress with Kitschy Coo's double elastic neckline modification. Because coming up with my own ideas or - heaven forbid - following a big-four pattern was beyond my capability.

Rylee cooperated by taking a decent two-hour nap. The downside is I did the length and the neckline by guessing. It was about 3" too long and too big through the chest and neck. I shortened it and took in the elastic a little bit. It's still too big but I've been wanting a simple shift to pull over her when we come in from swimming. There's usually only an hour before her bath and it's a pain to get her dressed all over again. It works for that.

I made a few changes and sewed up another one. This time I didn't finish the neckline (duh!) and I'll try it on her tomorrow.

Hoping this is the boot to the behind I needed. And besides, a busy mommy needs something comfy.

Somebody get this thing off me!

2010-05-19T20:53:00.001-07:00

I'm currently being crushed by a heavy weight, pressed down and completely immobilized. It presses down my shoulders, rendering me an inert lump. I shackles my hands, keeping me from cutting, pinning, drafting or sewing.

What is it?

It's the overwhelming volume of all the ideas I have right now. There are so many that I can't focus on any one at a time. It's sewing ADD.

I want to sew-along with the Cool Girls Club, but I'm pretty sure I need a full-bust adjustment on my t-shirt. Throw that on the to-do pile. I'm trying to think of patterns that will sell, so that gets slapped on, too.

Rylee has very few things sewn by me, in spite of all the sewing hoopla I've whipped up around me. But what should I make for her? I'd love to make everything she wears, where to start? I want to copy about everything I put on her these days so add those half-baked ideas to the heap. I have four or five patterns that aren't even opened. Should I sew them as is? Alter them? What fabrics anyway?

Not that this indecisiveness keeps me from buying fabrics. Oh, no. Must keep buying everything that strikes my fancy! And have those fabrics sit and say "What shall we do together?" And take sewing classes because they're "free" (included) and that loads me up with ideas.

And I sit and do...Not. One. Thing.

This is so not me. I'm a planner, a list-maker, a doer and executer. Steps one through five, I get them done and move on. I'm bold, decisive. Franklin Planner in hand, I bang out those to-do items.

I can blame sleep deprivation for at least some of it. Higher order mental skills are the first to go, or so I hear. But I wonder sometimes if something is fundamentally changed by all this SAHM business.Or maybe just the mom business. Can I get it back? Do I want it back? Maybe just some of it?

And so it goes...

November, December, January and February showers bring

2010-05-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

An insane number of buds on our saguaro this year. I can't wait until this fully blossoms!

Cool Girl T-shirt, second muslin

2010-05-16T21:38:00.001-07:00

One day late for the final and I'm still on my second draft. It's sewn up without neckband or hemming. Alas and alack. And oh well.

This one was actually worth sewing up, although there are still a few things wrong with it. These pictures were very difficult to get because a) Eric is not the world's greatest photographer to begin with and it didn't help that b) he couldn't stop giggling about the face detection finding...the "armholes" But I soldier on.

Here's the plain front view. Not a bad fit, but not the nicest t-shirt in my closet, either. I think the armholes are too low. The first ones were too high so I'm a bit at a loss...

It also feels like the ease that is in the t-shirt at the armhole should be in the sleeve and not the shirt itself. Even with the wrinkle it's pulling majorly under the armpit. Maybe getting the armhole correct would fix that?

Arms-up reveals how the armholes are a little weird and something going on in the shoulders. I'm not enough of a seamstress to know what other than "those shoulders sure look lumpy!" I think maybe they're too wide?

At the very least I'm going to redraft the sleeves, because I lost an inch at the opening when I squared the corners and did the curves. They fit now, but I'm afraid they will be a bit tight when I roll them under for a hem.

Oh, and more pleased than ever with the haircut because this dire styling is from washing it, combing it and then going swimming twice without combing it. Not bad!

Bob's Your Uncle

2010-05-15T21:10:00.001-07:00

Today was the pampering day: Facial, pedicure and haircut. An effort to feel like a normal person who is something more than Mommy. Particularly timely since in the last four weeks Rylee has slept through the night precisely twice (until 6 and 5:30).

But I was feeling pretty sleek with my new, short hair. So I put on my Cool Girl skirt muslin (not shown) and dressed Rylee in her butterfly Kitschy Coo mini-mod dress (which makes such a cool sundress that I'm planning on making at least a dozen more).

Found some open-toed shoes to display my fancy toes, which are polished about once every five years.

And grabbed my two favorite dates.

We ate someplace with candles, dimmed lighting and a kids' menu. (I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be "Two, with a highchair"). The meal lasted over an hour and Rylee was good the whole time. Cause for celebration indeed.

Bliss

2010-05-14T21:04:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow's agenda:

10:45 - Facial
12:00 - Pedicure
2:00 - Cut and lite

I'm finally spending the gift certificate Eric got me for Christmas 2008. That's the kind of mommy guilt that haunts my days.

Can't wait!

Here goes nothing, version 2

2010-05-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

I'm a little more encouraged, because this one doesn't look quite so odd.

After re-checking my measurements it turns out I had the measurement from high shoulder point to waist wrong by about four inches. I'm not sure what I did wrong when taking it the first time. So we'll see how this one goes. I'll probably try to sew a muslin from it tomorrow. I hope Amanda doesn't reduce a full grade for late work. :)

Being productive while wasting time

2010-05-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

My fabric stash has been niggling at me, partly because it's so full of random junk that I'm not sure where to even start with sorting out projects. So I sat in front of American Idol tonight and finally organized it.

Here are the categories:
1. Stuff I have plans for (smallest pile)
2. Fat quarters and scraps about that big or slightly bigger
3. Blenders
4. Prints I think might sell and I have enough for one project
5. Prints I think might sell and I have enough for multiple projects
6. Knits
7. Twill
8. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this but I like it
9. Why the heck did I ever buy this?
10. Fabric already cut up for crayon rolls and reusable sandwich bags
11. Specialty fabrics
12. Cold weather fabric, I'll deal with it later (a very small pile)
13. Christmas/seasonal

Not kidding. Those are the actual categories. My planning and organizing muscle is so gone right now... At least it's better than three big bins of everything.

And if Crystal doesn't go home next week I'm definitely going to lose our home game. I had greater faith than was justified that tweens would vote for Aaron. Poop.

Cool Girl T-shirt, first attempt

2010-05-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

There are no photos for this post, because my first attempt at a T-shirt muslin was so pathetic that I didn't even bother to sew it together. A pinned together version told the sad, sorry tale. And that tale goes a little something like this.

1. I forgot to add ease. I forgot for my skirt, too, but I took my measurements generously enough that it didn't matter.
2. I made the armhole too small. I measured my t-shirts like she said and when I drafted that size it just looked so weird. So I made it smaller. Turns out weird would at least fit!
3. It was too short. The length I measured failed to take into account the lumps and bumps that would pull the shirt up.
4. I need to quit pretending I'm not as fat as I am and just use the measurements I come up with, no matter how sad I am looking at the pattern pieces.

I should be able to try again this week. I don't know if I'll make the deadline for my final shirt, but I should for my muslin at least!

Sewing machine class, lessons learned

2010-05-08T20:55:00.001-07:00

I took the 2nd of the two "free" classes for my sewing machine today. I say "free" in big, fat scare quotes because Costco has virtually the same machine for 1/3 what I paid at The Official Sewing Ladies Spend Your Life Savings Store. I did not know that when I purchased it, so I'm wringing as much "free" stuff out as I can.

Here's my take-home paper, ready to proudly display on the fridge.

And I learned

1. All about bobbin thread and how it will make decorative stitching much nicer. And also that they sell it right there at the store where I took the class!

2. Stabilizer is necessary for decorative stitching. It comes in several types. And also that they sell it right there at the store where I took the class!

3. Twin needles are super fun, although some stitches are better suited for it than others. And some old biddies need LOTS of reminders to adjust stitch width to keep from breaking off twin needles. And also that they sell twin needles at the store where I took the class!

4. Wing needles are not that scary and also that they sell them right there at the store where I took the class! But I didn't buy one this time, because I was afraid of something like this:

Wing Needle: WhoOOOOooo hooooo
Lynn: What's that?
WN: It's me, your wing needle. The one you bought at the "free" class.
Lynn: What do you want?
WN: Shouldn't we be doing all kinds of cool things? Get on the stick, lady!
Lynn: Look, Wing Needle, get off my back. I don't need it from you, too.

Because in spite of all this new knowledge I still don't really feel like sewing. I cleaned off the kitchen island (cutting and thinking space) today, though, so I'm hoping that will improve.

We interrupt this blog

2010-05-06T19:50:00.002-07:00

...to deal with projectile vomiting caused by swallowing too much pool water. Ta!

Lazy Fare How-To: Mise En Place

2010-05-05T20:55:00.002-07:00

Almost done with my trashy vampire novel, so how about a post that might be useful?

First, please notice the title and see how truly clever I am. Drop the "i" from faire, removing the suspicion that I misspelled Laissez. End up with a much cuter wordplay description of the kind of party throwing I'd like to teach. So from now on these how-tos will officially be part of the Lazy Fare (TM) approach to party planning.

First up! Mise en place. What is it? Why would you want to do it? And what's the Lazy Fare way?

Mise en place: What
A fancy French term that literally means "put in place." If you've ever watched any cooking show and observed each ingredient in its own little bowl that's mise en place. In fact, each ingredient in its own container is hard-core mise en place and decidedly not lazy fare. It's preparing all your ingredients ahead of time, before you begin any cooking and/or mixing together.

Mise en place: Why
There are a number of reasons for doing mise en place, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. We'll set aside why the pros do it, since if you're a professional chef you're not going to learn much from me. So why might you want to do this as part of party planning or even for everyday cooking?

It makes recipe preparation much faster by "batching" the type of work you're doing. Despite what we're told, multi-tasking is bad. By being in either "prep mode" or "cooking mode" you work more efficiently.
It allows for quicker assembly and cooking times. This is different from #1 because here I'm talking about the actual time you spend cooking the final dish. If you're having a multi-course dinner party you will almost certainly have to prepare at least one dish during the party. You can jet into the kitchen for 10 minutes to assemble something if all the prep is done up front. For everyday cooking, it allows you to have a meal all prepped and ready for cooking. I have more time to prep earlier in the day and dinner time is always frantic. Some people even do their prep after dinner for the next day. At the very least you get a fresher dinner on the table in less time.
It lowers your stress while you're cooking (see multi-tasking is bad above).
It allows you to bunch up prep across multiple dishes (dinner party) or meals (weekly meal prep). This is really a variation on #1, but I'm on a list making roll. It's much easier and faster to slice 5 onions one time than one onion 5 times. Not to mention, why clean-up more times than you have to?
When people ask what you're doing you can affect a snooty french look and say "Why, I'm doing my mise en place of course." Bonus points if you act shocked that they even have to ask.

Mise en place: (Lazy fare) How
The most straight-forward mise en place is what you see on most cooking shows: every ingredient in its own little container. But unless you have a staff doing this for you it's way more work than you need. You can get all the benefits with a streamlined version.

Lazy fare = doing the least amount of work for the best possible finished dish. And here I'm actually distinguishing between the kind of work you do standing on your feet in the kitchen and the kind you can do sitting in front of the TV or over coffee and bagels (Eric's and my favorite party planning activity). We want to minimize the first kind by doing more of the second kind. But still the least possible amount of both. Lazy, remember?

I'm going to use Alton Brown's Guacamole recipe for this example because it's yummy, lends itself well to demonstrating what I'm talking about and I made it last weekend for a Cinco de Mayo party so I have pictures.

The recipe is here: Alton's Guacamole Recipe. I'm pasting the text at the end of this post just in case they move the link. It might be useful to have a copy of the recipe in a 2nd browser tab while you read through this. If you're hardcore go ahead and print it and mark it up.

Step 1: Read the entire recipe through at least once.

Step 2: No really. Read the entire recipe through at least once.
I'm not kidding about this and I'll wait while you do it.... looo dee dooo...done? Good. I used to think that cooking was something everyone could do, because I've been doing it since I was about 8 or 9. Then I watched The Worst Cooks in America and realized that a lot of people don't learn how to cook when they are kids. The number one mistake I saw these rookie cooks make was to just plunge into the recipe without reading it all the way through. It's not a good idea even if you're not doing mise and it's impossible to do mise without reading it all the way through.

Step 3: Group the ingredients together based on the steps in the recipe
This is the lazy fare part of it. For regular mise en place you would just prep all the ingredients in the list, one by one. That's usually a waste of effort and dishes.

Here are the groups from Alton's recipe:

Avocado
lime juice
salt, cumin, and cayenne
onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic

Step 4: Start preparing the groups of ingredients, working from the "bottom" of the recipe up
I try to dirty as few bowls as I can in this process, which means I usually have one of the groups prepared in the bowl, pan or pot that I plan to use for the final mixing and/or cooking. In this case I would prep the avocados in the bowl I served the dip in. And I would prep those last since it's step one of my recipe. i.e. once I had the other three groups prepped I would just start following the recipe. If you're doing your mise with the intention of preparing the final dish at a later time you could use any container for the "main" group.

I also like to do the prep work in the order that is least likely to cross-contaminate, either with germs or just flavors. So plain veggies first, then stinky veggies, then raw meat. I don't have to worry as much about my knives that way. (I don't worry at all about my cutting boards because ours are color coded by food type, but that's a neurosis for another day).

For this recipe I cut all the veggies into a single bowl, measured the spices into a separate bowl and squeezed the limes into a third bowl. That was my entire mise. I then peeled the avocados as I started mixing the dish.

So I had this

Step 5: Assembly!

Which should now be easy, peasy. This assembly took less than 5 minutes.

Yummy!

For a future post: Doing your mise en place for several recipes at a time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guacamole

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 1 hr 0 min
Cook Time:--

Level: Easy

Serves: 1 batch

Ingredients

3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
1 lime, juiced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1 clove garlic, minced

Directions

In a large bowl place the scooped avocado pulp and lime juice, toss to coat. Drain, and reserve the lime juice, after all of the avocados have been coated. Using a potato masher add the salt, cumin, and cayenne and mash. Then, fold in the onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved lime juice. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour and then serve.

Good and bad reasons to have nothing to say

2010-05-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

I got three hours of sleep last night. The night also included a 70-minute "discussion" with my daughter where I told her to lie down and she screamed at me.

And this is now on my ipod.

Talk to you tomorrow...

Entertaining, the lazy faire way

2010-05-03T21:04:00.001-07:00

No, that's not a misspelling. I'm not talking about laissez-faire as in fancy economic theory with a fancy French name. It's just my silly franglish label for doing the least possible amount of work to get the best possible results. In my previous life it would have been phrased "If you want something done efficiently, assign it to a lazy programmer."

When I started this blog I had hopes that I could pass on some information that someone, somewhere might find even marginally useful. Since goodness knows I know jack-all about sewing I figured I could talk about what people say I do well. Namely, throw fabo parties. I even wrote a post all about The Zone of Effortless Entertaining

And haven't written a word about it since. But I've been mulling and thinking and have decided two things:

1. Effortless Entertaining, although beautifully alliterative, is not the correct description.Because seriously fantastic parties require serious amounts of work. I really mean low stress, freak-out free, ulcer-less, sans meltdown, with all your hair intact and the same number of gray as you started. Yeah? Ok.

2. I can't do that in a single post. In fact, I can barely talk about doing it in a single post. This started out as a post about mise en place and four paras in I'm still explaining what I'm going to say. So I changed the title and we'll mise tomorrow.

Here's what I propose to do. I'll spend some more time wrapping my pea-brain around what it is that makes a low-stress party. At this point Eric and I have done these enough times that I have to actually think about what it is we do. And sleep-deprivation has lowered my IQ by enough points that my planning skills are currently between bright golden retriever and dull chimp. There will be dredging involved.

With the pea-wrapping underway, and with the help of a ridiculous amount of written materials left over from party days I'll start putting together a few posts here and there that cover the main ideas. And I'll even try to make some of them relevant to everyday, regular cooking and meal planning (see mise en place tomorrow). 'Cause I used to be able to do that, too, and maybe it would also be useful. And then once the posts are in place I'll write something to sort of tie them all together and walk you through throwing a party people will talk about for years.

And maybe share some funny, silly stories like the time we got a red-meat-avoider to request veal.

That was at this party.

When a fabric and a child are a match made in heaven

2010-05-02T19:50:00.001-07:00

Not counting a few outfits 10+ years ago, a prom dress I did with my mom and a few Halloween costumes, I've really only been sewing for a few months. This is my favorite thing I've sewn so far. I hoarded the fabric just for one of Rylee's buddies because, well, if you knew her you'd know. And if you see the fabric, you know her. I finally got around to asking her mom if it was ok to post the picture.

So, the most awesome chicken fabric ever on the most awesome silly little chicken I know.

Quail Watch: Day 2

2010-05-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

I think I found where the quail are roosting and I'm pleased to report it's a very secure spot in the back of our yard. The bush they were under today is so dense that they can't be attacked from above by the (many) hawks and owls in the area.

When they were on the move today I tried to get another picture but mama quite literally got her feathers ruffled. And I don't want to make a mama afraid or worried for her babies.

Will keep trying, though.

Wee wildlife can be better than Zoloft

2010-04-30T18:04:00.001-07:00

It was a very grumbly day here. Rylee got sick just before we left Michigan and is just starting to feel better. That meant none of our usual activities this week. No gym for me and no Kindermusik, playgroup or Little Gym for her. It makes us both cranky. I'm also having the woe-is-mes because sleep training got set back by travel so she's up several times a night and usually finishes the night in my bed.

BUT

Walking past the window today I saw a little quail family having what was certainly one of their very earliest outings. I was hoping to get pictures or video but they hide and camouflage very well. And later when we went outside to play they moved to another part of the yard and the dogs startled them. The video I tried to get of that looks like footage from the Blair Witch Project.

I'll keep trying since I think they're roosting somewhere very close. I did find a blog with pictures that are very close to the ages of the chicks here although our little family doesn't have any head tufts yet.

It's hard to tell how big they are from the photo. But if you imagine the wood chips in the above photo as the fallen trunks of giant sequoias then the cuteness is to scale.

Mountains. Molehills. Mommy losing her mind.

2010-04-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

I'm a letter writer. I don't mean personal letters; that's what Facebook and email and the phone are for. I mean letters to companies. You know those glowing letters companies proudly display to potential customers, carefully tucked into shiny sheet protectors? Those kind of letters. And also the kind that produce attempts to "rectify the situation" and sometimes include the phrase "my attorney."

I try to write at least as many positive as negative. I even wrote commendation letters for half-a-dozen of the nurses who took care of me when I had Rylee. So I'm not just some fussy old biddy complaining about poor service and my bunions. And the bar for one of these letters - positive or negative - is set moderately high.

This is the kind of thing that makes me indignant these days. And yes, I really did call the office.

auntninn's house
Arizona

Director in charge of DVD Programming
Nickelodeon
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036

Re: The Backyardigans, “Escape from the Tower”

Dear Sir or Madame:

First let me apologize for not addressing this letter more personally. I was unable to obtain the title and name of the correct person when calling your New York office.

I have a 23-month old daughter and she loves the Backyardigans. We own all the DVDs and let her watch the program chiefly because of its high quality music, dancing and storytelling. Her father and I enjoy watching with her, and this is in contrast to a number of other children’s programs available today.

When I saw the latest DVD release, “Escape from the Tower”, on Amazon I pre-ordered it anticipating adding another excellent DVD to her collection. When it arrived I was disgusted to find the DVD included only three Backyardigans episodes and one episode of The Fresh Beat Band. This was particularly irritating since the Fresh Beat Band wasn’t included as a bonus feature, but in place of the typical fourth Backyardigans episode. The only other Backyardigans DVDs with three episodes include one double-length episode.

I have no desire to watch - let alone purchase - episodes of The Fresh Beat Band. I felt like Nickelodeon was forcing me to purchase something I didn’t want to get something I did want. This was especially true since the included episodes of The Backyardigans have not aired on television. If you peruse the DVD reviews on Amazon you will find I am not the only person who feels this way.

I hope this DVD will represent a one-off from the typical Backyardigans four-episode DVD bundling. While I would consider purchasing a DVD that included four Backyardigans episodes and a bonus preview of another show, I will reconsider future Backyardigans DVD purchases if Nickelodeon continues the practice of replacing content I wish to purchase with content I do not.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
auntninn

Priorities

2010-04-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

I just looked at everything that needs to be done since getting back to include but not limited to:

Laundry
Unpacking
Unloading the dishwasher
Dusting
Repacking my purse for "real life"
Etc.

And decided the best use of my time right now is to add the new DVD player to the home network. And blog about it.

Dear Daddy

2010-04-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Daddy,

I'm having lots of fun at Aunt Kari's. Went to the dark side. See you soon!
Love, Rylee

Survivor:Michigan

2010-04-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the well wishes for our trip! The traveling part went well, but the first leg of our visit home was a mixed bag. Rylee was a dream baby traveling. She watched her movie for about an hour, ate a lunchable, read some books and was generally a fantasy. Then she stayed awake from 1:30 AM - 4:30 AM EST the first night. This would have been late even in our timezone (10:30PM - 1:30AM) so I don't know what that was about. The worst part is mean mommy is on duty at that time so it wasn't fun for either of us.

The weekend with Grandma and Grandpa was loads of fun and now we're up at my sister's for a week. She has five children ages 14, 12, 12, 9 and 2. Rylee loves it here. Her 9 year-old cousin Jacob has been her BFF every time she's ever seen him, starting when she was 3-months old. It seems to be holding true this time, too.

And the difference between my house and my sister's is something like this (in a good way).

And it's always wicked good for her development. :)

I think I'm going to stop trying to adjust her to the new timezone too much and just put her down late. Here's hoping for a reasonable amount of sleep for both of us, but beyond that I don't fret. It should be a chaotic good time!

Wish me luck!

2010-04-15T20:45:00.001-07:00

I'm flying tomorrow from Arizona to Michigan, just mommy and Rylee.

Packed:

Outfits for if the entire trip is warm.
Outfits for if the entire trip is cold.
A new crayon wallet
New Backyardigans matchbox cars (score!)
60 pounds of snacks.
Books, books, books.
A DVD player and a new Backyardigans DVD, still in the package. Virgin episodes.

Debating packing:

Southwest drink coupons

I may or may not blog while I'm there and if so it will be sporadic. So, ta!

Everyone on Etsy is cooler than I am

2010-04-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

But I'm starting to be ok with that.

So rather than trying to come up with some great, creative idea on my own. The kind that comes from a mommy who just oozes domestic prowess and who hums along with sweet, chirping song birds while kneading sprouted grain bread in a sparkling clean kitchen and sews perfect, cute clothing from patterns she drafts herself... You know, that kind of idea?

Instead of doing that I'm going to go ahead and shell out the $6 and buy this pattern because how awesome would this be for Rylee's birthday?

And maybe 50 other things from her shop because dang, lady. Rock and roll!

Gearing up to survive my flight

2010-04-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Why, what's this pseudo-book looking thing?

It looks like...a new crayon wallet for Rylee!

I thought about doing a tutorial but a) I wanted to finish during naptime which I (barely) did. And b) this was the most half-a*ed bit of sewing I've done in a long time. I didn't use pins or even get out The Good Scissors.

I think if I do another one I'll move the tab to the other side, too. I didn't want it on the pad side because I was afraid that would be bulky. But I could have oriented it with the crayons on the right and had it close more like a traditional book.

I would also possibly make these two middle pockets deeper, too. I already had some fabric cut in 5x13 rectangles for "regular" crayon rolls. So I was sort of retro-fitting.

Here's hoping it will consume at least 15 minutes when I unveil it during our 5+ hour plane ride on Friday.

I wish I hadn't let Rylee in on this computer super power

2010-04-12T16:26:00.003-07:00

I smell something spoiled

2010-04-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is my idea of paradise. Eric's too.

This is Rylee's.

Knitapaloza!

2010-04-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

I'm going to pretend that I'm really going to finish drafting the Cal Patch T-shirt pattern rather than alternately scowling at and crying about the armhole and breast line.

Sooooo....here's the knits I bought. Forgive the poor photo skills. It was too late for natural light today.

Plain blue for my muslin. This also matches my skirt.

A pointelle I bought to match and it does match. But it's so thin it scares me.

Fish and starfish. I bought enough for something for me and for Rylee.

And last but not least. This also has mommy/daughter written all over it.

Three reasons to pee your pants from excitement at my house today!

2010-04-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

1. I just got tickets for my sister and I to take Rylee and my nephew to see Nick Jr. storytime live when we're visiting Michigan later this month.

2. We have the first ever non-family babysitter coming by tonight. We've had family babysit at the house and took Rylee to a friend's house once, but this is the first time for a "regular" babysitter. Since our families live thousands of miles away you can see we don't get out much. Dinner reservations at 6:15.

3. I was just searching to find out what date in May the next Charlaine Harris book will be released and it's May 4th, just a few weeks away! AND she posted the first chapter. This actually happened in December and for some reason she didn't call me.

And for anyone who's interested, here's the breakdown.

Name	Nick Live	Babysitter	Eric the Vampire
Lynn	Excited	Excited	Excited
Eric	Indifferent	Excited	Not Excited
Rylee	Excited	Not Excited	Indifferent

Yoga v. Sleep, Round Two

2010-04-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

I mentioned last week that in trying to make peace with Rylee getting up at 6:30 I decided to start taking an 8:15 yoga class twice a week. To make that class we need to leave by 7:45. Here's how that went today...

5:30 am - Rylee wakes up for the first time, I put her back in bed
5:50 am - Rylee wakes up for the second time, I put her back in bed
6:10 am - Rylee wakes up for the third time, I put her back in bed
6:30 am - Rylee wakes up and since it's officially her morning I pull her into bed with me for a quick snuggle. Monday at 6:30 I was desperate for her to snuggle for even 15 minutes so I could be prone for just a little while longer. She lasted 5 minutes. Today at 6:30 she promptly fell sound asleep. Sound. Asleep. Oh, and did I mention on my arm?

6:50 am - I decide to extricate (successfully) but now I can't pack my gym bag or get dressed. But I can pack her a to-go breakfast and get her clothing out so I do that.

7:30 am - She's still asleep. I get my gym clothes and pack my bag without waking her. Dither, dither, dither, what to do?
7:40 am - She's still asleep! This would be a dream any other day. Ok, I decide to call this one for sleep but now she's slept so long that if I want to get a shower I'm going to have to be swift and silent. To keep the dogs from waking her up I decide to shut the bedroom door. I forget I live in an old house. So that goes about like this: "CREEEEAAAAAAAAK...Mommy!" She wakes up happy and I'm thankful for small favors.
7:43 am - Decide to go for it. Worst case I'll be too late for class but can still hit some piece of equipment and get a shower.
7:53 am - Pulling out of the driveway with a dressed baby who is munching on her to-go breakfast. That cuts drop-off time to two minutes, but if I carry her rather than let her walk in I can maybe still make it.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the area around my house currently looks about like this:

So to get anywhere I've got a few nasty intersections to get through. There's literally less than a lane in each direction. Two very narrow partial lanes are all that is available, one in each direction. Today that proved to be more exciting than usual!

See those two little cars at the top of the drawing? I'm in the one headed in the proper direction. At the entrance of these little traffic cone lanes there are signs that look like this.

I'm pretty certain that the sign the woman in the top, left-hand car saw does NOT look like this:

In her defense the traffic pattern has only been like this for about five months. But narrowly avoiding a head-on collision is good for my heart rate, right?

Having survived near-death Rylee and I are still on track to make it to the gym with about a minute to spare. Slamming on my brakes in the above scenario did fling her fruit mash-up onto the floor, but she still has dry cereal and milk to last her until the next red light. And please - feel free to cut-and-paste that breakfast description into any letters to the nominating committee for Mother of the Year.

For reasons best known to herself, Rylee has a little tantrum and flings her cereal all over the car. She then asks for cheese as we are just about to turn into the parking lot. She's not allowed to have any food there so I'm hoping she will finish her cheese at her usual quick pace. She doesn't.

I scramble into the gym, now already a few minutes late for class. The childcare workers inform me she'll have to stand in the hallway to eat her cheese. But they're willing to stand there with her so I can get to class. In the cooler light of now I'm blessing them for that but at the time I was irrationally irritated with Yet Another Hassle.

Zip down the hall, four minutes late for class. And so flustered that for most of the class I'm about like this:

Ohm well.

Why I hate Cal Patch

2010-04-07T14:47:00.001-07:00

Design-It-Yourself Clothes, p 60

"Take a look at your armpits, and you'll see that they basically are right on the same horizontal line as your bust. [emph. mine]"

Sigh. This shirt is never going to fit.

Eight Years Ago Today

2010-04-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago today I married the best friend I've ever had.

I could list literally hundreds of reasons why he is my best friend, the perfect husband for me and the man I love with all my heart.

Even without these, though, I could love him forever just for the way he looks at Rylee.

Rylee's Easter Dress

2010-04-05T08:43:00.001-07:00

As promised, here's my little super model in training vogueing her new dress and hat. And a few front of the camera pics to go with it.

With the larger print I was hoping for a "little old lady" look. I think I got it...

This picture breaks my heart because it confirms that my baby is all but gone to make way for this kid

Coordinating basket. Mouthful of candy that fortunately came out with stain treatment.

View of the back of the hat ribbon. So glad I changed from gray to cream.

Just about the only mommy/daughter picture prior to her staining herself with chocolate and jelly beans.

Proof for Amanda that I do wear hot makeup sometimes.

The hat had 90% wearing success. I'll take it.

Happy Easter! Love me and mini-me

2010-04-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

p.s. More pictures of Rylee modeling her dress coming later, promise. :)

Nothing like the last minute!

2010-04-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

I finished Rylee's Easter hat during naptime today. I had a too-small pattern cut out and was planning to scale it up, but just couldn't face it. Luckily, JoAnns had $1 patterns this week and I found one with a perfect hat.

I also decided I didn't like the gray ribbon I sewed on at the sewing party. I swapped it for cream and though the picture doesn't capture it well I think it goes a little better. I can't wait to see this on her tomorrow.

Sometimes it felt like this day would never come

2010-04-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hoisted by my own petard ... almost

2010-04-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

I didn't know prior to googling for a picture of a petard that one is hoisted by it by having it blow up in one's face. Learn something new every day.

As I wrote about yesterday I finally was desperate enough to throw good decor aside and tack Rylee's curtains down. The results so far are mixed.

Discard as irrelevant to my blocking-the-dawn experiment her awakening at 11:15 pm and 5:45 am. Both times she went back down within five minutes. Night wakings are thankfully no longer the norm, but they aren't rare either. And after hatching the plot to make blackout curtains and because I am crafty I always tell her "It's still nighttime. Time for sleep." when I put her back into her crib.

After going back to sleep at 5:45 she woke up again at 6:15. This is when I decide to see if the curtains that are obviously worthless for getting her to sleep to a reasonable hour at a single stretch might be enough to convince her that it's the middle of the night. I tell her it's nighttime, time for sleep, put her in the crib, leave the room, hold my breath and say a little prayer. Silence. More silence. This is good.

Now last week I decided to make lemons out of my lemonade and started going to an 8:15 yoga class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I need to leave the house at 7:45 to allow 20 minutes driving time, 5 minutes wrangling into the car and 5 minutes wrangling out of the car into the childcare. If I want some zen zoning out prior to class I need to leave even earlier. This class guarantees me some yoga during the week since my plan to get up at 6 to do yoga and shower before she gets up at 7 was shot to heck by her getting up way before then.

Back to this morning. After nothing but silence comes out of the room for a good five minutes I think, Good. Now she'll sleep another hour or so and we'll still make it to yoga. There's no way she can possibly sleep late enough for me to miss my class. Isn't that cute, what I thought there just then? How precious is an inexperienced mommy.

7:15 rolls around to still more silence. But rather than admit defeat I start packing a to-go breakfast and praying that she gets up by 7:30 so that I don't have to commit the horrible act of waking up the child who doesn't sleep. For extra insurance I make a little noise.

So does this long story have a happy ending? It does! She woke up at 7:30 and with lightening quickness I slammed her into her clothes and into the car. Made it with five minutes to spare. Rock on.

The actions of a desperate woman

2010-03-31T19:48:00.000-07:00

After the initial success of Rylee's new black out curtains, which lasted about a week, she's been gradually moving her wake-up time back earlier and earlier so that as of yesterday we were back to 6:15. It doesn't sound that much different from 7:00 but the extra 30-45 minutes really makes a big difference to my sanity.

Yesterday I bought some pushpins and pinned the sides and the bottoms of the curtains to the wall. Light had been seeping in the edges and bottom and with an earlier and earlier Arizona dawn I think it might have made a difference. It's now dark as a tomb in there, not to mention so fashionable and ready for House Beautiful!

This morning she woke up at 5:50 and I put her back down and she slept until just after 7. Then she took a 2.5 hour nap. Her usual is 1.5 - 2 hours. She didn't nap yesterday so that may have contributed. But I'm crossing my fingers again that this time the curtains will work.

Our new laundry room cabinets

2010-03-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

I think I ordered the wrong kind by mistake.

At least this is what I think I must have ordered based on the quote I got today...

Things I say more than I realize

2010-03-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone should have this handy aid to help determine phrases they say over and over.

Starting with my favorites and working down.

1. Hmmm....let's see (complete with uuuup then dooooown inflection)
2. Mmmm....tasty!
3. Come on, let's go.
4. Look! See?
5. In a minute.
6. In a second
7. Quiet, dogs!
8. Careful.
9. Here you go.

Tutorial: Reusable Sandwich Bag

2010-03-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

My first ever tutorial! This can be used to create a reusable sandwich bag or snack bag, depending on the chosen dimensions. This tutorial is for a very generous sandwich bag, i.e. usable dimensions of about 6.75 inches wide x 8" high. This bag is washable. I don't recommend drying it if you choose non-cotton lining. It will last longer if you turn it inside out, brush off the crumbs, rinse and stand to dry rather than machine washing.

Supplies
Shell fabric: 8" wide x 18" high
Lining fabric: 8" wide x 18" high
Velcro: 6.5" loop piece and 6.5" hook piece. I'm using self-sticking because it's what I had. I don't recommend it because it's not sticky enough to hold without stitching and when you stitch through it your needle will get sticky. This will cause your bobbin to become sad and tangle your thread and make you cry. I don't want you to cry. If you're making just one of these you can maybe get away with sewing self-stick. More than one? Forget about it or be willing to change your needle multiple times. (<--- bitter voice of experience)

A note on fabric selection. For the shell fabric cotton works great. I was making this bag to replace Eric's first lunch bag. He's a very good boy and takes his lunch every day and he wore out his first bag after about a year of use. He also loves the Cowboys and since he is such a good boy and they had a piece at the cheapy fabric store he is rewarded. Logo is copyright NFL, please don't report me or sue me.

For the lining you can choose cotton again or something that is a little more waterproof. Some people use organic cotton since you will be packing food in this bag. Others chose PUL (the stuff reusable diapers are made from) because it's so waterproof. I like ripstop nylon because it's a little bit waterproof but doesn't have polyurethane like PUL. You can get ripstop nylon in the fabric store with the sporting/outdoor fabrics.

Step 1: Attach Lining to Shell

With right sides together, sew lining and shell fabric along shorter side (8" in our example) using a 3/8" seam allowance.,.

Turn right side out. Press to align seams. If you're using something other than a cotton lining, press from the shell side to avoid melting the nylon or PUL. You should now have this. Long edges are still unfinished. If you're using nylon it might slip a little bit. Unless you had a lot of slip, don't worry about it. I put some fudge in the seam allowances to allow for this.

Step 2: Attach Velcro

Align one piece of velcro, hook/loop side out, on the right side of the lining fabric so it is centered on the short edge and with the top edge about 1/4" from the seam you just sewed. The distance from the top is mostly aesthetic, but I found this to be a nice margin. Stitch around all four sides to make sure it's nice and secure. Repeat for the other short edge.

Step 3: French Seam, Part Un

Fold the bag so the lining sides are together (i.e. shell side out). You may want to attach the velcro to make sure everything lines up nice and pretty. We're going to secure this with a french seam because it's pretty and fancy and will keep les crumbs from collecting in the seams.

Lining sides together (shell side out) stitch the sides together using a 1/4" seam allowance.

Notice we still have a raw edge on the right side of the fabric (also notice the ugly tangled stitch from my sad bobbin. I fixed it after this picture :). Trim this to 1/8". If we were making a garment now would be to the time to do some more pressing, but it's not really necessary. If you do press, press the seam to one side not open. Now to finish the french seam.

Step 4: French Seam, Part Deux
Turn your bag inside out so the shell sides are facing and the lining is out. Sew the same sides together again, this time using a 3/8" seam allowance. You will be enclosing the raw edge of the first seam inside this seam.

The inside seam will be sealed now, which will keep things nice and tidy inside the bag. Voila.

Ta-da! Turn bag right side out and admire its generous dimensions.

Get the attention of your favorite football fan (rear-end of dog optional)

Delight him with his new lunch bag. Recall high school genetics and appreciate why your daughter is a bit stoic.

Tucson Botanical Gardens

2010-03-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

And I of course forgot my camera. So let's hear it for the iPhone.

Iris, my favorite

Sandboxes are ok, but sandboxes + someone else's flip-flop = awesome!

The water wall has the only legitimately touchable water so it was a huge hit.

The biggest hit - the donated horse statues.

The rare Ryl-arch Butterfly

And a quick trip to the arches for Ketchupaloza.

Goody, goody, gumdrops

2010-03-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Why, what's this?

It's three thread boxes

Two notions boxes

And four XL thread boxes

Sewing and organizing! Yeah! Also, the advance guard for my new sewing cabinet which will be delivered sometime in the next few weeks.

Sewing party!

2010-03-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off starting Rylee's Easter dress because I've been dreading sewing the yoke. It's a fussy little thing and I knew it would annoy me.

But nothing gets the creative fires lit like having the girls over for a sewing party! The girls in this case were the lovely Stacey, aka Hazelmoonfly and her daughter Bailey, aka the precious miss Boo.

Stacey and I have braved a few craft fairs together and we love to get together to ~~spend too much on fabric~~ shop for sewing essentials or t~~alk and talk and talk and talk and chase the girls around our machines~~ sew if we can.

We did actually get some sewing done while the girls enjoyed some parallel play. And I tried to get a few pictures as part of Getting In Front of the Camera, but the girls weren't that cooperative.

Bailey rocking her birthday dress, made with Kitschy Coo's fun-to-sew Mini Mod Dress Pattern in the most fantastic mod fabric I've ever found at the cheapy fabric store.

Rylee in just plain shorts and a t-shirt 'cause the cobbler's daughter got no shoes.

Whistle while you serge, la la la la la la laaaaa

A sadly blurry picture of Stacey learning that her life will have no meaning until she gets a serger of her own.

Between the small amount of sewing we got done and the momentum that pushed me into nap time, I got the dress almost all the way done. Rylee woke up before I could hem it, but I'm kind of glad. She grew since I measured her (!!) and it's a little snug, so I think I'm going to rip out the (invisible) zipper and use a smaller seam allowance.

But here it is with the hem pinned up.

American Idol, The Home Game

2010-03-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

Life is too short to spend your leisure time doing something boring. So why are Eric and I watching American Idol this year, even though it's the most booooooring seaaaaaason eeeeeveeeeer? Because a few seasons back we spiced it up by creating The Game.

We started betting on American Idol. Loser buys Winner dinner out of their allowance money and - of course - Winner gets bragging rights all year.

The Rules
1. Starting with the top 12 each player predicts the order the Idols will be booted.

2. After the results each week a player receives a number of points equal to the difference between their prediction and the actual week # of the booted Idol. Example: If player predicts Pitchy Nopipes will go home week 5 and Pitchy actually goes home week 7 player receives 2 points. Similarly, if Pitchy makes it to week 4 player receives 1 point.

For math geeks that looks like this:

3. Low score wins.

4. BONUS: Each week after the performance show players select the Idol they think will be going home based on that night's performance. In the case of an accurate guess the opposing player receives a point. Doubling down on an initial pick is permitted. This also presents a strategic opportunity for a player to hedge a bad initial pick. This rule was introduced to keep things interesting when it becomes apparent that one player's victory is mathematically assured very early in the season. Also known as the Katherine-McPhee-is-a-talentless-hack-who-ruined-my day rule.

The Results

We started this four seasons ago and it's Very Serious Business in the auntninn household. The score stands at 2-2. We've decided this year is the last year to watch because it's so boring and because Simon's leaving will render future seasons even MORE boring. So this one is for all the marbles.

We missed half of the 12 Idol week due to a DVR malfunction. We did our picks this week. Picks are listed from winner down, i.e. first position = first place, and they are as follows:

Lynn's Picks

1. Aaron

2. Lee

3. Michael

4. Sibohan

5. Crystal ( < ---- Note, I think she has the most talent and therefore no chance of winning)

6. Casey

7. Katie

8. Didi

9. Andrew

10. Tim

11. Paige

Eric's Picks

1. Siobhan

2. Crystal

3. Michael

4. Lee

5. Aaron

6. Casey

7. Katie

8. Didi

9. Tim

10. Andrew

11. Paige

Because this year's Idols are so bad and picking our order was more difficult than usual we decided to introduce a random pick and see how that did against us. We'll randomly generate a bonus pick each week.

Randomly Generated Pick

1. Aaron

2. Mike

3. Crystal

4. Didi

5. Tim

6. Casey

7. Lee

8. Paige

9. Sibohan

10. Andrew

11. Katie

Game on!

When Google is no help

2010-03-23T17:37:00.001-07:00

in·san·i·ty /ɪnˈsænɪti/ [in-san-i-tee] –noun,plural-ties.

2010-03-22T13:24:00.001-07:00

1. the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind.

2. Law. such unsoundness of mind as affects legal responsibility or capacity.

3. the act of dutifully applying hand sanitizer to one's child while said child is licking a window

Sunshine finally in Tucson...and hey, here on the blog!

2010-03-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

After a very gloomy winter the sun finally returned to Tucson. And to my blog, too, courtesy of Sister, Living La Vida Loca.! How sweet. Thanks for the sunshine and something to blog about today.

Here are the rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Pass on the award to 12 bloggers and provide a link.
3. Let them know they received the award by leaving a comment on their blog.
4. Link to the person who gave you the award.

I've just barely started blogging and following blogs. And she also picked some of the people I just started following via the Cool Girls Club. So just a little linky love from me.

1. My very dear friend Hazelmoonfly who is actually a Physical Friend In Real Life and loves to obsess with me over dolling up our daughters. She makes the most beautiful hair accessories and girls clothing. Check it out!

2. The Pickled Weasel, fellow cool girl and because she said she needs some sunshine today. Another mommy sewing and blogging.

3. Vegbee at Indietutes because she is so awesomely generous and everyone should read her blog and appreciate her.

That's it. How pathetic, no? Because Sister already linked to Kitschy Coo, who was instrumental in talking me into blogging in the first place and Kid, MD the only other blog I read right now. :-)

Final Skirt and the Front of the Camera

2010-03-20T17:11:00.002-07:00

It's skirt due day! And like a good girl, I was finished ahead of time. And as promised, I got Eric to take some pictures.

So, in the words of my darling daughter....

DA!

My final skirt fabric is an Amy Butler twill. I love, love, love the soft colors. When I picked it out I figured I would have to make a top to match, but because I ~~am old and set in my ways and kind of boring and always pick the same things~~ have a unified style aesthetic, it turns out I already had a top to match. Woot!

I used a 9" sweep and finished the waistline with pre-made bias tape. I finished two muslins previously to practice the bias finish and the invisible zipper so of course screwed this one up. But not so badly that I couldn't fix it without re-cutting the darn thing.

I haven't been shopping much since changing from a working wardrobe in a warm/temperate climate to stay-at-home mommy in a hot climate. I'm so pleased to have something pretty, lightweight and in soft spring/summer colors.

Here I am smoldering in it.

Yeah, baby. I totally do NOT spend my day covered in cracker crumbs and sour milk.

Weirdly sunspotted side view.

And to honor the intention of getting in front of the camera here are some action shots of it. These also reminded me of another reason there aren't a lot of pictures of me. See if you can spot it.

I'm glad to have these pictures of me and Rylee so she can look back and say....

I always knew mommy would have my back in the case of blurry, partial decapitation

And that her legs and hands would be there to encourage me to take risks...

...and catch me if I fall

And just hold me when I'm bored and staring at daddy.

These are a start. I'm going to try to get pictures of myself with Rylee at least once a month. It might sound silly, but it was really hard to take these and put them up. Without makeup or anything. Shreeeeek!

To whit, this supposed-to-be-casual, easy, breezy front view picture took about 20 minutes of moving around the backyard and five of hand wringing about how to keep my arms from looking like gingerbread man arms.

I guess I'll leave bored super model posing to the lovely next generation.

And yes. I took that last one...

Getting in front of the camera

2010-03-19T19:30:00.001-07:00

If you took a look at our family photos and used them to try to construct the story of our lives I abandoned Rylee when she was about four months old. And visited her about two times prior to that. This in spite of the fact that she was with me almost literally 24 hours a day for her first nine months and then with me (24 hours - nighttime in her crib) after that and pretty much since.

This is partly because I'm the one who is usually behind the camera. But it's also because I think pictures of me look like this.

Time to get over it. My daughter deserves more pictures documenting our history. My skirt is done and I'm going to have Eric take pictures of it tomorrow. And when Rylee's little matching dress is finished we'll have some mommy daughter pictures together.

There.

Pinky swear out in the open so now I have to.

Stupid Lunar Calendar

2010-03-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is Rylee last Easter.

She was wearing something else and spilled on it so I changed her into this. A hand-me-down pinafore over a cotton one piece.

I'm so glad she spilled because this outfit just screamed Easter and springtime. You can better see the one-piece, and her buddy Finn gathering information on the wisdom of putting your finger in someone else's mouth, here.

Now that the skirt for the sew-along is complete (pictures soon) I thought I should make something for her for Easter. I wasn't sewing last year at this time. I was getting excited, doing some shopping on etsy, drooling over fabrics. I even made a little crayon sketch on her kids' menu at lunch the other day. And then I looked at the calendar. Crap. No time to order new fabric AND come up with a new design. Probably no time to order fabric even for an existing design. Next year I have until April 24th, but not this year.

That means fabric on hand. I'm thinking a jumper and a hat from my final skirt fabric . It's cute, has a spring feel, and she can get more wear out of it. So here goes nothing.

Because I'd love to have another picture that I love as much as this one.

Statistics

2010-03-17T07:07:00.001-07:00

Time: 6:58 AM
Number of minutes I've been awake: 96
Number of hours I slept: 5.5
Number of minutes Rylee's been awake: 57
Number of hours Rylee slept: 9
Number of hours she needs: 10.5
Number of wardrobe changes in those 57 minutes: 2
Ounces of water dumped on floor and chair: 12
Number of times Rylee has hit me: 4
Number of times I've hit Rylee: 0 (just to be clear)
Number of times I've said: "You're driving me crazy!": 1
Hours left in the day: 8475923874329871298347

You may have seen this on the news

2010-03-16T14:16:00.002-07:00

Because I'm pretty sure reporters were shadowing me at the Botanical Gardens today.

I finished my second "muslin" for the sew-along and liked it well enough to officially declare it a Skirt In My Wardrobe. Because it's black twill it's still suuuuuuuper boooooooring. I've still to decide whether to embellish with some applique or keep it boring and just wear it with jazzy tops.

Heady with the success of finally getting the fit right (*) by shaving 1/4" off the side seams (for an inch total at the waist) I decide to wear it out in public today. Rylee and I had a hot lunch date with daddy so I also got to play with my birthday present to myself and I was fully decked out with makeup and everything.

It was pretty comfortable for walking around the gardens, but I immediately remembered a reason why I don't wear skirts when I went to put my keys in my pocket.

I debated having Eric take a picture on the phone in the pretty courtyard where we ate lunch, but decided against it. So here it is with the same trouble with lighting and warpy, dirty mirrors. And my super fancy croc Mary Janes that I lived in when I was pregnant because a) my feet were ballooning up in a lovely pre-eclamptic way and b) I still needed to look somewhat professional and faux suede was the best I could do. Here an attempt to be semi-fashionable but still able to chase after a toddler.

(*) I think I got the fit right but I don't know that I'm happy with it. I think this might be a function of the weird way I got fat after having a baby. When I stand up straight the skirt is too big but when I'm all relaxed and rounded it pretty much fits. Sigh. The side still sticks out a little "squarely" at the zipper, but I think that might be a function of the fabric having no stretch.

CSI:Tucson

2010-03-15T20:07:00.002-07:00

This is a reconstruction of what happened at my house today. No ground squirrels were harmed in the creation of this post. Or in reality either.

I spy with my hawky eye...

...a potentially tasty snack

SWOOP

Me thinking "What was that?" and opening the door (photo not available)

Ooops....dropped it.

Dude, I am FREAKED the heck out.

Thanks for letting me hide on your porch. Is he gone?

You guys will never believe what happened to me!

Fin.