Sew Olympics!

Hello, yet another fun time to get me to finish some outstanding and OUTSTANDING! projects. You can check out the other sewing Olympians here, it is a fun group!
This was actually finish #2! A little toy for Mango made with my Cloud nine winnings from Soulemama. I bought a bag of wool to stuff with and it is SO soft, I love to work with it...but I probably should be more gentle with these softies when I wash them.
3 valentines for my three valentimes (that is not a typo, they think that it is said that way, and it is so cute) I am finally using my felt and my felted sweaters and scarves. VERY FUN!

It is so fun to finish a project! Speaking of projects...a new one in the works here. I just love Tonya's quilt alongs.

JMB

Popping in...what day is it?

Hi friends!

I am just coming off of the Birthday/Valentine's day marathon. Big Daddy turned 35 last Tuesday. We had a joint "Spy" birthday party on Saturday for Brownie and a classmate (If they want to invite the whole class, I TOTALLY recommend teaming up with another family for a party). Sunday, we all loved each other and thought that being together and hiking in the mud was the best way to share our love. Closing out the insanity with Brownie's 7th birthday yesterday--- Yes, I am a momma of a 7 year old AND a 7 year old momma myself.

I thought a lot, during the day, as I was running hither and yon about what it felt like then to be entering the mysterious world of motherhood and then what it feels like today being the momma of 3 beautiful children. I remember the whole night that I was in labor with Brownie. I would have contractions and think "Is this the real thing?" and now I know that the birth is really just the beginning of the real thing, and the real thing is this crazy life that we are all making together. I see now all the roles that each one of us plays in our family, even little Mango. Not one of us could exist in a vacuum, that our family unit is unique to us and is and can be what we make it.

I thought during that first pregnancy how Big Daddy and I would raise our children and teach them about the world and what it is to be here and live. I did not understand that the learning and teaching would be equally shared among all of us parents and kiddos. I did not appreciate that a child would be growing and maturing in our home as well as a parent. I am so happy to say that I realize that now.

The last 7 years have taught me how much I don't know, but that I can learn what I need to. I was always worried that I would love my kids conditionally, because I can feel miserly with my affection at times. But after seeing clementines smeared all over our sunroom and feeling such a rage at the waste, I looked at those boys and thought--I love these kids, I am mad, someday they are going to do something worse than this and I will get mad, but I am still going to love them. It may sound simple or silly but it was like the veil had lifted, it was a defining momma moment for me.

My hair is far grayer after these 7 years, but my heart is lighter. I see more good in the world than I did 7 years ago. Seeing people step outside of their "grown-up" personas to smile or make a joke with my kids restores my soul....

I am just too full up at the moment.

Let me just leave it with, we had some happy birthdays this week and I am plum tuckered out!

JMB

Sew little fingers... sew like the wind!

The quilting/sewing mojo is coming back...let's not jinx it so I will say that in a whisper "the mojo is coming back"... There, I said it. The secret, I think, is to actually pick UP the projects that need some tending to.
This little quilt, after much thought (too much for it's small size) needed to be hand quilted. A good choice, as I needed a project to drag around with me for when the oil is getting changed, or there is a scrap of free time here or there. They are not going to get finished if you just leave them behind. The hands are very winter tired, but they have been having fun winding the thread around the owls and back again.
What made the magic really return was working with these great "Wizard of Oz" fabrics. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this movie as a kid. Back in the days BEFORE VCRs and DVDs, you had to actually wait for a movie to play on TV or in the theaters to see it. Every year, I can't quite remember the season, but we would have a fun movie night at our house when the "Wizard of Oz" was playing. My mom would pop a HUGE yellow Tupperware bowl FULL of popcorn and we all would gather around the 13" screen and be enthralled for at least 2 hours.

This block is for my friend Ruthie (in the Traveling Threads bee...the blocks for her quilt are pretty darn cool.) Here is my version of the scene at the beginning of the movie when Glenda takes the ruby slippers off of the witch that got squished by the house... when the legs curl up under the house... well, that was THE scariest thing that I can remember from my childhood.

THE SCARIEST!

It led to many other frightening events such as:

--screaming at the witch that popped out of a door on the front of the video arcade at the mall, and then needing to find another entrance in to the mall

--screaming at Knott's Berry Farm, while walking by a "saloon" with a fake leg in a striped stocking knocking the woodwork in an upstairs window. (I, now, know that it was supposed to be the enticing leg of a "woman of the evening" and not the wicked witch... but it looked the same to me!)

So, when this fabric greeted me in my mailbox, I had to do something to commemorate my childhood horror. What fun grown-ups get to have! Thanks Ruthie, it brought back such great memories. (It really did, I haven't been afraid of witches and/or striped stockings for MONTHS now.)

JMB