boogaj

I am a housewife.

As Maddie gets older and more independent I find myself with time to reflect on what has happened in my life and where I am going.  Lately I've been doing a lot of that and I've come to a realization that I have been denying for years. . . I am a housewife.

Sure, I have my two businesses and I like the extra income they bring.  But almost as much, I like being able to fill in that survey oval that says "self-employed" rather than unemployed, stay-at-home mom or what have you. 

And I also homeschool, which puts a spin on things, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm here -- at home -- pretty much all day every day.  (24-7 for you youngsters)

So what does that say about me, or in a broader sense society, when being a stay at home mom is something to hide?  And why would I even want to?  I love being with Maddie (I already fear the day she goes off to college -- yes I clearly have issues) and I love baking and cooking.  I love being the family nutritionist and keeping things running.  I love not having to go in to the office (but I miss it too -- especially being around other adults) and I like that I can work when I want and let things slow down when I need that.

I will say that I don't like cleaning -- I have a service for that.  But I do like tidying up and doing spot cleaning -- I like a clean sink, I'll tell ya!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have it pretty good -- whatever you want to call me.  I'm learning to enjoy myself in this roll and I really do cherish my days with Maddie.  I also know that this won't last forever.  As I said, Maddie is growing up and one day she will leave (god, that's difficult for me to write) and I will move on to the next phase of my life (which is exciting).

I always wanted to be an English Lit professor. . .

New Lawn Toy

The way we take care of our lawn has been evolving.  First we gave up the professional lawn mowing -- I mean, they used a big gas guzzling monster mower and had to drive a big truck to get it here.  Not very environmentally friendly.  After that we canceled the lawn service -- no more chemical herbicides, pesticides and fossil fuel fertilizers.  And finally. . . we got a new mower.  Not gas, not electric, just good old fashioned human power. 

We purchased it last night and today Maddie was very excited to see it in action, so even though there isn't much grass to cut yet, I took it out and gave it a spin around the back yard.  It is a good work out and I think I'll be able to give up the elliptical machine on the days I mow.  I also like that I can mow the lawn -- at my leisure -- without a lot of fuss.  There isn't any gas or oil that has to be added, there isn't any cord that I have to pull (I've never been able to start a gas mower!)  Oh -- and a reel mower is quite inexpensive.  We got the wider model (20 in.) because we have almost a 1/2 acre lot and it was just over $100 -- the smaller model was under $100 (and no gas or annual service charge!)

Time for a new project!

Just finished up Strawberry Garden!  It was a lot of fun to stitch and I will definitely be doing another Blackbird Designs project in the future, but next up is actually a Christmas chart from Blue Ribbon Designs called Poinsettias and Pines. 

Question for all you cross stitchers out there -- what do you do about framing completed cross stitch projects?  Do you do it yourself and if so is there any good tutorial on the web?  I haven't had much luck finding anything.  Or perhaps you leave it to the professionals -- if so, who?  Do you use the local frame shop or are there people who specialize in needlework framing?  I have two completed projects that I need to have framed, so any advice would be great!

Log Cabin Inspiration on Flickr

1. Unusual log cabin, 2. Blue and Red Log Cabin Quilt, 3. MMelissa Ellsworth King log Cabin Quilt, 4. Log Cabin Quilt, 5. Quilt Festival 07, 6. Log cabin quilt for J0001, 7. Mock log cabin quilt, 8. scrappy log cabin quilt--small, 9. Antique log cabin quilt

So many ways to make a log cabin block and so many different ways to orient the blocks!  This may take some thinking.

Coins Quilt Top Complete

Quilt #1 from Piecing the Piece O'Cake Way is complete!  Well, to be more precise, the top is complete.  I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with all these tops since my fear of machine quilting hasn't quite subsided.  Perhaps I'll find a local class that gets me more comfortable with it -- and maybe I'll bite the bullet and get the larger machine I need for quilting.  In the long run it would be less expensive then sending these quilts out to be quilted by someone else and the reality is that if I decided to hand quilt them, they would never get done. 

The final sewing -- with the borders and sashing -- went very smoothly.  Even though the size was off by 1 in. I was consistent in my errors so there were no adjustments to be made other than to cut the sashing and borders a bit longer than the pattern specified.  I'm already feeling more confident in my piecing and I'm looking forward to the next project -- a log cabin quilt!

Coins Quilt Progress

Last weekend I found some time to stitch together the strips for my coins quilt -- paying special attention to the seam allowances.  Despite my best efforts and the use of a 1/2 in. foot on my machine, my final strips are 1 in. too long!  Each step along the way I measured and adjusted and re-measured.  A little math explains the difference -- there are 26 pieces in each strip for a total of 25 seams.  So each seam is off by only .04 inches.  I suppose no matter how well I measured, this small difference was bound to go undetected.  And I can't really determine if the difference was in the cutting or the sewing. 

At least I can take solace in the fact that all of the three strips are the same size.  So I'll just have to cut the middle strips and side borders one inch longer.

Here's my question to all experienced quilters out there.  Is this acceptable?  Or should I be worried about this 1 inch difference?  In the end, I guess the simple fact is that I really did try to get the seams exact and I was still off, so I probably have to live with it.

In other news, thrifting season has begun!  While there haven't been too many garage sales yet, the church rummage sales are in full swing and today I picked up these sweaters for $1 each.  Two are cashmere and the other is 100% wool.  Combined with some thrifted sweaters I got last summer and the bag of colorful scraps I purchased from Betz, I'm ready to try out some projects from Warm Fuzzies!

There are a few more sales tomorrow, so we'll see what they bring.  Last weekend I missed out on 2 looms at a church sale -- and we arrived only shortly after the sale began.  Tomorrow we're getting up bright and early!

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

A while ago, I finished reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and I've been hoping that with some time I would gain perspective so that I could more clearly share my thoughts on this "novel".  However, despite ruminating on it for several weeks now, I am no closer to consolidating my thoughts so I'll have to just make do.

First, I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- which I hesitate to call a novel.  In fact, to me it felt more like a group of short stories linked together by a thread, or more like a set of nesting dolls first taken apart and then reassembled.  It is a group of 6 stories told in 6 different voices -- each presented in an open ended manner in the first half of the book and then completed (cascading back through time) in the second half of the book. 

In the beginning it took me some time to become fully engaged in the book, but by the halfway point I was completely hooked. While the structure in unconventional I feel that it only adds to the overall enjoyment of the book.  If you are looking for something very different, yet familiar, give this book a try.

Kirigami

A while back I got some cool paper cutting books from Mitsuwa but I hadn't had time to play around with them until yesterday.  I just took some cheap origami paper that I had laying around -- folded it in half from corner to corner and the folded in half twice more.  Then I browsed some of the designs in the book and freehanded these.  I have some nifty little super sharp titanium blade scissors which made it quite easy to cut through all the layers.  They did tend to shift though, so some little binder clips might be a good idea in the future. 

I can see that it will take a lot of practice before I am making some of the beautiful elaborate designs that I want to experiment with -- something suitable for framing -- but for now I think I'll just do these for fun and maybe think about cutting some that I can glue on little handbound notebooks or something.

I've had a difficult time finding good Kirigami (Japenese for "cut" "paper") books.  Any suggestions from fellow paper cutting addicts out there?

Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light

For my birthday I received a copy of Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum -- a most excellent book about all things chocolate.  Rosenblum covers pretty much everything that you would want to know, starting with the history of chocolate and moving on to the current state of cacao production from the plantation to the factory (both large and small), finishing with a look into some of the finer (and not so fine) ways in which chocolate is used today.

Rosenblum draws you in with seductive passages which describe the smell and taste of chocolate, but is equally interesting while discussing cacao bean production.  He literally travels the world in order to explore this amazing bean and bring his knowledge to the reader. 

The book was so well written, that I had to ration it out -- reading only 1-2 (or 3-4) chapters a night. And I'm not the only one who thought so -- this book won the IACP Cookbook Award in 2006 for best literary food writing.   If you are interested in all things chocolate -- from where and how it is grown, to what the French master chocolatier can do with it -- read this book!

This was also posted over at the Chocolate Blog.

"This is the Land Of Lincoln where people believe in God."

No, Rep. Davis, not everyone in Illinois believes in God.  In fact, I find your comments --

This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln  where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--
. . .
It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

offensive -- quite offensive. 

Quilt Strips

As I begin to work my way through Piecing the Piece O'Cake Way the first skill I have encountered is rotary cutting -- specifically cutting strips.  Now I've done rotary cutting before and it seems that everyone has their own way to go about doing it, but I think that focusing only on the way in the book was good for me.  Before this I had my own method which was confused by the quilting teacher that I took a class from about 1 1/2 years ago -- leaving my method a mixed up, sloppy mess.  So I think it was good for me to really focus on this one simple skill without distraction. 

Next skill -- accurate 1/4" seam allowances.

PDF?

Whew!  I've been getting quite a few requests for downloadable versions of my Black Sheep Bags patterns, so I finally got my act together, converted everything over to new pdf versions and uploaded everything.  I even created a new download shop for the website.  And don't fear -- if you still like the old school printed patterns on cardstock with the color photo, you can still purchase them at all the yarn shops that stock my patterns as well as through my old online store.  So, basically I have two different online shops now, which does seem a bit confusing, but I hope it won't cause any troubles! 

Thanks again to all the online knitters who have supported me through the years -- I can't believe that my little obsessions with felted bags has turned into this business and that my patterns are selling around the world.  It's still amazing to me!

Oh, and I have a new pattern coming out later this Spring and another design is taking shape in my brain, so hopefully that one will be appearing shortly also!  Happy Knitting!