What IS it about ABS? part 1

A few years ago my BFF Heather von Craft clued me in to Amanda Blake Soule — mama, blogger, sewer, knitter, and proud possessor and queen of an actual farm in Maine. Her blog is Soule Mama, and the veriest glance at this blog will give you the picture. I find it hard to explain about Amanda Blake Soule — or, as Heather and I call her, ABS — we are both passionately in love with many many aspects of the Life of ABS. So much so that I have had her newest book, The Rhythm of Family, pre-ordered ever since I found out there was going to be one. I just got the book a few days ago — full of projects, activities, recipes, and musings on nature, family, the seasons — and I’m taking it as a handbook for our “science curriculum” for this coming year, to wit, TO GET MORE NATURE INTO OUR LIVES. It’s as simple as that.

When I try to explain my deep admiration for ABS to anyone who’s unfamiliar with her, I find it difficult, and it seemed to me to be a good reflective exercise to examine what, exactly, it is about her life that appeals me so very deeply. I think I’m going to have to do it in a series,

ABS makes things. Lots of things — useful things, pretty things, things made from old things. Also — helpfully sharing — she’s written three books to show you how you can make things like this, too. I’ve made a few of her things, like the prefold diapers from Handmade Home, and I want to make many, many more, but more important has been her influence — we make things out of old things to make them new, unique, and, I think, beautiful. We like natural fibers. We value things of the home. But above all, the thing I take away from ABS’s projects is that a project does not have to be complicated to be worthwhile or satisfying. Frequently the complete opposite is true. I, of the perfectionist-of-impossible-standards ilk, can and do pressure myself into complete immobility, and ABS leads me out of this on the end of a string, with projects like the one I made yesterday, the Muffin Bags from The Rhythm of Family.

She keeps her home-baked goods in linen drawstring bags — reusable, upcycled, and oh-so-crunchy, not to mention pretty — and in her new book, she includes her instructions for these right after a recipe for berry-muffins  that you could store in them.  Do I need ABS to tell me how to sew a drawstring bag? No. But the idea for this, and the fact that she’s already done this and uses these things in her home life every day — this is the invaluable thing to me. Yesterday I knew that it was the right thing to do, and I made six of these bags — two cut to ABS’s specs, and the others sized according to the parent garment from which I was cutting the fabric (two vintage tea towels, two shirts, a skirt, and a dress).

I’ve been saying to myself, the last three or five times I was shopping at the Baltimore Food Co-op (I hope to buy my groceries there exclusively soon), that I need produce bags, and then I’d go home and promptly forget about this until I found myself using another hundred of those plastic produce bags on the giant rolls — not pretty, not crunchy, and not what I want to include in my co-op shopping  experience.  So now, thanks to ABS and my new favorite book, I have six lovely bags for holding the nectarines, potatoes, mushrooms, apples, what have you.  Maybe even my gluten-free biscuits, although I have a thrifted jar for these — also bought with the ABS  lifestyle in mind. I can see that I will need more bags, too, because already I’ve got my mint and cilantro stored in the ticking-stripe linen bag shown above, and a few peppers in the cream-colored cotton bag with birdies on it. I’m loving these bags, and continuing to love my new book.

For next time — a new project from The Rhythm of Family, and more discussion of what it is about ABS that makes me want to be a crunchier mama.

What I Want For Mothers’ Day

I’m perfectly willing to — nay, even insistent upon —  making Mothers’ Day an excuse for me to get what I want — and to spend money on things that I want — and possibly even to do something I want to do, or NOT do something I don’t want to do — without guilt or remonstrance.  It’s the same with my birthday, which I try to spin out into a week-long celebration.  I will not be fobbed off with some paltry brunch; don’t you think it.  Let me see;  a day off would be nice — HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!  Ok, I know that’s just crazy talk — but I was thinking earlier, boy, I’d better figure out what I do want, or I won’t get it together to insist upon it in time, and the chance will pass me by.

1.) FOOD.  I would like to eat out — without guilt about money — because that’s one of my favorite things.  Indian buffet is good; the Golden West’s breakfast burrito is good.  It would be nice for my family to accompany me for this part, but another thing I want is –

2.) FREEDOM. Time off.  Kind of like celebrating Labor Day by not working, I feel that Mothers’ Day would be an extra-good time for me to NOT be responsible for children, cooking, shopping, laundry, planning, cleaning up, etc. For reasons of the plot, the amount of time off per week that I get is somewhere between 0-2 hours — and by “time off,” I do not mean Bun’s nap or after the kids go to bed. Time off means you can stroll away from the house if you want to, you can come back when you want to, you can finish that project if you want to, and that someone ELSE will figure out what is for lunch, change the diaper, remember to buy soy milk, enforce good manners, take boys to the playground, read Go, Dog, Go, and say things like “sit down in chairs,”  ”snack time!” and “stop menacing your brother with that squid!”

3.) MATERIAL POSSESSIONS.  I suppose this is kind of sad, but if I were given the opportunity to shop today for presents for myself, here are the things I would want to get:

a.) a stool tall enough for Bunny to stand on to reach the sink — because this is the time in toddle-hood when his hands need to be washed all the time because they are covered with Gross, and he is too little to do it himself, and it’s coming back to me how awkward and difficult it is to hold a toddler up to the level of the sink and wash his hands for him.  And somehow, specific articles of household usefulness like this are something that we never seem to get around to, and though we have two little stools, neither of them are tall enough –

b.) underwear. It doesn’t have to be fancy expensive underwear. I just want it to be new, and for there to be enough of it — my current assortment is truly venerable, and should have been retired after it went through the last pregnancy with me (which extinguished the last of whatever snap and vigor it originally had), but — see above, about never getting around to it — and aren’t there other things we need more than that? At this point, actually no. Could I make my own underwear out of old t-shirts with materials I currently have on hand? Yes; yes I could, but I am way too busy making other stuff out of old clothes for the upcoming Pile of Craft and the Etsy-shop-to-be.

c.) socks for the Chicken.  Catholic school uniform policy decrees that White Socks Shall Be Worn with both the standard and gym uniforms — why, why???  My belief — and this is the voice of experience coming to you from seven + years down the road — is that boys should never, ever own or wear white socks, because they will remain white for about five minutes and thereafter be covered with indelible gray filth. Yes, I suppose I could bleach the bejabers out of them, but I try to not slop bleach around the place any more than absolutely necessary, and who wants to spend time making sure boys’ socks are sparklingly pristine when No One Cares, except possibly me and Sister Marie Rose?  Also, we seem to have three different varieties of white sock, none of which really fit the chick’s elegantly narrow feet, and which I can never find two of the same kind in that basket of clean laundry that seems to be a permanent installation in the front room. Erm. The minute school’s out (or maybe today!), I am going to buy a perfect festival of colored socks for the chick — stripes! Colorific colors! The more and brighter colors the better! and he will never, never wear white socks again, until he wants to and is responsible for doing his own laundry. That’s my school uniform policy so far.

So. It appears that all of my Mothers’ Day wishes can come true if I get lunch, help from PF (who had a gig last night but has no gig today; yay!), and a trip to Target.  We don’t ask much.  And I think I hear PF stirring now.

The Plan’s the Thing

Hello people — I have been so neglectful of bloggity-blog-land while waiting for spring, but a Pollyanna-ish spirit is rising in me — this past Monday I was full of new ambitions and hopes for getting some modicum of control over this house — I have no fewer than three new soothing household-management books to peruse.  I had to Interlibrary-Loan them, because they were of a vintage that evidently made the Baltimore City and County systems regard them as Not of General Interest — so I’d better hop to it and read them before the due date draws nigh.  Because it is reading the books, of course, that makes your household get magically managed all by itself — if you check them out and don’t read them, well, that doesn’t work at all.  This is something that I’ ve been meaning to schedule for a long time (practically everything concerned with housekeeping is something I’ve been meaning to schedule for a long time ) — Hausfrau-Development Time.  There needs to be a time for this reading and studying, and it needs to be scheduled, or all my reading time will be taken up with reading the Anne of Green Gables series for the 900th time.  This series does inspire in me an increased desire for some kind of housekeeping to take place, because there’s so much housework that goes on as a matter of course in them — people scrubbing up grease spots  on wooden floors with sand, and remembering to scald the dishcloth — and mention of a woman who scandalously did her ironing sitting down, and another who lost her dishcloth, and found it later on mixed up with the stuffing inside the turkey.  I am inclined to ascribe the degree to which I have let things slip around here to me being in the baby-cave for the past almost-two years, and so will let the past die, and move on to new, and, I hope, more sanitary and pleasant pastures.

But the scheduling — is the thing.  I am in love with the idea of having a plan that tells you what to do and when — I’m pretty sure this is one of the main reasons for my enduring interest in monks.  They know when to muck out the barn, when to sing the Psalms, when to make the jam or cheese, and how much of everything to do — it was all handily laid out for them by good ol’ St. Benedict.  I have wanted a schedule for what seems like hundreds of years, and have spasmodically tried and failed to institute same — knowing full well that things do NOT get done (by me) unless I assign a time for them.  [Whether anything gets done by anyone else around here is an entirely different matter, which would be, and possibly will be, another blog post in itself.]  What goes wrong with this praiseworthy inclination toward scheduling of all the things that need to be done?  Mostly my Fatal Tendency to Go To Extremes, my failure-to-plan equaling planning-to-fail, my absolute ignorance of how much time it takes to do anything — and whatever the combination of circumstances that results in me sitting down with pencil and notebook and immediately entering a swirly state of nothingness, where I have no idea what needs to be planned, how to do it, or how I could possibly manage to fit in whatever it all is, especially when my natural state seems to be to lie down on the sofa with a book.  As I’ve said, the idea of a schedule is lovely — and then what?

Well, the time is drawing nigh when this schedule-business will be not just a lovely idea that I should really get to someday, but an Essential Part of Life, because I have bitten off a very large mouthful indeed for the coming year.  To wit [item 1]: my decision to enter into partnership with my BFF Heather in our very own Business, which means a serious increase around here in the time devoted to production of handicrafts.  Abruptly there are ambitious quotas to meet. Item 2 — hold on to your hats — is mine and PF’s decision to homeschool the Chicken from here on out.  Did somebody mention planning?  I’m entering into a whole new world of stuff having to be mapped out in advance, and the Chick’s current school year at St. Thomas A. is drawing to its close.  Can I do the necessary planning, and make things go?  Here’s the beautiful thing — I’ll have to.   When I even consider doubting myself, I remember the days of early married life when I was saying despairingly to a friend “will I ever manage to put three squares a day on the table, because I can’t seem to plan/shop/cook with any kind of regularity — ” and she said “ah, but someday you will have children, and you will be amazed at how you manage to put food in front of them at regular intervals — because, suddenly, you’ll have to.”  And lo, it came to pass.  One rises to the occasion.  And that’s what I’m gonna do.  Possibly my personality is such that I must be forced to the wall before I will rise to that occasion, but the leavening for all this is — I’m wildly happy and excited about both of these new, complex and extremely time-consuming obligations.  When it comes to planning curriculum, there is a beautiful and bewildering variety of stuff to learn about, things we want to do and include, so many that we could never get to them all — and designing and making stuff for our shop makes me happy in a way that makes me feel as if this is an essential thing that’s been lacking all this time.  And even housework, when it comes down to it, and you wake up and realize that the chore fairy is never, ever going to come, and those chores won’t do themselves — it’s a thing that will result directly in a clean, tidy, and uncluttered place in which to do all these other lovely things, and we really need that — now more than ever.  And so — sitting down  with pencil and notebook, and calendar, and household manuals, and lists — and starting again.

Hausfrau Naps: Today’s Agenda

Today is chillyish and rainyish. There was a thunderstorm during breakfast. I am very tired, having taken a partyish break from hausfrauing last night.  After an attempt to get the laundry off the line before it got wet again (too late) and a successful post-breakfast violin practice with the chick before dropping him at school, I decided it was the Perfect Day for us to stay in the Bunny cave.  A few guidelines for this kind of day:

DON’T

think too much

worry about anything

do any more chores than you can help

hold self to a high standard. Or much of any standard.

go for a great big long walk

do things quickly

cook

break anything (Bun or Mama)

make any practical or ambitious plans for the future

have a fit (Bun or Mama)

pull down kitchen curtains (Bun)

DO

wear comfy clothes

get takeout — if can be bothered

look like Marlon Brando in The Wild One (Bun — black t-shirt and jeans)

play with the vacuum cleaner (also Bun)

stare at Sesame Street while lying on couch (Bun and Mama)

stare at computer while sitting in chair (Mama)

be so happy about life together

wear Bun on front, not back, so can cuddle him better (Mama)

suck thumb (Bun)

read books about animals, point at animals,  say “woof” (Bun)

TAKE NAP (Bun and Mama)

pick up Chicken from Art Club at 4:00

We hope you have a goodish sort of day as well — see you tomorrow.

Fried Rice Is Good For What Ails You

Hello, friends.  This blog has been on vacation for the month of February (+),  but I thought I would emerge from the snow and survival-through-the-end-of- winter to share with you this fried rice that I just made for lunch:

Man, oh man.  You can’t see the kitchen sink, but it’s actually in there, along with onions, carrots, celery, cabbage, onions, garlic, smoked sausage, scallions, slivered almonds, sherry, hot sauce, Bragg’s, roasted sesame oil… and a little rice. I ate a lot of it for lunch.  And whatever I was worrying about has been in part erased by the satisfaction of having made something so good that was also more than half vegetables.

You might think that these youngsters

would be pictured here shoveling down the fried rice, but alas — it is to larf.  They are shoveling down processed and prepared breakfast food from the good people at General Mills — I just put the picture in because they are cute. Bun might go for the fried rice, but my beautiful Chick, Chickaroons, the shining Chick of my heart — he eats plain rice with ketchup, and never any vegetables at all.  I can’t even get into the whole thing right now.  It’s February, when we try not to get too ambitious.   But suffice it to say, I thought the fried rice was awesome, and PF will certainly appreciate it too, when I put it in his lunch tomorrow.

Our dinner plans do not involve this dish, however — I got a hot tip (from two different sources) that the key to really excellent oven-fries (you know, the kind made by you, at home, out of actual potatoes) is to preheat the baking sheet, and to rinse the starch off the fries after you cut them, and then dry them off before tossing them in the oil.   Gotta try this — dragging both children out into the aforementioned snow to go buy russet potatoes, just to get the full fry effect, as soon as Bun wakes up — which is now. Bye-bye ’til spring — unless I get the energy to post again before then.

 

Diaper envy, natural fibers, and other baby-related things

Another snow day!  I must say, I greet these with gratitude now, since we get to have the chick with us, and I don’t need to do any morning rushing — hauling the sleeping chick out of his little bed at 6:15, uniform on, eat some breakfast, pack the lunch, drink the coffee, change and dress the Bun,  practice time, brush the teeth, backpack, shoes, coats for everyone, out the door!

I do not enjoy this morning rush.  Especially the dragging the chick out of bed thing.  He goes to bed at 7:30, and most of the time I think he would sleep until 7 if he was let. This bugger-t’-mornin’; get-up-and-get-on-wi’-some-work thing is my unfavorite thing to make the Chick do. And I am gonna do something about it, which I may or may not write more about later.

Today I am determined to get to the diaper store, where after the consignment sale of last weekend, I have ***store credit!***  After a funky bacterial diaper rash and an infection, I decided natural fibers were the way to go for this Bun and sold off all our old Fuzzi Bunz — PUL pocket diapers seem prone to funk, and we’re focusing on clean-washing prefolds and breathable wool covers.  I have had my eye on this Little Beetle wool cover, after trying and discarding the Happy Heiny, which was somehow enormous on Bun, and too bulky in closure, with all those snaps and overlap and whatnot — we’re going for trimmer and scaled-down wool right now. His Aristocrat is great (it was the Chick’s), and I like the ease of the pull-on short. We also have a Disana, although it’s getting too small now — always loved this soaker too — cuuuute! I don’t know if you could call either of these trim, however. Bun just got a bunch of hand-me-down toddler trousers that are so cute, I would like for him to be able to wear them, but most of these wool covers don’t even pretend that they’re going to fit under pants. The thing to do here is to make the cover be the pants, in the form of longies, which are easy and quick to make out of old sweaters — or you could actually knit them, which takes longer. Much. I have made them, and could make more — the adorableness factor is pretty compelling.  You have to make more, actually, to go with all baby’s fashionable shirts.  I think some neutral pants would be good here, not too thick.  It would take a certain kind of sweater — might have a few in my wool stash…

If you look at the Little Beetle, you can see that’s it’s not exactly rocket science to make — I think what you’re buying here is the super-fine and soft organic merino. If you were going to make this yourself out of upcycled materials, wool jersey isn’t exactly growing on every tree, but you could find something that would work.  Then all you’d need is some cover to copy, or (how convenient) a free pattern on the internet!  Someone else has even put a little tutorial up for adding elastic to the legs.

Of course, looking for the right sweater at the thrift store and sewing the cover, and sewing another one where you use everything you learned from the first one — all this takes time.  And I’ve always been conflicted about sewing diapers, since babies grow out of them.  Shouldn’t I be using that time to sew or knit something else, something that is the be-all and end-all of things, something that will be a thing of beauty and a joy forever AND the thing that we need more than other things, for practical reasons? And also the thing that perfectly uses up the materials we already have?   Oh, wait — I’m trying to get over that mindset.  Make the thing, whatever it is — whatever I want to make, whether it has a practical use or not.  No craft hoarding — saving the good yarn or fabric for that perfect project that might come along later.  I mean, babies do grow up.  What’s the point of making anything for them?  Well, it’s not about lasting forever. It’s about the doing, the making of stuff, the now — and the dressing of babies in cute bum-sweaters.

Coming soon…

This seems to be my year for digging up sewing projects that have been sitting around for a few years in limbo, and — can it be? — finishing them!  I highly recommend this; it gives me a  nothin’-can-stop-me-now feeling which has the added charm of novelty .  I’ve already exhumed the apron I spoke of here, and today a wool skirt and pair of lounge pants — I have to go and whip down the outside edge of the contrast binding I put on the former now, but alas!  While I desire nothing more than to photograph them and post those photographs here so you can see, I can’t do it, because my camera continues insufficient to the purpose. Maaa.  Until I can enlist some help from a friend (or a total stranger with a half-way decent camera phone), I will busily craft away in obscurity.  And, it looks like, get meself a new wardrobe-from-stash in the process.

After long consideration, I finally bought an Elizabeth Hartman quilt pattern — finishing these projects is going to my head; I’m getting ambitious!  People I know are having babies and having babies lately, and while right now I am knitting a blankie for a much beloved new girl in the Netherlands, I realize that unless I want to knit nothing BUT blankies for quite a while to come, I’d better think about sewing blankies — very satisfactory, and much faster.  I like patchwork.  I like it a lot.  And now I’ve got my Mixtape Quilt pattern, I might just have the inspiration (and detailed instructions) I need to make one or two or three little quilts.  My own little Bun hasn’t gotten a blanket out of me yet either — but more on the subject of babies growing up too fast to make stuff for them (sigh) later.

 

The Required Uniform

Now, if you know me, you know I have a thing about aprons.  Doesn’t everyone? Ok, maybe not everyone, but a lot of people.  Believe me.  My thing about aprons (welll, one of the things) is: whenever I put one on, I don’t want to take it off.  So functional! So comfortable!  How I wish that it was even remotely socially acceptable to wear any such garment outside the home! And I hardly need add that this hausfrau is not talking about the little French-maid-costume, possibly-suitable-for-making-cocktails-and-serving-hors-d’oeuvres-on-a-precious-little-tray, frilly and frivolous half-apron.  No, the smockier and Holly-Hobby-er the better, as far as I’m concerned.  I wear an apron not only for cooking and baking, but for doing dishes and cleaning, and I’m seriously considering starting to wear one when I sew or craft anything — such pastimes have a way of covering one with bits of thread, lint, yarn, raw wool, and fabric scraps.  Since at some point in the day I have to emerge from the home laboratory  and pick up the chick from first grade, or go to the store for more soy milk, it’s probably best not to be covered with schmutz, since my ensemble is usually odd enough without that.  (I should mention that in my brain, the emphasis in that word laboratory is always on the second syllable, because it makes me feel more like a mad scientist).  I take off the apron before I do this, but put on the shawl, because it’s the easy and convenient way for the prolific shawl-knitter to cover both self and baby while wearing the latter — but that’s another post.  Guess I need to do a whole series on the practicality of the garments of yesteryear.

A few years ago I made a reversible pull-over and very smock-like affair that has seen some serious service through both me and my mom (when she comes to visit and I encourage her to do all the cooking) – 

–and I love this apron’s styling with an enduring love [also the mom] — this is the one I don’t want to take off — and yet the colors do not always accord with my ensemble, which is usually leaning more toward grey and teal and purple.  I resolved to make another apron of this very same pattern, only netural gray, with fancy knitted-lace trim on the pockets, suitable for everyday wear, and possibly even for answering the door for the UPS man without feeling Eccentric — well, maybe not.  Fabric for this project was duly purchased, and yet somehow in the interim I had acquired fabric for, cut out and abandoned another apron — well, to make a long story short, but probably not short enough, the other, abandoned apron was, for reasons of the plot, dusted off and finished today!  This apron has been an unfinished object for at least two years, and probably three — ah, how they fly…

Unfortunate photograph of hausfrau appropriately attired in a blaze of flowered cotton:

It too is reversible — because you can use more teal-colored cotton prints that way – 

I do apologize for the quality of these photographs — if we waited for lovely ones to be taken, this blog might never be updated at all — however, it is only just to mention that like its maker, this apron’s innate adorableness cannot be, or at any rate, is not, captured here on film — the pockets, hem, and crossover-back are scalloped (you can almost make out scallops in photo 1 hem), and the styling makes me feel totally farmhouse-old-school.  The color is dark, and lighter, teal. I’m still wearing it, actually — it works for typing, too.

This whole apron-revival came about today because I’m working on a little pattern-drafting for the shop (shop?  Oh, just you wait…) and wanted to wrap my brain around the crossover-back concept, and just happened to have this stalled project sitting around…  the completion is so satisfying, that now I’m thinking of making that neutral but Edwardian-elegant one I mentioned earlier, just in between other things…

I’m not the only one wearing an apron around here, either:The Chick has been trying out his Christmas watercolor equipment, and is ready for anything with his businesslike (and bright yellow) apron, courtesy of Ms. Mary Alice.  Alas, Bun is too small as yet for for free access to art supplies (I promise, just as soon as we can, but he is still at the heavy-supervision stage), but by the time he is, I plan to have developed some seriously super art-smock concept.  Until then, I leave you with this image of fraternal love and cuteness:

Hugs!

P.S., Can’t quite believe I forgot to say just which apron pattern that was — it’s the Scalloped Apron by the Paisley Pincushion.  I also own her Shopkeeper’s Apron pattern, which I want to make soonest. I did not buy these at Pink Chalk Fabrics,  Sew Mama Sew, or other young, hip sewing online-marts, although some of them are available there.  I bought them from Candle On the Hill,  a website that sells “modest sewing patterns” suitable for, and sometimes produced by, Mennonite and other mightily Christian ladies in the Midwest (or, in the case of Paisley Pincushion, Vernonia, OR).  These ladies know a thing or two about aprons (and schmattas to wear on your head), so don’t be shy — there might be a Bible verse printed on the pattern somewhere, but if that’s not your thing, an apron is just an apron.

Now That’s My Kind of Bag!

Alas, there will be no reporting on the holiday crafty gifts.  After lovely family visiting and traveling and one sick baby and whatnot, all that sewing and knitting has flowed under the bridge — it’s dead to me now.  I’ve moved ON.  One thing I discovered though, while I was on a big trip to NC and my brother’s family, was that my biggish-purse-as-diaper-bag concept Will Not Do.  It took me quite a while to grasp the inadequacies of my diaper bag situation, since I rarely go anywhere with Bun long enough or frequently enough to have to change Bun’s diaper while I’m out of the house, and frequently sally forth with not so much as a spare diaper, much less changing pad, wipes, wet bag, cup, bib, change of clothing, etc.  When I did leave home for an extended period of time with Bun, this Christmas vacation, it became clear that though I could get a number of bare essentials into my bag, I could not get them out again, especially when digging in the bag at uncomfortable arm’s length while said bag was suspended from a public-restroom fold-down changing table that also held big crying Bun, who takes exception to those folding table things.  So I decided (and immediately announced to everyone who would listen) that I must make a NEW diaper bag.

A diaper bag is a personal thing, evidently, because every one I’ve ever had seemed to have lots of important compartments and pockets for things that I didn’t have, or that didn’t fit the things I did have.  Also, although since the above circumstance of not-leaving-home-with-Bun prevails, I always want to keep my purse-type stuff in the diaper bag, so I won’t have to haul TWO bags around  – I mentioned that I mostly walk everywhere, right?   Right. The invariable result is that I have a big jumbled bag of stuff that I kind of have to dig in for what I want, and I have decided that the best solution to this is just to get used to it, and not to carry too much stuff, since if I got or designed a bag for exactly the things I now think said bag should hold, I would, immediately upon completion or acquisition of said bag, decide that I no longer needed those particular things; I would need other things which were different sizes and shapes, thereby rendering the bag Useless.  So, I started looking for a bag pattern without too many fussy compartments, big enough but not enormous, without any changing pad (I already have and use this one, and I lurve it), and that’s easily carried around town.

I ended up getting this one from Pink Chalk Studio (and what a lovely online fabric store that is, do go buy stuff there), and was super-excited for it to come in the mail — it’s a roomy cross-body number that looked pretty adaptable to me.  Once it arrived, I went to town on favorite bits of my mostly-upcycled fabric stash, and I am proud to say I made it out of — um — 9 different pieces of stuff I already had.  Ten, counting the zipper for one of the interior pockets, harvested from a skirt of the past.  I diverged from the pattern only to embellish — it seems my lifelong passion for collage extends to fabric-world also.  I was finally able to use two of the patches I got from Her Awesomeness, Cotton Monster Jen Strunge — she evidently prints the monster-patches in her spare time, when not making actual monsters. As well as vintage table-runner lace and embroidery, the placket ruffle from that old eyelet dress of mine, fabric from my mom’s stash, fabric from my BFF’s mom’s stash — oh fabric, how we love thee. You have a new life now — you’re welcome.

I regret to inform you that this bag will not be fully documented photographically, since my camera, never the best, seems to be failing now.  Its pictures seem always to be either taken by the dim glow of the shrouded campfire, or after something went supernova.  You’re lucky to be getting this post at all.  But on this morning walk, I made BFF take a photograph with her iPhone, which does take better pictures than my actual camera:

Bun is smiling because he is happy that we have a fancy diaper bag.

Every time I make any kind of bag with a lining, much less a zippered interior pocket, I feel like a genius.  I think I want to make more bags now.

‘Twas the Day Before the Night Before Christmas…

Hmm; I seem to be taking a break from this blog thing while I’ve been spending every possibly minute neglecting necessary household chores to make stuff for Christmas.   And I don’t mean cookies —  I haven’t made any of them yet, although I could really do with some pumpkin chocolate-chip ones for breakfast this morning [pause to take butter out of fridge].   I haven’t even done much in the way of cooking dinner for a while now.   But I think the work is drawing to a close, at least as far as presents that have a Dec. 25th deadline go.

I have, however, been reading Junie B. Jones books, along with the Chick — I don’t mean I’ve been reading them aloud to him, no, no; I’ve been reading them to myself after he goes to bed.  I’m so happy that he’s reading something age-appropriate, for pete’s sake, but also I like Junie B.  She gives me some much-needed insight into the first-grade mind.  Did I already say I really need that?  Oh, good.  I think I have an unfortunate tendency to think of the Chick as if he’s about thirty years old, which probably explains his vocabulary, but the exploits of Junie B. make me realize that seven years old is not, in fact, very old.  Note to self: review child-development literature.  Except it’s more fun to review Junie B.

I think I’m happy about the presents I made — I’m not sure that I will be able to take photographs of all these before they get distributed, but I should think about it.  The making of them was definitely a good thing, and even if the children in question toss aside their new little stuffed friends (and messenger bags, and blankets, and felted jingle-balls, etc.), it doesn’t matter at all — because it’s about the process of making things.  I can hardly wait to make more non-Christmas-presenty things.  One extra-good thing about this Christmas-making was that it got me loving the knitting again — though I realized I can sew a stuffed friend, even of my own design, much more quickly than I can knit one, I also realized in the space of this season that I love knitting toys, and I’m going to keep doing it.  I think I want this kitty to be my next project — and maybe some babies I know need some of these hats…

Hope to check in with you soon, but in the meantime — happy holiday season to you!