A year of Christmas ...

I know, I know, it just ended ...



If you aren't sick of Christmas yet, and you want to get your crafting finished before the 24th of December next year ... check out what we're working on at Sewing Mamas - A year of Christmas



Here's a preview of some great tutorials that have been gathered up to help us get a head start on Holiday Decorating for 2010 -- January's theme. Each month has a theme to focus the sewing efforts.



I can't wait to see how many of us can finish this!



STOCKINGS

1. Stockings with rick rack

2. Stockings from quilts,

3. Stocking tute

4. Rick rack flowers

5. Button wreaths

Dare I say I'll write more?

It seems to be a theme. I post for a few days/weeks, then turn into slacker blogger. But I genuinely intend to post more often! I have a few bloggy ideas in my mind. I hope to post more often going forward. I've been having a great time participating in a '12 days of Christmas' swap over at the Hyenacart.com forums. It's been so fun to open a gift each of the past ten days. I'm just waiting on the last two to arrive in the mail. Finn has been very excitedly opening his advent calendar each day since the first ... it's a winter forest scene from Playmobil. Each day offers an animal or tree or other forest prop, and I believe tomorrow's door will reveal a jolly elf dressed in red. The best part is -- I think I can stash this away for next year and get two years of use from it. Maybe I'll make a decision on a sewn one by Christmas 2011 ... I keep changing my plan, so I haven't started one yet. How are your Christmas preparations coming? We're nearly done -- two gifts left to wrap that Finn picked out this morning, one load of laundry to do so we all have clean clothes to wear to our many family events (Christmas Eve church, brunch on 25th, dinner on 25th, dinner on 26th), and Dave is picking up the last 4 items on the grocery list right now. It's only 2:45 on teh 23rd! I think tomorrow is going to be the first lazy 24th we've had in a few years. Hope to be back soon .... if not ...

Merry Christmas to All!

Not Go Sport!

Finn's been very interested in basketball lately, don't know why. On a recent trip to the local Once Upon A Child shop, he spotted this lovely little basketball net - more suited perhaps to the crawling ages.

The little net speaks, and at the end of it's program, says "Way to go, sport". Well, Finn just doesn't get it, and every time, tells it "No Go Sport!".

He's quite insistent that we need to take pictures of him playing basketball, so hopefully I'll have some of those to share soon.

Photos from two canoe trips

One sunny trip, one rainy trip.

There's a moose mama & baby in there somewhere, you'll have to watch them all. One trip was August 9th, and one was September 5th.

Our first trip we had a couple hours of rain, and generally damp camping. The second trip was hot and sunny, great summer weather on Labour Day Weekend. A friend came with us, and you can see her portaging the canoe on one of the short portages. Finn carried his own 5lb pack over a total of 31 portages over the 2 trips, the longest was 1275 meters.

Fun Stuff

My Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Go to Widdly Tinks and make shadow people for your family too!

Or Penguins ...

My Family from WiddlyTinks.com

What good is a post without photos?

It's not a very good post. You're right. But, I have miles of photos to organize, edit, resize ... before they can be posted here or shared.

We've been camping twice since my last message, once to Algonquin where Finn tackled the portages - up to 1275m - carrying his own little pack. We've celebrated 2 grandparents' birthdays. I've sewn a great deal, for Finn's fall wardrobe, some baby carriers, both gifts and sold ones. I think I even have a new favourite.

We've also been getting Finn ready to go to preschool. He's had a few practice visits, and will start going on his own one morning a week just after Labour Day.

Photos coming soon. Really. :)

Be bigger Monday.

That's what Finn told me today. Along with 'go to school in 'tember'.

He's certain that he's not big enough today to use the potty, but that on Monday he'll be bigger and he'll use it. We'll see how that goes. But in preparation, I made him a cute little pair of training pants from great pattern a friend mentioned to me. I'll add a link & a photo tomorrow or Monday, but if you want to have a look for the pattern before then just search for Ladder Hill Design, and the pattern is for the Tinkle Time Trainer.

He's also quite excited to be going to school in September. This week we'll have our test visit to the preschool in preparation for a once weekly class that begins after Labour Day. He'll be the youngest in the group, as he'll just be 2 1/2, and that is the earliest they can go. I'm sure he'll enjoy it, it'll be just like another play date with a bit of structure. I'm looking forward to having 2 hours a week to see clients, ride my horse, maybe meet a friend for coffee now and then.

Happy Civic Holiday, enjoy the long weekend!

The literal interpretations of a two year old.

Mama: "Finn, I've got the WonderPets song stuck in my head"

Finn: messed up mama's hair "Open up hair, get out of it"

Mama: "No Finn, it's not really INSIDE my head, you can't get it out like that"

Finn: now pulling mama's hair "Open it! Not stuck get out!"

And, just so it can be stuck in your head too ... Click Here ... (get a good giggle from the 'no copyright infringement intended, even though the images and sound totally belong to NickJr.')

Sewing Mama S.W.A.P. Contest

Almost forgot ... I received 3rd place in the Adult S.W.A.P. (Sew with a plan) contest on Sewing Mamas!

I did most of the sewing for this 6 week contest in 3 weeks due to our vacation timing. I finished the last item on a loaner machine as my beloved Emerald was in for service - warranty work. She never did get repaired and was replaced within hours of the techs at Husqvarna seeing her. The new one is lovely, sounds a bit nicer and the needle up buttons works!

April 29th? Really. Sorry about that.

Ok, I'm a slacker. Blogging just doesn't get priority these days (months?!)

May ... what did we do in May? I'm not sure ... but I'm certain it was a good time!

Oh, right ... sister-in-law's birthday, mother's day, a long weekend with no plans ... that was May. Then, our vacation - we drove out to New Brunswick and camped all over the province, and returned home to June.

Some other photos from May - I wore a sari to church for Mother's Day - a friend from Singapore was having her son's baby dedication & several of us wore them to help her feel at home as none of her family could make it.

June is over. I have no idea how that happened. The month did wrap up with some great news - my sister had a baby - he's lovely and we're all enjoying having a fresh baby in the extended family.

July started off nicely - a BBQ with friends to get things rolling and celebrate Canada Day.

Now ... you know I'll try to post more frequently as summer progresses. We've got 4 more camping trips planned before snow flies, so there should be lots of photos!

The Mealplan. Um. Yeah. Not so much.

Well, it started well ...

Breakfasts ONE - Good Morning Muffins TWO - Blueberry Bran Muffins THREE - Smoothie FOUR - Raisen Toast <--so successful, I had this twice! FIVE - Toast with Nutella SIX - Pancakes with Blueberries <-- they had this without me on Saturday!

Lunches ONE - yummy veg bagel sandwich TWO - cheese quesadillas and guacamole THREE - Bagel Melts (used leftover chili) FOUR - Fried Egg Sandwich FIVE - Leftover Lasagna SIX - Leftover chili

Dinners ONE - Lasagna (but I did make it this week! TWO - Curried Cauliflower,Chickpeas & Naan THREE - Roasted Veg Chowder (making this tonight) FOUR - Fajitas FIVE - Chili SIX - Spagetti

So, too many dinners on my plan. We had leftovers of chili (we might still have leftover chili), leftovers of indian food & leftover pizza from the night our friends brought dinner.

I think my new plan will be to start over on Monday next week, and only plan 4 dinners and 5 breakfasts. Lunch will sort itself out without extravagant planning, and I'm sure leftovers, invitations or restaurants will take care of the other 3 dinners.

Afternoon at the park & continued meal plan success!

Used up my random, unplanned lunch today - my mother-in-law invited Finn & I for lunch.

After our lunch, we all went to a park near her home, Finn walked 90% of the way there, and rode home in the stroller. He had a great time, swinging, climbing, sliding, running, riding ... all the fun things you can do in the park when you're two.

Ode to the zipper foot.

Ok, well it's not an ode, because I can't write in any sort of poetic manner. I love my zipper foot though.

Here is my lovely zipper foot.

Emily found it for me and it makes zippers so easy! There's still the odd bit of user error, but at least I don't blame them on having the wrong tools for the job. Last night I put in 6 zippers, and they all look lovely.

Day Two - Meal Plan Success Continues

Today, toast w/ nutella for breakfast, leftover chili, smothered in sourcream, cheese & green onions, for (very late) lunch. Dinner turned out to be the spare unplanned one, as friends brought over pizza. It was great to visit with them, and luckily it all got arranged just as I was pulling the cutting board out & turning on the oven to start dinner. Easy enough to undo!

Also today - a playdate with Finn's little friend (I even got to play Rockband on the Wii ... I'm not that good), before that we went for a 5km run.

Some photos from our day (oh! and yesterday's beautiful sandwich as well!)

Finn wants you all to know that 'Garg made it' ... his little blue bowl that is. Finn is very careful with it and always carries it with two hands!

Day One - Meal Plan Success!

Ok, we did it (or rather, I did it). Cinnamon Toast for Breakfast, that beautiful bagel sandwich for lunch, and chili for dinner.

Also got quite a bit of sewing finished for the sale this coming weekend. Details will be on www.shopbabygo.ca in the morning some time, as I need to look up the address/time in my inbox on the other computer.

A project almost guaranteed to fail.

I'm going to make a menu plan. I'm even going to post it here. You can all just watch and see if I can stick to it!

Now, I'm not going to assign days to meals, I know I can't stick to that! But, I'm going to list 7 dinners, 7 lunches, 7 breakfasts. Starting tomorrow morning, I'm going to attempt to work through the 21 options You didn't really think I could do it, did you? Well, neither did I. So, I'm changing plans, 6 of each meal! That gives me one random, spontaneous, oops we're not home, or maybe we'll go out, or you know, something comes up and we get an invite out ... :)

Breakfasts ONE - Good Morning Muffins TWO - Blueberry Bran Muffins THREE - Smoothie FOUR - Raisen Toast FIVE - Toast with Nutella SIX - Pancakes with Blueberries

Lunches ONE - yummy veg bagel sandwich TWO - cheese quesadillas and guacamole THREE - Bagel Melts (use leftover fajita toppings) FOUR - Fried Egg Sandwich FIVE - Leftover Lasagna SIX - Leftover chili

Dinners ONE - Lasagna TWO - Curried Cauliflower,Chickpeas & Naan THREE - Roasted Veg Chowder FOUR - Fajitas FIVE - Chili SIX - Spagetti

Speaking of dinner, do you call it dinner, or supper? That meal you eat in the evening?

Today's Reading: Mo Willems

Today Finn & I are reading 'Things that go' and 'Knuffle Bunny', along with a whole lot of other books!

I'm not reading any grown up books, as I'm saving all my not-yet-read books for an upcoming roadtrip.

Going to try to stick a blogroll on here ...

Let's see how badly I can mess this one up! (Matthew -- if you're reading, I could probably use your help!)

Denny Oofing at Deer

I love toddler-speak. It's such fun to translate!

Today, while watching the deer in the field across the street, Finn announced to me that "Denny oofing at deer". I was lost. Totally. I know Denny is Penny - our dog. At deer was pretty clear. But oofing? What is oofing? After several repetitions, it clicked.

Offing = woofing = barking. And he's absolutely right. Penny would have been barking at the deer if she had seen them.

The deer have been here each evening for a week or so, generally six of them. Tonight there are only three - but it's still early. Perhaps I'll get a photo to share soon.

Potty Time.

The boy child is soon (hopefully) going to be ready for some potty training. And that means - underwear!

Here's the first batch ... more are cut out, and will be sewn up as time allows.



These are a great use of scraps!

75 Yards Sewn.

In February, I sewed about 75 yards of fabric! I far exceeded my goals, and I bought no fabric.

Here is a before/after comparison of my fabric shelves.

Bottom two shelves, flannels, fleeces, decor weights, quilting fabric.

And now ...

Cotton Wovens, Solid Knits, Solid Tech Fabrics





Last shelves are the printed knit fabrics, with the bulky knits up on top of the bookcase.





It's not as dramatic a difference as I'd thought!

Still Sewing, Sewing, Sewing ...

More clothing for the small boy, as well as a sleeping bag, and a couple gifts I won't be showing here!

Sewing Trains

This is probably the first time I planned a mix & match bit of sewing. A couple shirts and a couple pants for Finn. There's a couple more tops in the planning to go with this train mix.

Trims, Lace & Ribbon

I am very fortunate to have a friend who knows just where the holes are in my sewing collections! She was given a massive amount of trims, ribbons and lace from a gentleman who's wife had passed away. She skimmed off what she thought she could use, and passed the rest along to me. Finn & I spent a good part of our morning sorting and rolling, and this is what we ended up with.

I think this little yellow bit is my favourite, and there is just enough to trim a 25"square blanket. I'll tuck it away for the next time I need a baby boy gift.

Sewing.Sewing.Sewing. It's StashGame time (again)

On a forum I frequent, there are 2 Stash Games a year .... points given for yardage sewn, points lost for yardage bought. In September I was honoured to get the 9th place prize! I had just under 450pts. I had no idea I'd make it to the top-ten, I was just playing for fun.

My only goal this time is to get more points than last time! I've got lists & spreadsheets to keep track of it all. Here is what has been stitched up since Sunday at 12:01! (And, yes, I did stay up late to do that one overnight project, it's a fun way to kick things off).

Bamboo Velour yoga pants & a Cotton Velour v-neck for me.

Bike T-shirt for the boy.

Grey Jeans for the boy. Look at the great detail - love these and have another pair cut out in a tan corduroy.

Tops for the boy.

Top for me.

Top & cropped pants for me for camping - lightweight fast drying, no seams on top of the shoulder. Great for both paddling & portaging.

That was 4 days of sewing ... there were a few more odds & ends in there, a small bag, a bamboo terry hair wrap, but they are boring!

A Day in our Life!

Ok, it's ready. I must admit I had a more exciting day in mind when I took that first photo at 7:28am. We had big plans, tentative to head to an indoor playground, and firm plans to head up to the barn to see our horse in the afternoon.

The snow changed everything. The driveway was a bit snowy, the drive at the barn wouldn't have been possible for my car.

So we stayed home and did laundry. I also never realized what a major role food plays in our day until I was taking photos of it.

Enjoy our day, and if you've made a 'DITL' somewhere, leave me a comment, I'd love to see it! If you haven't ... what are you waiting for?

What we are reading today

I thought I'd try to share the books we are reading on Fridays.

(DITL is coming soon, maybe even later today, editing and organizing all those photos is taking longer than I'd thought!)

So, today, in the children's lit category - we are enjoying "Found You Little Wombat" by Angela McAllister. It's a sweet little story, with only a sentence or two on each page, a quick read within a toddler's attention span, and the illustrations are nicely done as well.

My own reading, I'm slowly working through "Exile" by Richard North Patterson. It's going slowly, as I don't get hours in a day to read like I used to! I'm only on page 42, and that's taken 3 nights to get to. Hopefully progress will speed up and I'll have a new book to list for next week!

Something new

Some other Canadian artisans & I have been working on a new project, and it's beginning to come together.

I'm also working on a DITL (day in the life) photo set for a contest on a forum I'm on. Expect to see some great (or very ordinary) photos tomorrow of what we've done today.

Sewing Shorts from old pants

Some shorts for the little guy, cut from the bottoms of pants that I can't/don't/won't wear anymore. It'll be a while (months yet!) before we're ready for shorts, but I wanted to get them off my 'to do' list. I left the existing hems intact and matched up the new topstitching as close as I could.

Laptop Sleeve for cj

My sister requested a protective cover for her laptop, and a little pouch to stash power cords and such. I took the measurements, and well, winged it. It worked out pretty well, though I had to use a slightly different sized laptop for the photos.

Today was a busy sewing afternoon, but I didn't get photos of the rest yet.

The rest of the Spotted Box

I did forget to mention yesterday, that one of the samples in my box was my own! The boxes are completely random, so this can happen. Keep an eye out at babyGO for it to be a FFS (free for shipping) give away!

13. Mini potholder sample from Jekuthiel's Handmade Gifts, it's very cute, and I think I'll put some string thru it and hang it on the Christmas tree next year.

14. Fuzzy crochet scrunchie from Crochet Frog which will come in handy as my hair is long(ish) again, and I'm alwasy running out of gadgets to keep it off my face!

15. Flannel wipe from Princess Julianne's Closet, a very cute print, I may save it for my sis & her new baby, or add it to our wipes basket.

16. Magnet from Flirtbuttons, I love the heart on it and may tuck it away to include with a Valentine's gift or put it on my file cabinet right away!

17. Handmade all purpose cleaner from Picnicbasket Crafts, I'm going to try this out this afternoon - there are bathrooms to clean today.

18. Apple Jack & Peel Laundry detergent from Jenny's Simply Clean, I love the sample size detergents, I like to take them when we travel as they are the perfect size and it's nice to have great smelling laundry away from home!

19. Heart hair clippie from The Little Love Bug, we'll share this with my son's best little girl friend for Valentine's day.

20. Ceramic Coaster from T and Little S Designs, which is on my desk just waiting for the next cup of tea.

21. Amaretto Soap from Breezy Bug Boutique, smells great!

22. 5$ Gift Certificate to Closet on Queen Creek

23. 5$ Gift Certificate to The Melting Pot

This was a great box! You can get your own on the 15th of every month on both Hyenacart & Etsy. Including the item of my own, and our 3 faves in yesterdays post, we received 26 items.

Two days in a row. Crazy.

So, my Spotted Box. I love the idea of the Spotted Box. It gets complicated for me as a vendor to contribute, as shipping from Canada is so expensive. Also, the first set of samples I sent, back in 2007, was lost in the postal system for a long time. Fortunately, they were insured, Canada Post paid out my claim, and a month later they did finally show up at their destination. As a vendor who contributes samples above a certain threshold, I received a box of my own. This one was the best yet that I have received. I was really pleased, and most of the items are useful for our family!

Go check out some of these great vendors ....

First up, yesterday I mentioned that the little guy had his own fave -

Play dough from Sewing Alley.

My two faves are:

This note card from DFMI Designs.

And, these earrings from Shine - great prices on Swarovski crystal jewelery.

Other samples included

1. Diaper Doubler from Creativitykes Very useful, as our son is still in diapers, and we use cloth.

2. Mini Wipe from 2by2 Boutique We use this size as 'kleenex' when our son has a cold.

3. Breathe Easy Massage or Bath Oil from Scent-sory Creations I'm hoping this is a more natural version of the Eucalyptus bath gel I've used in the past when I've got a cold.

4. Hair Clippie from Social Butterflies I was going to gift all the hair clips to little girls I know, but this one might make its way into my collection.

5. Bath Salts from Glory Be Herbals, these smell great, a patchouli/orange blend.

6. Seeds from fluffnflowers, I'll pass these on to a friend with a green thumb - I'll get to enjoy them that way - if I keep them, they'll die!

7. Sample Curriculum card from Earth*School I've got a couple of these tucked away already for when the little guy is a just a bit older, great ideas.

8. Peppermint Diaper Pail Freshener from Jenny's Simply Clean, this is always appreciated!

9. Button/Pin from Buttered Parsnips This is going to live on my bulletin board, right next to my Spotted Box pin.

10. Knitting Pattern from Megan McDermott I was kinda bummed to see this is free on her website. I was going to include it with yarn for a knitting friend's birthday gift.

11. Toddler Girl's bracelet from Tiffany's Trinkets This will be gifted to a little girly-girl we know.

12. Bow Clip from I Heart Bowheads This is going to be gifted as well, it's sweet, but we have no little girls in this house, and I think I'm too old to pull of a big bow!

There's about 10 more samples, but this is taking far longer than I'd anticipated! Those will be listed tomorrow :)