Category: Uncategorized

When you have four children, and lots of wonderful teachers, finding Christmas presents can be something of an ordeal, especially when you wait for the last minute.  This year, I decided to try and make them all.  To get an early headstart, I've been doing some collaging while waiting at ballet rehearsals  I decided to do little mini-Christmas themed collages and solder the edges to make ornaments.

The collages have been lots of fun.  The soldering was interesting.  I hadn't soldered in months when I did the first two a couple of weeks ago.  This is the front and back of the first one.

And then, this one.

Fortunately, after soldering about a dozen more, it seemed like the solder was less lumpy and I was back in the groove.  I ended up with a nice little stack of vintage santa ornaments.

Even the bad cats liked them.

It's still too way early, but I'm in the mood for the holidays now.

Today is not a typical day in our house.  It is Veterans' Day, which means everyone is home from school and work.

I got up early to photograph some yarn.  I wanted to get it up on my website before we went off to play with the kids today.  (And, it's now previewing here and will be available for sale on Thursday).

While I was taking pictures, I glanced off the porch and noticed that towards the back of the tangled cottage garden that is our frontyard, hidden beneath some foliage but now becoming visible as the summer flowers are dying back, we had…..

sweet little pear-shaped cherry tomatoes.

My wonderful friend Eva gave me a vine of them at the beginning of the summer two years ago.  Somehow, a little volunteer must have sprung up late this summer.  It was full of beautiful, ripe tomatoes.

I called the kids, who were only too happy to help pick them off the vine and pop them into their greedy little mouths.

They were absolutely delicious.  A really wonderful, early morning surprise.

We sat outside on the porch after we ate them.  The bricks were cold.  It was so cold Ollie went back inside for shoes.  We treasure cool, crisp fall weather in Alabama.  It felt wonderful.

And, sitting out there, in the quiet of the morning, we discovered another surprise.

It was beautiful.  I had first noticed the fall foliage the day after the election.  Our neighborhood was suddenly orange and red and gold and yellow.  It was spectacular against a clear blue sky — so blue you felt like you were looking through it into something beyond.

Today, we are out in full color.

I wish you a day full of surprises too!  (and, I promise to get caught up on art and knitting posts, later on this week).

We had a house full of wee ghouls for Halloween and lots of fun.  Although the boys were content spending a happy forty-five minutes walking up and down our street, collecting candy, before they came back to the house to count and share; the girls took their dads all over the neighborhood for hours.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of their pained faces when they made it home!

Here are my own two — a ninja and a dark angel.

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

My sweet friend Hayes, a consumate knitter and sewer, and the person who got me interested in dyeing yarn and helped me regain my childhood knitting skills, just had a new baby.  He's sweet, like all of her children, and irresistibly beautiful.  He looks far prettier than most of my babies looked when they were "brand new" and I've been eyeing these pictures over and over again.

Here he is, all dressed up in an outfit Hayes knit from some of my yarn.

Isn't he just the cutest baby, with the most wonderful expression on his face?  If there is anything more wonderful that a brand new baby, I'm not sure I know what it is — although I have to confess, the bigger kids are pretty awesome too.

We had a debacle this week.

I came home from Ellie's Ballet rehearsal Monday night, went downstairs to do laundry, and noticed that there were water and soap bubbles gushing out from underneath my studio door.

OMG!

The Judge and I stood and surveyed in horror.  Sinks overflowing, soap everywhere.  It was a disaster.

I pulled my first all-nighter since my early years as a young lawyer in a big Washington D.C. law firm.  I'm here to tell you I am now officially too old for that kind of thing!

The carnage was major.  The water had seeped through all of the drawers on either side of the sink and their contents were a total loss.  The carpet in the storage closet was (and still is!) soaking wet.  Everything on the floor was a ruin.  (Thank goodness all of my yarn is stored in built in wooden cubbies, so it was off the floor.

The floor of the studio itself is tile, so it is intact, but again, the water did a lot of damage.

"Ollie" the Judge asked the five year old, "do you know anything about what's going on downstairs?"

"I'm not the one who couldn't turn off the water," was the answer of the guilty party.

So are you wondering why this is a "Thank You" post?  Herein lies the thank you.

This

and this

My studio had gotten so cluttered over time that I could barely walk around in it.  Now, it's all clean.  Some of it is even reorganized!  And, I've filled up several large boxes of supplies I wasn't using to share with some local schools and even Ebay a bit for some extra Christmas money.

So thank you Sweetheart, my darling Ollie who just wanted to know what would happened if he filled up the double sinks with soap and water.  If Ellie is my muse, Ollie is my make it happen guy.  He always tells me, "Mama, if you can think it, I can build it."  And in this case, he really did.  I've been wanting to get the studio under control and create some space for myself for several months.  Ollie made it a reality overnight.  Thank you, Sweetheart.

This is the start of my second square for the Barn Raiser knit quilt. This is my own Juliet sock yarn in the Nadia colorway (if you like it, there is a bit left for sale in the batch I did for www.knitwitch.com ).

I think I’ve decided to do most if not all of the quilt in my own yarn. It’s a lot of fun to see how the yarn knits up in this most unintended use!

I've finally figured out the application that lets me blog directly from my IPhone. How cool is that?
Ollie & I are at Ellie's ballet rehearsal, and I can take pictures and post them while I'm sitting here.
While this is very cool, I'm not sure if I like it quite as much as the application the guys I work with put on for me yesterday: they gave me something that turns my phone into a light saber, complete with sound effects. I'm obviously easily amused, but this is lots of fun.