Stitch Rabbit

A Photo Tour of A Day Alone.

A day to myself. The kids and Gabriel were eating pancakes before I even opened my eyes. They were dressed and out the door before I had sipped my first coffee. Suddenly, the parade had left...and it was quiet. I peeked into the sewing room, hummed and hawed over the state of the floors and poked around the house a bit, but it was the weeds that were on my mind.

I pulled on my favorite jeans, the ones covered in earth and paint and God knows what. I grabbed my hat and my gloves and went outside. With the sun on my back I got to it. The peace in digging and pulling and hauling. I spent the entire day head down in the flowers and veggies. Here is the day through my lens.

A first thing in the morning ritual, looking to the ocean skies and if they are not grey or black and threatening rain, I hang the laundry on the line. I do this most mornings, and think of my mother and her mother and her mother almost every time.

 

Second morning ritual, which somehow takes second over laundry hanging. Coffee. Our machine is a Pavoni, a lever press and the love of my life. Next to my family.

 

Third morning ritual, after coffee. Inspect the garden with coffee in hand. I think I get this from my mom, who I remember doing this too. Inspecting garden beds while drinking coffee. Look for anything new, check up on the growing, and tsk tsk anything getting eaten or sending an SOS... put it on your list.

 

 

Get to it girl. You got time to yourself.

 

 

 

 

Okay, coffee break...

 

 

 

 

You didn't really think I'd spent my entire day alone working did you? A girl's gotta have some downtime.

Just me.

 

 

Late Into The Night...

Late night sewing.

Late into the night, under the lights. The hum of the machine and the humming of that song. I'm done for now. I've had a lot on my mind, and I needed a night to myself like this one.

 

 

I picked up this Oliver + S pattern at Spool of Thread the other day. I've been eyeing the ice cream social dress for Frankie for a while now and I'm glad I picked it up. The pattern is very readable, the instructions very easy and I like that they include tips and hints throughout the pattern for better finishing.

Check out their website for the rest of their great little collection.

I'm tired now, and happy.

Easy in the Summertime

There hasn't been a lot of indoor time now that the sun is shining. I love that my kids are at the age where they can fling open the back door first thing in the morning, and don't come back in till dinner time. Being outdoors makes for happy, tired sun-kissed kids and for happy, tired sun-kissed moms as well.

 

 

I will be back on the Pfaff this weekend though. I've got birthday gifts and wedding attire to get to...

Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

 

 

Linen Dresses from Cotton Friend

If you remember, awhile ago I stumbled upon and blogged about a few sewing magazines called Cotton Friend. It's a Japanese magazine, and the ones I found were published in Chinese. At the time I was thrilled, and confident that I would be able to decipher the instructions, cut the patterns and whip up some hot Japanese frocks.

Well, it didn't exactly go that way. Reading Japanese patterns written in Chinese is a lot harder than I thought. I currently have three of these coveted smocks and dressses cut, pinned, and unsure of how to construct.

So while spending a few days clearing out my sewing space, which had become disastrous, I came across the dresses and got working on the girl's dress. Winging it, it turned out like this:

 

There were some sizing mistakes in the complicated straps, so I hacked them off and made some simple straps instead. It messed with the drape of the dress, so a few added gathers and it looked fine. Now I have a better idea of what mistakes I made with the language barriers, and I think I just might get the two garden smocks for Mommy done, just in time for the end of the garden season.

 

 

The Bed Leaving Milestone Deserves a Quilt.

I found these amazing twin teak beds online awhile ago, the woman selling them slept in them as a child, and then her children did, and then it was time to give them away - and I managed to snag them! The are amazing, European style with sliding drawers on the side, perfect beds for my two kids.

The beautiful teak beds are sitting patiently in our basement for the summer, until we are ready to move my studio down there and turn our second bedroom into a room for the kids. We've always wanted our kids to share a room, and it's coming up fast. Frankie's in her bed (most) nights and Char Char is sleeping through the night, waking up on his own and practically making us cappuccinos in the morning. Very independent little man. So I guess it's the time. I can't hardly believe it. We've had kids in our bed for five years, and we've loved it. I can't believe they are leaving the bed, the room, all the way down the hall... I better wipe my tears. I better get a head start on some bedding.

Here's what I've been working on this week. Nice and easy, a strip quilt for the boy. If you've never quilted before this is the easiest one to do. I'm talkin' sew some strips together, sandwich, quilt and bind.

 

I think he's gonna be really happy snuggling up in his new quilt.

And I think he'll be ecstatic to be sharing a room with his very big and very cool older sister.

 

Tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is meditation and prayer to me. I am thankful for these nights.

 

Reasons Why There is Happiness Here.

I spent my weekend mornings like this.

 

My garden is growing. Slowly, finally. While I can't seem to convince a cucumber or squash plant to make more than a few inches of an appearance, my tomatoes and peppers are thriving.

 

There is sewing in my sails again. In the form of summer nighties for little girls.

 

I hooked my brother and sister-in-law into Friday Night Lights. Now I finally have someone to discuss what's been going down in Dillon with.

I made a big mistake in my knitting and had to rip it almost to the beginning. What made me happy is that it was only one panel and not the entire sweater.

I am caught up on laundry. For today.

 

This is gonna be a good week. I know it.

 

 

 

We Need A Game Plan

As any Canadian would know, it's Playoff time right now. I say this while rolling my eyes, which makes it hard to type. I am not a hockey fan. We are not a hockey family - or so I thought. It's hard not to pick up on the excitement of the final series when your city is in it to win it. The seas of blue and white jerseys, the flags flying from most cars on the road, the hockey shrines in windows and yards.

So me and the kids tuned in. Hilarious. Frankie had all kinds of questions like "Who are the white guys? Who are the yellow guys?" and "Why are they hitting each other into the walls?" or my personal favorite "They fall down more than I do when I go skating!" She also had some really observant questions like "How come they're starting in the circle instead of at that blue line this time?" and "How come that guy is sitting by himself?" (penalty box) I surprisingly had all the answers, which I give credit to the hours and hours of my childhood spent being dragged to watching my brother play hockey. I was really surprised at how interested Frankie was in it, and not just the fact that the ever-desirable glowing screen was on.

Where is this all going? Okay. It's been pretty crazy around here lately. It's summer, which is the busy season for Gabe, which in turn makes it the busy season for me. He is currently working 70 days in a row. IN A ROW. And that takes some adjusting. It hasn't been easy around here, between the kids and I. They miss their dad, I'm busier than usual with chores and errands, and it's been tense and picking up steam. So, in the spirit of the hockey game, and in Frankie's new-found interest for the Canucks, we went to work on our family yesterday. We made a game plan.

Frankie named us "The Fixers" which I love. We spent some time writing down descriptive words about our team, and what we are.

Then we wrote down ideas of how we can help each other to make the team happy and efficient.

Frankie took it really seriously, and had a lot of great ideas. We decorated with butterfly and heart stickers and pinned it to the wall above our kitchen table.

In the excitement of our new way of thinking, and in how well it was received, I thought of some other ideas and jotted them down myself.

It didn't fly. But it was very therapeutic.

 

Good luck tonight, to the Vancouver Canucks and all the dedicated fans. I hope you get a win, after those two devastating losses. If they would heed my advice, I say they should get together in the dressing room tonight and write out some team goals and ways they can help each other on some colorful poster board, like we did. Hey - it's working for us.

 

 

Hitting The Creative Wall

This is what it has looked like in my sewing room for about two weeks.

Oh, how I loathe the creative funk. The writer's block, the wall. It happens usually when I have about thirty or so projects in my head, and not enough hands or hours in the day to make what I desire. So I spin in circles. Pace the house at night. Water the garden. Drink glasses of wine. Water the garden more.

It has been nearly two weeks since I have made anything, and it wasn't until last night that I felt the gears turning again. Maybe it's been the sun and the long days that have kept me outside and away from the sewing room, maybe I've been mourning the loss of Friday Night Lights and Matt and Tim and Coach. Maybe I just needed a mental break.

But little by little, I sorted through the scrap basket that had thrown up all over the floor, found some pieces I liked together and started cutting.

I'm not really sure what I'm making, besides tiny triangles that I'm sewing together, but it's not the finished product I'm looking for here, it's the act of cutting and sewing that is peeling me off the creative wall I crashed into. The steady hum of the machine, the sound of This American Life, my ever-present companion to late night sewing, the smell of the steam from my iron. The look of my hands while they work, the sureness in each cut. Efficiently happy, finally back.

 

Exploring The Great Outdoors and A Lesson on the Value of Life

Hiya - been awhile. I'm sure you've missed me posting pictures of my knitting and my sewing, but we've been busy exploring the great wilderness - and experiencing death-defying acts of super danger. I threw together a suitcase of clothes earlier this week and whipped the kids up to Whistler. The hubby's been up there on a photo shoot job, staying in a lavish hotel, and taking snowmobiles up snowy mountains, so I thought we better go up and get some of that fun.

I lived in Whistler for a brief period of my young life and have visited a handful of times since, and I have to say, it's not how I remember. Mostly because I don't really remember living in Whistler. I was twenty. Now I'm (almost) thirty and with a coupla kids, I find myself spending less time doing the wild and crazy and more time doing the knitty and sewy, mixed with some gardening. So spending time in Whislter, surrounded by young people who throw themselves off of cliffs of snow or dirt, on boards or bikes was, well - refreshing.

Which brings us to the death-defying part. As a young person I've spent a lot of time on mountains, at high elevations and on chair lifts and gondolas. So I knew I wanted to take the kids up the Whistler Gondola, to give them an idea of the vast mountain range, a peek at the tiny village behind us, and the actual size of the world around us. Show them the freedom that supernatural British Columbia can give you, a look into what life can be if you take it. Poetic right?

But why didn't I stop there?

The ride was great - not too high, not too fast. We saw black bears and mountain bikers, deer and at higher elevations, lots of snow. We got to the top, hung out, saw Daddy and the crew. It should have been enough. We should have just gone down.

But there's this new gondola.... I'm sure many of you have heard of it, it's very impressive. The Peak to Peak Gondola, in Whistler, BC. I'd never been on it, and it was right there...so, we got on. Just me and my two kids. Let me give you an idea of what this gondola is all about. It's written right there in the cabin, for all to enjoy and understand:

Translation: It's really freaking far in between these two mountains, and we're about to take you there, across a giant canyon.

 

Translation: Every 49 seconds some new sucker is going to get on this thing and we're going to take them across a giant canyon, really fast.

 

Translation: This is really f*cking high. I can't believe you brought your kids on this thing.

 

I don't know why, because I knew that the Peak to Peak gondola would do essentially that - take you from peak to peak - but I just didn't comprehend the height. I didn't study the brochure close enough. And truthfully, I'm not much of a heights kind of gal and I don't like airplanes so why I mixed the two together into "Mommy's Zany Wild Ride Across the Canyon" I don't really know. But here we were, in the cabin of a Whistler Peak to Peak Gondola, just the three of us.... and off we go.

 

At first, it was really really great. Stunning actually.

The kids were into it, and I was doing my best to completely ignore what was coming next.

The edge of the cliff.

The forest floor just starts to drop down underneath us and I realize that we are not following anymore - we are travelling across the canyon and we just keep getting higher and higher.

 

There are a lot of things that run through your mind right before you die. I'm not going to tell you what was running through mine, but I will tell you this. All three of us immediately sat back on the bench in the middle of the cabin, the one meant for people like us. This way we couldn't see the valley floor. Only sky. I then slouched down in the seat, grasping onto my children's rain jackets and preceded to happily talk about how the cables were "so big and strong, look there's THREE of them!" and "Gee, aren't we lucky we're travelling in the CLOUDS?" I did absolutely everything in my power not to lose my cool and completely destroy my children's ability to climb anything higher than our porch stairs. The only other thing I was able to do was occasionally hold my camera up in the air and blindly shoot photos of what was assumed to be the only way we would truly experience the Peak to Peak, once we were safely at home and downloading them onto the computer. If we made it.

Pretty, right?

Now we made it across to Blackcomb Mountain from Whistler but guess what? You have to go back!! Ha!

This time though, I manned up, perhaps due to the adrenaline rushing through my blood. I felt that I could do anything - I was laughing in the face of danger. So I boldly got to my feet -  and then immediately dropped down to my knees, and crawled across the cabin floor towards the bench at the front. If there was a camera installed, somebody would've You Tubed that stuff. My children stared at me from the bench in the middle, and I smiled weakly back at them, pretending all the while that it was completely normal for Mommy to be crawling around on the floor, five million feet above the ground, looking like she was going to barf. They got down and crawled to the front as well. White-knuckled, we peered over the padded bench.

The blue machine to the left is a giant crane. It was about this time that I started practicing deep breathing and made my peace with the world. On my knees, I prayed to the mountain gods that my children would live to get off them. I didn't stop praying until we were coming into the bay back on the peak of Whistler Mountain. I didn't get off my knees until I figured somebody would see me.

*   *   *

Prying my arms from around my two beautiful little babies, I strapped Charlie back into the stroller and held Frankie's hand in mine. I smiled at the liftee attendant as the doors swung open and we stepped out onto the sturdy concrete platform. I don't know how easy it was to tell that my legs were shaking, but I knew I looked a wreck. White in the face and sweating, we strode through the bay and back into the world on land. Sweet, solid land.

 

So Whistler was fun, and the Peak to Peak was.... hands down the most frightening thing I have ever done. I think when you have kids, you begin to understand how fragile and beautiful life really is. You basically turn into a sucker, and what is thrilling to one is Mommy's worst nightmare. Would I do it again?

I think I'm going to sit here and knit on that one a while.