Dish towel aprons–I just couldn’t resist. My kids needed some art aprons, I needed something to keep dinner off my pants (even though my shirt is usually covered in baby snot), and Martha dish towels were on super clearance at K-mart, so the price was right. Aprons for all! (Well, 3 aprons and a bib.)

Amy has a monthly party at her blog dedicated to aprons

and this month’s assignment was so easy I had to join.

It has been a busy week. Well, it has seemed busy, I guess, but come to think of it, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to do. I just felt busy. I think because I was sick. I had a fever on Wednesday, felt yucky all day yesterday and had to go grocery shopping anyway, didn’t sleep a wink until about 4:00 this morning, and I’m trying to wean Logan–once a day would be good. That’s why I didn’t sleep last night. My teeth hurt, my nose was stuffy (so I had to breath with my mouth open which made the metal/ rubberband contraptions in my mouth that much more uncomfortable), my throat hurt, my ears ached, I had horrible menstrual cramps, AND I hadn’t nursed a baby since nap time early that afternoon and consequently couldn’t lay on either side or move my arms. Blissful? 800 mg of ibuprofen helped once I reached the point of desperation.

Funny things:

We had a “Girl’s Night Out” craft night at church last night–just bring something to do and sit and gab. I got home a little after ten and as I was heaping my load onto the counter I looked in Ellie’s food bowl right there under the counter. It was FULL of rabbit food. Was there a reason for this? I went and nudge Barry to ask about it and he just grunted. I was grinning so hard that I just broke out laughing. Silly, silly.

Barry did the obstacle course with his group yesterday for PT–you know, climbing walls, jumping logs, balance beams and ropes. Well, he was very proud of his monkey bar performance. I guess he was the only one to make it all the way across–and he even did a “skin the cat” to get off at the end. Now, you know who’s been practicing at the playground!

I’ve been working on my Back Tack II project. My buddy has expressed some interest in rug hooking, so I’m making her a bag of rug hooking goodies. I went to buy some wool fabric so that I could hook a little rug-patch to decorate the outside of her bag, but fabric is just way too expensive! I decided I’d buy some unwashed, undyed wool and give kool-aid dying it a try. After all, it works great on my handspun yarn and handmade felt.

And it worked great here too! I wanted a good pink to match some of the flowers on the lining of the bag (to be unveiled as soon as my little rug decoration is done), so a mix of strawberry, orange, and a little graped did the job beautifully! I also overdyed some green wool to give it a little more depth and it turned out great too.

Kool-aid is great for penny pinchers like me!

I learned something at the library today (amid the wielding of too many very heavy books and trying to heave them into the book drop before Logan did too much damage to the public copy machine–after which I strapped him into the stroller so that his path of distruction was only as far as his arms could reach, which is surprisingly far, but I digress).

September is:

which is nearly over, but hey, sewing is good– and it has a month. Who knew?

For more info check out www.sewing.org

We started school almost 3 weeks ago now. I subscribe to the “kids should not be taught like little adults” philosophy, but am trying to find a happy medium between total unschooling and playing sergeant mom. We start the morning with a song and a prayer, say the pledge of alegiance (mostly because Jonah thinks it is way cool), then check the calendar and the weather. I try to work in some phonics for Jonah and started 1st grade Saxon math with Brenna. Both of them love the math–we stack and count legos and color pictures and count on a 1-100 counting chart. Then Brenna reads and reads. She’s also been listening to books on CD. I had to take The Land of Oz back before it was due because we all had it memorized. She was listening 24/7. I’ve been trying to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book 5 in the Chronicles of Narnia) with her, but she gets impatient with my limited amount of reading time and reads ahead. Oh well. I’m certainly not going to complain about my 5 year old reading novels, but it is kind of sad that she doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not the only one with magic reading powers.

We’re also dabbling with history, hence the family tree. This has taken 3 weeks for her to make. I’m glad it’s done so we can be archeologists and dig in the sand box!

Here’s a close up:

Hillary and Amy are having a “cute-off” to inundate each other with cute (japanese) inspiration. They’ve been on a little hand carved stamp kick.

Now, this is cute:

The printmaker in me is itching to cut some stamps. I’ve got the carving tools and some speedball safety-cut, and now I want to find some fabric ink. I’ve got a project in mind…

UPDATE:
I drew little pictures and got all ready to make them into stamps, but I have no lino cutting tools. None. This printmaking major, the one who spent two years in the printmaking lab cutting things up to print them has no cutting tools in her newly reorganized art room. So back-tack buddy. This is a good idea after all!

These are super simple paperback journals. They look artsy and hip, but are so inexpensive that they don’t have that preciousness factor that makes you too scared to write in a journal for fear of messing it up. And they each have a matching black ball point pen! I’ve been carrying these around everywhere, taking notes on every book I read, and toting one in my purse for on the go sketching. The cover is folded so that there is a pocket inside the front and back, and it stays shut with a velcro flap. You can carry one everywhere too! $5.00

  

  

  

All my quilt books are posted for sale. I’m pretty excited about them. I love the texture of the soft crinkly quilt with stiff hand torn pages. I’ve always loved drawing on Barry’s engineering paper(it is my favorite color–green), so I added a few pages of it to each book for quilt or knitting pattern designing.

It seems like I’ve been working on photos all day. I had to get my camera manual out so that I could figure out what has been wrong with all my pictures. Everything has been turning out too dark. Now I know all about “exposure compensation.” I’m much happier with my pictures now

Little quilts made into books! Machine pieced and quilted from muslin and other cotton scraps over cotton batting for great texture. Heavy natural colored drawing paper for pages, with a piece of light green engineering paper here and there so that you can jot down ideas for knitting or quilting (or whatever else) designs. 5″x7″–big enough for sketching and journaling, small enough to fit into your bag and take anywhere. Held closed by natural elastic. $15.00

 

I’ve had the idea for “quilt books” rattling around in my head for months now. There’s nothing like a good deadline to make me productive. I cut and quilted and bound and tore pages late into the night last night, and after enlisting Barry’s help to stamp tags and do finishing touches, we were able to slip into bed around midnight.

I toted my new creations to the Wool Gathering today. It was fun. I sat by some alpacas and a funny old man named Harry who was wearing a three-cornered hat while spinning on a spinning wheel. I chatted with friends and peddled my wares and had a quiet day spinning (and not chasing kids!).

Monday I will be photographer extraodrinaire and post my leftovers. Quilted sketch books for sale! Everyone needs a quilted sketchbook!

So, I thought I’d give my back tack buddy some ideas of what I’d like to try.

The one thing I’ve really wanted to do, but haven’t gotten around to, is making a Waldorf doll. This book looks good and there are kits at Magic Cabin.

Crewel looks fun too.

I really like to embroider, and doing it with wool would be even better than cotton, if you ask me. Here’s a new book about it.

And, I have never learned to crochet. I do need to crochet a flower or two to try to salvage my eaten clogs

Scrapbooking is also something I should get to and I have a very, very meager supply of scrapbooky things. Maybe having some cool things would inspire me to get working.

Anyway, I hope the person I’m gifting will drop some hints, because if she doesn’t she’ll be getting a spinning kit!