Staying Local

This order is for a local customer (I love getting to meet my local customers!) this is her 3rd (4th?) order. Anyway, I just love to work with her. She just gives me the sizes she wants and a direction. This time it was floral and nature prints, and here they are. A single pocket travel size wetbag and eight 8.5" pads in both flannel and cotton prints.

oh, I love seeing some pretty pads all lined up, I just love the last print with the deer, it's from the 'Pet Deer' collection. I'm almost out of it but I would love to make a little pinafore dress for the littlest one from this print. I suppose I'll have to order more someday.

A bit more sewing (& building!)

Here's a skirt I made for the girl of the house. It's denim, it's stretchy, versatile, dark, comfy...I love it! I think it will fit for a long time too so it's perfect! I bought a meter of stretch denim several weeks ago to sew up a pair of cloth friendly jeans for the baby and I had enough for the skirt too, the fabric was about $8 so I guess that's pretty good value especially since she'll wear them again and again. She wore the jeans in a mud puddle yesterday and they washed up perfectly-love!

Here's a sneak peek at some wetbags I'll be listing at my Etsy shop on Thursday.

Lego is the toy of the moment around here, I hope it keeps up. I much prefer playing with Lego than army guys, I find myself joining in with the Lego play :)

mmmm, jelly

My ex-husband brought me some chardonnay grapes to make some jam. He brought *a lot* of grapes from his vineyard, so many that I shared some of them with my sister and fed some to the chickens. There was just no way I could have processed them all fast enough. I'm calling this a hybrid jelly, it's not a true jelly since I pureed some of the skins and added them back to the mix to avoid too much waste. It's really good though, it reminds me a bit of apple jelly. I won't lie to you, I'm glad the canning season is coming to an end. All I have left to do is some pickled beets and maybe another batch of relish.

This is a custom order of nursing pads, it felt good to get back to my machine and accomplish something. I have a bunch of wetbags to work on this week and another custom order to finish up. I'm also thinking about holiday sewing, mostly how much of it I'd like to do. I should come back to post my holiday craft list soon, the weeks are flying by!
What crafty things are dreaming up for the holidays?

Being Home

I've spent the last few days stuck at home, my partner was away on a business trip and my tire was flat. So, a flat tire right? It's not a big deal it's just I have to wait a bit for my partner to fix it, tomorrow I'll be able to use our second car (thank goodness we have two cars!). Being home though has made me realize that often my outings are an escape, sometimes I get out of bed in the morning walk out to our open concept living area and I'm overwhelmed, sometimes consumed by the clutter. The clutter I'm sure I just cleaned up the day before. Being stuck here has made me realize that I need to purge and re-organize. There's been lots of that happening already and I'm thinking the next step is to get my family to help out with this-they'll be rewarded with a much happier mama/partner.

I took this picture of the little one this morning, she loves some outside time and I'm trying to make sure she gets more of it....I'm trying to make sure she gets more of my time. I'm feeling very needed by her right now. This morning I made a big batch of apple sauce, (it's so yummy!) I gave some to Rowan as a treat after lunch mixed with some homemade yogurt, she thought it made better finger paint than food. Hopefully her brothers will help her understand the yumminess of applesauce after dinner tonight.

I've been busy sewing some fall clothes for Rowan, my shop hasn't been updated in a while. I have been keeping up with custom orders though. I have some shop sewing goals for the week, but I think I'll be a little behind with my schedule due to the flat tire and some juggling. I'm trying to find a better balance. When I sit at my sewing machine my toddler lets out a screech, so I'm taking that as a sign to slow down, at least for now.

phew!

I'm very happy to be back saying we're getting back into our routines, including nursing! yeah!!! Here's a little pick me up I made for myself. It's topped with swirl dyed bamboo velour, isn't the dye job fabulous, it's done by The Indigo Onion. I just backed this with some matching flannel since I don't need much protection right now.

The rest of today is about laundry, paper work, cleaning, a walk, and starting to pull the garden out.

good grief, what a week

good grief, I've taken to saying this lately-a lot and often. This week was no different, the littlest has been sick all week, miserably sick. Lots of tear, lots of tantrums, night waking and not even wanting to nurse unless she's sleeping. Our usual nursing to sleep routine has been blown away, I'm not sure if it's the bug she's got or if she's maybe starting to wean-this thought make me so, so, sad. She's 18 months-oh, I hope it's not weaning...

The older kids have gotten off to school fairly well, one week into school though and I have to say how much I admire those of you who home school, truly I do. I'm not sure exactly what it is that scares me about homeschooling, I think it's just that a fear, a lack of confidence too I'm sure. The same way I used to be afraid of driving and thought I wasn't smart enough to drive and got my license at 27.5 years old (how silly is that!?) I don't know that homeschooling would even work with our blended family but I see the value in homeschooling.

I'm hoping the little one is over the worst of her symptoms, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Errands, and sewing, cleaning and organizing.

the beach

We went to a little beach this morning, we had it all to ourselves. We dug in the mucky sand, watched minnows, played with rocks and seed pods. I had time to think, the kids were peaceful. They're won't be many more beach trips left with school starting Tuesday and some sharp temperature decreases coming this weekend. The kids peaceful play gave me some time to think, some things I've been thinking about...

~how to go even greener and be more self sufficient. Raw milk, a pressure cooker, sheep, goats?
~the disarray of of our house which is going to get worse for a while as our wood stove is installed, how can we use this space better?
~grief and how we each experience it
~school starts in just a few days, the summer has flown by

What's been on your mind?