fill in the blanks with me and you

My friend Shannon at luvinthemommyhood - one of the first blogs I ever discovered and have loved ever since - posted a fun crafty blog mad lib that I wanted to play along with. You switch out the bold lettered answers with your own. 

Here we go! 

* i'm longing to make "a quilt for my bed" right now.

* i want to try "making hooded sweaters" with some "superwash merino".

* i wish i could sew with "simpatico, double gauze japanese, Birch....I
 could go on..." fabric.

* i dream of making "a military inspired coat".

* i keep track of my ideas by "pinterest, randomly writing them places and then forgetting where".

* i'm inspired by "pinterest, blogs, walking outdoors and through Target".

* i would love to meet "U2" in person.

* my favorite fiber is "linen".

* i like to sew with "cotton that feels luxurious and drapes nicely".

* my favorite color is "It depends from moment to moment, and my mood. But I always love mustard yellow, teal, and gray.".

* i rock at "seam ripping".

* i would like to learn how to make "beer".

* i like to listen to "my spotify playlists" while i "sew".

* i bring my "kids" everywhere.

* my favorite thing to "sew" is "clothes for my kids".

* my favorite thing to "knit" are "cowls".

* my crafting space is "in my kitchen and a total disaster".

* if i had my own crafting room it would be "full of Ikea organization and thrifty finds, smell like incense, and have a place for my kids to hang out and stay out of my crap".

* i sew with "a pfaff".

* i like to "draw" "triangles and clouds".

* i can never get enough "chocolate stout".

* i adore "my husband and his dimple".

* i also enjoy "drinking my Friday wine with some Project Runway".

* i like to fill my shelves with "Fabric. And my Rogue beer bottle collection....".

* i create the best when i'm "not defending myself from attacks from the two wild beasts I gave birth to".

* i am currently excited for "Sarah Jane - out to sea".

* right now i am "staring at a Target sheet I bought to make dresses out of".

* i love to watch "my kids playing a room away from me" while creating.

* my guilty pleasure when it comes to creating is "making things for my kids because I think it would be cool (not necessarily because they will....Radiohead hat??)".

* my current favorite music crush to listen to while creating is "Yellow Ostrich".

lions and tigers and bears....oh my!

We took our little beasts on a trip to the National Zoo over the weekend. Something I couldn't fathom trying until the weather started to cool off here. There is no way I could have pulled this adventure off without Tim. Just driving through DC to get there was enough to get my fingernails digging into my knees, and my heart racing.

The girls were filled with wonder and excitement. After spending two weeks psyching them up for it by telling them about what they would see, I would have been surprised if they weren't bursting with enthusiasm about seeing "elephants and giraffes" (the latter, having been removed from the zoo, caused quite a bit of disappointment).

 

Those wild kids of mine did an admirable job on a much longer stay at the zoo than I expected us to have. I was pretty proud of them by the time we finally made it back to the car. Of course, Violet did make me carry her practically through the whole trip. And the times we actually got her to ride in the zoo supplied double stroller thingy, she had two crashing falls out of the thing, being driven over once by the stroller. 

 

"onward!"

 

The lions were pretty amazing. One of them got hungry for lunch when we were observing, and it roared very loudly several times before sitting down in front of a door to wait for food. Its roar resonated in a really rich way that's hard to describe. Like it took almost no effort to produce a sound that was both very loud, yet not piercing. Loud and soft.

 

this tortoise was seriously about as big as Violet.

I wonder how old it is. 

 

How we all felt on the way home. 

Tim and I earned our afternoon beer that day. We went last Friday, and it's taken me all this time just to get my photos uploaded, edited, and into the blog. I think I'm running behind on everything right now!

Princess Leia dressup

After obsessing at length about what dressup items to make for my kids, I finally made up my mind last month and went for it. Obviously this is close-ish to Halloween so they will make great costumes too, but I really wanted to make things that suited their personalities and that they would enjoy more than once. 

So my girly, princess and Star Wars loving little nerd girl got a princess Leia dress (buns might be coming later....knit/crochet hat with buns on the sides?). The dress is completely self drafted and designed. Kinda scary. Fabric is a nice organic jersey knit that I got for a great price.

She LOVES it. And I totally let her wear it in public.  

  

After staring at pictures of Leia in her dress, my two biggest conclusions were that it had no shoulder seams, and the hood was really just a rectangle of fabric that was attached at either side of the deep keyhole opening in the back.  Kinda cool. I made Clover's slightly shorter than the original just so she's not tripping on it all the time. And it's also a lot less drapey, mostly because I wanted it to be easy to play in. 

The dress was supposed to be fully lined, and I planned on cutting out two identical dress pieces to sew together, but I didn't know what I was doing when I cut this dress piece out and totally ruined the rest of the 2 yards of knit I had for the project. The dress was actually cut out in one continuous piece and the only seams are the ones that go from under the arm and down the sides. I folded my fabric in half from top to bottom and then selvage to selvage after that, so the top fold of the fabric ended up on top of the shoulders.....if that makes any sense. It was really stressful because I wasn't sure it was going to work, and having made my own pattern, even if I cut it out right I wasn't sure if it would be the right size and shape.

I'm sad it didn't work out to line it because then there would have been no hemlines and it would have looked really clean. Oh well! 

It's a slight a-line shape with flared, flowy sleeves, and a comfortably fitted high collar. It also used to have a cute wooden button on the back of the neck, but it cracked in half in the washing machine. Oops. 

The belt isn't officially done, but it's functional. It turned out "pointier" than I intended, but she still likes it. And she can mostly take it on and off on her own. Apparently it also doubles as a crown, because I saw her walking around with it on her head today. It's made out of a gauzy linen and silver vinyl. 

 

 

There were also some wild thing sightings out on our deck today, but that costume isn't really done yet.....we'll save that post for another day.....

But I gotta share the cute shots of my little Goggles.

 

morning rituals

I thought I would share a piece of our evolving morning ritual. Part of our new homeschool preschool experiment is something called "circle time", which is the opening activity of the day, and something that has been surprisingly fun to get into the habit of doing. There have been some hiccups with fighting and yelling and bad attitudes, plus Violet getting out control, but for the most part we are all enjoying it.

After breakfast and getting dressed, we go get our candle to light together on the window sill (the kids are totally enamored of the candle, and the smoke when we blow it out), and we say a little poem together. Then I lay out our circle time blankets in front of the bay window so we can sit down together and say a little prayer for our day. 

We say a few poems or sing songs together, trying to say a couple of the same ones all week long so the kids can get some memorization in, and then I have been reading the same story out of the Jesus Storybook Bible all week so the story can sink in. We will move on to the next story each week. Throughout all of that I usually have to police Violet because she likes to jump up and attack the candle. She has already lost some of her hair in the candle.....oopsies.

Gathering to light the candle in the morning sunshine is pretty special. Once circle time is over, we go to the candle together to say another little closing poem and blow it out together. After that I try to take them out to the deck for whatever morning lesson I've got planned.

Doing lessons with Clover is really an experiment at this point. I bought kindergarten curriculum, so I can't expect things to just work like the syllabus does. Gauging her interest level, and figuring out the right level of challenge to keep her interested but not frustrated is going to be a bit of a process. She is really enjoying the fairy tale focus in the Oak Meadow curriculum. You work from one fairy tale a week, and that story has a letter of the alphabet that you focus on from A-Z throughout the year. Our first story was Peter Rabbit, which Clover has loved hearing over and over. 

It's a race between the girls to see who can blow out the candle. Violet is a much more effective blower. Clover mostly blows down her chin

 

One of the afternoon activities I came up with this week, if you can even call it an "activity", is eating grapes with toothpicks for building dexterity....and passing time by slowing down the grape eating process to a slow crawl. lol

I finally got a belt *mostly* done for Clover's princess Leia dress, so I've got to get some photos shot of her little outfit. She loves wearing it....I think she needs a hat with some buns on it though. haha. Violet's Wild Thing wolf suit is in process right now. She is fired up over getting it done, and attacked me a few times while I was working on it. So very appropriate!