In The Blue House

Mother's Day

M.E.'s succulent terrarium for Grandma, originally uploaded by homebodylynn.

M.E. had a friend over Saturday and they made terrariums. M.'s was for her Grandmother. Bee told me he remembers his mom making them when he was a kid. She's great with plants. Any little plant we've ever given her flourishes under her care.  I, on the other hand, can't even keep a cactus alive. Those succulents must be have been relieved to be leave my house. Grandma also got her favorite candy, chocolate covered cherries. My mom got the same thing I got for her last year, a gift certificate for eBay. Over the years I've knit and fulled her a purse, embroidered her a felt checkbook cover, wet felted her a cell phone cozy, woven her a scarf and sent her flowers, but the present I think she's liked the most is the eBay gift certificate. I don't blame her. It's eBay.

Bee and I have decided we don't want gifts for Mother's and Father's Day anymore. We have Christmas and then Lee's birthday in February, M.'s in March, mine in April and Bee's in May (he's 45 tomorrow)! That's all the gifts we can handle. So for Mother's Day they made me breakfast and gave me a funny card and then Bee and the kids went off to church while I got the day to myself. After church M. would go to Grandma's and Lee  to practice with his band and Bee would come home so I figured I'd spend the day painting my desk, reading and generally putzing around the house and even have some nice time alone with Bee. What I didn't plan on was a migraine and poison ivy all down the left side of my face. It sucked. At least now I can say I've found migraines to be good for something- they make you forget how much your poison ivy rash itches.

In case you're interested, the best way I've found to stop the itching so far is to put very hot water on the rash. I get it as hot as I can stand it and keep it on until the itching stops. After that  I put on Caladryl  and I'm good to go for awhile. I found this site has a lot of good advice for poison ivy victims. I hope you never need it.

couple things

Bee gave me something new you might like to have too. I tend to collect images online and stick them in an inspiration folder- the same way I tear pages out of magazines and save them. I rarely remember where I got the images, which bugs me, and I'm terrible about organizing them. Makes it a pain to find them later. Mostly I'm just cluttering up my computer. Now I use evernote.  I just highlight the image, post, recipe or page I want to keep and them clip it to evernote. I have a notebooks for various categories and best of all, evernote lists where I got it all from! There's more you can do with it, but I am terrible about adapting to anything new and it will probably take me a year to figure out how to get the most out of it. It's still in beta and I couldn't get it to work in Mozilla, so I use it in ie right now. If anyone is interested, I have nine invitations left and would be happy to e-mail you one.

other things I'm enjoying right now:

thiscraft blog (I want to make one of these)
this lovely book
this DIY dollhouse
Jek's spring bed
rachel ries
this food blog

I love the chill night air

Tonight behind our house

The weird warmish weather this morning and afternoon caused a pressure change that made me migrainey. It wasn't a horrible headache, but it hurt and  I felt queasy and stupid. I've noticed the migraines bring depression and I don't think it's just because I'm in pain, because I'll feel that way even before the headache starts.  I think the tiredness and emotional crappyness are all part the migraine package for me. I hear some people become euphoric before headhaches. Wouldn't that be cool? Anyway, I was feeling like the world's worst mom because I was still hanging out in my jammies and moving real slow, but then I realized I still managed to:

+work on math with my son, the math hater
+Read and discuss his history assignment
+make lunch
+facilitate M. in painting her own version of Van Gogh's Starry Night
+play some Timez Attack and have a little math lesson with M.
+sew  big ugly patch on  the back of my boy's vest before he went to the punk show with Bee
+damp mop the kitchen floor

By this evening it had cooled down and the weather change made the pain lift and even better, I cheered up!  I cleaned the living room and fed my pets and took M.E. outside to make an entry for her moon journal. The guys came home from the show (Bee tired and Lee pumped-up) and now it's time to read M. a Franny K Stein story and go to bed. I'm looking forward to the cold weather tomorrow. Good night!

M.E.'s Starry Night

Hearts

M.E. and I worked on Valentines for co-op last night. I thought it was going to be simple paper cutting and a little glue, but she had other ideas. She saw these felt fortune cookies in Martha Stewart and had her heart set on making them for her friends. Even though it took a lot more time than I wanted and was a bit of a gluey mess, I'm glad we did it because she loved making them. We were able to use scraps we had from other projects, so they didn't cost a thing to make (which is my favorite kind of craft). We both loved how they turned out. I like how they look like fortune cookies, but also sort of like hearts too.

I used more scraps to make M. a Valentine pin to wear today.

Here's the great big mess we made while doing all this

and here's a Valentine for you!

Almost grown

Lee will be fifteen tomorrow. He's getting a laptop, which he  already knows about. This is a present for me too, because now I don't have to share my laptop with him anymore. No longer will my unsuspecting ears bleed when surprised by some horrible screaming music he's added to my iTunes. No more kid hopping around behind me asking when I'll be off so he can have a turn.  He can take his kabillion manga pics and put them on his own computer.  I am so happy for him that he will have his very own laptop!

I made a little something for him too. Lee loves a lot of the cute things Wee Wonderfuls makes. He saw her little felt insects when he was 13 and asked me to make him one. I promised I would if she ever sold the pattern. She does sell them at her site now, and I've been working on some butterflies for some little girls I know. Here's one:

Isn't she sweet? A little too sweet for my punk loving drummer boy. So I for him I made this guy:

I tried to give him a angry little manga face, but I think he just ended-up looking like Cartman from South Park.

And because, even though he's not a kid  anymore, I'm still his mama and will always see a little bit of that baby boy who captured my heart, I added a little something on the back:

I still make things

I've spun up a bunch of wool.

First I turned this lovely, one pound of hand painted wool from the Barefoot Spinner (no website)                                                                                                                                                      

into this pound of thick singles

I'm not sure what to make with it. That's a lot of yarn and as much as I love those fall leaf colors, I don't usually wear them.

Then I spun up this fun stuff Mom got for me at the Fall Fiber Fest of Virginia. I don't know what it's all made up of, but it looks like Muppet monster hair to me. It's from Pucker Brush Farm (no website)  and they call it "Party in a Bag"

I'd left it squashed in a bag since October and it got a little felted, so it wasn't nearly as fun to spin as it looked, but it sure was pretty soaking in our bathtub. Looked like some sort of exotic seaweed

Now I have another big pile of yarn, but this one I think I'll weave into a scarf for myself.  I like green.

Currently I'm working on this bright Muppet hair and I think it's my favorite.

It's so loud and happy  -it looks like Mardi Gras!

I'm also working on a little Wee Wonderfuls  hand sewing project for some girls who just became big sisters.

I borrowed that pink basket from M.  so I could take a tidier picture of my handwork. I wish I was neat enough to work like that- all my supplies in one convenient basket, ready to pick-up and take around the room with me. This is what my workspace really looked like:

M.'s been sick all week (strep and a bad cold). By Friday I had her cold followed by a nasty migraine all day Saturday, so now our whole house looks pretty much like that.

 

Poor M., who thrives on socializing, has been miserable and bored, bored, bored. When she wasn't coughing or on forced rest, she tried to keep busy.

She made herself a top

as well as some underwear out of a large freezer bag. "They're special because when you sweat in them, they hold all your sweat and keep you cool!"  She was so proud of her sweaty drawers! She modeled them for me, but  I refrained from snapping any photos of her plastic clad heiner. She also booby trapped the couch, hallway and various entry ways with tape and a never ending skein of bright pink, acrylic yarn. She could have done that for days, but it got old for the rest of us pretty fast.

We used her alluvial plain biome experiment as a setting for pictures with Lee's new Mouse Guard figures

And on one especially cold day, M. entertained herself by taking pictures of our pups trying to stay warm.

Alley bundled up on the couch

Petey nesting in a chair

Petey sure is lucky he's so cute, because he has the personality of a gross old drunk guy at a bar who won't leave you alone and doesn't notice your disgust when he breathes his horrifyingly stinky breath in your face and then, when he gets kicked-out of the place, his pickled brain decides the only appropriate response is to pee on the front door. Plus, that dog likes to get right next to people and then fart a lot. But so cute! Lookit him all warm and cozy up there!

What M. and I did on Christmas Day

I gave M. a sewing kit and some fabric for Christmas. She's really been enjoying it.  I'm not so sure Petey feels the same way.

Can You Spot the Sandwich Thief in this Picture?

This is the Big Spring Cleaning Weekend which is necessitated by the Big Termite Inspection later this week. We figure the inspector will need to be able to actually get through all the rooms to inspect them, and that isn't possible with in my son's room or my bedroom. My bedroom is really mostly my husband's office, and since both my son and my husband have a super power that enables them to create catastrophic chaos without even trying or even noticing they're doing it, those two rooms are pretty horrifying. I generally avoid them. I know this makes me sound like a terrible homemaker and that's because I am a terrible homemaker. I'd rather pretend they don't exist than constantly clean them and have a tidy house. Used to be I'd go in there and clean until I found their floors and the guys would promise they'd never, ever let them get like that again and swear they'd clean a little every night to keep the mess under control and then a couple weeks later I'd walk in and want to cry at the mess. At which point I'd yell at them, which never changed anything but made me feel like crap. So now I avoid those rooms as much as possible and yell a lot less- unless a termite inspector is coming for a visit. I've promised myself I won't yell, but I don't know if I can stick to it. Tonight my little dog Pete snuck upstairs and came back down with an old sandwich in his mouth! He's scavenging food from my son's room! What is that boy doing in there?! Doesn't he clean up anything? All that stuff about respecting your teen's space and privacy goes right out the window when you find out there are old sandwiches molding in his room. I'm going in there with lots of garbage bags tomorrow.  If ya'll don't hear from me again- send help!

Birthday Gal

M.E. had a lovely birthday. I took that picture on our way to go out for her birthday dinner. Big brother gave her the kitty ears.

I stayed up late the night before finishing her Knitted Babe. I had fun making her clothes and accessories and I was pleased with myself for only using materials I could find around the house, but I can't say she's my idea of a really cute doll. I know lots of people love the Knitted Babes, but I think they kind of look like aliens. M.E. thinks their spaghetti like arms and legs are creepy, so I made my doll's a little larger and lightly stuffed them. But M.E. liked her present and has played with her right along with the two adorable Groovy Girls Grandma gave her, so I consider my first doll a success. She's been looking through the Knitted Babes book and is excited about making more clothes and accessories for Bunny Sunner  (M.E. picked the name).                                                                                                                                                                                           

Here's a close up of her face. She looks awfully snooty for a girl named Bunny.

I'm having camera problems and I really wish I had a working camera to take a pic of M.E. in the apron Kelly made for her. It's perfect! My mom was here this past weekend and she looved it! Said it reminded her of an old table cloth of my grandma's. It was my favorite present for M.E. I'm going to see if I can borrow a camera to take a photo to post later this week. An apron that adorable deserves to be seen on the internets.

M.E. had a special dinner out on her birthday and a kid party at a play place this past Sunday. I'm exhausted! Next year I'm pushing for small and quiet celebrations.

Still here

I haven't posted in so long. M.E.'s cold turned out to be a respiratory flu that lasts forever. I came down with it Valentine's Day  and then it got Lee and Bee. As of today, M.E. seems finally over it, Lee still has a cough and I still have a touch of pink-eye (this plague came with fever, congestion, cough, sore throat, pink eye an mouth sores- I'm not making that up!). I'm tired all the time too. I'm looking forward to a healthy spring.

Speaking of spring, my spring-time baby is turning six on Thursday. Six! She's grown in to such a lovely big kid. I keep thinking I'll miss the little one she was, but I like the person she's become. So funny and friendly and neat with a needle. I like to craft, but I seem to be unable to be tidy about it or to follow a straight line. That's why I gravitate towards the more forgiving textiles like wool. That's also why I asked my friend Kelly (of Modern June) to make an apron for M.E.'s birthday. I kept thinking something as simple as an apron I could make myself, but the thing is, I wanted it to look good - and Kelly's aprons not only look good, they're well made. Bee and I are former restaurant people. Bee especially. He bartended  for years. When M.E. helps him cook they play restaurant. M.'s usually the sous chef or a waitress. Since Bee works from home, she loves to make his lunch and pretend to be his waitress.  I asked Kelly if she would make a special apron for M.E. She's posted a picture of it on her blog. It's the cute little cherry patterned one on the bottom of the page. M.E.'s going to love it! Kelly made sure to include nice big pockets for M.'s ordering pad and any other assorted waitress items (napkin, silverware, etc) she might need to carry.

I did plan on making something for M.E. too. I was going to finish a play quilt I started a long time ago (I won't say how long. It's too embarrassing) but the plague knocked me way off schedule. So instead I'm finishing up a doll I started to make for M.E. last summer. She's from this book  and you can see my WIP at the top of the page.

I leave you with Cotswald curls:

If I had the time before Thursday, I was going to needle felt a little something for M. too. I don't think I will now. Being sick forever has put me so far behind.   Still, I plan to have lots of fun with all those pretty colors.