pool time anytime

It's been hot here the last couple of days, as it has been all along the east coast.  Well, it's been what people around here consider "hot" - over 90 degrees.  But since I used to live in Oklahoma and Texas, where we regularly wore short sleeves all year long and it topped 90 degrees at Thanksgiving, we're not losing it over the heat.  But because no one here is used to it, the public pool has become a veritable crowd control issue, and I'm not thinking that it's relief from the heat if I'm trying to swim in my 2 square inches of personal space in the shallow area of the pool.

So, our neighbors put out their blow up pool and Britton saw it.  Which of course means that she wanted to get in ours.  Since we had failed to hide the pool well, she knew we had it and had every intention of getting into it, cold hose water be damned.  While the hubs blew up the pool and filled it, I got myself and Barrett ready to join them.  But the water really was ridiculously cold, so Barrett hung out with the hubs while I froze, standing in 8 inches of water.

The driveway pool is the newest thing, didn't you know?

Britton loved every minute of it!  She especially loved pretending to be her swimming teacher, and instructing me to "scoop the water!" and "put your arms out like Superman!"

I convinced her to get out so I could hold the baby and the hubs could get dinner done.  And I've promised to take her to the public pool tomorrow so she can actually swim (with a life jacket).  But it doesn't open until 11:30 am, so you know she's going to spy that pool still in the driveway and want back in.  I just hope it's warmed up by then!

scrappy summer quilt

I was checking out my favorite quilting blogs and ran across this one here - Cluck Cluck Sew's Scrappy Summer quilt.  The colors, the simple four square blocks of white and solid, and the chance to use my scraps all made me want to make this quilt.  So I got down to business, cutting out squares and squares and squares of my fabric stash.  This quilt has squares of the first and second quilts I ever made, every dress I've ever made Britton, every quilt I've made Britton, and some fabrics I had no idea I even had!  It's a virtual "Where's Waldo?" of past projects.

And for the first time, I have pictures of the progress!  I don't know why I don't photograph the process, but I think it comes down to two reasons: one, I take photos to document the quilts and I know how I made them, and two, I don't have a quilt blog so it's not like I'm trying to teach people how to quilt through photos.  But I wanted to show Jessica and Memaw this quilt in progress, because I was so excited about how it was turning out!

The binding is a red pin dot (I have pin dot squares in blue, green, brown, and grey in the quilt) and the backing is the same incredibly soft butter yellow sheet from Target I used for Memaw's purple and black quilt.  I did my loopy free motion quilting because I wanted the quilt to be all crinkly and snuggly.

Britton asked me who the quilt is for, which is funny because I don't keep any of my quilts.  Either they are made as gifts or they are donated to charity, but it seems that even if I don't have a plan for a quilt the quilt finds its way to a home that isn't mine.  Imagine Britton's surprise when I told her it was ours!

And Sadie just had to sneak a snuggle too.  Doesn't she look so guilty?  Or crabby, I'm not sure.

This is my last quilt for a while.  My maternity leave is up in two weeks, and I'm moving into some handmade Christmas presents that oddly enough are not quilts!  But I'll keep checking out my quilt blogs, because who knows where the next quilt inspiration will come from?

britton's 4th birthday quilt

As you may or may not know, I started making birthday quilts for Britton around her second birthday (I didn't start quilting until she was over a year old).  Previously I made her the Bee Quilt (see here) and the Calendar Quilt (see here) for her birthdays in years past.  

I've been working on this quilt for about a year now.  Well, not continuously working on it!  I fell in love with the "Ruby" fabric line from Bonnie and Camille, but of course I discovered it only after it became difficult to find.  I was able to track down two charm packs on Etsy, then found the robin's egg blue pin dot border and red scallop binding fabric at my quilt shop in Texas.  The main colors are red, pink, robins egg blue, grey, and cream, and the combo of all of them is perfect for Britton.  I started this quilt when we lived in Texas but made little progress on it!  Other quilts took precedent, and then suddenly Britton's birthday was nearing and I needed to get this quilt finished fast.  And I'm so glad I did!  

The pattern is "Dilly Dally," also by Bonnie and Camille, and is the first quilt pattern I ever bought.  I just couldn't face all the math in figuring it out myself!  

I quilted it in my loopy free motion quilting, which just makes the entire quilt snuggly and crinkly and perfect.

Here is the border and binding.  I have binding material left over, and you can bet that it will turn up in future projects.  

The backing is a cherry fabric from JoAnns.  Confession time:  I have been eyeing this fabric for a long long long time.  I usually wait for fabrics to not be on sale at JoAnns, because then I get to use my 40% off coupon (when JoAnns puts fabrics on sale, it's usually only 30% off and you can't use a coupon).  But this fabric is always on sale!  But for $4.89 a yard, it was still a steal, so I grabbed it up for the backing and it just makes the quilt.  And the fabric is so ridiculously soft.  I plan on going back to JoAnns and stocking up on this cherry fabric because I love it so much!

it's been a long week

We started out last Wednesday with a two-month wellness check at the pediatrician office.  And shots.  Oh, the shots.  This was Barrett's first round of shots and I had no idea how he would react.  Fever?  Screaming for hours?  Hmmm, as you can tell, I'm an optimistic when it comes to such things!  But seriously, I was hoping for the best, and I got it.  As Jessica predicted, Barrett came home and took a THREE HOUR NAP.  It was awesome.  And he wasn't too sore or too cranky either.  

And there was 4th birthday party preparations for Britton.  First and foremost, Britton's birthday quilt...

And making cake pops!  If I had known it was so easy, I wouldn't have been buying them at Starbucks!    I followed this recipe and they turned out amazing.  Into the freezer they go for the next three weeks.

And washing 9 month clothing I didn't think I'd be pulling out this soon.  Seriously, nine months.  Barrett is now 16 pounds, 0.6 ounces and 25 inches.  I asked what percentiles those are, and it appears they are off the chart measurements.  Big boy here.

 

baby sleeps. i sew

The first few weeks of Barrett's life were a blur of feeding him every 2 to 3 hours - no long stretches of sleep at night and no naps over 1.5 hours.  Slowly but surely, he's eased into longer night sleeping, which makes me more clear-headed and energetic.  And then the naps came, at least an hour but usually closer to 2 hours and over.  And while I was a baby robot for those first few weeks, barely getting more accomplished in a day than unloading the dishwasher (getting out of pajamas and showering were optional, let's be real), I slowly eased into wanting to get back to quilting.

Waiting for me were three of Memaw's (Memaw was my mother-in-law's mother) quilt tops she never finished into quilts.  I've now completed all the quilts she left undone, and really, that's the way it should be.  You know from previous postings that it's a quilter's moral obligation to finish quilts that quilters before you left incomplete.  And I knew when Memaw passed that it would be up to me since I'm the quilter in the family.  Finishing these quilts was therapeutic - exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of things after the complete disconnect of having a baby.  I've since completed two additional quilts and two quilt tops.  I'm on a roll!

This was the last quilt Memaw made specifically for our Memaw, my mother-in-law.  I backed it in a queen-sized yellow sheet and straight-lined stitched the borders, with free-motion tracing of the dresden flowers.  I even found enough extra black flowered material for the binding!

This one came from Aunt Judy, and was an unfinished quilt top made by Memaw.  I straight-line stitched the borders (once that walking foot gets on my machine, I have a hard time taking it off!), and is backed in a sheet as well.

The last unfinished quilt top from Memaw.  I again (broken record here, folks) straight-line stitched the borders and found enough fabric from one of the doll's dresses in Memaw's stash to do the binding.  

One of my goals of maternity leave was to finish these three quilts, which had so patiently waited in my sewing room stacks.  Now I'm engrossed in Britton's birthday quilt, hopefully getting that finished up by next week.  More quilts to come!

2 months old

Two months feels like the first big milestone to reach!  We've made it through the newborn up-all-night ridiculousness and completely random eating and sleeping, and settled into a nice routine.  Now that Barrett has rid himself of the gas issues for the most part, his personality is coming out.  Barrett is a sweet baby, usually only fussy when he has a burp he can't get out.  In the evenings, during the "Witching Hour" of 6:00 pm until 7:00 - 8:00 pm, he can be cantankerous.  He makes the hubs soothe him like there's no tomorrow.  

But mostly, he's just content. He eats his bottle (usually 3-4 oz) of Similac Alimentum and Sensitive combined.  Using only Alimentum makes him spit up because it's too thin, using only Sensitive makes him spit up because it's too thick, so combining the two is the winning combo for him.  When he's finished eating, he turns his head and shuts his eyes.  He's full and he's ready to nap.

We moved him into his room to nap, still in the Rock and Play.  He naps longer in there by himself (went for a 3 hour nap today!) and I swaddle him for every nap except his last afternoon nap.  Once he wakes up he thinks he's starving and needs a bottle immediately.  Then I keep him upright for about 10 minutes to prevent spitting up and hiccups (the hiccups lead to gas and irritated stomach issues).  Once we're in the clear, I change his diaper and make faces at him. This boy is a flirt!  He loves cooing at me, sticking out his tongue at me when I stick mine out at him, and squinting up his eyes and laughing.  If he gets to check out the black and white pictures on the wall, he's happy.  Tummy time, not so much!  Then between 45 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes after waking up from his nap, he's ready for an ounce or two of formula (we call this his "Angry Ounce") and some quick rocking, and he's back in the Rock and Play, to put himself to sleep.

We haven't moved him into his room for night sleeping because the bottle warmer we ordered isn't here yet.  We have a two story house, and as I've whined about before, I'm not walking up and down stairs all night.  So the hubs and I decided to move our mini-fridge and a bottle warmer to our room and prep bottles there when he feeds at night.  Night feeding was moving to only 1:00 am and 5:00 am (going to bed at 8:00 pm), then he decided to go to bed at 7:30 pm and wanted to feed at 12:00 am, 3:00 am, and 6:00 am.  So we're still waiting for that to work itself out!  But we've kept to our bedtime routine religiously, and he now loves his baths.

Barrett likes when I take him outside during the day to feel the sunshine (if we're lucky) and hear the birds.  A little bit of stimulation goes a long way, so we try to keep things relatively calm around him until he's older and can handle more.

He doesn't have his doctor appointment until Wednesday (first immunizations) so I don't know his weight or length.  But I suspect he's at least 16 pounds because this boy is heavy!  He's in size 2 diapers already, and wearing 6 month (and some 9 month) clothing already.

Likes:  smiling and interacting with us, warm bottles, when Britton talks to him, his bath, riding in the car, his room, the swing

Dislikes:  waiting for bottles, tummy time, having his nails trimmed (he won't unclench his fists, so we can't trim them!)

4th of july

Yesterday, Britton celebrated the Fourth of July at school with a parade around the school. Complete with a glittered bowl hat and a baton made of what I think was originally a drink swizzle stick.  With paper streamers taped to it, because you all know it's not a party (or, in this case, our nation's birthday party) without some streamers!  And she was so proud of the tie-dye shirt she made at school, even though she pointed out that she didn't actually get to "make" it.  She explained that only the teachers were allowed to touch the dye, but I explained that she still got to help because she watched.  That's logic to a three-year-old!

I wanted to surprise Britton and go see the parade, but Sadie's impacted anal gland (for the love of God, do not google that image) and subsequent emergency vet visit put that plan out of reach.  And for anyone wondering about Sadie, tomorrow morning she's getting sedated and having that sucker cleaned out.  I can't talk about how much money this dog has cost us without crying.  

Back to less gross things - the 4th!  We were all home today and didn't do much in the way of celebrating.  Britton and I made it to the pool for some swimming and Slush Puppies, and I went to the grocery store.  Man, we know how to live it up! We weren't invited to any cook-outs, and with small kids we don't enjoy fireworks shows so much as curse them these days.  It's not even dark here until at least 9:00 pm, and any enjoyment Britton would get out of a fireworks show would be quickly replaced by overtired shenanigans and crabbiness.  That girl needs her sleep, and so does her mommy, so we're skipping fireworks until everyone in house can stay up that late!