Craft Projects

The primary reason I started a blog (other than to get my creative writing ya-yas out) was to document my crafting. So far I haven't said much about it. I haven't been very good about taking photos until recently. I don't even have pics of all the quilts that I've made. Anyway, here is the acorn I finally (finally!) finished for my friend Ursula. The inspiration for it was a pair of squirrel scissors I found in a craft catalog back in November. At least the photo in the catalog made them look like a squirrel. I had to get them because of my recent squirrel encounters, but I couldn't justify buying them for myself just to satisfy my insane scissor fetish (which I really do have). Nor could I get them just because they were a "squirrel thing", which I've decided I now need to collect. I was just starting to do amigurumi and was frustrated because, until I got the hang of it, everything I made that was supposed to be spherical ended up looking pointed like the tip of an acorn. I kept thinking about making an acorn and then one day I ran across something on a craft site somewhere where someone made a crocheted acorn bag for keeping sock knitting projects. Aha! How perfect was that? My friend Ursula knits socks and also collects scissors. The plan was perfect: give her the scissors (which I could still admire from afar) and I would make her this nifty acorn. Perfect, no? Except that when the scissors came they didn't look anything like a squirrel. In fact, they weren't recognizable as any sort of image at all. When I showed them to anyone, the most popular guess was "Um, beaver?", which at least is a mammal. Other guesses included "tree stump", "kangaroo" and "something made out of wood". I can't even show you a picture of them because the catalog in question has discontinued that particular item. Probably because of so many disappointed customers. Anyway, I made the acorn bottom according to the instructions, except that I made it out of wool and felted it. I thought it would be too difficult to get the size right for the top if I felted it too and I liked the idea of using yarn with some texture. I used an acrylic boucle, which was wonderfully stretchy and imitated a shaggy acorn top. I surprised myself and got it right on the first try. I had originally intended to make sort of a hinge so that the top would be a "flip top" with just a button in front to keep it closed. After some thought, though, it seemed to make more sense to put four buttons all around like the instructions said to do. I had some trouble with the closures fitting over the buttons and am still not happy with that aspect of it. I may get it back from her and do something else. When I do, I will make sure to take a better photo of it. This one sucks. I was on my way to give it to her and was in a hurry and didn't want to take the time to set up the camera or anything so it's way too dark. The buttons, by the way, aren't what I wanted. I really wanted to find something cute like squirrels or acorns or oak leaves. Of course, I couldn't find anything like that. I have thousands of buttons but couldn't find anything that worked. I finally went to JoAnn's and found the leaf buttons. Not the right kind of leaf for an acorn, but the color looked good and, hey, they're leaves. You get the idea, right?

Here are some of the felt ornaments I made for Christmas this year. I had a lot of fun doing them and have been on a felt kick ever since. I made the balls by wrapping wool roving around small yarn balls and then felting them in the washing machine. I was worried that my front-loader wouldn't do the trick but I put them in with a load of jeans on hot and it worked just fine. I got a little carried away with a few of them (see the black and gray one with all the bling on the right? Val named that one "The Harley Davidson").



Here's some more detail. Again, sorry about the bad photography. I'm obviously not a photographer.

I would like to make some of these in egg shapes for Easter and decorate them. I have been doing a little bit of needle felting but so far haven't fallen in love with it the way I am with this or felted crochet. Maybe it's too slow. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm holding a very long, extremely sharp, barbed needle and rapidly punching it up and down a fraction of an inch from my fingers. Yeah, I think that's it.

Soon to come: quilt photos. I don't have many and I need to take pictures of the one I've made recently. I want to photograph them outside because the light's so bad in the house, but the weather's been so dreary. It's sunny today but still really cold and I'm just not going to make it outside today.

Twenty nine degrees!!!

Well, I haven't been writing on here every day like I had planned (big surprise), but I am going to blame my internet carrier. They suck. There's something wrong with the signal in our area of the city (so they say) and it will "take some time" to get it fixed. Meanwhile, I am paying for high-speed internet while not actually getting high speed internet. It's not that huge of a deal, unless I am trying to do something like upload pictures onto my blog (!) or watch a video online. I have threatened to go back to dial-up because I swear that was faster. I am gritting my teeth and waiting it out because the last time a repairman was here (one of many trips in the past two months) he promised they would get it resolved soon.

Having said all that, today it seems like things are going well as far as these issues go. The extremely cold weather has made it worse and it's warmer today--29 degrees, which seems downright balmy compared to the teens and single digits we've been experiencing the past few days. When I got up Monday morning it was -12. Minus. Twelve. Degrees. That's damn cold. So 29 feels like summer right now.

Brand New Day (Era. Country, World, whatever. . .)

Wow, what a day. And in the words of Tim Russert, what a country! I am finally proud to be an American again! Whew!

It's been a emotional day. I cried all through the inauguration ceremony. I would have loved to have been in a crowd watching it--there was a live thing going on at the Kenworthy, or even with a few friends, but I'm babysitting today and it just wouldn't have worked with a two-year-old in tow. So I sat here and cried alone. So different from the tears I shed four years ago. Those were tears of anger and despair and fear and bitterness. This is a different feeling--hope?

Welcome back, hope. It's been a while!

Yes, that's a robin in the tree outside my window and, yes, that is frozen fog on the trees. Because it's frickin' January!

I always feel so sorry for these guys when they show up waaaaay too early (which they do, every year. Stupid birds). There were six of them outside my window today and they all looked really confused, like, "Dude! You think maybe we took a wrong toyn at Albakoikey?"

Travis's Worst Day Ever

Remember me talking about all those events that were blogworthy? Here's one of them.

A week before Christmas, Travis started complaining about nausea and stomach pains. Actually, that started a couple of months ago, but when we took him to the doctor he couldn't find anything specific wrong with him. I, of course, began suspecting the worst: ulcer, blocked intestinal tract, kidney failure. You know, all that "glass-half-empty" stuff I'm famous for. Anyway, at this point, the stomach stuff had gotten a little worse and when I picked him up from school on that Wednesday, he complained of a stomachache. He obviously didn't feel well and went from the door to the sofa and didn't move until bedtime. He got into bed and then had to go throw up. "Great," I thought, "More puking. Bring it on, I'm ready!" But he didn't throw up again. The next morning he was running a low-grade fever and said he felt worse. I took Riley to school and when I got back Trav told me he hurt down on the lower right side of his belly. Could it be. . . appendicitis? I went upstairs and told Val to get dressed because we were going to Quick Care. They poked and prodded him, took some blood and then sent us to Gritman for a CT scan. The doctor told him not to worry, the CT scan was just like a big donut that would take a picture of his insides. Oh, they forgot to mention the enema!!! And the IV. Which they said wouldn't hurt but of course did. Trav was a trooper, though, and when it was over the doctor came and told us that they were admitting him and he was going in for immediate surgery because, apparently, his appendix had ruptured. Crap. Upstairs. More doctors. More poking and prodding. More things going into the IV which weren't supposed to hurt but did. I finally said something and the nurse put some Lidocaine in the IV before whatever else went in to numb the stinging. Oh, and then a Tylenol suppository. More things poked up his butt. At one point, Travis looked up at me and said miserably, "This is my worst day ever!" Poor little guy.

The surgery was quick, about 45 minutes, during which Val went and picked up Riley from school. Note: Yes, we went to Quick Care at around 8:30 am but by the time a dozen doctors poked and prodded and then sent us elsewhere to get yet another test and more poking ad prodding and not to mention waiting in the godforsaken wating room of the radiology department of the hospital, by the time they actually got around to doing the actual surgery, it was almost 3 in the afternoon. On the way back to the hospital, Val told Riley what was going on and that her brother was getting his appendix taken out. They got back and after a little while a nurse came and got us to bring us into recovery. Travis was still pretty much under the anesthetic and looked horrible. Riley crept up to him and said to me, "Mom? Did Travis get his index out?" Yes baby, but they left in the Table of Contents.

The surgery went well and the recovery was good. They brought in an X-box (yay!) and told him he could probably go home the next day. More lies. The next day the surgeon came in and said "Maybe tomorrow". Travis was disappointed. The next day he came in again and said, "One more day." Travis cried. Three and a half days after the surgery, they finally let him go home. He's been doing great, though he still winces when he sneezes.

Okay, this isn't going as well as I'd hoped. I want to blog. I really do. I can't tell you how many times something happens and I start writing in my head, going, "God, this would be a GREAT blog." But it wouldn't be a great blog if it wasn't preceded by other blogs. In other words, I'm having a hard time getting out of the starting gate. I guess I'm hung up on that whole perfection thing again. See, even though right now, I'm the only one who sees this, eventually I want to open it up to my friends and, yikes! What if they looked back and saw how incredibly lame things were in the beginning? And it doesn't help that I've been looking at dozens of other amazing blogs by totally brilliant women, so that raises the bar a little bit.

So, here's the deal. I'm just going to have to get over this intimidation thing and just do this. I need this. I will just start blogging without any delusions of profundity and try to trust myself. I will be learning as I go ('cause I know absolutely nothing about how to do this) so it will be a little rough. And, if you are someone who is reading this in the future and looking back at archives, hopefully you'll be amazed at how far I've come!!!

Third Time's a Charm!

Okay. Then if you still don't succeed, wait another four months or so and then get your ass in gear and get moving!

Honestly. I think about this blog all the time. As in, "I need to write this on my blog. Um, if I were actually doing my blog, that is." That sort of thing. I set this thing up a year and a half ago and wrote a few times. I wasn't really happy with it, because the perfectionist in me never is. There was also the issue of the mechanics of the thing. We still had dial-up and every time I tried to change anything I crashed and it just got too frustrating so I abandoned it. Then, last spring, in a fit of inspiration, and after finally getting high-speed internet, I came back in and just deleted the other blog and started over again. Whew, that was so exhausting that I had to leave it for the next four months and here I am. Don'cha just love do-overs? I do. And when I finally get the hang of doing this, I might actually let people read it!

It's been an interesting week around here. I started the whole thing off on Sunday. I was feeling sort of queasy all day and by bedtime I was decidedly nauseous. I went to bed and laid there, miserable, for the next three hours or so, trying to sleep but just tossing and turning and feeling worse by the minute. I finally went downstairs and ended up spending the night going between the recliner and the sofa and the bathroom. I finally fell asleep sometime between 2:30 and 4:30 when I woke up for good. My sides hurt from throwing up and I was exhausted.

After Val and the kids left, I laid around in a daze until I had to go get Riley from Kindergarten and the rest of the day is a blur. I think we had cereal for dinner that night because I couldn't manage anything else. I felt shaky on Tuesday, but definitely better. Then, right before bedtime, Riley started complaining that her tummy hurt. Half an hour later she puked all over the living room carpet. I was upstairs getting towels to prepare for the inevitable so Val got to supervise. Did I mention he doesn't do so well when the kids are sick? He held it together, though, and did bravely hold her hair out of her face so that she wouldn't puke on it. BIG help. Oh, I forgot to mention that my little Miss Picky Eater eschewed the casserole we had for dinner and chose instead yogurt and raspberries. A lot of raspberries. The carpet was beautiful. Technicolor pink. She continued to throw up about every 45 minutes or so, all night long. I set her up on the couch and had my little "sick station": puke bucket, cool washcloth (set on a saucer so as not to ruin the finish on the brand new coffee table Val made), hand towel (in case we need it), hand sanitizer (like it makes any difference at this point), dish of ice chips and laptop so that I could cruise the 'net in between bouts of sickness. I was a long night, but I found some killer craft sites and blogs!

Poor Ri. I felt so sorry for her. When she first started getting sick she was panicked, anticipating the horror of actually throwing up. After the first time, she kind of got the hang of it and calmly, bravely, grimly did what she needed to do. Throughout the night she'd be sleeping soundly and then suddenly rouse and sit up. I'd place the tub in front of her and she'd be sick in it, then allow me to sponge her off, accept an ice chip and lay back down and go back to sleep. She broke my heart. There's nothing worse than when your kids are sick. She finally stopped throwing up around 4 am and I laid down beside her and slept for about two hours.

Needless to say, I was a bag of crap the next day, this being the second night in three with no sleep. I don't nap well, so I didn't catch up much. All seemed well on Thursday. Riley was back to normal and I was feeling really tired, but my stomach didn't hurt any more. Bed time came around and Travis started complaining that his stomach hurt. I was completely spent. I went downstairs with him and told Val that I needed him to take this one. I couldn't do another all-nighter. I think he was thinking it was a false alarm anyway, that maybe Travis was trying to get out of school the next day, so he agreed. I went to bed but didn't sleep very well, too consumed with Mother-guilt. I kept thinking that I needed to be the one down there with him. I slept intermittently and not well at all. I finally gave it up at around 5 and went downstairs to relieve Val, who was crunched up alongside Trav on the sofa. By this time, Val wasn't feeling well either and he went to bed. I sat watching tv until it was time to get Riley up and ready for school. Around 7, Rachel called to ask if it was okay if Daniel hang out with me because he had been throwing up all night. I just started laughing. "Sure," I said, "Send him over. Travis is sick too. They can be miserable together." After all, the poor kid probably caught it from us in the first place, it was the least I could do.

After I got Ri off to school, I came home to my houseful of sick boys. Travis was excited at first at the idea of Daniel coming over on a school day. "Can we play video games?" he asked. "Why not?" I replied, thinking that that would be a great way to quietly waste the day away. But after about fifteen minutes of playing, Travis laid down on the floor. "I feel wobbly," he said. I felt his forehead. Hot. Crap. I found the thermometer. 103.7. I should explain that Travis very rarely has a low grade fever. It's usually 104 or nothing. He climbed onto the couch, we put a movie in and he was asleep. Val never came downstairs again until last night, so it was just me and the Dan Man. We watched ALL of the Star Wars movies we have (episodes IV through VI). I felt like my whole body had been run through a wringer. So exhausted I wanted to cry. But nowhere to really get comfortable. Travis was on the couch, Daniel in the recliner and Val in our bed. I wandered all day. By the time Daniel went home at 4, my throat was starting to hurt and I just wanted to sleep, but I was determined to be the nurturing mother figure so I made the Magic Chicken Soup that seems to have healing powers. No one felt like eating it, including me. By 7, Travis's fever had broken and he was feeling better. Both he and Val managed to eat some scrambled eggs and toast and then the kids and I went to bed. Today has to be better!