Just when you thought I was done...

I made a few more booties...the ones with the little wings remind me of the John Fluevog brand of shoes that I used to covet in high school.

Complaining.

Meredith noted that the title of the blog is deceiving. Her exact quote: "I don't see enough complaining to be called piss and vinegar!". In the spirit of not leading people on, I can think of a few things to complain about.

1. That my hands are in a constant state of tingling/painful numbness whenever I am vaguely horizontal.
2. That I was up 8 times last night - including pacing the house from 4-5am trying to wake up my hands.
3. That my body is acting like it is trying to host a cold - which is so poorly timed on about every level possible.

I am sure I can keep adding to the list, but thing I need to create some posts to reflect the "celebrating" tagline. With my immediate family arriving in the next day, I am sure I will have lots of new material across all four domains for some good posts.

And then it came to an end.

With the family arriving for a Thanksgiving celebration in < 24 hours and hopefully the baby arriving shortly thereafter, I have put an end to the crafting madness. While some people may have figured out how to contain sewing projects to one room, my creativity is apparently so large and relentless that it requires spreading itself throughout the entire house. So, I deliberated about what my final project would be, whipped it up, and have retired (temporarily) the buttons, beads, thread, sewing machine, fabrics, polyfill, needles and anything else strewn about the house.

I'm not sure what inspired this butterfly, but it was fun to make - especially the reversible part. I was excited to use the cool beaded detail that Judy had given me nearly a year ago (removed from the dress she wore to Meredith and Rico's wedding) to add some sparkle to the body of the animal.

I think we are going to hang this above the changing table - a little something to bedazzle and distract the baby. When I showed it to Craig, he noted that this baby is going to be experiencing regular psychedelic visions. Between the baby bumper on the cradle, ocean mobile and now glittering butterfly, we are grooming a future lalapalooza-goer.

Unleashing my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder

Some of you know that I was a die-hard Little House on the Prairie follower in elementary and middle school. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I distinctly remember asking Santa for the opportunity to take a road trip to visit Laura's grave. Now that is pretty weird. In an attempt to appease me and offer a more constructive gift, my mom gave me the LHOTP cookbook instead. I have many fond memories praying that it might actually snow in Portland so that I could make the pulled molasses toffee that had to be chilled in fresh snow. I think it happened twice. The pancakes were also quite good.

My mom has been cleaning out her attic and came across several very old stuffed animals made by my great-grandmother for my mother when she was a child. We were discussing the conundrum of what to actually do with a hairless teddy bear (all the fur rubbed clean to reveal a cracked and brittle grey hide absent any eyes, ears etc.) and a loved-to-extinction doll. While they seem somewhat ridiculous to save or pass on to a grandchild, throwing them out with your coffee grinds seems sacrilegious. After eliminating burying them in the garden as a tad bit bizarre, I think we settled on laying them to rest in a cardboard box and then nestling them into the trash. Not entirely environmentally friendly, but sometimes exceptions are necessary.

I digress. So, when I came across a pattern for a little muslin bunny it made me immediately think of these animals that my mother had. And then I thought, "this is exactly the type of toy that Laura and Mary would have played with - the materials lovingly recycled by Ma". And so I bought some muslin (I didn't have any hanging around from stuffing a mattress with hay) and gave it a shot. Then I selected a range of tiny scraps from my crafting frenzy to sew quite a smart little outfit for bunny. The photo is crummy but you'll get the idea.

More Upcycling

Here is another part of the Goodwill sweater hide - this time converted into a owl pillow. It started off as a potential stuffed animal but ended up looking more fit for a couch than a crib. Crafting with shrunken wool is pretty amazing - it hides all stiches (which is great when you make as many mistakes as me) and is incredibly soft and pliable after washing. If I can find a good selection of old sweaters in fun colors and patterns, I think I may take on sewing pillow cases for all the living room furniture.

To ensure that all four paws are toasty...

I made some mittens. Felted wool -the grey pair is fashioned from an old mens wool sweater found at Goodwill. I made Craig a matching pair but have not completed the embellishing. The little yellow paws may never actually fit on a hand as they have ZERO stretch. Worse case scenario, I figure they might make a cute christmas tree ornament.

Booties Galore

After realizing that craft felt (a "green" material made from 100% recycled plastic bottles - cool in concept but sort of yucky in texture) does not hold a candle to real wool felt, I was compelled to get some of the real thing and try out a few more booties. It is safe to say that this baby will not have cold feet. I think the set with the angel wings is my personal favorite.

More Practice with the Smoker

After some initial attempts last fall, Craig has become increasingly intrigued (read: obsessed) with the smoker we picked up at a New Hampshire yard sale. This year, we spotted another bargain smoker for $20 which we bought so we could have one in Boston and one in NH. Since bringing it home, we have been doing lots of experimenting: pork, multiple types of fish, chicken, and most recently, a turkey. My extended family is joining us next week for Thanksgiving so Craig decided we should smoke the bird. Hence, we needed to do a test run before the actually holiday to make sure it would work. Multiple hours were spent online reading various blogs about smoking and getting the scoop from smokers all over America about what makes a perfect bird. We ended up buying a syringe (so weird) to inject flavored oils into the bird to maintain moisture. We did not get our act together to brine the bird in advance, but the Thanksgiving turkey will be brined, botoxed and mopped in a maple syrup-butter marinade. Stay tuned ... in the meantime, here are some images from the last several practice runs.

Fall 2009 Canning

After minimal deliberation, Neema and I decided that beans and pickles provided the biggest "bang for our effort" with regard to our annual pickling activities. So, we passed on the radishes, diakon (don't try it), beets, and carrots and focused on the favorites. Together we made about 40 quarts of the provisions - the small jars of the "spicy" dilly beans had at least a full jalapeno in each jar yet don't seem to have that much fire.

A couple weeks later Craig and I tried our hand at applesauce. After discovering that we could pick a 1/2 bushel of "dropped" apples (translation: due to the crummy New England weather, tons of apples have fallen off trees and orchards are doing all they can to keep them from going to waste) for $8 bucks, be bought a full bushel (about 80-100 apples), a coring/peeling machine, and went to work. Who knew that making applesauce was so easy? Just core, peel, chop and let cook down. They were so sweet they didn't need anything added to them. We deliberated about adding some spices but decided to be purists and keep it simple. We have since given several quarts to friends with small children in the hopes that they will like it as much as we do.

The Wonders of Avery T-Shirt Transfer Paper

Check out this "custom-designed" baby gear I made with T-Shirt Transfer Paper. So super easy - print any image you like on to the paper using an ink-jet printer; cut out the image; iron on and peel the paper backing off. Viola! Hip upgrades to any clothing item.

Baby Gift for Noah

I decided to try and make something unique for Jill's son Noah and wanted to try my hand at fabric applique. Seemed simple. Took a long time. Baby things are tiny which makes manipulating the sewing machine very, very tricky. Especially when you are trying to avoid snaps and seams, etc. In the end, the onesie came out pretty ok. I thought the inside flap was clever.

The sleep sack was an after thought inspired by some double-sided quilting fabric I bought several years ago - because it was so cool - but never had a real project to make with it. I saw a similar item at a very spendy children's boutique and thought I could replicate. In the end, I think this might be better suited for Sponge Bob the Square Pants, but I was proud of myself for managing to get the zipper in without disaster.

The Mobile

Probably the first craft idea that I envisioned for the baby room was creating some kind of mobile to hang above the crib. When we were visiting Meredith and Rico in Denver in the early summer, I spotted two very groovy stuffed octopus (octupi?) at a local craft fair. As soon as I saw them, I knew that they would be the foundation for the mobile I was dreaming of.

So...fast forward into August when we decided an underwater theme would be fun for the baby room. After some internet searching and some free pattern pirating, I created some additional stuffed objects to hang from the mobile - seaweed, star fish, a few varieties of regular fish, and sea horse. Craig was the brain behind the physics of securing the mobile to the ceiling. We installed this right after taking an infant CPR class which impressed upon us the fact (or perhaps fear) that essentially any innocuous object can choke or smother a baby. Needless to say, Craig tested the wires many times to be sure that none of the sea creatures can tumble into the crib. I don't think the photos of this project do it justice but you can get the general idea!

A Family Heirloom

Uncle Steve brought up to Boston in October this beautiful handmade cradle that was built by my great-great grandfather in Kalmazoo, Michigan in the mid 1800's. Apparently all the Elwell girls (me, Hana, Mira and Maddie) slept in this cradle when were were babies. So, there was a ceremonial passing of the cradle - bringing another generation to slumber (we hope). With a little lemon oil on the wood, and a newly made bumper with some psychedelic fabric, we are ready for action. We moved things around in the bedroom so the baby and cradle can be with us for the first couple months - or until the baby figures out how to turn over or starts to really boogie.

Close-ups of Windows

Some more detail on the cool stained glass and curtain combo...

The Refurbished Nursery

We have successfully turned the old office/crafting/storage/guest room space into a room for the baby. The transformation began over the summer with a major clean-out which included many trips to Boomerangs, deliberation about what we actually needed vs. just didn't know how to say goodbye to, and a significant transfer of stuff from this room to Craig's music room (which is now considered a multi-purpose room). Some details on the images:

1) little yellow rocker from Craig and Meredith's childhood- a coat of yellow paint to brighten it up

2) yarn rug made by Sarah's Great Grandmother Lena (circa the early 70's - was made as a gift for my mother)

3) stained-glass windows purchased this summer at Brimfield Fair - with some minimal clean up and fresh coat of paint on the frames, they transformed into something magical

4) Merimekko curtains - we deliberated for at least 3 hours at the Merimekko fabric store in Spain this summer when trying to decide which fabric to buy. In the end, we think our choice was absolutely perfect. Thanks Bob and Judy for the spending money to splurge on cool fabric!

5) orange polka-dot futon - with some creativity and plenty of velcro, I transformed an old IKEA duvet cover (which I purchased at least 10 years ago for about $5) into a futon cover that mimics great-grandma's rug nicely.

6) pillows covers made from the left-over curtain and duvet cover fabric - easy, fast and super satisfying

Froggies from "Purl Bee"

These cute little bean bag (actually, mung bean) froggies were an easy and satisfying project.

Baby Booties

Felt, ultrasuede, a combination. Take your pick. Who knows if they will be functional (although I don't think it matters as no baby can walk with feet this small) but they sure are cute!

Crafting Mania

In anticipation of the arrival of baby moochi, I have been on a major crafting thrash.  Inspired by the zillions of ladies out there blogging away their ingenious ideas, I have successfully made a small dent in my fabric collection. See above for the wide range of projects I have tackled in the past month.