Category — Life in General

When I think September I think cool, crisp air, the first turning leaves, and back to school for my kiddos.

Well, it’s the first day of school, but my boys are both home sick with a fever. And it’s 90 degrees.

Can we get a do-over?

My summers always seem to fly by and before I even realize it, it’s time for school shopping again. This summer is no different. It’s been a great season so far, with all of the usual summer things like swimming lessons, gardening and ice-cream making.

The purchase of our first home in May (yay!) threw in garden shed building:

And the huge established garden gave us asparagus, currants, raspberries, blueberries, many herbs and some flowers too. But of course, we had to plant our veggies.

We’ve had a bumper crop of bell peppers and grape tomatoes, which makes me very happy. We’ll be harvesting garlic, potatoes, pumpkins and onions soon!

On the crafting front, there’s been weaving:

And spinning:

And of course, lots of knitting:

I’ve also finally gotten my sewing area together. I’ve had the itch to sew again, big time. I’ve sewn some kitchen towels, a couple of bags, and I’m even doing a bit of quilting, photos of which will have to come in another post.

Something I have always wanted to learn was garment construction, and I may be doing that soon. Since moving, I’ve made a super new friend who just happens to be a knitter, and an experienced garment sewer. She has offered to help me learn and even has some patterns to get me started.

This is especially exciting for me, as a very pear-shaped woman of a mere five feet tall. Sometimes it feels like NOTHING is made to fit me. On the rare occasion that I find pants that actually fit me well, there usually isn’t a petite length available. Also, dresses that fit me on top are way too small on my hips. Seriously, don’t clothing manufacturers know we exist?

So, this morning, when I saw that Sew Mam Sew was having a contest to win a new Husqvarna Viking serger, I was really excited. They want to know how having a serger would change my life. Having a serger, combined with an immensely talented friend willing to teach me, would be a dream come true. Instead of feeling like I have an incredibly mal-formed body (I don’t - but to try to find clothes to fit it, you’d think I did) I would have the ability to make everything to my own dimensions, and stop caring that my kind isn’t wanted in the clothing stores.

I already have lots of experience sewing handbags, and have always paid very close attention to detail. Learning how to put a garment together to not just fit my outcast body, but to do so in a comfortable and flattering way sounds like a whole new adventure to me. A girl can dream, right?

The bunny, not the city. Meet the newest addition to the Hadley family:

Paris is a sweet, beautiful little French Angora rabbit. We ended up adopting a couple of baby guinea pigs when we went to pick her up. Don’t ask me how the kids got that one past their dad. I guess he was already softened up by the bunny.

Can’t wait to be spinning some yarn with my own bunny’s fiber!

Today is supposed to be a beautiful, sunny day in the mid-to-upper 70’s. Pretty remarkable weather for May Day in Vermont, but even more remarkable when you consider that this is what was on my front lawn earlier this week:

That was when it started. We ended up with over 5 inches total, and some parts of VT got 12! Now that we’ve passed in to May, I’m hoping we’re finished with that.

We are scheduled to close on our house on Monday morning, in less than 48 hours! I’ll be taking plenty of photos to share here and on Flickr. Stay tuned!

After a week and a half of school vacation, it’s almost time to come back to the world of real life. I wish I had something to share with you from the past week, but I really haven’t done anything craft related. Beyond hanging out with the kids, snowman building, snowball fights, going bowling and to the movies, my days have been consumed with taxes (done!) mortgage pre-qualification and house hunting.

Part of me is looking forward to getting back to the routine, but part of me will miss having everyone around. Luckily, summer vacation is coming up fast!

The great thing about blogging is that no matter how crazy life gets, no matter how long it’s been since I’ve posted, everything is still here waiting for me when I return. I’ve found that as often as I think “Oh, I should post that on the blog!” I rarely actually make it to the computer to post it. It’s one of the things I hope to improve upon in this shiny new year of 2010.

Speaking of the new year, I thought it would be a good thing to take a look at the goals I posted last year:

• Create more objects for our home (quilts, towels, aprons, etc.)

Sadly, I did not get to any of the sewing that I wanted to accomplish this year. This is due mainly to the rocket-speed growth of Fiberphile, which took over all available space including my sewing area for most of the past year. I did finally manage to clear out some space for my sewing area again, and was even able to complete a small quilt for my niece’s first Christmas.

sabine's quilt

• Create more objects for ourselves and our kids (clothing, toys, etc)

I did manage to knit quite a few hats, fingerless gloves and even a couple of small shawls for myself. I consider this to be a good start, but would like to do much more in the coming year. I’m well on my way with a half-completed sweater on the needles right now.

• Blog at least twice a week

Eh. Big room for improvement there.

• Be better about documenting my projects with photos

Another eh. I’m usually so anxious to get things into use that I skip photos. Hopefully I’ll be better this year.

• Have a vegetable, herb and flower garden- however small or fruitless (sadly, I’ve never had a green thumb)

This was a great big HUGE success. We had a great little garden with broccoli, peppers, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, sugar snap peas and herbs, too. We had a great time and plan to expand this year.

• Donate at least ten handmade items to a charity like Dulaan.

Well, I *made* the items, but I didn’t manage to send them in time for the July deadline. I just think of it as having a head start on this year’s box.

So, looking back, my goals are essentially the same for 2010. I just need to keep building on whatever progress was made last year, however small. The only addition? To finally get myself through the C25K running program before my 31st birthday in August. As soon as we know what our tax situation looks like, I’ll be choosing a treadmill. No more excuses about the weather or feeling embarrassed running in front of the neighbors!

Something hit our house hard last week. My son brought it home from high school, then my youngest son (who had just gotten over something else) got it, then my husband succumbed. Just as they were all starting to feel better I got it, and it knocked me off my feet for two and a half days. Yesterday was the first day that I have felt even remotely stable on my feet. Hubs and I haven’t had coffee in over a week and now that the withdrawal is most certainly over, we’re thinking of not starting again. In fact, we had herbal tea this morning.

Now that we’re all better and the house is disinfected, I’m back to work. I already have the dyepots steaming and I’m printing invoices from Thursday’s update. It feels great to get back to normal!

One good thing about being knocked on your butt by a germ is that you get plenty of guilt-free fiber play time. I had just received my copy of Abby Franquemont’s new spinning DVD, and I spent a leisurely afternoon watching and learning how to do supported long-draw, a spinning technique that has intimidated me to this point.

I finally had to learn because this year I’ve decided to make my husband a handspun Cobblestone. I ordered 32 ounces of beautiful dark brown merino cross lamb roving from natchwoolie on etsy, and the way the fiber is processed really necessitates a woolen method. So, being unable to do much else, I finally decided that it was time to learn.

As it turns out, the technique feels pretty natural to me now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, and I was able to spin two full bobbins in not much time at all. The first skein is drying now, and it looks like it’s going to be a very, very warm and cozy yarn. I can’t wait to make my test swatch!

I also managed to finish my Multnomah shawl but not without a small amount of drama. I got to the middle of the last repeat when I ran out of yarn.  It makes a lot of sense because I had 400 yds of yarn to start but apparently I didn’t pay close enough attention to the yarn requirements. Bad knitter! I had to rifle through my personal stash and managed to come up with some merino/nylon sock in the same colorway. I was worried that it would be painfully obvious that the end of the shawl was done in a different base, but it’s upstairs blocking and I can hardly tell. Whew!

Photos of both coming soon!

We lost one of our chickens yesterday. She was hit by a car, and, mercifully, appeared to have died instantly. Although we have prepared our boys and ourselves for the possibility since the day we got our chicks, it was still hard. I was impressed with how well the boys handled it, better than me, probably. I guess that’s what makes me a wannabe homesteader, because as much as I tell myself that farm animals are not pets, I still feel like crying about that silly bird.

Red, Trouble, and Thing 2 are blissfully unphased by the loss, and I suppose that I should follow their lead. Having a farm is as much about death as life, and if I want a farm some day, I’d better start getting used to the idea.

RIP Thing 1. You were as loved as any pea-brained chicken could ever be.

Sorry blog- it seems that I got a little too busy for you this summer. Two months without a post!

We’ve been busy, but good busy.

Busy watching our chickies grow:

Busy exploring the forest and finding interesting things:

And of course, busy making things; like this set I made for little Bean:

We’ve been busy watching our garden grow, too. We had so many sugar snap peas that we would send the kids out to eat them straight off the plants, and had many delicious stir fry dinners with pea pods as the main vegetable. And yesterday, Liam harvested our first ripe tomatoes:

And of course you all know I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t pursuing a new craft-related obsession. But that’s for another post.

6 PM. My new matchless is supposed to be here today- the website says it’s out on the truck but no UPS guy yet. Have I mentioned I’m not the most patient person in the world?

I promise pictures if the dang thing ever arrives!