small hands

I like Work In Progress Friday, though I sometimes have to move it to another day of the week. I love to see what other folks are up to and I appreciate dispelling the Ta Da aspect of only showing a completed project.

I've been stuck for a little while on the Any Way You Slice It quilt, for two reasons:

1. I always get Monkey Mind when I'm trying to emulate Denyse Schmidt, because she is awesome and her vision is very particular to her.

2. It's harder when you have to meet expectations--in this case of the recipients--and you are emulating someone else. It's way easier to spring a quilt on some unsuspecting person. :0) Ninja Quilting Style!!

Speaking of emulation, I am crocheting something. Me.

I used to crochet, back when I was...ten or something. I remember getting guidance from my mother or my grandmother or great aunt, using 60s and 70s era, psychedelic acrylic yarn. Then I forgot everything.

I knit in college, but the cost of yarn always stuck in my craw. It still does. Plus, knitting is complicated.

Here are the circumstances that led me to crochet something:

1. Seeing Nanny McPhee, some time in 2006. I mentioned that the bedding was excellent, but I didn’t know that I was impressed with a crocheted blanket. I was though.

2. Buying myself a Splink doll for Christmas. Now that I'm crocheting, I can appreciate the brilliance of Julie's talent even more.



3. Alicia and Jane (I even eat Jelly Bellies while I crochet) started crocheting a waves blanket and the colors moved me.

4. Cath Kidston thought she was gonna charge $207 for this blanket.



It’s made from acrylic yarn, which means the materials for the entire double sized blanket cost around $40, retail; much less wholesale. Twelve skeins of yarn for $2.99 each and a crochet needle. This kind of retail textile markup is the reason I quilt too. It’s wrong. It makes me think: I can do that. [I don't factor in my hourly wage, because a) it's a hobby and b) it begs the question of who crocheted the blanket for Ms. Kidston's company and at what wage?]

I decided to make her blanket, as closely as I could.



[Admittedly, it's big talk to say I'm going to do what a professional designer/taste maker does from a spirit of resentment. However, Lyn posted that she was inspired to start one too and it made me laugh at myself and crafty blog zeitgeist.]

5. Crocheting is portable. Quilting is not. I can crochet at work, at swimming practice, at my parents’ cabin. But check it out: I don’t intend to start knitting again, or to buy expensive yarn. There is not enough time in a day to quilt and do everything else and one stash (fabric) is enough. I wanted to do this project primarily because of number 4.

I figure the finished blanket will take 90 blocks and I figure I can complete 5 blocks a day for 18 days. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The deeper my concentration on the project, the more my son seems to need to sit on me.

6. Flickr is great for examples of awesome granny squares. I got the instructions on how to crochet a granny square from Martha Stewart’s website. Smooches to Martha. It took me more than a day to figure out what the instructions meant and how to follow them correctly. It’s like driving: a lot of it came back to me, from the mists of time, and it was easy to do once you figured stuff out. Crocheting is much more forgiving than knitting.

It is weird to out myself about my crocheting, since I'm A Quilter.

But I also put the Any Way You Slice It quilt aside (not away) and started on another quilt, following my process. That means finding a block I like, pulling fabric I think will suit the block, rotary cutting, pinning and sewing. It's my first [crafting] love, crocheting is a dalliance. What's true about my completing projects (of many sorts) is that multi-tasking is liberating for me.

This is the view from Bear Valley. So cold. So beautiful.



My girl took a snowboarding lesson with her BFF.



And then hit the slopes:



My boy had a bug from hell and slept most of the time and ate very little. I worried, but he rallied.





Returning home to this sight was quite a treat:



Descending 8000 feet gave me a pounding headache and I felt a little burdened by all the To Do lists which spring instantly to mind, all the e-mails that downloaded into my Blackberry, all the phone calls/messages, chores, etc. I need to manage it all better.

* * *

Thank you all for the compliments about my kids. Nothing makes a mother's heart more full of joy. I kiss you all.

The kids have Ski Week, so we're going to the snow for a little while.

These are the bags I made for the One Hour Craft bag swap.

The larger bag is made from two Amy Butler fabrics. The lining is from an older fabric line:



The smaller pouch is made from the Prints Charming fabric I got from Cia's Palette. This is the other side of the small pouch:



* * *

Hi Stephanie, thank you for your comment. It prompts me to recommend that you read (if you haven't already) Flux by Peggy Orenstein. It really helped me clear out a lot of mental clutter, created by media hype and cultural messages, before I embarked on my path of single parenthood.

I had a great weekend and I hope you did too. Saturday I made this Honey Vanilla pound cake, an Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa recipe out of the most current issue of Country Living magazine.



It is so good and the fragrance will send you to heaven. I mixed it up while I put away the groceries, so my son entered in on the process too late to break the eggs. Oh the humanity! He whined that he wanted to bake something else, that he didn't want pound cake. Didn't want pound cake? Have I given birth and raised up someone who says those words?

Nevertheless, I put the last three slices in their lunches this morning.

We went to the movies on the rainy Saturday and saw this. It wasn't bad at all; plenty of weaknesses but no deal breakers.

Sunday morning, I wanted to eat a bagel and drink coffee and linger over this photograph in the New York Times magazine:



but no, we got up and went to San Ramon for a swim meet. My first swim meet.

I expected it to be challenging, to be out in the suburbs surrounded by swim parents, to be bored out of my skull and having to wrangle a bored 6 year old, and in the rain. But it was fine. I got into seeing the little bitty girls in their races, all the swimmers walking around in their big swim jackets and Uggs, eating baked potatoes and Cup-O-Noodles in between races, my girl hanging with her friends in complete bliss. She didn't swim this time, but she will next time.

I didn't know my children like Cup-O-Noodles. I'm not going to stock them at home, though. Too much sodium.

After three hours we returned to Oakland and bought supplies for my girl to make Valentines cards. And crickets for the gecko. Her brother had been pestering her all weekend, so I took him away from her so that she could have several hours of relaxing, alone time. Everybody wins when the bickering subsides.

Laundry, dinner, Grammys and back to work and school this morning.

I'm blogging during a quick court recess. I'm sorry I haven't posted this week.

Thank you all for your comments about my sweet boy.

I can't really distill and summarize my feelings about crafting and my legacy to my children. I know that when they no longer have me, they will have the things I made by hand when I was missing and wanting them, as well as when we were all crammed together in my study playing Studio Apartment while I sewed.

I lost my quilting momentum this week, but that enabled me to complete my bag for One Hour Craft's bag swap. I didn't realize the deadline was tomorrow, but that's groovy because I'm heading for the post office after court.

One secret of getting your crafty mojo back is to complete small project. Since most of my projects are king sized quilts, it's just the thing.

I will post pictures once my swap-ee has received it.

Here is a little peek at another bag I made, inspired by this wonderful picture of Tania in Lisbon:



Gotta run!

My son has his "Big Share" today at school. I was sure he would take his two new Maasai chokers, which came in the mail--all the way from Kenya--this weekend. But suddenly he felt shy about exposing his love of Kenya and the Maasai to his class. So he went around collecting things that I had made for him to show, which completely surprised me.







And this cushion, minus the pins:



It really surprised me that he is so proud of my handmade things that he would bring them in to share. It made me think of the lyrics in the Dixie Chicks song Silent House:

Everything that you made by hand
Everything that you know by heart

It's the made by hand stuff that my son values most and is proud enough of to show to his peers.

Please forgive the republishing of 25 posts yesterday. Blogger is requiring its users transfer to a new Google interface and it is rubbish.

I read about The Comforts of Home: Creating Relaxed Rooms with a Romantic Feel by Atlanta Bartlett on someone's blog (I can't remember whose) and checked to see if it was at the library. It wasn't, but it was on sale on Amazon for $1.36. That price says Buy me and if I'm no good, donate me to the library and you'll only be out $4. Well, it's rather good.



I'm a sucker for a detail like this:



Chartreuse! Coffee! Speaking of which, have you checked out 3191 yet? It's brilliant.





I love these bookshelves, though I think the ancient books inside are just props.