Bliss Beyond Naptime

Diggin Da Dungerees

I was on holidays the last ten days and did I pull out my camera at any time? Not really. Got a shot of the Hungarian Seven Layer Cake my mom made in honour of ME (and threw in three extra layers) and I went on a photo shoot blitz of Edie blitzed out playing with her cousins (my happy cousins! she says).

What I really wanted to capture on digital film was Edie sporting the dungerees I made her right before our trip. She wore them almost everytime we left a grandma's house (we stayed with three throughout the week; Grandma Chris, Grandma Nancy and Grandma "Chew Don't Like Booooo-Bee!". I'll have to wait till she wakes up now to model them. Dum dee dum dee dum.

Excellent! Here she is. What thrilled me most about this finished project was how long it took for it to be such. I'm finally getting apt enough in sewing that I'm distinguishing between the shortcuts that are cool  to take and those that won't buy me any time. Edie had a night of "too hard to sleep!" so I threw in Little Bear and snuck into my creative space and by the time she eventually woke up the next morning (mind you it was getting close to noon - please don't call child services) I had finished. Instant gratification compared to knitting and the cost of the material (from the local yard and yardage sale in the spring) gave me a warm fuzzy feeling in my fuzzy felted wallet.

The pattern is from a Waldorf type craft book called The Children's Year. The book is cute, has sweet little illustrations and covers seasonal natural projects for parents to make for kids.

The pattern is a copy from the grid miniture one from the back. I thought I totally messed up because the outfit looked like it could almost fit me on a short day but lo and behold it fits her perfectly! I'm going to make her some shorts and dress variations. And maybe some for her happy cousin too!

Butterfly Ball

It was Edie's best friend's birthday party last week and her momma held her a butterfly ball. Birthday girl was coveting the fairy dress I made Edie so I made one just like with the leftover satin.

I made the rest of the butterfly guests some felted crowns and Ambrosia a special reversable one inspired by SouleMama's specialty.

Edie so totally looks up to to Ambrosia as you can see here.

Hey! Watch my kid! I swear I have to put one of those sproingy red flags on her, she's so little and quiet people don't see her, even little people. Was a wonderful birthday paty complete with a jump in a river and pony rides. Have a great weekend. We're living large in the big city visiting with family. Nice to live that contrast once in a while!

Sweet Cherry

Oi, it's bright! Despite the mosquitoes, lack of Waldorf school, noseeums and mosquitoes, I really love living in this sweet little town. This weekend was pretty special being filled with celebrations of magical grandeur - a special little girl's fourth birthday and celebrations of the sweet and juicy mundane - cherry season.

I have tonnes of pictures of the birthday party to sift through so I'll devote this post to cherries. Happy birthday sweet Ambrosia.

My uber-groovy friend, Peggy, runs a farm, The One Horned Unicorn, or the Yellow Toned Unicorn, or Yell In The Horn, Unicorn, or something like that, complete with three WOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). She has a million of cherries to contend with, along with most of our friends around here, so she decided to throw a cherry party.

After a quick jump in the river, the party offerings included homemade cherry icecream, cherry pies, cherry juice, cherry cocktails, cherry scones, cherries, whipped cream and bbq. So I made the hostess with the mostest cherries this little felted cherry pin in the morning. Can I say how long am I going to put off having a "felt some food" party? Too much fun. Edie loves playing with felt food at the local Waldorf inspired store and it's so easy to do. I have a bunch of moms interested to participate too. Maybe in the fall when our knit club gets back together again.  Very easy. I needlefelted the thing together then wet felted to make it more compact. I used real wool felt sheet for the leaf and stitched on a pin to the back. Voila, mon cherry!

Felt Like a New Wallet

I'm no feng shui expert but something tells me that walking around for the last two months with a wallet with a major hole in its change pocket was not helping the family's finances any. Everytime I'd open the thing coins goes flying everywhere and I say, I got to buy me a new wallet but then I remember my self imposed hand-made challange then say, in my head, no, I'm going to make me a new wallet. Thus, I had a hole in my money bag for two months.

No, no, Craig doesn't have a hole in him (ha, ha), my wallet does. But not anymore. In with the new, I made a little card holding do-hickey slot (which reminds me of when I worked in a video store fifteen years ago. When people asked me if we had an afterhours slot, smart, sassy, probably drunk twenty year old me would say, "yes, but she's on holidays this week").

And a zippered change purse, sans hole. I feel so abundantly abundant now. Feng shui this!

Summer's Been Rad(ish)

It's been way too busy to post. Summer's glorious here as usual but both Craig and I are overwhelmed with work and stressed with what are next move is going to be. That's why it's been rad -ish. Ha, ha. I keep saying to myself, quit the blog, what a time waster but this excercise, again, I find so helpful in seeing what I have been prioritizing, capturing on camera the simple beauty I find around me and recording the mundane around what seems like chaos.

The beauty of summer here captured at a farmer's market, little girl's birthday party and our new kayak!

The ugh-ing it bits include the mosquitoes, deciding where we're going to live, busy with work in form of training a couple of soapmakers right now and Craig's usual job-related stress. We decided we're keeping the Horniman, that's for certain, kind of as a weekend/holiday retreat, but we're leaning now a move to the town of Nelson so that Edie could attend the Waldorf school and to lower our environmental footprint indentation by avoiding all the driving around we find ourselves doing in this rural set-up. Plus, the mosquitoes are driving me insane! My strawberries are popping but I can't bask in their juiciness because the critters are finding me just as appetizing. So, those are my big motivators but it's a tough decision. We're still flip-flopping up to this point.