Bliss Beyond Naptime

Feeling So Soule

I don't have to tell most of you how incredibly inspiring Miss Soulemama is but I thought her blog could use a little traffic help so I thought I should give it a little mention. I was especially giddy this morning after reading this post  about their dining table set up with having everyone in the family claim their very own napkin ring. I've actually been muttering ""GENIUS" to myself all morning. We do cloth napkins too but I get icked out about accidentally mixing them up and cross contaminating gribblies with each other. Kind of like backwash. You know I love them all to bits but ... gross.

 Another bit of inspiration from the Oprah of the crafty mommy blogging world is to embroider over an Edie original sketch then make a pillow case. We were so needing more pillows on our couch. Craig and I fight over the sad little two that came with the darn thing on movie nights. Craig then starts crying and says "when are you going to make some pillows?". So I made pillows. The back of the pillows are envelope style if you can imagine with three sweet little wood buttons with really pretty floral cotton fabric. Maybe I should get off my lazy tush and take a picture already.

 

I used up all the last bits of last year's Yard and Yardage sale fabric scores (just in time too. Next one is next month!) so I'm hoping Craig will be pleased with my frugally sustainable resourcefulness. There's now a pillow for a rainy spring day and one for a sunny summer morning. And Edie says when we have guests come over we can just flip them over so they can check out the buttons!

Crocus Hocus Pocus

We are all really excited about the whiff of spring in the air. We got back from our trip to no snow but a beautiful collection of cottonwood leaves that leaves us (pun intended of course) a perfect excuse to spend longer productive chunks of time outside. Edie's been checking in every few minutes on the status of her bulbs we planted together in the fall. I've been telling the story of The Snowdrop which I find really sweet because of how bad the little flower wants to break out of her stylish bulb home. Edie finds the voice I use when she asks "when will it be spring?" very droll. I've been whipping up those little flower fairies  (from The Childrens Year by the way) for the nature table but not until after they explode from under the white silk scarf snow piled on my lap at the very end of the story.

 

Okay, this little girl officially has the sewing bug now. She saw me working on the Crocus Fairy and asked if she can do some. I let her take over and she sewed the gathering stitch for the leaves draping the neck.

 

She's getting better and better at this sewing thing. I'm so excited that's she's excited. She's already talking about future projects just like her old lady. And behold the flower power of the nature table. The morning after we placed petal pusher here...

... nothing like that ear piercing squeal of a little girl beholding the first bloom of the year. Sweet sounds of spring.

Day of Firsts

First snowdrop fairies make an appearance on the nature table.

 

First birdfeeder pine cones make it on the tree (finally!).

 

This guy's first bike ride. He loved it of course (gets it from his dad this bike love).

 

And on that night said little guy got his first fever and first two pukes. He's being a little trooper. I was finally able to ninja-maneuver out of bed for he's been latched on all day. Even though he's ill (though I think he's over the worst of it), and grouchy, he still manages to throw us a giggle bone here and there. Such a strong little man.

Easter Drama Bunny

Our neighbour across the street has an annually Ukranian Easter Egg decorating party on Good Friday. I'm so happy this is an annual event. This is definately an arena that takes some practicing. So much fun though. Not so much fun though when you burn yourself with melted black wax (ooooo, that would make such a cool girl band name - still brain storming on that one, Blande).

Ouch! That's gotta hurt! Little Princess got a big blob of hot love right on her little hand. It's like we're siameses twins sometimes, me and her. Especially at this party. My little cylon Klingon. That's okay. She was pretty bummed after that singe episode so she sulked on the couch and drowned her sorrows in her beer.

Speaking of Klingons, I heard some distressing news at the party. The alternative school we were leaning toward sending Edie to eventually is totally revamping their structure and location. Primarly it's the location that's the hugest turn-off for me. That and it will probably mean the classes will be starting at an insane hour. Like 8:00. Edie was up once before 8:00. And it was 7:45. Because it was Christmas morning. See what I mean? Now, we're going to look back into homeschooling again. If anyone can recommend some good books on the topic that would be great...

Easter morning came and Edie looked and looked in and around her Fairy House...

... looking, looking...

And finally she came across this strange object she's never seen before. What is it? - I asked her. I don't know. She says. I had to explain it was a chocolate easter bunny. Her first one obviously. She wants to eat the butt first. I'm an ear girl myself.

Edited to clarify Craig made the egg on the left and I the one on the right! We then settled in for a breakfast of blueberry buttermilk pancakes (buttermilk from our beloved butter lady) and sausage and flourished the table with our Ukranian/German/Hungarian/Peruvian eggs. The first flowers from Edie's garden were a pretty touch too. Anyone can tell us what kind these are? Is this a crocus among us?

And Mr Bunny also left her some Silly Putty and a beautiful giant hollow egg  - like ostrich sized - painted with girly bunnies all over it and filled with treats such as a baby sleeping duck (Edie named her Kaloopa, but her nick name is Quacky Duck), modeling clay, worry dolls (Craig named them Choking Hazzards), and this nifty little paint brush that she was eager to test drive right away. Yes, those are her panties on her head. See why we're looking into homeschooling?

Placenta(rt)

Ack! No internet for a while. But it's back and have lots of craftiness to share. My doula's a pretty crafty one at that. She should probably write a book titled 101 Things to Do With Your Placenta. As I was laying on the bathroom floor after Drippy Kale's arrival (man, hard to get out of the Drippy habit!), Lisa, my doula, kept poking her head in the bathroom door curtain (which just happened to be my labour project with Edie's birth) saying things like; "hey, Kathy, you're pretty crafty, you have some paper I can make an inprint of the placenta?" 

Pretty cool, I was thinking in those hazy first moments with a newborn plopped on my belly starting his half hour journey up to my boobs all on his own. There's a moment in the bonus features of the video Birth Day where the father makes an "artistic placenta print" after the birth of his daughter that was just so beautiful and I remember thinking it was just the coolest thing ever.

A few minutes later she pops her head  back in and says she's got pancakes going on but did I want her to make a bracelet for Drippy out of some of the same stuff? Suppose to bring termendous luck to him in the future. Later... want some dehydrated in the oven for capsules later? Here's some placenta ala carta for you to shoot back. Here's some for the freezer, carefully marked "Drippy's Placenta". More, less squeamish craft updates coming up soon. So nice to have the Internets back!

Peaches and Dream

Peaches are in prime season here and we've been feasting on peach pie while slurping up the last juicy bits of summer. Thanks by the way for all the kind congratulations on the last post. It's heartwarming to know that close friends and long time readers understand how this is somewhat of a major fruition of a long stretched out dream for us. It's exciting to finally be moving into a home that we've been dreaming about pretty much since Craig and I met. Actually or second date to be exact when we're were swapping dreams in between swapping spit. It's not the exact manifestation we were expecting but how things actually turn out are just as if not more so magical.

So, under the catagory of knitting, sewing, spinning and other crafts, this is the first project I've made using yarn I spun. It's based on the Karee pattern from It's a Tape Thing but it's not. It's a Merino and Alpalca Thing.

Here we go off on a tangent; As I mentioned in the comments of the last post, we will be having the bedrooms painted by a Lazure painter who was trained by this guy. Lazure painting is ethereal, gauzy, layer-y, looks really cozy and suited for strawbale's plaster texture. So, the painter/kundalini yoga teacher came and saw then recommended peach and rose tones for Edie's her because of the Steiner belief that little kids should remain in a peachy keen type reality for as long as possible. Especially Edie. She's pretty light on her tipy-toes. Clara's kind of the same way so luckily I had enough left over of the homespun to make her a little fruity tooty dress.

And because I can't sew any bigger type clothing projects (things can messy and we're having people view our house we're trying to sell here) Clara's been ca-chinging the bulk of my creative mojo these days. I sewed up this little apricot number:

Once again, good from far, far from good. Luckily she doesn't complain much!

Gardening and Sheet

Garden is coming together. At first Edie had better things to do when Mommy was banging up the beds but now she's really digging it. Already we've been enjoying salad from our lettuce and we're looking forward to embellishing them with beets and carrots.

I still have some clean up to tend to in the background but I'm pretty excited about making bigger and bigger gardens in the future. My vision's to have a seated lace coverage for shade area for tea time with all the fixins like rose infused herbal ice tea and crumpets but for now I'm just content the deer fencing is finally up and I'm not totally killing everything.

So almost as important, if not more, than the garden, it's been finally been warm and dry enough to be sporting my new gardening outfit:

It's the Edwardian Underthangs pattern from Folk Wear patterns. Check out the site, lots of cute vintage styles. I made my bloomer set from a vintage sheet. Thus the post title.

Good sheet!

Pass the Herb

I attended a fun little celebration this weekend. It was a birthday party of sorts. An elder here turned 84 this week and so there was a festival marking the occasion on his property. Part of the festivities included a herbal salve making class that was pretty fun. It took place in this really rustic circular strawbale cottage, a couple of mah ladies in attendance while Edie and Craig had fun with other kiddies and daddies running around the compound.

The salve class really tickled my fancy for learning more about herbal healing, an interest of mine for a long time. I'm considering (once again) taking the Rosemary Gladstar correspondance Herbal program. I know a couple of my friends have done so in the past. Anyone else out there tried it? Anyone wanna do it at the same time as me? That would be fun. I'm just feeling the importance to embrace the power the plants offer us, especially living out here where a lot of medicinal plants grow so abundantly, being a mom and somewhat skeptical of conventional medicines and pharmaceuticals being so heavily pushed. I have lots of alternative health support around me but I think I'm ready to delve in to more of a personal practice. An empowerment thing, ya know?

I leave you with a message brought to you from the birthday boy's lens.

I "Octa" Learn to Crochet

What is it about summer that just makes me want to crochet the days away? I, even after my mom's tete a tete about dwindling down my obsessions to one (she's rooting for sewing, surprise, surprise - me too though) signed up for the Crafty Daisies on line Learn to Crochet series. The deal is each week we are taught some crochet basics then there are three pattens for squares to crank out. Making two of each, we should have a nice size lapghan at the end of the twelve weeks. I'm using my stash leftovers so it's been a nice walk down memory lane working with the stuff.

Again, this being my, ahem, third round of trying to learn to crochet (why am I so slow to learn?) I'm way behind the rest of the crew. I'm only on my third square. The octopus is just hanging out. Strange he ended up in the shot because I was talking about octopus in ceviche to a hitchhiker I picked up yesterday. Weird. Ceviche is the best heat wave food around. Have some with beer if you can and with any seagull sounds you can muster.

(I'm using the draft option of typepad so this was written yesterday and this morning I'm a totally different person. Not just because of my cells' unusually efficient regeneration capabilities but I'm already getting stumped in the learn to crochet along. I'm almost ready to throw my hook in the air and let Edie play with it until it goes forever missing in her toy picnic basket. We'll see what happens.)

Egg-cellent!

Look what the Easter Tree brought me. A new laptop!!! Yay! Joy! I'm so very, very happy!!! After a couple of emotional breakdowns, it was decided there was a need for Mommy to have a new computer. I feel much much better. For anyone who has been emailing me I'm not mad, just hanging out in real life. So nice to be back! I have my coffee on hand and am ready to blog heedlessly without fear the monitor's going to go konk and my mind then going snap.

I've been on an Easter crafting kick  Having a little munchkin in my life has made me get into such things as celebrating holidays in as creative ways with the challenge of trying not to involve sugar as much as possible. I'll have more egg-y goodness to show you probably tomorrow. I use to now a guy named Egg come to thing of it. He kinda looks like the picture above.

The Easter tree idea came from a Waldorf inspired book I've been dipping into here and there, The Children's Year and the blossom fairies are from a link featured on Whip Up a couple of pages ago. The Easter eggs were batik dyed using food colouring and drips of beeswax candles. Edie is so enthralled with the Easter tree project as you can see. She learned to use Mommy's scissors (I've been upgraded from "Mama" to "Mommy" by the way after the fever broke), and got to act as creative director telling me where each egg and fairy will go. She loves to stroke the eggs and say "soft!" and twirl the fairies to make them dance and then she joins along with a little shakey shakey. Ack! I love her!