The Cussing Quilter

On my design wall.

I've had these half-square triangles made forever and I've arranged, taken down, and rearranged them six different times, for reasons like sump pump disasters (the sump pump and catchment tank are in the closet of my sewing room - it's really classy) and sewing dungeon reconfigurations. The fabric is a few charm packs in white and in Moda's Hunky Dory fabric line. I'm pretty sure that this quilt will be for my aunt Nancy, my mom's youngest sister. Now I just need to hunker dunker down and get this thing finished. Her birthday is in December - that MIGHT give me enough time. I've managed to find enough yardage in this line for the backing and I know once I get going sewing up the rows it'll come together quickly.

For the curious, my "design wall" is a big piece of white felt affixed to the only available wall space in my sewing dungeon, using colorful and ubiquitous thumbtacks. I told you - classy.

Some photos from my week:

Me and my sweet boy.

Love the soft clouds and angular metal tower.

When thinking about giving up something for Lent, I wanted to make sure I was giving up something unnecessary and frivilous. Starbucks immediately came to mind. So here I am. Day two and surviving. Oh, I've not given up coffee. Coffee is totally necessary. 

Finally found a great Thai restaurant today in Minneapolis on Nicollet. Oh, my. It was delish and long overdue. Pad Thai is the meal by which I judge any Thai restaurant. If they can nail this, anything else on the menu should be stellar.

Over and out.

Hump Day.

I've had some great thrifting luck this week. I've been needing more red in my vintage sheet stash, and I found one. Still in the package. Nice.

Getting a wee bit of snow today. I love big, fat snowflakes.

I don't love it when they melt as soon as they hit the ground. Yes, that is my backyard in mid-February in MinneSNOWta. I've talked to tons of people who have said that they can't recall ever having a winter like this one. Bring it on, Mother Nature. We've been waiting.

 

Fat Quarter Love

One of the new additions to my new vintage sheet shop. More items are added daily!

Whoa.

Now that was a blogging break.  A long, unannounced but seriously necessary break.

Let's see now. Where to begin. How about some bullet points? 

* The Etsy shop did very well heading up to the Holidays. I made and sold 1,530 feet of felt garland, and made and sold about 55 pennant banners (that's 495 feet of garland), including one special order in January for 15 pennant banners. Yowza! I also made and sold quite a few coffee cozies, and completed some custom quilt orders. I'm so thankful to my customers for such a great year.

(One of my bunting banners in action. Love it!)

* The house and the settling in to our new digs is coming along. We're able to park our cars in the garage (thanks, honey!) and we haven't had any more basement flooding (knocking on wood). We're hoping to remodel our kitchen and most of the main floor this year. More on that in an upcoming post.

* I'm going gray. I've decided to never color my hair everever again. Since moving here I've met and seen so many women who proudly and beautifully wear their gray and silver, and I found that I was so ready to join them. I've earned every. single. one. of my grays and I'm proud of that. Same for wrinkles and stretch marks.

* Considering how much snow was on the ground and still coming when we moved here just over a year ago, this winter has been a serious let down. There's very little snow left on the ground because whatever has fallen has melted. I need some snow. The kids need some snow. Please!

* In December we took a trip to Trinidad for two weeks with the kids for Christmas. It was Chris' first Trini Christmas in 25 years or so, and my first ever. It was time. Overall the trip went really well. The kids traveled pretty well - except for the trip home during which we were all ready to kill each other. They made travel journals (I'll share those in another post) and were eager to write in them and pick their photos everyday (got me an Instax) and I think they really enjoyed the process. I love Trinidad and being with my in-laws but I don't ever want to travel over Christmas again. Not even to LA. We all just need to be at home in our jammies with our decorated house and our tree and hot cocoa and a warm fire in the fireplace. This year we only had up some lights. No decorations and not a whole lot of shopping. And while it was fun and great to be in the Caribbean and drinking and eating way too much, it just didn't feel like Christmas. I was kinda bummed.

Getting ready to land in Miami. Love this photo.

Maracas Bay, Trinidad.

Store Bay, Tobago

Poolside at the Trinidad Hilton

* Aidan, our amazing 9-year-old-best-reader-in-the-world kid, received a diagnosis of PDD NOS in early December, and ADHD combined-type and a learning disability. He'd been diagnosed with ADHD at around 4 years old, but we were never convinced that was the right diagnosis, or that it was the only diagnosis. After many, many struggles in school and at home, we found a neuropsychologist and had him tested. PDD NOS is an Autism Spectrum Disorder, but neither Autism or Asperger's Syndrome. However, since the diagnosis and after reading about 10 books on ASD and Asperger's, I'm convinced that Aidan is more an Aspie than anything else. I've found "The Completed Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" and "Kids in the Syndrome Mix" to be extremely helpful to finally understanding our boy and to start doing the right things to help him. An incredibly wise friend, who is also an pediatric occupational therapist and parent to an ADHD child, recently told me, "It's time to change your expectations of him and of yourselves." Best advice ever. He's now back in OT and doing therapeutic listening, and the school (best school ever) is being very proactive and helpful in getting him in a better place in the classroom. We've all witnessed a great improvement these last few weeks. And my heart is very, very happy. We have a long way to go but any steps forward are very, very good.

* So, in order to be more available to take Aidan to appointments, help in school and be more available at home, I took a break from my Etsy shop a few weeks ago. Inventory is limited to what is in stock and ready to ship, which isn't much. Most of what I sell in my shop is pretty much made-to-order. It's been nice to have a break.

* But then this week I decided that, after a re-org of my crafting dungeon, I needed to unload some of my vintage sheet stash. 

and opened another Etsy shop:  shabbysheets.etsy.com  At this very moment inventory is limited to some pillowcases, but I'm working on adding fat quarters and yardage as well. 

* Makena is a Girl Scout and as such will be selling cookies starting Saturday. And as such, we will be consuming copious cookies in the coming weeks. And my rule has always been that no diet shall be started until after the cookies are gone. I'll try to be good, but hey - I'm a realist. If there are Thin Mints in my house, I will eat them. 

* My mom just came for a visit for Makena's 8th birthday. We went to our standard birthday dinner extravaganza at Benihana, had a wee princess party for five girls, and then had to take my mom to the airport. I love her. I miss her. I want her to move here.

* Chris still loves his new job which he's now been doing for over a year. Working for everyone's favorite retailer has been very, very good. And now I get to think of shopping as job security for our family. Niiiice.

So I've got a few more ideas for how to keep things going on a regular basis here on this blog, like weekly posts for "Shit I've Made from Pinterest" and some quilting and sewing tutorials and other shenanigans.

Keep your fingers crossed.

A to Z

Because I've been sucking so badly at blogging, I jumped at the chance to complete this little survey I saw on my friend Joy's blog as great way to try to get back in the groove.

A. Age: 42

B. Bed size: King - and almost time for a new one!

C. Chore that you hate: Laundry - it is never done

D. Dogs: only the stuffed kind

E. Essential start to your day: Strong coffee or chai tea

F. Favorite color: I never met a blue I didn't like

G. Gold or Silver: silver

H. Height: 5′7"ish

I. Instruments you play: The vocal chords

J. Job title: wife, mother, quilter, crafter, Chief Cleanliness Officer

K. Kids: 3

L. Live: Shorewood, MN

M. Mother’s name: Katy

N. Nicknames: Teen-teen, TeeCee, Hey You 

O. Overnight hospital stays: As a teenager with a tonsular absess

P. Pet peeves: Drivers who cut me off, parents who don't make their kids wear helmets on their bikes and scooters, mean people, racists, bigots, and hangnails

Q. Quote from a movie: "Patricia makes coffee nervous." You've Got Mail

R. Right or left handed: Right 

S. Siblings: 1 brother, two half-sisters, one half-brother

U. Underwear: I've gone granny

V. Vegetable you hate: None!

W. What makes you run late: See K above!

X. X-Rays you’ve had: dental, hip, shoulder, wrist

Y. Yummy food that you make: Ginger molasses cookies

Z. Zoo animal: Giraffes

We're all doing great, adjusting to being back in school, enjoying our first Minnesota fall (so freakin' awesome!), getting ready for winter, and settling in more and more. 

Here's a picture of us taken in August by my cousin Elizabeth in front of our house. I love my beautiful family!

My next update will cover my decision to go gray, how I'm doing back on Weight Watchers, and my first sale in my Etsy shop.

See ya!

The Power of Staging.

I've learned so much about staging in the last year or so. From selling and buying houses to the items in my Etsy shop, it's so amazing how proper staging and good photography makes all the difference. I'm an HGTV addict and every.single.word. I've heard on those property staging shows is 100% true. 

In selling our house, it took about a year, working with our amazing realtors in San Diego, to get our house really ready for market. Painting, painting, and painting, landscaping, storing, cleaning, remodeling, flooring. Our house was lovely to being with, and many of the things we had done were finished before we decided to get the heck outta Dodge. And it's possible that our house would have sold just fine at a reasonable price without the time, effort and coin we put into getting it ready. But it sold and for exactly what we were hoping for. In four days. And with two competing listings in the neighborhood. Sweet. Totally worth all that effort.

In buying a house, it is very true that when all you see is the work you have to do to make it liveable, the less you want to buy. Porches and railings in disrepair. Cha-ching! Windows that need replacing. Cha-ching! Flooring that is old and stained? Yuk. You want to see what you're buying in a nice, clean package so you can see yourself moving right in, and justify the price.

And when browsing homes online, if there was only one photo or if the photos were bad (some looked like they were taken by a near-sighted toddler), we were not compelled to see the home in person. A picture is worth a thousand words. It's cliche, but it's so true.

Nice, clean packages are no guarantee that there won't be issues. Like the sump pump in our new house failing three weeks after we moved in and flooding our basement. Shit! Like the lovely, huge, soaker jacuzzi tub in our master bath that can't fill up with enough blissfully hot water to reach the jets because the hot water heater isn't big enough to handle it. Double shit! And a few other irritating-but-livable-for-now functionality issues that I hope will be taken care of in a year or two. 

But I love our house with the huge back yard and awesome basement and killer school district. We're making it ours and that feels really good.

And then yesterday, when taking photos for my Esty shop and posting some new items, I wasn't feeling the photos of my products. They were techincally fine and showed the items well, but there didn't seem to be anything about the photos that would grab a buyer's attention. And my crazy idea to use a pegboard for the background was not a good one. Bad staging.

So I tried a few different things and came up with this instead:

I'm still not sure I'm 100% into this arrangement (what am I selling? a globe? some jars? an old metal tray? oh yeah, the garland) but my product looks much better. The other photos are still in the listing, but this is what will hopefully catch the eye of buyers and browsers. In this photo a buyer can see what my product might look like in a room, on a wall above a table in their own home. Maybe next I'll try making a cake and setting up a little party table. Lots of possiblities.

Staging, baby. Gotta love it.

The last few (endless) days of summer.

Summer is slowly winding down. It's been a busy one, here at Chez Cockburn. Busy, but fun.

The MIL came for a visit for two weeks in June, followed a few days later by my mommy for about a week. Then my fabulous 19-year-old cousin came to stay with us as a nanny/babysitter/dishwasher/"Friends"-watcher/glutton for punishment for about five weeks. And while she was here, my folks came for a week along with my aunt (said cousin's mom). 

And now all the visitors have left (so sad) and we're just finding things to do with our time until school starts next month. 

All the while we had guests, we'd been having work done on our house that involved many, many days of sweaty, hairy, shirtless, crack-showing (but nice and hard-working) construction dudes in and out of the house. I'm happy to say now that our basement windows are done and the basement no longer feels like a dungeon (well, my windowless sewing studio still does, but that's another issue altogether). It's nice to have the house back to ourselves again.

This summer we've been enjoying the beaches (the lake kind):

The backyard:

Makena has lost four teeth this summer and is now the richest person in our household. She's quite the artist and is super smart. She's a wonderful big sister (when she's in the mood) and if there were a Wii Olympics, she's take the Gold. She starts second grade in September. Wha?????

Nadia is our silly little spitfire who, thankfully, still loves to snuggle. We were hoping she'd start kindergarten this fall, but it looks like one more year of preschool shenanigans will get her good and primed for 2012. She's quite the ambidextrous girl, still deciding on which hand to use for writing, and continues to be a picky eater, preferring french fries and popcorn and tortilla chips as her three major food groups. The dreadlock adventure is still going strong and I'm handling it pretty well. I love her hair and wish I were brave enough and curly enough to lock mine. 

Aidan is doing very well! We've changed his medication and he's no longer on a stimulant-based ADHD drug. And since changing medications in June, he's grown a 1/2 inch and gained 2.5 lbs. He's outgrown all his jeans since the end of school and he's now wearing a size SIX shoe. One more size and my almost nine-year-old will be shopping in the men's department for shoes. Holy crap. He's an avid reader who's favorite place is the library when he's not splashing around in a pool or a lake. I bet he's read 50 books this summer, including half the Narnia series and the first six books of the Hardy Boys. He loves having me read to him and that's just fine with me.

I've also been sewing up a storm for my shop. Here are a few new additions:

 

Lots of vintage fabric pennant banners!

Getting ready for Halloween!

And several new coffee cup sleeves.

And over the summer I've been amassing an embarrassingly large collection of vintage sheets:

These are just a small, tiny portion of what I have. I've found a few really awesome thrift stores nearby and I almost never leave them without bagfuls of sheets, doilies, and other cool (and completely necessary, of course) knickknacks.

And the other day at Costco there was a bald eagle soaring around in circles over the parking lot. I wasn't in the Rockies, or any national park, or the Alaskan wilderness. I was at Costco. The first time I ever saw a bald eagle in person. It was awesome.

Once the kids are back in school I do hope to post here a bit more often. Keep your fingers crossed.

Enjoy what ever is left of your summer, too!

I'm alive.

And doing a lot of sewing for my shop:

It's summer, I have three kids in tow every day, and we're still in the process of settling in to our new home after a few setbacks (which involved lots of cussing and rum drinking).

But we're alive and well. Just felt like I finally needed to show up here and say that.

Happy Scrappy!

I finally finished the happy scrappy quilt top. Yippee!

 

This was a very fun and easy project. Every block is made from scraps and I was particularly frugal with the white jelly roll strips I used for the sashing. If you are a newer quilter and haven't managed to accumulate many scraps, head on over to Etsy (see links below) and search for fabric scraps. Lots and lots to choose from.

I highly recommend this kind of project for any quilter looking for a fun, colorful and easy project. I just gathered my scraps in piles according to color and randomly pulled from the pile to create the block.  As I got farther along in creating blocks, I did keep the size and dimensions of the blocks in mind to fit in a particular row.

I just love the randomness of the blocks and how wonky some of them are. 

Below is a photo of the quilt still in progress on my "design wall" (a big piece of batting hastily hung on the wall with some thumbtacks).

As I completed my blocks I put them up on the wall and arranged and rearranged until I was happy with the color layout. Then I added the sashing between the blocks and then sewed the whole row together. Then I added the sashing on the right side of the row and went on to the next row. After adding the sashing on the right side, I went back and made sure all my rows were square - and I'm glad I did!

I don't have a plan yet for the backing of this quilt, but I'll probably stick with my plan to use up those scraps. I'll have to use some larger panels (maybe a Kona ash - have plenty of it) and throw in some fun scrap strips.  I won't be able to finish this baby up any time soon since...we're moving in a week!

Our house in San Diego closes on Monday (Happy Valentine's Day to our buyers!) and then we close on our house here next Thursday, the same day my mom comes in for a week-long visit (I'll give her a hug and then put a sponge and a can of Ajax in her hands and head over to the new house). Then we'll move out of the rental next Saturday and get our delivery from storage on Tuesday the 22nd. Yeehaw! We've been in this rental long enough.

Let's just hope we can all stay well over the next few busy weeks. We've already had our share of ear infections and strep and general malaise, so think healthy thoughts!

Piece and love.

Kindles, Ice Skating and Sewing.

On Saturday this past weekend, we decided to give ice skating a try. Wells Fargo sponsors a free ice skating rink in downtown St. Paul and we figured we'd give it a try. Chris and I hadn't been ice skating in at least 30 years, and Makena and Aidan gave it a try once at a birthday party about a year ago. As we headed out the door, Chris questioned the sanity of the plan considering we are currently without health insurance (kicks in soon, though).

A lovely drive and skate rentals later, in 10-degree, sunny weather, we got out on the ice. 

Mr. Fearless had no trouble at all, as we had expected. Makena, on the other hand, who is our most natural athlete, never took her hand off the wall, and probably made only four laps around in the hour or so we were there. Just like it took her all last summer before she would dare go in the pool without floaties all up and down her arms.

And Nadia, who is indeed smiling in this photo, starting whining and crying the moment her wee little skated feet hit the ice, preferring to keep her death grip on daddy over holding on to the side. 

The two of them lasted about five minutes before my exasperated and frozen husband took Her Whineness off the ice.

And I did much better skating than I thought I would. I didn't fall once and actually really enjoyed myself. And there is no photographic proof of it so you'll just have to take my word for it.

In other news, I've made two more blocks for my scrappy quilt:

And since my mom and I each got a Kindle for Christmas, I made us both a cover using this tutorial as a guide:

The top one was made using a Moda jelly roll from their Hunky Dory line. The bottom one was made with a Moda honey bun from their Wonderland line. I don't know which one I'll be keeping - maybe I'll let mom decide. 

I have not been able to locate my walking foot yet in any of the boxes I've gone through. I'm sure it's in storage still and I'd love to entertain just buying another one, except they cost about $135. Yes, that's right. Just the walking foot is about half what I paid for the whole sewing machine. So, in the meantime, I'm not going to be doing much straight-line quilting until that sucker is found. For these two covers, I just used a zigzag stitch over the ditch and I think it turned out okay. You can see on the bottom cover, over the brown polkie strip, that I tried some free-handed lines with my presser foot, but there was too much puckering. 

And if any of my 12 readers have any book suggestions, I'm all ears. I recently read "Pride and Prejudice" (loved it), "A Dog's Purpose" (loved it), and I re-read "The Help" (best book ever). I'm currently reading "Emma" and have "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption" already downloaded and ready to be devoured. This doesn't sound like something I'd normally pick up, but the reviews sound great and it's written by Laura Hillenbrand, author of "Seabiscuit", another of my favorite books. Suggestions please!

Goodnight!