a long week

One of the downsides to my super awesome job (feel free to want to set me on fire after I finish this sentence) is that when I work several full days in a row it feels like the longest week of my life.

This week has felt extra long. Of course, that is not to say that I didn't enjoy my days with the kids, I really and truly did, but I just feel exhausted. Here's the kicker: I only worked 3 full days this week. (I should say that a full day for me is usally 9-10 hours instead of the usual 8.) Oh geez, as I write this I realize what a complainer I sound like.

I tend to get kind of whiny and emotional around the time change every year. I don't sleep well, I just feel lazy and un-motivated. It's not a good scene.

The point of all this complaining is this: when I get like this, it's good for me to sit down and think of all the things I have to be proud of or thankful for. So instead of 10 on Tuesday, here is 10 on Thursday.

1. I have an awesome job that means I get paid to play with some of the cutest kids you'll ever meet. It also means I work for people who are kind, generous and great parents who treat me very well. Lucky.

2. I am married to a sweet and hardworking man. He fills my life with laughter (especially when I really need it) supports me in all my endeavors and works his hiney off at school and his internship so he can get a job that will (later in life) support our family.



3. I have the cutest cats in the world! Seriously, at least a couple of times a week, Joel and I marvel at how good it is to have them in our lives. We both had pets throughout our childhood and had to wait 5 and 11 years respectively before getting our own pets, and we couldn't be happier. They are sweet little monkeys who follow us around the house and make us laugh constantly.



4. I live in a great house in a great city in a great country. We are heading into our third year in this house (amazing since I moved 8 times in the 5 years previous) and it feels like home. We may only rent but it makes such a difference to live in a place that I feel comfortable in, and that allows us to live a lifestyle that we love. It has enough space for me to have a dedicated sewing area and 3 extra rooms which we fill with guests and roommates. Also, despite the current silliness going on with the Canadian government (seriously, silly) I love being Canadian. I am happy to say I live in a country of such beauty and vast wilderness, where people from every culture and religion are accepted with open arms and I can live peacefully and safely.

5. I have great friends. I won't bore you with the names of all the people you don't know that I love but I count myself lucky to be friends with such a long list of truly high quality people. A special shout out to my long time dear special friend Krissy. Oh, and also, Candace-bo-bandace who I love spending Sundays with. You two make my heart happy.

6. This week I did some major sewing for once. What's up Doll Quilt Swap! I am so happy to have been chosen to participate, and while I was really stumped for quite some time, I am now finished except for binding. I spent many hours making tiny HST's and while they aren't quite perfect, I am really happy with the result. More on that later.



7. I was super productive in other ways this week too! I cleaned the WHOLE house on Monday. (A really amazing feat for me) and then made sure it was tidied up again on Wednesday. I made dinner TWICE this week which if you know me means that hell might possibly have frozen over. I did a ton of laundry and...yup, that's it. Haha, but seriously, that's a whole lot of domestic goddessness for me to accomplish in one week. And guess what?? I plan on continuing tomorrow!

8. I got back into reading this week! I guess technically I got back into it while in Mexico. I read Jodie Picoult's House Rules, which I do not recommend. I enjoyed it until the very end when I literally though "Really? I wasted over 500 pages just for that weak ending??" This is all beside the point. I started reading The Poisonwood Bible this past week and so far so good. I've had it for a while, but finally picked it up on the recommendation of the aforementioned Krissy. She says it is her favourite book in the entire world and so for her I am giving it a read. And Krissy I promise we will chat about it when I am done. Or maybe I will write you a letter?

9. I got some really positive feedback from one of my families this week. I talked with J's mom today when she got home and I have to say it feels good to know that I am liked and that I am doing a good job. I try to tell them, but I hope they know, I love my job and I love their J. It truly makes my life good to work with them and I look forward to lots more time spent with them.

10. I have a quiet night to myself tonight. Hubby is off playing poker with the boys tonight. Just me and the cats and our roommate having a quiet night to himself elsewhere in the house. This ia a pretty rare thing, and I don't usually look forward to it. Joel and I talk about this sometimes, how we feel like we spend much less time away from each other than many of the other married couples we know. Not that they spend too little, or we spend too much, it's just different. We are best friends and homebodies and love to spend evenings in, eating dinner together and maybe watching our current favourite tv show or working side by side on various projects. But tonight it's just me. I've got a stack of books from my trip to the library today, a cup of tea and a cup of chocolate milk, How I Met Your Mother is queued on the tv and I am in our warm on toasty bed. Life is good.



Wow, writing that out makes me feel good. Oh, and one more thing: as depressing as it was to have to switch back to waking up in the dark, since we are so far north, I have to tell you, we gain almost 4 minutes of daylight each day! Yes!

Thanks for reading through my very long list of ramblings. I'll get back to quilting and sewing related things in the next couple days once my DQS10 package is shipped off.

sea of blue - complete!

It's finished! I can't believe I did it. And on time! And I got my house clean too! Woooohoooo!

I last left you with a half finished design on the wall and piles everywhere. So here's how it all went down.

After I wrote that post, I had some lunch and raced off to the dealership to get the car serviced. After waiting TWO AND A HALF HOURS for something that was supposed to take one and a half hours to be completed, I was out of there. I ran home, and Mike (our new, wonderful roommate) and I cleaned the house and welcomed out guest for the night. I did a little bit more trimming of squares and then ran out again to go pick up my husband. (Oh the joys of sharing a car.)

I went to bed at 10 that night because I was exhausted, and woke up at 7am the next morning to keep working. (Obviously I was bent on keeping my proposed deadline because not much can get me out of bed for 9am.) Luckily, I had managed to finish my trimming and put up a preliminary design before bed the night before.

I made some slight adjustments to the design and then I got cracking on the sewing. I worked like crazy from 8am to 4:30 pm with a break only for lunch. In all that time I managed to piece the top and back, quilt and attach the binding. I took the quilt with me to work to bind (and to show it to my boss who is the one who ordered the commission) and got a little bit done.

This morning I realized I had missed one line of quilting so I unattached the binding in 2 spots, quilted, and reattched the binding with a little tag and finished hand finishing the binding. The it was off to the washer, dryer and the yard to be photographed!

So, without further ado, I give you "Sea of Blue".



I am in love! I know I keep saying I love quilts (even if I hate them in the beginning) but this one I have loved from start to finish. I wasn't feeling super inspired to begin with, but after I started pulling all the delicious blue fabrics from my stash I started drooling. The colours are so rich and this is a palette I haven't worked with yet.



The back was an adventure for me. I have been sticking to solid backs mostly, but I decided to try something a little different. I had some half square triangles left over and some bigger chunks of some other fabrics, so why not?



Over the fence, as usual. Finished size is 50"x50", bound mostly in some of the deep teal with a couple little bits added in.



And there it is, all folded and ready to go. I added a little tag to it, with my info on the front and washing instructions on the back.

***

Now, onto the next challenge. I am going to try and make a set of wedding garters for a friend. Her wedding is next weekend, but the lingerie shower is tomorrow. (Sexy lingerie already purchased!) And I want to include the garters she asked me to make in the bag. Here goes nothing!

baby shirts

Who knew a one year old's birthday party could be so exhausting?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to J's birthday party. I have been his nanny two thirds of his little life, and it has been so much fun!

For his birthday I decided to make him some custom t-shirts. I knew he would be getting plenty of toys and books from his family and friends so I figured clothes was a good direction to head in.

I headed over to Old Navy and bought two soft cotton long sleeve t-shirts for only $12 and then picked up some Lite Steam a Seam 2. After that, I was rockin' and rollin'!



The first one is based on the skyscape t-shirt that Rae made for her son, over on Made by Rae. I was pretty in love with the lion shirt too!

The second shirt was a bit harder to decide on. Originally, I was going to make him a tree frog shirt, but decided the red and green combo felt a bit Christmasy. Instead I went with a giraffe silhouette, and I am really happy with it!



I LOVE these little shirts! Too many pre-made clothes out there are either too cutesy or plastered in stupid catch phrases. They were so easy to make, that they may become part of my go to list for baby and kid presents.

aprons for twins

As you must know by now, I am a nanny.  I've mentioned before how lucky I feel to have such a great job and how much I love the little ones I work with.

Well, the twins turned 2 last week!  What a great age!  I have been spending 2 or 3 days a week with A & C for almost a year and it has been an adventure every step of the way.  So of course, as their birthday neared, I was racking my brain for what to make them.  They have lots of books, toys and stuffed animals so I wanted to cross those things off the list.  I thought about a couple of ideas for dress up clothes (ballet skirt, crown, super hero cape, etc) but none seemed quite right.

Finally, it hit me!  Aprons!  What 2 year old isn't getting messy with markers, paint, food or something else all the time?  Aprons would be a great solution for keeping clothes clean but also inspiring little helpers in the kitchen.

I did a little searching online to find out sizing for the average 2 year old, looked at some pictures of kid aprons, made a couple drawings and BAM! I was on my way!  I made my own template because none of the tutorials or free patterns I had found seemed quite adjustable enough or were too big or I just didn't love the design.



A's is made from Amy Butler's Fresh Poppies in Fuschia from the Midwest Modern line and a coordinating green solid.



C's is made from MoMo's Bouncing Balls in Ivory from the Freebird collection and hte same coordinating green solid as A's.

Both aprons used a fat quarter of each fabric plus 2 selvedge to selvedge strips of the backing fabric for bias tape.  As per usual, I made my own instead of buying some.

I have to say, I am pretty darn proud of these aprons.  They are perfect.  perfect size, perfectly adjustable (I figure they will fit until 4, maybe even longer) and perfectly sewn.  Not a missed stitch or crooked seam is to be found on these babies and that's a pretty big win for me!

After the kids opened their presents, they wanted to wear them all day.  So a bit later we all donned an apron (me in their dad's Guinness apron) washed our hands and set to baking cookies!  This was their first experience baking and it was an instant hit.  It was messy and crazy and so much fun - with the hardest part being trying to keep them from eating the raw dough.

Here they are enjoying some flour and raisins on the floor while I got the cookies ready for the oven.  Aren't they SO cute??

The cookies turned out great and the kids have been asking for them non stop since then.  For those that are interested, here is the recipe (which by the way is the best oatmeal raisin recipe I've tried!)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups butter

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 1/2 cups oats
1 cup raisins

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cream butter and sugars until smooth.  Mix in egg and vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix together dry ingredients, leaving oats and raisins aside.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well.  Add in oats and raisins.  Drop by rounded spoonful approximately 2" apart.  Bake for 8-9 minutes for chewy cookies.

I've been considering writing a tutorial/patter for the apron, but I wanted to gauge interest before I went to the trouble.  Would any of you be interested in said pattern/tutorial (for free)?  If so, please let me know and I will post one in the coming weeks with a giveaway attached to it!

the random object: wedding rings

My wedding rings. Before I tell you about them, let me tell you how this picture came about. One of the two families I work for has an adorable set of twins. Occasionally I will go over in the evening, put them to bed and then have several hours to myself before their parents get home. Most often I will read or watch tv or hand sew, but recently I have started taking my computer. I spend time blogging (like now)or getting sucked into Flickr and Facebook, or I bring tv episodes or movies to watch.

A couple of days ago, I brought my camera with the intention of taking some pics of my wedding rings for this post. I was out in the backyard in the last of the late afternoon sun, my rings on the railing, practicing my macro skills. After about 10 photos, I took a step back to look at the composition and fell down the deck stairs! Ouch! Although it was only 3 steps, it was really quite a spectacular fall! I didn't injure anything but was definitely sore after that! As my old joke goes "Grace is my middle name!"

Okay, back to the random object. I decided to start with this because I forgot to take some pics of the things that inspired this meme. (And of course they may be my most important random object.)

For some reason, for a long time, I had an irrational fear that I would never get married or have kids or be loved. Probably because as a teenager I dated a guy for a few years and in my naive teenagery ways thought that we would be high school sweethearts and blah blah, and obviously, most of the time that is not the way it happens.

I'll save the story of how we met and married for another day, (perhaps our 3rd wedding anniversary coming up in September?) Today instead I will tell you about how he picked the rings and proposed.

Joel knows that I am a picky person when it comes to well, everything. When we started talking about getting married, he asked me if I wanted to go ring shopping with him or have him pick the ring himself. Something girly and old fashioned inside me said I should send him on his own (or perhaps with the help of a friend, but I had never so much as been in a ring store before so I was curious and really wanted to go with him.

The actual shopping part wasn't really anything special which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. We stopped on a whim on the way to doing something else and wandered quickly through the store. We went to Spence Diamonds mostly because we had heard all sorts of ads for their better prices and open showcases. (Who said radio advertising wasn't effective?) I was so sure was looking for something simple and classic that I didn't even go over near the modern stuff. I knew I wanted a solitaire and most likely in a classic tiffany style setting.

As soon as I tried one on, I knew it wasn't right. So we kept looking. We looked at 3 stone rings, engagement bands, super sculptural stuff, nothing was right. And then Joel saw it. THE ring, and he made me try it on even though I was skeptical. I fell in love with it as soon as it was on my finger. (Even though the floor model was about 5 sizes too big.) I loved the squareness of the band, the little frame of metal around the diamond and I love that it had an equally modern wedding band that fit right under the engagement setting. Perfection.

So we got someone to right it down and we left, we didn't even buy it right there. That came a little bit later when we went back and picked out a diamond together.

(photo by Brooks Ryenolds)

Joel proposed to me on a bridge overlooking the lagoon in Bowness Park.  The picture above was taken a year after our wedding, at my friend Amanda's wedding (I'm right of centre.)  We had gone to Bowness park on our first date, and Joel brought me back there to ask me to marry him.  We had had a delicious dinner at Mongoli Grill, and were going back to his house to watch a movie when he made an excuse to stop at the park.  Just like shopping for rings, and like most of the other important events in our relationship, it wasn't anything huge and special, it was just us, being ourselves, and I loved it.  We wandered through the park on our way to the bridge, holding hands, joking and smiling.  When we got to the bridge it was peaceful, not another soul in sight.  And then he started saying mushy things (which of course I can't remember now.)  He got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife and I jumped up and down and cried "Of course!"

The first thing I did was take of my other ring (another random object for another day) and let him put my shiny new diamond ring on my finger.

I found out after that, that many people knew that we were getting engaged that night, including a friend who lived just a few blocks away and had agreed to take photos after he proposed.  So off we went.

I could barely hold my hand still long enough to take this photo.  We called my our parents and friends and generally just floated around.

And now this photo hangs in our room more than 3 years later.  The rings are well worn and loved and are certainly not as blindingly bright as they used to be, but I like it that way.  They almost never come off, and I still haven't tired of staring at them as they sparkle in the sun.

For those who are interested, these are the specs:  Engagement ring is platinum, size 3.25, .75 ct Princess cut IF, F colour conflict free diamond in a bezel setting.  Wedding band is platinum, size 3.25 with 8 princess cut diamonds in a channel setting.

busy work

I've mentioned before that I am a nanny. One of the perks of being a nanny is a lot of down time during the day. I have a few things that I do to help out around the house while the kids are sleeping like tidying up the kitchen and putting some laundry through. There is still a lot of downtime during naps or when the kids go to bed at night and I am staying later. Most often during my downtime I will read or maybe watch a tv show or movie, but I've temporarily fallen out of love with reading, and tv is boring so I had to find something else to do.



Enter hexagons. As most of you know, these little babies have been popping up everywhere for quite some time now, but I have yet to make any. So the other day when I had to make a car service appointment (that's going to last 3 freaking hours!!!) I thought, "I need to find something interesting and productive to do while I wait."

So today, I found a pile of scraps, made myself some templates and I am set. I'll bring them with me to work tonight so that once the little cutie goes to bed I have something to keep my hands busy, and I will definitely bring them with me tomorrow while I sit in Toyota's customer service lounge drinking stale coffee for 3 hours.

This is...What's on My Desk

Today has been an odd day. Requests piling up on top of one another, piles piling up ontop of one another. I had to take a "breather break" and try to refocus. Things that would make my life easier at this very moment: a new copier, real cupboards, chocolate, an office outside in the sunshine, dip for my carrots, a focussed mind.