The English Geek

Notes for the Pajama Sewers

Maybe it's even been left until the wee morning hours of December 24, and you neeeeeeed to have them sewn before Christmas Eve begins. Maybe you're not procrastinating your procrastination and you're getting them done, oh, two or maybe even three days before you need them. At any rate, say that you, like me, find yourself sewing flannel pajamas at 12:37 a.m. You're bleary eyed and would really rather be sleeping, but your perfectionist self (or maybe it's your "frugal" self, or your simply insane self) has set you the task: sew the pajamas!

So you're sewing pajamas well past midnight. And here they are, the tips you need for pajama success.

1. Preshrink the flannel. Trust me: unless your children enjoy wearing floods, or you enjoy seeing your children wear floods, preshrink the flannel. Hot water, hot dryer. Get all the shrinking out of the way! (An added bonus: the flannel will be even softer to work with.)
2. Because you are going to preshrink the flannel, buy at least 1/4 yard more fabric than the pattern says you need. If your frolicking penguins or your sweet little monkeys are directional, buy even more.
3. THE very best pajama pattern is the Simplicity one (2826) because it only has an inner thigh seam. I mean, think about it: say you have four children, and maybe you're completely off your rocker and you think each kid needs three pair of PJs. Not having an outer thigh seam has just saved you 24 long seams! ***
4. When you are cutting the pattern pieces out, remember: if the fabric isn't doubled, you have to turn the pattern piece upside down when you cut the second leg.
5. Speaking of cutting: 1, use the self-healing mat underneath your fabric and you'll be surprised at how much faster your scissors move; you can even use the rotary cutter for straight cuts   2, if your fabric is directional, and you have enough length to cut two pieces out at once (doubled fabric), cut the fabric in half, turn the bottom piece so the pattern is right side up, match them together (backs of fabric together), and then pin your pattern on. Voila: now none of the gamboling jungle animals gambol upside down; and 3 asking yourself 27 times just where it was you set your scissors down is a sign that you are tired. Proceed with caution! Scissors aren't just good at cutting fabric; they're pretty good at flesh, too.
6. It doesn't matter which pattern you buy: they all have this creepy-high waist line. Make a shorter rise by folding the pattern down upon itself by about one inch.
7. Before you start sewing, fill your bobbin. (Or maybe it's just me who gets annoyed at having to stop in the middle of a project to fill the bobbin?) If you are sewing 18 pair of PJs, you might need two bobbins. (You also might need a psychiatrist by the time you are finished, but that is another set of instructions altogether.) Also vacuum the feed dogs. Flannel makes a lot of lint.
8. Music while sewing is essential. Yeah, you have to turn it up a little bit louder to hear it over your machine, and dogs howl when you sing along, but if you've done this enough times your children already know how to sleep through the sewing/singing/music/howling-dog racket. Sure, you might wake the neighbors, but it won't be the last time.
9. When you're sewing the leg seams, don't cut the thread in between legs. Just feed the next piece in right after the first piece. (There is a name for this kind of sewing, but I am too tired to remember it. Tired and bleary-eyed and bloody-fingered.) It is surprising how much time that saves.
10. Speaking of time: pinning the seams is worth the time, especially when you get to the crotch seam.
11. Speaking of the crotch seam: the pattern will tell you to sew over the curved part two or three extra times, since that is a pressure point and tends to unravel easily. Instead, when you get to the curve, switch your machine so you're using the decorative stitch that looks like three lines of stitches sewn next to each other. (It's option #3 on my machine and I am making a large assumption that a---you know what I'm talking about and b---most machines have this stitch.) Way faster! Also: it is easier to sew this seam if you take the little drawer off the front of your machine, so it's only the width of the bobbin case you have to fight with on the curve.
12. Most patterns have you buy 1" wide elastic. 1 1/2" is better because it NEVER rolls or twists.
13. If you are wondering how to adjust the elastic waist while still keeping the pajamas a surprise, you have two options. 1: if your kid is young enough, try them on your little darling while he/she is sleeping. (Yay! A perk for midnight sewing: sleeping children!) 2: use a pair of the kids' jeans as a reference point to compare against. This also works for how big of a hem you put in.
14. Before you turn the PJs right side out, spray the bottom with a little spurt of spray adhesive. Voila: you've just skipped that pesky iron-one-quarter-inch step of hemming. (Do NOT do this with the waistband, though. It's hard to drag the elastic through the casing if it's all gummed up with spray adhesive. Not that *I* have any personal experience with that.)
15. Stringing elastic through the casing is a fabulous! way of getting your dear, sweet husband to help you in your midnight time of need. Really: there's nothing a sleepy husband likes to do more than help with sewing projects.
16. If you want a button on the front of the PJs (just for cuteness, not for, you know, actual buttoning; this also makes it a wee bit easier for the small ones to get their pajamas on by themselves without the dreaded Backward Pajama Phenomenon; you'll have been up late sewing and will be too tired to help the small ones with the pajama putting-on), handstitch it on before you put the elastic in. I'd say you could ask your husband to help you sew on buttons but, well...I know how THAT turns out.
17. Hem the PJs with LOTS of room to grow. Because as much as you love sewing, and freshly-laundered flannel, and anticipating the look on your child's face when he/she sees the results of all your labors (which will likely be a mix of "Yay, pajamas!" and "what can I open next that is NOT clothes?" luckily expressed only in body language as said child throws said PJs into the pile of other already-opened stuff), let's be honest: you won't be making more anytime soon.

***please note: this post is in no way attempting to convince you that I have, in fact, sewn 12 pair of pajamas at one sitting, specifically not tonight. I have, in truth, sewn 20 pair at one sitting, but that did not happen tonight. Due to the fact that my older children A---sleep in running shorts and a T or B---sleep in their skivvies or C---find ONE pair of PJs that is the. absolute. favorite and refuse to sleep in anything else, only my youngest will be receiving the made-by-mom pajamas. He is getting eight pair not because I am materialistic in the sense of spending extraneously, or even materialistic in the sense of I LOVE FABRIC (ooooh, someone should totally compliment me on that pun right there! Whew! I am GOOD!), but because the child is obsessed with pajamas. Seriously: if I would allow it, he would wear them 24/7. Preschool, church, swimming pool, whatev: any time is pajama time in Kaleb's head, and getting dressed in actual clothes is TORTURE. Now that I have managed to convince him that wearing clothes when we leave for the day is a necessity, I have stopped getting bugged about him wearing PJs at all other times. But when that is ALL he wants to wear, and he tends to freak out if he spills anything on his 'jammies and must put on a new pair at the least little drop or splash: yeah, he needs eight pair.

Making Happy #1

I'm still in my funk. My grumpy, grumpy funk. I've still got Thanksgiving decorations piled up in my front room, waiting to be put away so that I can haul out the Christmas stuff. Except, I need a bigger box for them, and I've been to Target three times in the last 24 hours, and every single time I've gone, I've forgotten the Rubbermaid aisle.

Still, I've made a resolution. Maybe it's not a really wise choice, but right now I'm going with things. Things that make me happy. I know: things aren't supposed to make us happy, people are, right? But, well, I'm funk-ified right now. I'm going to try to focus on the happy things, the objects I love, surrounding myself with them, and see what happens. I've got Christmas music playing (must blog about how much I love the Tori Amos Christmas CD), and I've bought a few new little Christmas decorations (I'm trying to figure out how to hang glass balls along the ceiling vault without using nails, as nails in the wall are one of our household's Ten Deadly Sins) and a couple of Christmas gifts. And I got out my new Christmas quilt.

Now, I have to say this: I stink at getting things done on time. I started this quilt last October, with the goal of using it during the 2008 Christmas season. I finished the piecing really quickly (probably because the squares are pretty simple), and I found someone to quilt it for me (because I can't do that on my machine), and I sewed the binding onto the front. But that was as far as I got. I finished sewing the binding onto the back in January. Yeah: so not on time. But at least it was ready to go this year.

It is de-funk-iifying me, just a little bit.

Kaleb and I snuggled underneath it last night while I read him his three bedtime stories. I remembered that I love this quilt. I love the fabric.
It's the Mary Englebreit line, and holy cow: I love her stuff. Then I found a different line that worked well with the Mary E one, the fabric with the white swirls. Oh! I love that too. Plus, the back. I love a pieced back.

Pretty, and swirly, and paisley. And cute. A Making Happy thing if I've ever had one.

So! Here's a challenge for those of you who are also in a funk. Find a thing that makes you happy. Use it and admire it and love it. See if it doesn't help your funk, just a little bit. Maybe even blog about it!

P.S. Gift of Words starts tomorrow, but you can still sign up through the ninth, if you're interested! 

the one that Helped Me Understand

Sometimes I feel misunderstood by my husband.

That's shocking, I know. Certainly no one else feels this way.

It seems, however, that he cannot understand most of the things I am passionate about. Keeping a journal and blogging? Reading for pleasure? Scrapbooking? Quilting? Writing poems that no one reads? None of those things are worthy of my time in his eyes.

But this isn't a husband-bashing post. Honestly, plenty of the things he's passionate about are sort of eyeball-glazing in my perspective. Spotless house? Checkbook always current? Squeaky clean car? I just don't get it. Luckily, we do have plenty of stuff we're both passionate about together. But I do wish that he could understand my things just a little bit, so I could do them without feeling guilty.

Last Halloween (yes, last Halloween; I am getting around to writing this blog post only ten months or so later), my neighbor decided to take my kids out trick-or-treating with her kids. So I stayed home to hand out candy. Passing out the loot to trick-or-treaters is fun, but it's sort of frustrating. You can't really read in between knocks on the door, because you just get into the story and then are yanked right out again. You definitely can't watch TV, at least not if you don't have a TV near your front door. So, to keep myself occupied, I sat in the semi-dark room and worked on clipping the seams on my fall rag quilt:

 (pictured here with my kid who didn't want to cooperate with taking pictures when it was almost time to leave for school; you can also see it hanging from a tree in the post after this one.) 

I love this quilt. This year it was THE first fall-ish thing I pulled out of my storage bins. I couldn't wait to use it. It took me more than a year to find all the autumn-hued flannels, because non-babyfied flannel is hard to find. All the shopping paid off, especially that cream-colored paisley tonal; without it, there wouldn't have been enough contrast. I put an extra layer of flannel as batting, so the quilt is heavy and warm and soft and comforting. It might be my favorite quilt...well, I can't say ever. But I do love it so very much.

That Halloween, while I sat and snipped the seams, Kendell walked by the front room. He was grumpy for some reason I've forgotten, so I was sort of avoiding him anyway. "When did you turn into the quilting chick?" he asked me. "Why do you like it so much?" I didn't really answer him then (he was grumpy, remember? and this is an old and often-repeated query) but I continued to think about his question while snipping seams and passing out candy.

I sort-of answered this question later, but I left something out. An enormous reason for why I am a quilter right now in my life (as opposed to the mostly-older women I see in the fabric stores) is that I didn't get to have a second daughter. During the years between Nathan and Kaleb, I gave the best new baby gifts. I considered it a sort of calling to find sweet little newborn nightgowns, or delicate crocheted sweaters, or perfect pastel dresses. If I was shopping for a girlbaby, and I found a great deal, I'd buy two: one for the new mom, one for the other daughter I was certain I'd have one day. Those bought-on-clearance baby clothes, and the shopping itself, became a sort of inspiration for me, a way of keeping real while I waited to conceive the second daughter I thought---knew---I would have.

After I found out Kaleb was a boy, I gathered up everything I could still return to Gymboree (whose return policy was, then, six months) and, bawling the entire time, returned all that pink stuff. I had a great big credit to spend, so I took a deep breath and turned towards the blue side of the store. And I never looked at pink things again. I couldn't allow myself to even see anything pink, so I shuttered off that part of me, which was harder than it sounds. And was also a problem, because I couldn't bring myself to buy anything pink, not even for friends having girls.

That's when my baby rag quilts were born.

I'd never made one for anyone. I'd never planned one for my never-to-be-born second daughter. So there wasn't anything painful attached to them. They weren't a symbol of heartache. I could buy pink flannel; I even managed to enjoy buying pink flannel. And I've loved making every single one I've made, for boys and girls. I discovered that by making the quilts I felt a little bit more attached to the babies they'd be wrapping up. A sort of surrogacy, I suppose. That's why I keep making them, even though I have just very recently managed to buy something little and pink and impossibly soft from Gymboree: because even though I won't ever get to have one of my own babies again, the recipient would, and it brought me a silly sense of comfort to know that someone I loved would get to have their own baby moments. By making and giving the quilts I get to experience that, just a little tiny bit.

The unborn daughter is a topic Kendell and I never discuss. She is a sore spot we avoid. None of this has anything to do with me wishing Kaleb had been a girl. He is himself, my caboose-baby who I love with every bit of myself. It is about me wishing that I could have had her, too. About the feeling I continue to have that I've lost someone. In a real sense, I had to mourn for the daughter I didn't have. I didn't know what to do with the years of hoping, planning, and dreaming I'd done in her behalf. The realization that she wasn't ever coming to me didn't happen at my sonogram with Kaleb, or on the day he was born, or at any other specific moment. It was a gradual gathering of reality, a long, slow dying of the hopes, plans, and dreams. Probably that death isn't over yet. Maybe part of me will always grieve some. Even though I have the knowledge: you don't get to be her mother, I still dream about her sometimes. 

Looking back at the thoughts I've written about quilting, I realized that I'm nearly always trying to defend my creative impulse to Kendell. Yet, in a sense, the quilts---which, obviously, have become more than just baby gifts, but are my newest hobby---continue to be about her. At least connected to her. I can't use my body's creativity anymore, but I can still use my spirit's. Something about quilting, about the making of a functional and pretty item by cutting and reassembling, makes me feel better. It is a realization, every quilt: I thought that not having her would leave me forever numb, without the ability to make anything, but that is not so. Look! I am making something. Limping or no, I'm moving forward. Reassembled.

And maybe that's why I'm still thinking about Kendell's question, ten months later. And why, even though his non-understanding continues to bother me, I continue to make quilts. Whether I give them away or keep them for me, they are a source of creativity that brings me a comfort I need.

Fabric Compulsion, Fall Version

Every few months or so---usually when the season changes---I get the bug. The itch. The compulsion, no, the need, to make something new. And not just anything new: a quilt. Or something with fabric. It has to do with the little bursts of color textiles add. But it also has to do with the process itself. I love almost everything about making quilts: shopping for just the right fabrics (there are some quilts I have shopped for years for, looking for just the right pieces; I have two, right now, that I'm shopping), picking out colors and patterns and seeing how they work (or don't!) with each other, finding or making a pattern, cutting out the pieces, piecing everything together.

Maybe the only thing i don't like about quilting is pinning stuff together.

It's satisfying to me, seeing how the pieces come together to make something larger. Viscerally pleasing, seeing the quilts being used. Over time, batting and fabric and thread gather memories to themselves, and a quilt becomes something more than just a thing that keeps you warm.

Still, they take lots of time, and there's also the fact that Kendell is always annoyed when I'm working on something ("how many *~&#$# quilts do we need in this house?"), not to mention the expense ($10 a yard? For cotton? Seriously?), so quite often, I try to resist my compulsion. Or just restrict myself to something smallish, and fast. When the bug hit two weeks ago, I decided I needed something new for my little display in the kitchen. Here's one view of the finished table runner:

(Quilts are hard to photograph, by the way. Either they're skewed because of the angle you shoot from, or you can't get the whole thing in. Or you have to rig up a complicated contraption to hang them from. I haven't figured out a perfect photographing-quilts application yet. Let me know if you have.)

Every new sewing project is an experience. Sometimes, it's because of who I'm sewing for. I haven't, for example, blogged about my last spate of sewing, which happened in late April, but it resulted in my friend Chris seeing the hidden symbolism in her gift, an ah-ha moment that reminds me why I value our friendship so much. Get my quilt, get me. ;) My latest sewing adventure, though, brought me a different sort of ah-ha moment, of the sewing-skills variety. A few of them, in fact, namely:

the intrinsic speediness that is the Charm Pack. Charm packs are precut, 5x5" squares bundled together. You get at least one of every piece in the line. I've never used one, mostly because I usually work with flannel (no fabric manufacturers seem to realize how much I need more flannel but that is a different post) and because I tend to design my own patterns, which get a little wonky when it comes to the sizes of pieces I need to cut. But the Charm Packs are awesome. Since you get so many different pieces from the same line, everything works together but in a scrappy sort of way. Plus, everything is pre-cut, so you can start sewing immediately and nothing is accidentally, how-did-I-do-that cut in the wrong size. Not to mention it's a cheap way (about seven bucks) to get a whole bunch of different fabrics without having to buy much yardage.

the severely awesome awesomeness of Spray Adhesive. Remember I said I hate pinning? Putting the "quilt sandwich" together (the quilt back, the batting, the quilt top) is my least favorite step of the entire quilting process, because I really do. Hate pinning. Plus, I can never get it completely smoothed out, so there aren't any puckers. And it never feels tight enough. But the spray adhesive? Totally awesome! You spray the quilt back, then smooth the batting over it. Spray the batting, then smooth the quilt top. Voila! Everything is adhered and non-moving, tight enough, not puckery at all, but without the annoyance of pins. When you wash the piece for the first time, all the spray adhesive washes away. My new best friend. Well. My new best quilting friend.

the goofy satisfaction and obnoxious sense of pride over finally, finally mastering the quilt binding process. Now, I have to preface that statement with this one: I can do a fairly decent binding. I get how to piece the binding together with diagonal seams. I don't have to re-read about turning the corners every time I work on a new quilt. What I've struggled with, though, is how to connect the beginning edge of the binding with the end.  On past quilts, the results have been pretty ugly. Even though I've read about it several times, I just couldn't get my mind to grasp it. Who knows why this time, the lightbulb went on. But it did. Here is how to sew the beginning of your binding to the end of it, without cutting the fabric too short or too long:

1. Make sure to leave a good 10-12 inches on each end of binding that is NOT sewn to the quilt yet.
2. Lay the start of the binding so it is flat along the quilt and parallel to the rough edge.
3. Lay the end of the binding so it is flat along the quilt and parallel to the rough edge.
4. Where the end meets the beginning, fold the end piece back upon itself so that the fold is butted up against the beginning edge. (At this point I am thinking...I should have taken pictures to explain this better. But I also didn't really believe it would work, so yeah: lack of faith in my quilting abilities = no photos.)
5. From the folded edge, measure a length that is equal to the original width of your binding (before you folded it in half and ironed it). Make a mark with a pin or a marker or whatever. (I used a Sharpie. It doesn't matter, because it won't end up in the finished quilt anyway.) My binding started out as 2 1/4" strips, so that was what I measured.
6. Cut the end of the binding at that length. Really, you can do it. It will turn out just fine.
7. Turn one edge of the binding on top of the other edge, so that the right sides are together, but match them up the same way you do for a diagonal seam. Please note: unless you're fond of your seam ripper, you should double check right now that the binding has the RIGHT SIDES together. Trust me on this one.
8. Mark the diagonal line and sew along it.
9. Cut 1/4" away from the diagonal line you just sewed.
10.Untwist the binding and lay it flat along the rough edge of the quilt. If you measured right, the binding is now the exact length you need. Finish sewing the rest of the binding to the quilt, then attach the other edge as you see fit. (With smaller pieces, I don't handsew the binding to the back of the quilt. Instead I use the machine to sew it to the front. Not as pretty, but way faster. No one will notice because no one is going to be snuggling underneath it. Since it's not really a quilt, see?)
11. Do a little happy dance! Feel inordinately proud of your sewing skills! Don't pause to realize you have no idea why this works. I mean: Why is the width of the original binding the magic number? And who figured THAT out? Is there a geometry formula that explains it? Geometry was one of the classes that turned me into a taker of Prozac, so maybe I was just spaced out the day they explained quilting applications for geometry?

From start to finish, this tablecloth took about four hours to make. With something this small, I even dared to quilt it myself, albeit with mostly straight lines. (My machine just is not big enough to freeform quilt anything that's much bigger.) I washed it the next day (love the crinkles you get from washing and drying!) and now I just need to decide what to put out as a fall-ish display on top of my new piece.

My quilting compulsion has been quieted. For awhile. I did see a piece of witchy fabric, though, that continues to haunt me. Maybe a Halloween quilt (a real quilt this time) is in order. But not for a few more weeks, lest the dulcet tones of my sewing maching drive my husband bonkers...

on Quilting

Last week, I finished up a little quilting project I'd been working on. As he always tends to do when I am doing something with fabric, Kendell asked me the question "Why do you like sewing so much?" This question always makes me stop and think, because it manages to get under my skin---it strikes a nerve. A guilty nerve. 

Sometimes I try to answer him, sometimes I just shrug. It's a long answer. It might go back all the way to once-a-month sleepovers with my grandma. She had a quilt that was made by her mom, my great-grandma Amy whom I was named for, that made the sleepovers magical. Amy made the quilt with bits and pieces of Grandma's clothes, and when she tucked me in, we'd always spend a few minutes looking at the fabrics. She'd tell me about the dress a particular fabric came from, which would lead into stories about her mother or her childhood. This was one of my favorite childhood experiences; I remember those nights with so much peaceful happiness. Grandma made me feel unconditionally loved. Looking back, though, I'm also sad, because while I can remember the feelings her stories evoked, the way the quilt was a sort of trailhead that lead us down paths in her memory, I can't remember the stories themselves, and there is no one left anymore to tell them to me. The Grandma Amy quilt (one of the two things I inherited from my grandma, and one of my most prized possessions) is infused with a combination of those feelings---peace, being loved for exactly who I am, the sadness of lost things---as well as the harder-to-define sense of being part of a long chain of people, of being connected to humans who lived and died in this world and how their lives shape mine, even though I didn't get to know them here. That combination of feelings continues to affect me in many ways, and one of them is the transferring from the specific to the general: because my Grandma Amy quilt evokes those emotions, all quilts tend to do the same thing. They're not just pieces of fabric; they are things that bind people to people, past to future.

My mother also influenced my love of fabric. When we were growing up, one of her many talents was sewing. She sewed plenty of dresses, shirts, overalls, entire outfits. I think she sewed all the bridesmaids dresses for all of our weddings (although, I'm not sure about Michelle's!). She made baby quilts and stuffed bunnies. She had an entire room dedicated to sewing, in fact. There are cupboards in that room still stuffed with fabric. I loved looking in those cupboards. I'd find a few pieces I liked and start snipping away. I don't think I ever really did anything with the pieces I cut, except for annoy my mother (who finally had to teach me to take my snippings from the EDGE of the fabric, not the middle). In the sewing room, my love for color and pattern, for the feel of sharp scissors slicing through cotton, were born.

But, aside from making a baby quilt for each of my three Bigs and a Halloween costume here and there, I didn't really do anything with my affection for quilts and fabrics until I was pregnant with Kaleb. I made my first rag quilt during that pregnancy, an enormous queen-sized one for Haley's bed, and I made my first pieced quilt, for Kaleb. I'd simultaneously fallen in love with the color combination I saw in a receiving blanket and the fish in a crib mobile I'd found, and those two things became my inspiration for his baby quilt. Not having any idea of how hard it was, I also went ahead and appliqued on this quilt, too. That's been my quilting M.O. ever since: something inspires me, and I'm off on my own path, figuring out how to do it as I go. I've not ever taken a quilting class or had any real lessons, so I can't say that I really do it the "right" way. I just do it my way.

Since those first quilting attempts, I've made nearly twenty rag quilts (all of them save one as gifts!) and a few pieced quilts. I would probably make everything as a rag quilt if fabric manufacturers would just cooperate and make all of their lines in flannel. I love flannel, but it is awfully hard to find pieces that aren't either too babyish (unless, of course, that's what I'm looking for!) or too country (bears/moose/trout/deer/pine trees don't really go with my decor). Still, there's a certain happiness I find in a fabric store that I don't find anywhere else. All those bolts, all that color and pattern, all the creative possibility. It's a very sensory pleasure, the sight of the colors, the texture of the fabric, even that cotton scent. I'm so happy there, my toes wiggle. I enjoy nearly everything about the process of making a quilt, from shopping for fabric to cutting out the pieces to piecing together the tops. I have to confess that I am hopeless at doing much more than a straight line of actual quilting with my machine, and I am still feeling guilty that the last two quilts I made (for the holidays, which I intended to share on my blog but never did) I had someone else quilt for me.

Because, yeah, since I'm me, no matter how much I enjoy quilting, I also feel a sense of guilt over it. Is it the best way to spend my limited amounts of time to myself? If I were a better mother, would I be spending more time with my kids and less time with my sewing machine? Shouldn't I be cleaning the house instead of sewing? And hello, do you have any idea how expensive fabric is? Even if you're just buying quarter yards here and there, it adds up. Is it right to spend that way? Feeling guilty over everything is just part of my psyche. But last October, I listened to this talk during Women's Conference, and it has stuck with me. (If you are an LDS person, I'm sure you've read it and discussed it, but if you're not, it's definitely worth reading!) I especially appreciate the idea that "the desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul." It has helped me lose some of the unnecessary guilt I've attached to quilting. (Well, and to scrapbooking, and writing poems and/or essays.) After thinking about creativity, and its place in my life, I have come to the conclusion that it is OK for me to say about myself that doing creative things is a part of who I am, and it is more than OK for me to spend my time that way.

In an effort to make this new conclusion stick, I decided that part of my new year's resolutions would be to use my creativity to make my house a prettier place. I started with one little spot in my kitchen, a rolling stand that's by my back door. Usually it's the respository for junk mail and old homework, but not anymore. Now it's my little spot for displaying pretty things. For January and February, it looked like this:

And now, it looks like this:

Yep, that's my sewing project. I meant for it to be smaller, but when you quilt my way---by the flow of inspiration instead of the rules of a pattern---things don't always turn out like you imagined. And it's far from perfect. I can't figure out why, when I measure and remeasure, my blocks turn out a little bit skeewompus. I'm still trying to make those perfect squares. (If you are a quilting expert, then please tell me what I am doing wrong!) But I love my little Irish chain quilt. It turned out almost as I'd envisioned it (just bigger). I wanted just a touch of purple in a mostly-green-and-white field, to go along with the little bits of purple in the pottery on the stand. My kitchen walls are purple, so it all fits together so nicely. Here's just the piece by itself (I'm calling it a "piece" because it's too big to be a place mat, as I had originally intended, and a little bit too small to be a real quilt):

and the back:

Can I tell you that I almost love the back as much as the front. I LOVE pieced quilt backs!

Even my rough-and-tumble Kaleb has taken a moment to look at my little stand. Once i had it all put together, he looked at it and then said, "Mom, I promise to be SO careful to not break that pretty stuff!" which, in 3-year-old, is code for admiration I think. I also think you'll be seeing more quilting projects on my blog, to go along with my new-found determination to not let guilt stop me from being creative.

2008: The DIDN'T Blog About It Edition

I've been meaning to do one of those 2008-year-in-review memes that are floating around, but instead I keep thinking about all the stuff I didn't blog about last year. You know...the topics I always mean to get around to, but for whatever reason just didn't. So, instead of the meme, I'm doing a quick-ish (because hello: when is anything I do simple?) rundown of stuff that I didn't blog but still want to say something about.

January

Almost all of my weekdays were spent hanging out at home with Kaleb, playing and reading books and cleaning the house together, nearly always in our pajamas. I loved those days so much. There was snow outside, and we were inside, warm and cozy and happy. I still rocked him to sleep for every single nap he took. He still (dare I confess it?) drank a bottle while I rocked him. I tried to wring out every last ounce of babyness from that time. The bottle thing really bothered Kendell, and he kept "encouraging" me to take it away from him. I didn't actually do it until May, but I made a conscious decision to not let the babying bother me. I think it was during this time, with those things on my mind, that I finally, finally began making peace with the reality of not ever having more babies. It is still a process I am going through.

February

Kendell and I celebrated our sixteenth anniversary with a quick dinner out at Rumbi. We almost never do something exciting for anniversaries! Jacob and Nathan both learned how to ski, courtesy of our brother-in-law Eric. Kendell couldn't ski then (snow + cold + extremely painful hips = no skiing), and I refuse to snow ski after my first-and-last experience with it 19 years ago (I'll have to blog about that one day!), but lame skiing parents didn't matter, because Eric is the PERFECT ski instructor: laid back and patient. Both boys loved it! I took Haley shopping one February Saturday and she came home with a new church dress and her first high heels. She also had surgery on her mouth to install chains on her eye teeth; we hung out in the waiting room with Bronco Mendenhall (BYU's football coach) but neither of us care enough about football to get very excited.

March

We finally had Nathan's baptism this month. Technically, he should have been baptized in December 2007, but I was being difficult: I wanted him to be baptized on a day when no one else was. This was how we had Jacob's baptism, and the presence of only our friends and family, with no one we didn't know in the room, gave such a sweet feeling to the event. I wanted to feel that again. What I ended up feeling was stressed. Over the post-baptism food, of course. I was almost late to the baptism because I was finishing the food, and then I worried the entire time about whether I'd made enough or not. I found myself annoyed at some members of my family, and anxious about getting photos afterward, and just, well, befuddled. It wasn't the spiritual experience for me that I wanted it to be. However, that night, Nathan and I had a tender moment, just talking about it, and I saw that for him, it really was a spiritual experience, which is all that really matters. Plus, Jacob gave one of the talks, and he did such a great job. Several people commented to me that one day he'll make a wonderful missionary. I relayed those comments on to him, which gave him some ideas he's still thinking about.

April

What with that bonus tax return we got last year, it was time: I needed a new mixer. My old Kitchenetics was in pieces and parts---I could grate cheese with it, still, and make bread dough, but cookies and cakes were things of the past. After lots of research, I bought a new Bosch. It's got this ginormous bowl---I can make three batches of rolls at a time! And the grater attachment, which I had to have as I detest grating cheese with a hand grater, is much faster than my old one. It might be just my imagination, but it feels like the things I bake have a more "mixed" flavor, as if they are better combined. We sold the Kitchenetics pieces and parts. But, you know, as much as I love my new Bosch, I still felt like I was getting rid of a little piece of myself with that Kitchenetics. We bought it with gift certificates people gave us when we got married, at ZCMI (a department store you'll only recognize if you're from Utah), and I'd imagine that in the sixteen years I've used it, I've probably made nearly 200 batches of cookies and Thanksgiving rolls at least ten times, not to mention dozens of quick breads, yeast breads, dinner rolls, and cakes. Plus grated countless pounds of cheese. We bonded, my mixer and I; one late and very desperate Thanksgiving Eve, I actually spoke to it. It was a good mixer.

April was Haley's thirteenth birthday. She got to go to St. George with my sister, whose daughter is close to Haley's age. We did her grandparents party a little bit later, and she didn't have her friend party (which, by the way, my kids get only every other year, if that...I'm a horrible party mom) until the last Saturday in May. We waited that long so she could have it at her aunt's swimming pool. My birthday (also in April) was...well, I have no idea what I did on my birthday. Must not have been very exciting.

May

While May seemed to be consumed with adjusting to being an employed person again, I managed to sew a lot. Rag quilts, of course! Specifically, I made three of them in ten days. I'd found a bright floral/stripe flannel a few weeks before my friend Mary Ann had her baby. A different set of tones than I usually use, but I loved the brightness! Then, I decided that, since flannel was on a ridiculously cheap sale at Joann, I'd make a quilt for Jake's teacher. (I was the room mother.) When Nathan heard the idea, he wanted me to make one for his teacher, too. These were very simple rag quilts, just strips. I forgot to take a picture of the one I gave to Jake's teacher, but this one gives you an idea of what they both looked like. I love working with flannel, and the great thing about rag quilts is that there's no actual quilting involved, plus the edge is much simpler than on a traditional quilt. They come together so quickly! I did have lots of fuzz in my dryer for quite awhile, though!

June

Kendell and Kaleb's birthdays are both in June, just two days apart. Kendell celebrated his birthday by getting a Wii. As I absolutely hate video games, this did not make me very happy. It made the kids ecstatic, though. Since the kids were out of school, I established my Summertime Plan. On the first Monday in June, I took the Bigs out to dinner, and we discussed what we wanted to do that summer. Everyone contributed lots of ideas. We made a list and then started doing things. I am the most disorganized person, apt to just not ever do anything simply because I let time pass, so it was helpful to have a plan and a list. I think we had more fun during the summer just because of a little bit of planning. Plus, I knew we'd not be going on a vacation (because of Kendell's surgery), so I tried to make little mini-vacations, every Thursday.

July

I was so excited to have the opportunity to go to the BYU Symposium on Books for Young Readers. I attended one of the keynote presentations, which was done by Wendell Minor, who is a book illustrator---covers and the pictures inside, too. Since I am hopeless in the art department, I admire artists. I admire him because his illustrations are downright gorgeous. I should have written an entire blog entry about this day, but since this is quick-ish, I'll just share a few things he said. "If an artist is true to his nature, his work will change very little from childhood." He then showed us some pictures he had drawn as a kid, relating to the topics that still continue to fascinate him. This made me think, very much, about my childhood self and how she impacts my adult writing self. "We are all anchored to a point in time and a place that continue to color our world." For him it was summers spent fishing and observing the outdoors. I know what mine are---do you? "Pictures and words are more important than I am." This idea resonates with me profoundly. It hints at how real creators, be they authors, painters, sculptors, whatever, are interested in the process---in the creating itself, not in the fame or even in the identity of being a creator. I also got to go to small discussions with X. J. Kennedy (I continue to think about one of his statements and will blog about it, sometime), Jennifer Holme, and Kenneth Oppel. It was an awesome two days!

August

I did already blog about going to girl's camp. But there were several details I left out, like how much I enjoyed driving up to the camp all by myself and that I stopped several times on the way just to take pictures. How disappointed I was that rain cut our hike short. The way I didn't sleep very well in the cabin because it was making me feel claustrophobic. But one of the clearest images I took from girls' camp was a surprising revelation: I am afraid of canoes. What's odd about it is that I am not afraid of water. I grew up in a family that went water skiing every summer. But the girls talked me into going canoing with them, and the entire time I was on that boat, my heart was pounding. Maybe it was frightening to me because I was fully dressed, with heavy boots on and a rain jacket over my thickest sweatshirt. Probably the fact that it was drizzling, cold, and gloomy didn't help. Maybe if I was on a canoe in a bathing suit on a bright blue day, I would like it. As it stands, though, I might never get on one again. Of course, it's also Candace and Cindy's fault, the other leaders I went out with. None of us can paddle a canoe very well. But you know: there's nothing like a terrifying canoe experience for making new friends!

September

I took a few hours off work to attend a presentation at church by Marie Calder Ricks, who is one of those people who's so organized she teaches others how to be, too. While I heartily disagree on her laundry philosophy (she said that piled-up laundry is a way of being passive-aggressive towards your family and while that might apply to her, my laundry issues stem from time frustrations, not relationship frustrations. I'm passive aggressive in other ways! Plus, her opinion is that the laundry should be folded the second it is done drying, and that just doesn't fit with my routine. I can be the laundress but I think everyone else is old enough to be the folders!), I especially loved one thing she said: Your goal in keeping up with your home should revolve around the word "finish." If everyone learns to FINISH, there is a lot less work and frustration. "Finish" as in: Put your dishes in the dishwasher when you're done eating, or, Don't think the kitchen is clean if you've not washed, dried, and put away the pans, or, Dump the newspaper in the recycle bin when you've read it all. (Not that I would ever not do that.) Or, even the highly-astounding and mostly-revolutionary, Flush the toilet once you're done! It mostly has to do with personal responsibility. We've been working on this a little bit at my house and will be applying it much more over the upcoming year. In fact, it's sort of our Word for the year.

October

One Friday night in October, I came home to find Kendell burrowing around in the storage room, looking for the box that had his birth certificate inside of it, so he could get a passport. I scooted him aside and started looking, because I am way better than he is at finding stuff. I never did find it, but I did come across a long-forgotten box filled with old journals; the oldest one was from my  eighth grade year and the newest from 1996, the year after Haley was born. (After that year, I started keeping my journal mostly on the computer.) I stayed up way too late that year, reading through the chronology of me, transforming from a teenager to a newlywed to a mother. I think I thought there would be a point, a specific moment, when I became an adult, but there wasn't; it was all gradual transformation. It was nearly shocking to be reintroduced to my teenage self; she was far angrier than I remember feeling. And it was both surprising and a little bit discouraging to see how similar my marriage issues are now to how they were twelve years ago.

That night of reading journals has changed several things for me. One is that I am trying more, now, to focus on the positive experiences I have rather than mostly using my journal as a venting place. More relevant and pressing, though, is what has come from reading my teenage self. I might have been angry, confused, and hurting then, but I had a voice. I wasn't ever afraid to say what I thought; I didn't think anything other than that my ideas mattered. II think that somewhere along my journey I associated my rebellion with my ability to speak out, and when I left my rebellion behind I left my voice behind with it. I want my voice back; I want to find that inscrutable knowledge that my voice matters.

November

I think I made a fleeting reference to the fact that I kept bawling at church. Honestly I still start to cry if I think about this too much: In November, I was released from my calling working with the young women in our ward. The bishopric felt that I was experiencing too much stress in my life, and that my calling was adding to that stress, and that I needed more time to be with my family. While that is true, I didn't ever want to be released. Part of me feels OK with this change, especially as I went through the holidays with all the extra stuff I had to do. Another part hasn't made peace with it yet, because deep down, I feel like everyone has stress in their life, and yet they manage to fulfill their church duties far better than I ever could. That part of me feels I have failed at managing what I should be able to manage. I'm still trying to iron this out in my heart.

Nathan turned nine in November. (That's a lot of Ns!) Because I was going to my last YW activity on the night of his birthday, I had a little surprise post-school party waiting for him, with balloons, a gift, and cupcakes. Then we had his Grandma & Grandpa party the next night, complete with a Thanksgiving-esque dinner and his favorite, carrot cake.

December

What I really need to blog about from December is all the sewing I did. But as I still have a few things to finish up (guess that's my MO for holiday sewing: start it with the goal of finishing it for this year, but with a little snarky bit of reality reminding me quietly that it'll probably just be ready for next year), and I want to share them here, I'll wait. I could also write about how, as soon as Christmas was over this year, my mind was full of how I want to do things differently next year, but that's its own entry, too. Instead I have to tell you about the day I got stuck in the snow. Really: the last time I was stuck in snow, I was 17 and trying to leave my psychiatrist's office. You'd think that the ancient and enormous Ford Torino I drove would have got along just fine in the snow, but no: I think I got stuck in it at least five times during the two years I drove it. That last time I was stuck, I sat in the car for at least 15 minutes, just talking myself into going back in to ask my doctor to help push me out; somehow that was more embarrassing than anything I shared with him in therapy. At any rate, when we had that first big snowstorm, I parked on the side of the road like I always do at work. But when I tried to leave, I discovered my car surrounded by about 8 inches of snow. I brushed it off, scooped the snow away from the tires, and tried to leave, but no: I was stuck. A whole lot of wheel-spinning and not much actual leaving. I was way too embarrassed to go in and ask anyone I work with to help me (flashback to being 17), but luckily Kendell was on his way home, so he stopped by and pushed me out. Between that and the near-wreck, we've decided that on snowy days, he's driving the car, and I get the van.

So, there you have it: you are now completely and utterly caught up on my entire 2008. Well, not really. But sort of. And I am now a little bit more motivated to figure out, somehow, some way, a method for making the time to blog about what I want to blog about, when I want to blog about it.

I'm certain it will happen.

I'm ignoring the snarky little voice of reality, of course.

on Sewing (including the Nativity Quilt)

Over the past four months, I've sewn two Halloween costumes, five rag quilts, and a ridiculous 17 pair of pajamas. When I was cutting out the PJs (my least-favorite part of sewing), Kendell asked me why I was going to all the effort of sewing them, when it would be cheaper and consume far less time to simply buy them. While I sewed, I thought out my answer. "The kids liked the pajamas I make for them" is the obvious answer, although they also like the ones I've bought for them, too. The first pajamas I made, for Christmas Eve 2005, became Nathan's favorite article of clothing. He'd wear his Christmas PJs until about two minutes before he needed to get dressed to leave for kindergarten, and then put them back on as soon as he got home. He quite literally wore them out. I think he'll remember them for a long time. "I enjoy the process" might be a good answer to Kendell's question, too. I loved the day we all went to Joann together to pick out flannel. I think they'll remember that day, too. And, aside from the cutting-out part, I like sewing them together, watching something form itself out of something previously fairly formless. Or maybe I could have appealed to his practical side: "I have a sewing machine, so I might as well use it." One of my favorite adult-Christmas memories was the Christmas when Kendell gave me my sewing machine. I was pregnant with Kaleb, and I had no idea what was in that big gift. When I opened it, I started crying, no doubt influenced by pregnancy hormones and exhaustion, but also because I could glimpse, in my imagination, everything I'd sew with it.

Honestly, I never really answered Kendell. I think you either get the sewing/quilting thing, or you don't. It's always easier to buy a baby gift than it is to sew a rag quilt, but I take pleasure from shopping for the fabric and selecting different pieces that go together. I like sewing them and I love the moment when I pull the finished quilt from the dryer, shake off the extra fuzzy pieces, and look at it in its finished form. I love working with flannel. I like the process of creating something.  Here are four of the rag quilts I made (forgot to take a picture of one of them; also, you can tell that I've not yet perfected a way of photographing them so you can see the whole quilt AND get it in the right perspective):

Each time I finish a baby quilt, I think "this one is my favorite quilt ever." It makes me happy to work with colors and textures, and maybe that is answer enough.

Last night, I finished my nativity quilt. I think sewing the binding onto the back side of the quilt took longer than anything else, and I know I have much improvement to make on my whip-stitching skill. Right after I cut the final thread, I showed it to Kendell. "Look, honey, it's finished!" I said. In my head were all the reasons I'd wanted to make this quilt: because the fabric is so gorgeous, because it's unusual (how many times do you see Santa-themed fabric at Christmas, or snowmen, but you hardly ever see the nativity), because I love nativities, because I wanted to accomplish the task of finishing an entire quilt, including the binding. And because of Christmases in the future, when some child or other would curl up underneath it with me, and we would read or talk or just rock in the chair by the tree; because I wanted to connect the quilt with Christmas memories. Because maybe one day, when I am gone (in the far, far, far-away future), someone---Haley, or a daughter-in-law, or maybe even a great granddaughter---might want a thing I made with my own hands.

"Hmmm," he said, looking up from the computer. "It's great, but wasn't that a lot of work for something you'll only drag out at Christmas time?"

Men! They just don't get it sometimes. So, I thought I'd share it here instead, in the hopes that some of you will get it! I had my prime lens on my camera, and couldn't get back far enough to fit the whole thing in the frame, and when I stitched the two photos together in Photoshop, they didn't fit together perfectly. But it's a general impression, anyway.