2008 February « mama urchin

Archive for February, 2008

Vintage Find

Published February 12, 2008 Crafted by Friends , Fiber Crafts , In the Mailbox , Sewing 6 Comments

A few weekends ago Papa and I spent some time in the garage. Ours is a two-car yet both of our cars are in the driveway. If you have a garage you know what I’m talking about. With a little bit of work we could easily get one of the cars in — there is a disassembled Christmas tree in there that needs to be put away taking up a lot of space — but one side is full of boxes including a whole bunch of save stuff from my childhood. I’ve been reluctant to go through these boxes because I knew there was a whole lot of stuff in there that there was just no good reason to continue to store but that I still felt like I couldn’t throw away. I find that just the fact that something was saved, even with no intention, somehow makes it harder to get rid of.

So I did get rid of a lot of stuff, A LOT, and that is nice but I also found some stuff I didn’t even know was out there and that was even better. One of those things was this set of dolls that my grandmother made for me when I was about Katrina’s age. I had a matching dress and bugged my mom to search for it last summer but I had totally forgotten about the bag of dolls. I’d have liked to have the dress too — we’ve determined it’s long gone — but the dolls are better. After a nice soak they were nice and clean and ready for some play. I can’t wait to [over]hear their adventures.

Made From Scratch

Published February 11, 2008 Cooking , In the Kitchen 6 Comments

Last Autumn Molly posted about her grocery shopping dilemma where she felt like she was always running to the grocery store and spending more money than she wanted to there. She asked for tips and got a lot of them from her readers. I’ve been thinking back to that post recently because we are trying to be better about staying on budget with our spending. I’ve started to regularly make some things from scratch that we used to buy and I thought it might be fun to share some recipes and tips with you guys. So, I declare next week — February 18 through 22 — to be Made From Scratch Week here on the Mama Urchin blog. Feel free to join in if you want.

Progress

Published February 8, 2008 Embroidery , Fiber Crafts , Knitting , Sewing , Virtual Quilting Bee 6 Comments
Tags: bigseamlesshybrid, greybluemittens, greygreenpillows, vqb-feb

I’ve been feeling like I’ve been trudging along crafting away and don’t have much to show for it. I decided to stack it all up and see if it made it seem like more. Not really…

The only really completed thing is those pillows and they’ve been almost done for a long time. I just needed the zippers — an afterthought, I’m amazed they turned out — and I picked them up this week. The yo-yo flowers are a label for my Virtual Quilting Bee quilt. The mitten is actually looking like a mitten now but still, there’s only one, and the big seamless hybrid has a long way until it lives up to it’s name.

So, how was your week, did you get anything done?

Recent Favorites

Published February 5, 2008 Inspiring 4 Comments

1. more olives, 2. Traveler, 3. Mushroom House: Green, 4. paint job, 5. sled, 6. tie detail, 7. Penguinfront, 8. Whimsical Flowers embroidery, 9. Hi Sweeties!, 10. Walking in peace, 11. sisters., 12. Nekoma grass, looking west, 13. Lace and Legs, 14. 30 Days : 13, 15. .garden of magic, 16. Pillows and curtain, 17. Mushroom Cap Singles, 18. felt cookies, 19. Wooden moms, 20. frosted water pump, 21. Safnið Skógar undir Eyjafjöllum, 22. it was raining gumballs, 23. fluid + rigid, 24. Snowy Seat, 25. Escape from Florida, 26. Holey, 27. swatches, 28. WAWAYAdoragon#6#7, 29. Lovely weather – Gott veður, 30. dinosaur finger puppets, 31. bowl of knitted easter eggs, 32. floyd, the farm dog, 33. green + brown, 34. frost on the duck pen, 35. easter eggs, 36. DSCF6621.JPG

Secondhand Finds

Published February 4, 2008 Crafting With the Urchins , Papa Urchin , Through The Lens 5 Comments

Thrifting in my neck of the woods is pretty bad. The stores are mostly bare except for really bad stuff from the 80s. What we do have in abundance though is antique stores. This weekend a store near my mom was having a groundhog day weekend sale. The store is in an old house and different vendors have different rooms in the house. It makes for really fun poking around looking for treasures. Of course this time my mom and I — my best antiquing partner — were poking around while corralling an urchin who wanted to touch everything, especially if it was breakable. Still, I managed to uncover a couple of great things in our quick sweep of the place. My mom went back through more thoroughly after I removed Mister TouchEverything from the premises and called me to tell me she found something else — one of the many reasons she’s my best antiquing partner ever.

Anyway, Papa is in love with two of the three things that have made their home with us and he wasted no time in using them in some photographs:

I was looking for a vintage suitcase with Katie in mind — I’m trying to improve the dress-up/play-pretend box in our house — and she and Tristan carried this one around all afternoon. The table and chairs was the real score of the day. Papa has been wanting something like the set for a while and as soon as I saw it I took the tag to buy it. Luckily the price was reasonable because who knows how much I would have paid. As for what I brought home that he didn’t like, I’m hoping it will grow on him.

52 Weeks, My Kids and Me – Week 1

Published February 1, 2008 Through The Lens 9 Comments

Grace’s post about the 52 weeks, my kid(s) and me flickr group fired a synapse in my scattered brain that said, Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be doing that… So, I thought I’d try to get a shot of the three of us today. Of course, it’s (ice)rainy here and grey so that meant we needed to use the studio. Did you see Grace’s photo? Do you see how calm her kids look. I took a bunch of photos and most of them looked something like this:

Outtakes for 52 Weeks, My Kids and Me (Week 1)

I had a vision and that wasn’t it. Oh, well, I guess being a Mama is taking what you can get sometimes. And sometimes what you get isn’t what you wanted but maybe it’s something better and more real anyway. Have a great weekend friends.

Ladies, Start Your Engines…

Published February 1, 2008 Crafted by Friends , Fiber Crafts , Homemaking , In the Corners , In the Mailbox , Sewing , Swaps , Virtual Quilting Bee 13 Comments
Tags: vqb-feb

Your sewing machine engines that is. Today I cut twelve fat quarters and packed them up to send. That can only mean one thing… the Virtual Quilting Bee is about to begin. My quilt is going to be first so I can be the guinea pig and work out any kinks in the system — as well as work out some participant nerves. So let’s talk about the quilt I’m hoping to have come March 1.

First off, the quilt is going to be for our playroom. This is where we spend a lot of time but the room is in our basement and it can be chilly down there in all seasons. My crafty area is in this room too so happily I’ll be able to keep a close eye on the finished quilt. As you can see the colors are bright — really bright — and the mood is fun. I love the idea of all of you making a quilt to wrap around my kids.

As for the actual quilt, I’m up for pretty much anything as long as it will tolerate the washing machine. I love patchwork and appliqué; I think freezer paper stenciling is gorgeous; I don’t mind crazy patterns and textures. As for what I’m sending the group: the fat quarters are a busy, busy print from IKEA and I also included a 10″x10″ square of squash colored chenille. I’m planning to use the same chenille for the back. So, be inspired friends, I cannot wait to see what you come up with.