mama urchin

…know where I can get some natural/ivory colored fishing net to make into bags for mermaid Katrina’s upcoming underwater birthday party? I’m planning to make the bags from fabric and use the net as an overlay so the hole size isn’t too important.

…know where I can get fun goggles for the party cheap? I want to try to get some of those goggles with eyes shaped like shells or fish or something.

…have a good source for cotton chenille? I’m looking for some ivory/natural chenille to back my pink and brown quilt squares. All the stores around here have basic striped chenille and I was thinking something more floral in pattern. This is one of those times I have something in my head, now I just need to find it.

…have shopping recommendations while we’re visiting LA over Easter weekend? I might have a little time between the family events we’re going to attend and I wouldn’t mind finding a good Japanese bookstore/everything store. Yarn and fabric store recommendations are always welcome too. We’re staying north-west of downtown in Agoura Hills.

Thank you in advance for the help I know you’ll give. And thank you also for the well wishes. We found out yesterday that Katrina has strep again and an ear infection. I’m hoping a few doses of the antibiotic will have her feeling better soon. The photos in this post are pillow tops in progress from my bloggy birthday give-away. Once made into pillows these will be going to Kris and Inga. I have plans for both Amy and Capello next.

Ear infection, sinus infection, and goopy eye — and that’s just Tristan. Katrina got sent home from a sleepover with Grandmom and Granddad on Saturday night with a temp of 103.5. I knew she felt pretty bad when she wanted to come home. We’ll find out what’s going on with her later today. In the meantime, here are some flickr favorites to tide us all over.

Well, it’s that time again. Time to celebrate another year of blogging. Two years I’ve been occupying this little space and inviting all of you to stop by and chat. Jenn Docherty left my first comment — although I admit it was slightly solicited — and Vicki left the second. Back then I think the only people who regularly read this thing were my husband and my mother-in-law. Now, well you guys just blow me away. Anyway, thank you to all of you who stop by, leave a note or just pass through. I’m happy to be a part of this wonderful community. I’ve learned so much, and I’m not just talking about the crafting.

Well, as is tradition it seems there should be gifts. So… how about some pillows? I think I’ll make three so that means there can be three winners. Leave a comment and I’ll random number the names after leap day. Let me know — if you can remember — when you first stumbled upon me and my urchins and if you’re really smart, tell me how you got here.

In the Pacific Northwest when bloggy buddies meet up it looks like this. In the Mid-west it looks like this. Here in the East it looks more like this:

You think that’s bad, you should see Emma. No, I’m totally kidding. We did hang out with the Coddles yesterday and Katrina did get the shiner while at the farm but Emma didn’t do it, Mary did. No, not really, Katrina has actually told me about a million times that it wasn’t Mary’s fault — which I knew anyway. The truth is she was trying to climb onto a two-person swingy thing while Mary waited on the other side and somehow Katie got conked in the eye. She could care less though and her only real complaint is that we didn’t stay at the farm overnight.

The urchins had a wonderful time, traipsing through the creek, chasing cats, climbing on farm equipment and hanging out with new best, best friends — that’s a quote. Unfortunately all you get is one blurry photo because while I did have the camera we were just having too much fun to use it. Tristan has been crawling around meow-ing since we got home and Katrina is already making plans for her next visit. Molly, thanks for a really fantastic day, we can’t wait to do it again.

Blessed — that’s what we are in so many ways. Our family is fortunate to live middle-class lives in an affluent country where we have the freedom to speak, worship, and pretty much go about our lives in a way that pleases us. We have never had to worry about how we would feed our children, how we would afford their medicine, or how to protect them from warfare. We go to our church every week without fear of imprisonment.

The recent winter holidays always reminds me — and many — of how much I have been given and this is something that Papa and I want our children to appreciate. Katrina helps me take food and clothing to our local outreach center, she has sorted through toys to give some to children who have few, but this year we are taking it a little further. This year we gave her a catalog from Heifer International and asked her to flip through and choose an animal — she picked a flock of chicks. Since Thanksgiving she’s been doing jobs around the house to earn the money to buy them for a child who lives half the world away. I cannot get over how excited she’s been about this. She keeps asking us if we have jobs for her. Not once has she asked about keeping the money for herself or buying something she wants. She’s learning that charity isn’t just about cast-offs and leftovers but also about sacrifice — that making the world better requires work.

So if you’ve made it this far you may be wondering why I’m writing all this on my craft blog. I was thinking about how much difference one four-year-old can make and then the difference that ten children could make and I thought what Katrina is doing might inspire you, or your urchins and I felt obliged to share. In addition to the jobs around the house Katrina has started a shop over at cafepress where you can buy items screenprinted with her original designs — we’re hoping to add more designs soon. All proceeds from the sales will go toward chicks. Now tell me, what do you do to foster giving and sacrifice in the hearts of your children?

It’s cold and grey and a little bit snowy here today so how about some recent favorites courtesy of flickr.

So, 2007 was a pretty good year on the crafting front. There are 84 photos in my Finished - 2007 set on flickr. Even I’m a little impressed by that. I’m particularly happy with how many new things I learned in 2007. Let’s review, shall we?

First, in knitting, thanks to Larissa I learned to knit socks. All in all I finished six pairs of socks plus two pairs of baby booties this year. Ten sweaters came off the needles and while all but one were child sized I’m still very happy about that. I made my first Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater and my first colorworked yoke sweater both for urchin number two. Katrina didn’t get quite as many sweaters but she was definitely the main beneficiary of my newfound sewing skills…

I think 2007 might just be remembered as the year I learned to sew. Wow, I’m so happy I finally conquered my fear. There have been a lot of pajamas and quite a few dresses. I even made my sister a bag. I also made my first quilt in 2007 and my second, third, fourth, and fifth as well. They were all doll quilts but I have full-sized quilt love for them all.

There was plenty of food in 2007 although not too much of it made it onto the blog. I’m glad that some jam made into some of your homes though. Lots of paper stuff happened as well including garlands, folders, and altered bottles. And let’s not forget the altered tin for Father’s Day — one of my favorite projects from the whole year.

We played games, we gave gifts, we swapped, we had two great birthday parties, and took about a million photos. So 2008 has some big shoes to fill. What do I have planned? Knitting wise I’d like to make more socks using a variety of techniques. I’d like to conquer a lace project and I am going to knit a sweater for Papa. At the sewing machine I want to continue to improve my garment-making skills and conquer my fear of knits. I also want to make a bed-sized quilt top — I’ll probably send it out to be quilted. I want to tell you more about some of the great food we’re eating and I really want to try to compost less of our CSA share each week. Thank you guys for being such a great inspiration to me, and not just when it comes to being crafty. Your talent in knitting, sewing, mommy-ing — making in all regards — inspires me everyday. And that you take the time to tell me you enjoy what I make is really wonderful to me. Ready or not 2008, here we come.

Hi, Papa Urchin here today. Unfortunately, Mama is suffering the lingering effects of a food poisoning incident on Saturday night. — I fully blame Santa! No seriously, we took the kids to the swanky mall Saturday afternoon to see Santa. Just as we walked up, they closed the line so the big guy could take his dinner break. We decided to do some shopping and get dinner ourselves. All was well, we got some last minute gifts, had a nice dinner at a upscale chain grill and saw the big man. By bed time we knew somethings was wrong, by morning Mama was saying “[she] had never been so sick in her life.” If Santa had only thrown back a few more cookies at lunch, we never would have had dinner at the mall and none of this would have happened. — Mama is progressing back to health, but still in need of extra sleep, so here I am. We were able to make it to church last night, but will have a quiet dinner at home tonight. (Does anyone deliver on Christmas Day?)

I don’t really have anything crafty for you today, but how about some pictures. After church and munchies with the family at our place, the kids set out to feed the reindeer. –Every year our family doctor gives us bags of reindeer food (oats and glitter) for the kids to leave on the front lawn. He always tells the kids that his daughters swear by the stuff, I always wonder if anyone mentioned the fact that daddy is a doctor? Either way it’s always a fun time with the kids and makes for great pictures if you can capture the glitter in the air (which I didn’t this year.)

Next up, stockings hung by the mantel with care. — In case you are wondering that is not our real mantle. We couldn’t find stocking hangers that worked with heavy stocking and our stone mantel so a few years ago I whipped up a wood box and we screwed mug hooks to it. This works great with those overload stockings and then packs up with the rest of the decorations.

Christmas morning started well, as you can see Tristan was not very interested in posing for his picture on the stairs before checking out all the loot Santa brought. The joy of the kids faces as they unwrapped their gifts helped Mama feel better, but still not well enough to make it to Grandma & Granddad Urchins house for the annual dinner. Finally, as a parting shot you can see my attempt at a christmas photo of the kids. This one didn’t make the cut, but you can see the one that did over at Urchins.

Merry Christmas from the Urchins, and expect to see Mama back in action before the New Year. She has a number of handmade gifts for your blog reading delights.

Thank you for all the get well wishes. I think that they, combined with quite a few doses of airborne jr. and zinc lollipops, made for a quick recovery. So right on cue as the urchins felt better I woke up with a sore throat last Monday. I was working on the premise that if I denied the problem it would go away but now that I’ve lost my voice the only thing being ignored is me. Anyway, sorry for not popping in here to say hello in a while. Stefan’s family arrived last week for Turkey Day and a certain boy’s birthday so we were trying to finish up a number of home improvement type projects. Nothing like company to light a fire under your rear.

High on the list of things that needed to be done was our upstairs hall bathroom. Katrina was, in her words, trying to swing from the towel bar so it needed to be replaced. We decided hooks might be a better solution since they would be easier for the kids to use plus they could not be confused for a trapeze. But since you never know with these two we decided to mount a board to the wall for the hooks to be screwed to — wood is stronger than drywall. We mounted two boards to accommodate a lot of hooks. To make the whole thing look intentional we painted between the boards with magnetic primer and a topcoat of gray.

We bought magnetic photo frames — these are 3.5″ x 3.5″ — and put a black and white photo of each urchin in one. Then we put the frame on the magnetic strip above where they should hang their towels. I’m planning to add some twill tape loops to the towels to make them even easier to hang. We replaced the horrid light fixture that was in there and hung two black and white photos that Nichole took last Spring. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out although I did say to Papa that if we ever leave this house the new owners will be thinking I was some crazy lady with a magnet stripe in her bathroom. Oh well.

Just popping in to say hi and look at the lizard we saw! We’re in Key West for a friend’s wedding but we’ll be back next week.