crafting non-update

With all the illness and teething and miserable boobages around here, there has been no crafting going on. Ah, well. I do have photos of a few more things though -- some are on my etsy site at http://www.dreamsoftrees.etsy.com/ and some are not.

The little blue dress I made for Veda a few weeks ago. It is made from an old skirt and an old men's shirt. I like it a lot, but it is too big right now, so will have to wait. The ball is a needlefelted jingle ball that's on the etsy site along with the little shirt. THe shirt was an old one that I tie dyed then appliqued with some fabric scraps. I dig the mushroom motif. (cuz I lika the shrooms...the wildcrafted edible kind, of course!)

the crazies

It seems like life throws the crazy stuff at you in fistfuls...not ever in manageable bite-sized morsels.

I guess it's common knowledge that things go along okay for a short time, then suddenly -- powpowpow -- you get socked with a whole lot of nuttiness all at once. But I just never get used to it.

I'm drained right now. The flying fistfuls of awfulness have finally got me down. The whole family...including me...have been sick with this rotten, dragging-on fever/sore throat/body ache thingie for a week. There was this weird twister the other night that knocked out power and took down trees and squashed my new garden pretty flat. THe baby is getting another tooth and screams and screams all night so there's no rest for any of the weary and sick. Worst of all, my dang boobies are in agony. I let princess nurse too much during her illness, and now I have excruciating sore nipples. And guess what? Yep. All she wants to do right now while she's teething is nurse.

I guess, you know, this is just life. That thing that's not for sissies (or is that old age? I always confuse those.). But right now, even with the persistence of that indescribable shade of pale spring green practically tumbling through my windows, I am feeling pretty down and out. Physically more than mentally, I guess, which is somewhat of a beacon of hope.

So for now, I breathe. In and out. Just this moment. And this one. And this one. And I just have to remember to ride it until it levels out...and gather my strength for more.

crafty update

So in the past few months I've gone wild for wool. And this is what I'm into:

-- Currently working on making a pillow out of felted sweaters with a needlefelted piece in the center.

-- Making dish cloths for the kitchen on the knifty knitter looms out of cotton yarn.

-- Loom knitting hats out of this incredibly soft organic cotton yarn for the family.

-- Weaving a rug for Birch's room out of old bedsheets that were on their way to Goodwill.

And I'm still...always...painting here and there. Plus some odds and ends of sewing projects, etc. I posted a few photos here of some recent stuff I've done. It's so fun! A woman at Birch's school used to raise sheep and she just gave me 3 trash bags full of raw wool, so at the moment I am experimenting with washing and carding this wool for future projects. Hoping to get into some wet felting soon! Yay!

special night

With Scott working out of town for the 4th week in a row, I sometimes now get the pleasure of waking up in a bed full of angels. I realize that's a very precious thing for me to say...all Hallmarky-sounding. Ugh. But really, sleeping with both my kids, while not always conducive to the best night's sleep, is usually a cozy and amazing way to wake up in the morning.

Birch calls it "Special Night." Longtime co-sleepers he and I, after finally being forcibly removed from my bed just after his 7th birthday (okay, it was bittersweet for me as well), I now allow him very occasionally to come share the bed with the baby and I when Scott is away. And he loves it.

It's funny...Birchman needs his beauty sleep and will be the first to tell you so...and sleeping with Veda is what I imagine it would be like to sleep with an insomniac spider monkey, but nevertheless, he claims he doesn't mind her crawling all over him in the middle of the night.

And this morning...aw, gosh...to wake up to this warm spring sunshine with the two of them nestled together like little puppies beside me...it was the most perfect thing in the universe.

where i'm at

Ah...today feels alright. Finally past the Horrible Week of Plague (so fun having your baby miserably sick with an awful cold while you have the same cold and a sinus infection...who mothers the mother, I ask you???). Scott's still out of town for the second week in a row and that blows, but there is an April snowstorm today, which is oddly satisfying and my baby is sleeping in my arms as I type this and I have the whole day ahead of me to sew and bake and felt...so...ahhhhh....I'm going to relax a bit in this little piece of bliss. :-)

milestones

This is crazy! Veda is only 7-1/2 months old and she is already about to walk. What is up with this? Where has my baby gone?

She started crawling not long after the holidays. It was maybe sometime in late January that she pushed herself up on all fours, rocked back and forth a few times, stuck out a tentative arm...and off she went. She practiced a bit before she took off...it was a period of a couple of weeks where she was really trying to work out how to do this movement thing. But it didn't take her long.

She's so different from her brother. Birch learned to crawl at around 7 months or so. But before that he was an expert roller. He spent a good month or more rolling very quickly from place to place. He would look at something, point to it and then roll right to it. It was so funny! And once he started crawling, you couldn't stop him. He love it...and he was FAST! He loved it so much that he didn't even bother walking on his own until he was 16 months old. (He did, however, very much enjoy walking around holding onto my finger from about 12 months...oohh, my aching back!)

Veda, however, is not much interested in this crawling business. Inferior transport, I can almost see her thinking as she reluctantly crawls after the adored cats after trying desperately to figure out how to get upright. She had only been crawling like 3 hours or something when she worked out how to push her bottom up in the air in downward facing dog, and she had only been crawling like 3 days when she figured out how to pull up on furniture and stand up. Now she spends the whole day standing next to the furniture trying to figure out how the HECK we do this.

Also, she has learned to clap. It's so funny. For several days I have noticed her watching her hands again...like she did when she was a tiny baby and still trying to figure out that they were attached to her. Then today I saw her watching them and slapping them around, then BANG...she clapped them...and was delighted! She did it! It happened at her Mother Goose story time at the library. She was so excited. She also waved today to a stranger at the chiropractor's office and shook her booty to a reggae version of John Denver's "Country Roads" at Mother Goose.

It's been quite a day. So many milestones. I feel exhausted!