Death by Glitter

This week, Olivia and I spent some one-on-one time crafting: just a couple of girls, a couple of dollar-bin picture frames, a bag of sequins, some tacky glue, and a cylinder of rainbow glitter. 

When our project was at 90% completion, there was a knock at the front door. By the time I got back to the kitchen, the entire 4-inch-high cylinder of glitter had been spilled. Here's what my kitchen floor looked like.

This photo doesn't do the mess justice. If you have any experience with glitter, you know that even just a tiny bit can infiltrate your home so that days later you are still finding it on your clothes, furniture, and stuck in the tiny hairs above your lip that you don't want to call a moustache but your daughters will tell you is one. 

And this was a LOT of glitter, all over the crafting table cloth, chairs and floor.  My purple Shark vacuum shot much of it into the air until I figured out the right attachment to use. This is why many mommies do not craft, but leave it to preschool teachers.

You know the expression "live by the sword, die by the sword?" Well, I live by glitter, and also die by glitter.

I have also experienced death by sequins, when, on Father's Day weekend, a ballerina skirt exploded in the wash and bedazzled the washer and dryer and lint trap with pink iridescent sequins, which then got all over our clothes. Happy Father's Day, husband. You sparkle. 

Our family also lives and dies by sewing pins. Jeff has stepped on several, and found needles sticking out of the arm of our couch (now it's leather, so I know longer use the couch as a pin cushion, so that particular danger is over). Our back yard patio is like a drunk Jackson Pollock, with water color splatters absorbed into the concrete. And I have also died many deaths (emotionally speaking) getting ground-in Play-doh out of upholstery and cracks in our kitchen table. 

The fact is, whatever we love has a downside. You can tell what someone's passion is by what pain they are willing to suffer for it (or, in my husband's case with the pins, what pain they are willing to let their families suffer for it). I met a woman at a party a few weeks ago who had arrived on her daughter's razor scooter, because though she had sustained a stress fracture in her heel the day before, she didn't want to drive her car for just a mile. That woman loves to exercise. Stress fracture? ACL tear? Well, that just comes with the territory. 

Yesterday, I went to visit a neighbor who was making her four year old son a two-tiered pirate-themed birthday cake. Her entire person was literally coated with powdered sugar, and the fondant wouldn't roll without sticking to the silicon rolling mat. Death by fondant!  Her sanity as well as her marriage was in jeopardy for a couple of hours (her husband said today at the party, "Can you taste the slight hint of bitterness in this cake?") But come next child's birthday, they will both go gung-ho again, and turn the house upside down doing a Minnie Mouse themed-party for their daughter. Why? Because they love it! We shall be very good friends with these neighbors.

I often lament all the scrappy messes I am picking up in this house, but they are mostly my fault. I have created a culture of creativity here, and small pieces of paper, thread, glue and other hard-to-clean substances are the price I'm willing to pay, if I think about it. 

I'm also often irritated that there are vases of dead flowers throughout  my house, but, again, it's my own fault. I just love flowers, and I'm too busy sweeping up glitter to dump them out before their dead. They are not a testament to my lazy housekeeping so much as my commitment to creativity. 

Just before I left for Texas, I was emptying a vase of expired blooms, and I found a Jedi master drowned in the bottom. Apparently, the girls had been launching their Star Wars toys down the stairs, and Yoda fell through our open staircase and into a vase full of geraniums on the bookshelf underneath.

I'm always telling the girls not to do this with their action figures, because they are bound to get lost in the crevices under our stairs. When I told Livie I had found her Yoda, she was unrepentant. She said something like, "Well, sometimes that happens when you're having fun." What's one dead Jedi master in the course of a whole hour of gleefully tossing toys down the stairs? 

I see your point, small daughter. Now, watch out as you walk through the kitchen. Mommy's been sewing, and she may have dropped some pins.

I Gotta Be Me

This is a picture of me in bliss. Let's dissect it, shall we?

First obvious point: I'm sitting in a mess of fabric, and there is no family to be fed, so I don't have to clean it up to clear off the dinner table. Instead, I have half of a living room in which to spread out any and all projects I am currently working on -- for days at a time! My friend who is taking up the other half of the living room won't be mad if she steps on a pin (it's just as likely hers as mine), so I don't even have to be careful with my sharp objects.

I have with me my sewing machine (obviously) and my cd player (okay, I'm old school, I don't have an i-pod).

On the table next to my machine is a cup of coffee. And behind me, if you look closely, is a bottle of New Belgium Ranger India Pale Ale (left over from the night before). It's noon when I took this picture, but I'm still wearing my favorite red pajamas that Hubby gave me for Christmas. I'm also wearing scissors around my neck and my quilting gloves.

Absolute best thing about this moment: draped over me is a completed quilt that I made purely for joy, to give to a friend as a surprise. Behind me is a quilt for my very first nephew, due next month, and it is at about 60% completion.

Bliss, bliss, bliss. At least once a year my friend Molly and I leave our daughters with their daddies and run away to San Diego, where we hole up in her parents' empty house while we quilt to our hearts' content. We set up our machines on big tables in the middle of their tract home's living room, face to face like a couple of dueling musicians in a piano bar. What beautiful music we make. We eat tuna melts and French toast (not together) instead of going out to eat. We leave the house only to run to the local fabric shop if we run out of supplies. I know it sounds crazy weird to some of you, but we two mommies would rather experience the joy of completing our creative projects uninterrupted than spend an all-expense-paid day at Burke Williams (though if any one is offering, we'll take that too).

I am a wonderfully fortunate woman because my husband gets this about me (perhaps because his mom is a quilter) and can handle the kids on his own for a few days. I feel like a new person when I come home, and Daddy bonds with the kids, so it's a win-win.

Mommies out there, be inspired: if there's something you love to do, make time to do it. I love my kids desperately, and I have an incredibly fun and interesting life. But inside my kids' Mommy is a woman I still like to refer to as Me. Sometimes, I need to be Me and no one else. To be free, just for 48 hours or so, from meeting the needs of small people.

This principle isn't just for moms, though. Readers out there, all 23 of you, make time to do something you love. Doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, it just has to break the routine of your every day and help you experience some joy. Life is too short to forget who you are. Don't put off doing the things that remind you who You is.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

I always knew you had to have a sense of humor to raise children. I didn't know you had to have really good self-esteem as well to make it through unscathed. If it's true that children and fools tell the truth, then my appearance is on a dramatic downhill slide. For your amusement, and to elicit some reader sympathy, here are some recent exchanges I've had with my daughters.

At the breakfast table, in strong sunlight
Sophia (age 7): Mom, you look kind of scary right now. Maybe it's because you don't have your makeup on.

Getting into the shower
Livie (age 3): Mommy, why is your bottom sooo big?

In the dressing room of Forever 21
Sophia: Mom, I think you're too old for that dress. I really think you should probably just wear long dresses. Like, you know, long, and with a lot of buttons up here [gesturing at the neck].

Also in the dressing room
Sophia: Mom, those underwear look too small on you. Maybe you should buy bigger underwear.

In a moment of motherly affection
Me: Livie, you have such beautiful eyes. Where did you get those beautiful blue eyes?

Livie: I don't know.

Me: From your daddy! What color are my eyes?

Livie: Uh, kind of black.

Me: No, my eyes are brown.

Livie: [looking closer] Actually, your eyes look kind of red in there. Why are your eyes so red?

So let's sum up: I'm a large bottomed, tired-looking woman who has outgrown her underwear, needs foundation and blush to get by, and should consider showing less skin. Any questions?

That's okay. My girls have enough beauty for all three of us. And I'll still shop at Forever 21 if I want to. Meanwhile, Mommy is heading off tomorrow for a quilting weekend with a wonderful friend and fellow mother. Three days of sewing isn't likely to tone my behind, but I will try to come back looking a little more refreshed.

Fruity Baby Blanket

One of my favorite ways to sew is without a pattern or even a clear idea of what something is going to look like when it is finished. This often has bad results (more in later blogs), but is always fun to do. Yesterday I finished a moderately successful seat-of-my-pants sewing experience that I wanted to share.

My friend Karen is expecting her third baby girl this summer, and while I'm sure Karen has lots of pink blankets in storage, I wanted the last baby to have something new and unique, too. Karen is a beautiful, peaceful, Godly woman, and also a painter and paper artist, so I wanted the baby's blanket to reflect her a bit. I decided to make her a Fruits of the Spirit quilt ("The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control." Galatians 5:22). I had once made a set of wooden blocks with a tree and the fruits painted on them for another baby girl in my life, and I thought it would work equally well in fabric.

The verse was free-form machine quilted in turquoise thread, and I machine appliqued wool felt and vintage chenille to form the tree using a free-form stitch for a sketched look. Then I machine quilted grass, and a few felt flowers for good measure. Topped it all off with some vintage cotton rick-rack and I think it came out quite cute!