Elven Baby Shoes

Ever since I saw the pattern for these cloth baby shoes I have wanted to make some. Last night I discovered that I finally had some fabric that would work perfectly. These Elvish-looking baby shoes are made from brown linen, lined with flannel and trimmed with vintage ribbon.


They would be very quick to make if only I could figure out what my sewing machine has against sewing through flannel and a couple other layers of fabric (what is up with that!). Let's just say that Grandma's seam ripper once again got quite the workout. Despite those problems, I think I will be making more of these cuties!

-Jen

A Marvelous Weekend

It was a busy, yet fun filled, weekend. My apologies for the delay in my posting. Here's a brief recap of what has gone on:

It's musical time again! This fall, the VACT is performing "Something's Afoot"; a murder mystery musical that spoofs Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians'. One of the opening numbers is an appropriate title for this blog post. For this show, the orchestra is on stage and behind the scenery. It makes for some interesting acoustics, but it's fun to see and engage with the actors/actresses in between scenes. The first weekend's performances went very well. Next Thursday through Saturday are the final performances. If you're interested in seeing it, ticket information can be found here. For those who have already seen the show, thanks for coming and I hope you've enjoyed it.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Ted! We hope you had a special day. Since it falls on Halloween, how better to celebrate it than with a 'Happy Birthday Pumpkin'?

Now, when Noah hears the rumblings of a little engine whiz past our house, he'll look at us straight in the eye and in all seriousness mention 'melmeln'. We finally caught on that he was trying to tell us that this was the 'mail man' driving by. Sometimes, during the middle of dinner he'll think he heard the 'melmeln' again and inform us, just in case we wanted to check. We think he uses this term for other meanings as well that we're still trying to figure out. If you recall one of our earlier posts, you'd most likely understand.

As you've seen in her recent post, Jen has been knitting up a storm. I'm not sure if I've seen her without knitting needles and yarn in her hands for some time now. I can't even keep up with everything she's done. She's like a machine: she knit me a hat, she knit herself a hat, she knit a friend a baby hat, and now she's working on some mittens. She's just so gosh darn talented.

Daylight savings time happened. It's getting close to the time where I'll go to work when it's dark and then return home when it's dark. If I'm in my office for most of the day, there may be a good chance that I won't see the sun. It's definitely a sign that 'ol man winter is on his way. I will mention, however, that I did enjoy that extra hour of sleep--very rejuvenating. With all that has been going on, that one additional hour made all of the difference.

Finally, it was the weekend of Halloween, one of my favorite times of the year. Maybe it's because it's one of the more creative holidays. I really enjoy seeing the kids dress up in their ingenious costumes as well as turning pumpkins into my own artwork. For those of you that aren't aware, I go a little crazy with pumpkin carving. We go and pick out the pumpkins at a local farm and then I use basic carving tools to sculpt a design. It's a tedious, delicate process, but I love the challenge involved. I always like to carve things that the kids can relate to as they visit our home for trick-or-treating. It's also fun to make the parents of the trick-or-treaters think about how the carvings could be done. In previous years, I've commonly done a number of movie characters, including action heroes (Batman, Spiderman) and cartoon (Shrek, Nemo). This year, I thought I'd go with a theme to help celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Movie The Wizard of Oz and the 100th Anniversary of Frank L. Baum's book Wizard of Oz.

It was a full two day process to complete the designs, empty out, and then carve the pumpkins. Noah was a good supervisor to make sure I was staying on track.

Following the storyline of the film, Dorothy Gale, who lives on a Kansas farm, dreams of a better place "somewhere over the rainbow." After a tornado strikes her unconscious, Dorothy dreams that she, her dog Toto and the farmhouse are transported to the magical Land of Oz.

There, Dorothy is told by the Good Witch of the North, Glinda, to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and meet the Wizard of Oz, who can help her return to her home back in Kansas. Along the way, she meets a Scarecrow who would feel much happier if he only had a brain.

Later on, they meet a Tin Man, who wishes he could have a heart.

Further on down the road, they come across a Cowardly Lion, hoping to ask the wizard for courage. This one was the most challenging carving, partially due to the pumpkin's size. The Cowardly Lion took 2.5 hours to complete.

Throughout their journey to the Emerald City, they try to avoid the Wicked Witch of the West and her attempt to retrieve her sister's ruby slippers from Dorothy.

I was pretty pleased as to how everything turned out. Usually, when carving such intricate designs, the pumpkins only last for about a day and a half to two days. Despite the short lifespan of these carvings, I still think it's worth it. I found that my witch shrivels up rather than melts.

We thought that it might be fun this year to dress Noah up for Halloween again. We were coming down to the wire without fully deciding what he should wear. As we strolled through the local Target's Halloween clearance section, Noah smiled, pointed, and said, "DUCK!" The decision was made.

He wasn't too thrilled to walk around outside. He was having more fun watching the trick-or-treaters from the windows and then helping me hand out candy. After he understood that kids came to the door with every doorbell ring, he started signing to me 'more, please', as if I had some control as to when the trick-or-treaters came to the door. He tolerated the costume for just under two hours. It was pretty funny watching him waddle around as a duck.

Maybe next weekend will be a little more laid back. : )
-Curtis

Finished Projects

This is going to be a very picture heavy post of all the things that have been keeping me busy on these rainy fall days. Some have been completed for quite a while and their pictures have been hanging out on our Flickr page, so sorry if this is repetitious. I have been doing more creating than blogging obviously...

First up, a diaper wrap in a soft organic merino wool, left over from another project gone bad.

As the cold weather set in early, I got to work on a new hat for Noah. It came out a tad small, but he doesn't seem to mind.

I also made him some matching mittens using a pattern from the Winter 2009 issue of Living Crafts magazine. These were my first felted project, meaning I knit them big and sent them through two wash cycles in the washing machine to shrink and felt them so they are nice and thick and warm. I added some ribbed cuffs and the ever important string to keep them together.

Whenever I get sick of my other larger projects, I take a few hours and knit a baby sock. They are easy and instant gratification. These newborn size socks are knit from Knitpicks fine merino wool. I also made a handy little baby sock blocker out of an old plastic lid.

Probably my biggest baby project, started way back in May before we even knew we were expecting another baby is this blanket made for a special little great niece that will be arriving around Winter Solstice/Christmas. After knitting a blanket for Noah, I vowed to never knit another blanket because they take soooo long to finish, but my want to make something special for this baby must have overcome that vow somehow. I made up the pattern as I went along but it is inspired by a baby blanket I saw on another blog last year that was also knit for a Solstice baby. My version is knit from Knit Picks Swish, a washable merino wool in a color aptly called 'Sunshine' (which also happens to be the color of this baby's Mama's blankie when she was a little girl). Knit from the center out, I started with snowflake lace, then moved on to the falling stars, more snowflakes and finished it off with feather and fan for a nice ripple boarder.

Up next, some more baby hats. This newborn size hat is knit from super soft Manos del Uruguay merino wool and silk blend.

I had enough yarn left for some matching cabled newborn socks. I still need to make the other one...someday when I am sick of whatever else I am working on.

This hat was made for one of Curtis's coworker's baby girl, Aurelia. I added a crocheted flower to this one for some extra girly-ness. It was fun knitting for a girl for a change!

Finally, my biggest sewing project so far was a Mai Tei carrier. We didn't really need another carrier to add to our collection of wraps and slings, but another blogging mama was kind enough to share her pattern/tutorial so I just had to try it. The main fabric is from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern collection. It was a great learning opportunity, and I made friends with my Grandmother's old seam ripper due to my sewing machine's refusal to sew through many layers of padding and fabric without getting jammed up every inch or so.

This particular pattern features a hood that can be worn up to support a sleeping baby's head or folded down as a neck rest.

Daddy and Noah were kind enough to put it on for a quick demo.

As I near the end of my 'To Make for Baby" list, I am working on a hat, mittens, and sweater for myself (!), as well as a lacy scarf for my wonderful midwife. Oh, and then I will be starting in on Noah's Christmas present. I guess the lists never end!

Back to work now...

-Jen

Our 100th Post

We started this on-line chronicle of our personal family life just over a year ago and we've now come to post 100 entries. We hope that you've all enjoyed the belly laughs, the handmade projects, and the corners of our home as much as we did while we discovered them along the way. With Noah beginning to explore the many wonders of the world, Jen becoming more lovely as ever, and another little miracle on the way, it's exciting to see what the future has in store for our family.

Thanks to all who have visited our blog and supported us this past year. We hope you'll continue to check-in from time to time; we'll do our best to share whatever exciting news we can. Just know that you're always welcome to visit Our Quiet Place.


-Curtis

Pile O' Leaves

Today was a sunny, crisp, fall day. It seems we have had very few of those sorts of days this fall, sprinkled amongst many cold, rainy, gloomy days. Those gloomy days have allowed me plently of time to work on my 'knitting/sewing for baby' list, but not much time for playing outside. Noah and I took advantage of today's beautiful weather by going for a walk to a nearby park so he could play in some leaves, as we don't have any trees in our yard mature enough to produce a pile large enough to actually play in. There we found a big pile ready to be jumped into!

As it turns out, Noah wasn't too interested in playing in the leaves. After it was clear that he was not going to move beyond a few tentative kicks around the edges of the leaf pile, I figured he just needed some encouragement and picked him up and plopped him down in the middle of the pile. He was not too thrilled. He spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to get up without actually having to touch the wet leaves. Sometimes, he really is his father's son.

He did eventually make it out of the pile. And the first thing he did when we got home was drag a stool over to the sink to wash his hands.

He is probably hoping for more cold, gloomy days...

-Jen

"Pumkin Buddy"

Ah, the air is crisp and cool once again. Trees are turning colors, Jen is knitting hats, and pumpkins are in need of carving! That’s right; it was time to go pick out our pumpkins for this year’s Halloween. Awesome!

It was a good year for growing pumpkins, despite rumors due to the dry summer weather. Noah and I hopped out of the van and darted towards the pallets of pumpkins. We quickly glanced at the trailers of smaller pumpkins and gourds, but then decided to race towards the larger Noah-size ones. How were we to decide?

We wandered amongst the pumpkins for awhile. There was a rather special pumpkin sitting on one of the trailers. We had to be sure to take that one home with us.

We finally picked out the ones we wanted, thanked the local farmers, and my ‘Pumkin Buddy’, Mom, and I headed home.

-Curtis

Simplicity

Sometimes we need to take a step back and think what life would be like if it were more simple. Noah often challenges us with this very idea daily. As he continues to try to learn and understand the English language, he decides to take a simpler approach when speaking. Why have multiple words to describe the same basic concept? If you say a single word often enough, people will begin to understand all of the many different connotations behind it. Maybe it's his way of procrastinating at such an early age.

For instance, here are a few words in which Noah decided to generalize:

• Cold: An extreme temperature change; either hot or cold.


• Car: Anything that has wheels OR makes a loud grumbling noise, such as a vacuum, lawn mower, or a bike.


• Bees: A non-smooth, often abrasive, texture OR maker of pain; Also, any insect, spider or creepy, crawling object.


• Down: Any movement in a vertical direction.


• Moo (Cow): Any object that has light color with dark spots, such as a cran-raisin muffin or a wedding picture of a couple on a beach with black lava rocks.


• Sauce: Any mushy substance, such as oatmeal or yogurt. As in "Goodnight comb, And goodnight brush, Goodnight nobody, goodnight sauce."


• Call: Any object that resembles a phone, can fit in the palm of your hand OR has multiple buttons, such as a remote control, calculator, or fingernail clipper.


• Bobbo: Any object that resembles a rabbit, such as kitten, squirrel or mouse.

Although we often smile and hold back from laughing when he looks so seriously into our eyes and mentions one of these words with dramatic hand gestures, he has a point. Sometimes we try too hard to get our point across. It's true. A single word can have multiple meanings and it's often more effective spoken alone.

• Love: Noah, Jen, Baby, Chocolate, Family, Life

- Curtis