… I told you before, I’m not a good housekeeper. I don’t dust, I rarely sweep (I’m getting a roomba for christmas though, yay!), and mostly Sofía’s toys lie scattered all around the house like shrapnel from an explosion. Because I can’t see the point in picking them up when she’s just going to throw […]
I finished Sofía’s Christmas dress last week, just in time for the Mom’s Club Christmas party. It took me till 2am (funny, that’s the time I finished her newest jacket too), but was well worth the time. It’s a Simplicity pattern that I picked up on a whim when I saw it was on sale […]
My friend Debbie just emailed me a link to the most extraordinary musical instrument I’ve ever seen. Here’s the supposed background: This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components […]
It may not seem like it from the resounding silence here this past week, but I have been busy, busy, busy! I finished several sewing projects – including some pillows that have been waiting since 2007 – and Sofía’s Christmas dress. I remade some old wool socks into new wool knee-highs for Sofía. I finished […]
The Shroud of Shame has been replaced with more of a rumpled-shirt look. There’s a very good reason that the whole slipcover looks like a rumpled shirt: it’s made of shirting fabric. It really, REALLY should have been made from a more substantial material in order to keep its shape, and I knew that. I […]
Three handmade wooden boxes. Each has a different style of lid, and the one on top is the very last one I made, where I felt I knew enough to experiment with the design a bit. They’re pretty nice. I made up my own oil-beeswax finish and buffed a couple coats to a beautiful satiny […]
I’m convinced: she’s a genius. At 17 months Sofía can sing the alphabet song from Q through Z and also “Now I know…” and then she peters off. I suppose I ought to admit that she usually doesn’t sing all that at once… usually it’s either “QRS, TUV” or “WX, Y, Z”. But STILL! She […]
I got interested lately in making my own laundry soap – having crafty friends will do that to you. Happy chance that she inspired me when she did; I was just on the last dregs of my giant Costco vat of detergent and set to buy another. The recipe is super easy: 1 bar of […]
I was angry at Sofía for real for the first time yesterday. Josh left my favorite mug – one of only three precious wood-fired mugs I made last year – on a coffee table within Sofía’s reach. Full of coffee no less. And yesterday while I was preparing dinner I looked down and saw her […]
Man, I’m finding all kinds of new things to be obsessed with this Fall. Bees, woodworking, yogurt- and buttermilk-making, and now… cheesemaking. The Basic Hard Cheese Kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company Besides being completely off-the-wall crazy (just how much free time do I think I have?! – it makes all the sense […]