Weekend Report---crafting with mama edition

Garret was away this weekend so I went to my Mum's and had a lovely weekend crafting, ice cream eating, napping, snuggling with my nephew, chasing Brooklyn, organizing, laughing, reflecting and hanging out.  Friday night my sister in law and nephew were there as well so we had some laughs, and girl time--was wonderful.

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As always these weekends that I so look forward to fly by and my list of  what I hope to accomplish doesn't quite get crossed off.  I tend to forget I am a mere mortal and like everyone else only have X amount of hours in the day.  Aaaand like many other pregnant ladies I need to schedule "napping" somewhere in between crafting, movie watching and dog walking.

I do have a nice feeling of accomplishment from the weekend though, which I am hoping to use to push me through this week of things to do.  My Mum and I went through some of my old boxes of "stuff" at her place, as well as a box that was my Dad's.  My boxes were fun, we got to laugh at old pictures, weird things that I just HAD to keep once upon a time (and I could finally at age 33 be convinced to throw out)

 It is unsettling to try to take a step back and examine ones life based on the items that remain behind. As we were going through my father's things I couldn't help but wonder who will be the one going through my things one day when I am gone. There were so many random things that had obviously meant enough to the man to cart around with him for years and years, but held no meaning to me. Pictures of people I don't know, matches for restaurants I have never been to.  Memories that just don't belong to me.  I guess I felt a bit sad that there are those parts in his life I will never know anything about....and to be honest  it also gave me a creepy sense of my own mortality. I thought of one day, my children, or Garret, going through boxes wondering why I kept some of the things I did, a Radiohead concert ticket from '96, random childhood toys, my weird treasures that could only mean something to me.  It is just interesting to see the physical manifestation of what is left behind when you are gone.  Everyone has their own personal memories of you, but you will still have left a footprint, a mysterious paper trail of what once meant something to you.

Here is a picture of Brooklyn so I can end this on a more positive note:

[caption id="attachment_2041" align="aligncenter" width="388"] iStalker 2.0...still a-snoozing[/caption]

The Wedding Quilt

One of my Mum's oldest friends is quite an accomplished quilter. She has been my inspiration...my quilting skills are NOWHERE near hers but I do hope one day to be able to sew some pieces are gorgeous as hers.  She made Garret and I beautiful quilt for our wedding gift and it was finished just before Christmas and we picked it up.  She has everyone pose with the quilts she makes them before she sends them to their new home--we had a lot of fun posing with ours

[caption id="attachment_1240" align="aligncenter" width="388"] With this quilt and our love we will stay warm![/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1241" align="aligncenter" width="388"] our fancy quilt pose[/caption]

It is so beautiful that we currently have it on our couch because G thought that not enough people would see if it we put it on our bed. We obviously have way more visitors to our living room than our bedroom ha ha.  It is hard to see in the pictures but the quilting was actually done with a variegated thread and it looks so amazing.  We received many truly special gifts for our wedding that we will cherish forever.  We are l so blessed to have so many people in our lives that love us and spoil us so much.

 

Memory Keeping and a fair bit o' cheese

I was thinking today about how much memory keeping is something that has become a habit for me. Something that I like to do and it obviously shows through a lot of my interests: I love to journal and blog,write letters, take photos, scrapbook, instagram etc It is something I have always done. I while back I found a pile of old journals at my Mum's place and it was interesting to remember some of what I did when I was a lot younger (PS...I was boy crazy at 13 yikes)
It is interesting to me because I feel like if someone asked me what my life was like I would probably describe it as being relatively average, but when I look through my instagram feed or my blog archive I love being able to see all those moments that stand out. The silly, crazy, funny,heartwarming ones that make me realize that my life is more than just average. It is extraordinary. I am working on a new Scrapbooking album called Project Life and it is all about highlighting those special moments and even those mundane once that make your life yours.  There is always the bad stuff that happens, but for right now I have a husband who is so darn handsome I can barely stand it, a wonderful and supportive family/extended family, a beautiful healthy sweet baby nephew, a puppy who already makes me nuts but I couldn't live without (*see recent vet bill #barf), hilarious and creative friends and a beautiful house that we are making a home (and about a billion other things but let's keep the list to the essentials) Really cheesy today not sure where this is coming from... but I feel like that little girl in the commercial "I love my hair, I love my Mum, I love my life" It really is great to have hobbies that bring me so much joy as I do them, and can remind me when I search the archives how far we have come.

Crafts for Christmas--update

I finished my first knitting craft project (hurrah!)  I gave it to Nanny early because she needed a hat and I needed to see if it would fit her. It did and she loves it...mostly loves it just because I made it, but I think the colors are really fun and look great with her black coat.

[caption id="attachment_1130" align="aligncenter" width="388"] The Nanster modeling this season's newest trend: handmade multi-coloured hats....get them now while you still can[/caption]

My goal of another hat and infinity scarf are slightly behind schedule.  My main knitting time has been lunch hour at work and I have forgotten it at home Mon-Wed this week.  I know what I am doing now so I could technically work on it at home, however I know that Brooklyn will be very interested in wool.  I was trying to scrapbook last night and she was very contentedly sitting with Garret until I started doing something and she wanted to "help"  I now have teeth marks in my Breaking Dawn ticket stub I was trying to glue down.  Perhaps she is a puppy crafter like her mumma?

My plan is to try to get on top of the knitting in the next few weeks and see how it goes. I dont want to rush it because nothing is more frustrating than realizing you have messed up a row of knitting and you have to undo a bunch...I am speaking from experience as I had to do that with both the hat and the scarf.    In the meantime craft wise I have a December daily scrapbook project I am working on and I am DYING to get my quilt started.  One thing at a time right?  My usual modus operandi is to have 15 different crafts on the go at one time and then inevitably none of them get finished in a timely manner.  My Mum and I just finished a baby quilt for one of our God daughters that took a good 6 months from when she was born.  So tack on the 9 months Erin was pregnant and I knew a baby was coming....that's a lot of lead time!

Crafting for Christmas

The hat project is going pretty well. I should be done tomorrow and it will have taken me a week. (Minus the weekend as I didn't work it) My crafts for Christmas project is going pretty well so far. My goal is to do two hats and a scarf before Christmas(I like how I've increased my goal!) ...not that they will necessarily be gifts but it's good to have a time goal in mind. Plus lunch breaks get boring some days so now I have a fun project! I've decided to put the quilting on hold until I am at my mums for Christmas...more room for my sewing machine!

Crafting on lunch

One of my coworkers is an amazing knitter. She excels at making hats and we have chatted about it for over a year now. I kept saying I wanted to learn, but as the weather got nicer my attention span for wool products definitely waned. With Christmas coming we decided to start this past week with my goal of 2 hats before Christmas...this may be a really lofty goal as I am also really interested in working on a quilt I recently bought a pattern for as well as various paper crafting projects. However I'm finding knitting to be significantly more portable than quilting (duh) so it's been really nice to get to take a craft break in the middle of the day. I posted the below photo on Instagram and a friend asked if I was knitting a scrunchie! I'm hoping within the next 2 weeks to have it looking decidedly more hatish and will be sure to post the progress!

Block Party

When we first moved in, we heard from
some neighbours that the lady who owned the house before the people we bought it from was lots of fun (ok that seemed complicated--hope we didn't lose anyone) She used to throw a party every year in the mega back yard and have neighbours over for a Pot luck BBQ. I loved that idea and G and I decided to bring it back! We are going to do this mid September and have a bocce ball/ horseshoe tournament/meet the new neighbours BBQ. Mum and I were feeling crafty the other weekend so we made some invitations:





This weekend I am going to add the where and when details and drop them off to the neighbours! We've met a few of them already but I'm looking forward to having them over to hang out in our backyard. Am just debating if I should buy Garret a kiss the cook/ grill master apron as he will be manning the grill.