Berkeley Has Dinosaurs

Berkeley has dinosaurs:
And ample opportunities for knitting. Here's the first 24 hours of my Ravenclaw scarf, from Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter:
You can see that I messed up the color change--I was supposed to change colors, knit two rows, then tie the new color on, but I added the silver, knit two rows with both, then thought, "Huh. That looks like crap." Knitting must bring out my anal side, because I actually thought for a minute about unraveling the silver and trying again, but I don't unravel--I've barely begun convincing myself to rip out missewn seams on the rarest of occasions. Eh, it adds character. And I did teach myself circular knitting in the very back seat of a minivan driving over the mountains, and I'm prone to motion sickness, so there you go.

Next up, San Francisco! More knitting!

P.S. It didn't take long for the unicorn band-aids to see some action:

I can't convince the girls to try out the skull-and-crossbones ones, however; guess they'll be for me, darn.

Our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium went something like this...



... Um, yeah, and we saw lots of fish, too.

While in Santa Cruz, I bought these unicorn band-aids and , which are awesome. And they actually stick, which is much more than I can say for the crap rainbow bandages I bought from Wal-mart one time when I was trying to help the girls rock their ouchies without contact from media characters. I have also, due to California's depth of stores, finally managed to make a pilgrimage to Torrid, the store of awesome clothes for curvy girls. I restrained myself, in this crazy spree of buying actual new clothes (It felt weird, the nice fitting room and the mirrors and the privacy, and the tags with the sizes RIGHT ON THEM, and not searching for stains--actually, I didn't like it very much), to stuff that I obviously couldn't make or modify myself, and thus I ended up with, among other treasures, this skull tank top (Me? A tank top? But it fits!) and this pair of denim capris with skulls embroidered on the cuffs (Me? Capris? But they fit!) and, um, this other skull tank (Sort of a theme here? But seriously, you don't know how many fat clothes I've seen with stuff like Tweety Bird on them--skulls make waaay better fat clothes), and a couple more things, and yeah, one more thing with skulls.

In tomorrow's update--dinosaurs! Yarn store! And the grand revelation of the first rows of my very first real knitting project! Oh, and we're going to Berkeley.

More Sightseeing, Less Crafting

A long blog silence, but here we are in California, sleeping in Matt's childhood twin beds (lucky they're not still bunked), chasing seagulls (Willow refers to them as "sea eagles"), watching the girls bond with their grandparents, and visiting every hands-on children's museum in the Central Coast. At the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, I learned an interesting fact about my hometown-- --Sydney and Grandma Janie had a tea party--
--I tried to get one of those photos of my family in the room with the altered proportions so that they look all weird compared to each other, but certain members of the family would not cooperate--
--and the "paint your own face" face painting booth was a BIG hit:
So no, there hasn't been much crafting, but I do have plans, at least, to visit Uncommon Threads tomorrow (beware of the stupid baa-baa noise when the page opens) to get the exact colors of Cascade 220 yarn that I need to make the Hogwarts House Scarf (I'm a Ravenclaw, don't you know) from . I have my brand-new circular knitting needle in my possession, and I'm sure that if I could just do the exact same stitch about eight billion times in a row, like I will with this scarf, then I'll finally be able to remember how to do it the next time I knit. Is it too ambitious to be thinking about House Scarves for the whole family for Christmas (Matt and Sydney are Hufflepuffs, and Willow is a Gryffindor)?

I also found the most awesome book in Matt's mother's house, and after I asked her to make the quilt for the girls, she told me I could just have the book (and make it my own damn self, darn it). But how amazingly, awesomely awesome is ? I am really, really excited about making these blocks using only thrifted/vintage materials. You have to watch out, though--the layout for the applique is spot-on for the character blocks, but the actual block illustration is just an example of what your block *could* look like with a little more creativity and skill than the book provides. For instance, the Fozzie Bear block is made with the actual fabrics used to make, you know, Fozzie Bear--good luck with that one, home sewer.

And last but not least, my Sublime Stitching Stitch-It Kit is sitting there patiently in my luggage, waiting for me to whip it out and learn some basic, yet valuable, embroidery skills. On account of that's what vacations are all about, right? Ooh, and visiting local thrift stores!

So Easy, Even Small Children Can Do It!

Look at my little urchin--CLEANING THE RUG! Our rug always needs cleaning, but after an "incident" this morning (I'll spare you the horrifying details, except to tell you that it involved Sydney and a diaper, and I almost barfed), the rug NEEDED cleaning. I've probably mentioned before that I am obsessed with --I use some recipe from that book every day, I swear--so this afternoon I made up the Carpet Cleaner recipe (subsituting baking soda for washing soda--washing soda cleans better, but is a little too caustic for our house) and started scrubbing. Willow, seeing me up to something that doesn't immediately look like drudgery, is immediately all, "I want to help!" Help away, kiddo!

It's just about my favorite aspect of natural cleaning, particularly making your own cleaners--the kids can actually productively use them to help me clean, and since I know exactly what's in the cleaners and that they cost about a penny to make, I know that they're not harming themselves or the house or wasting money when they begin to clean a little, um, boisterously. Sydney likes to take the spray bottle of vinegar and tea tree oil, for instance, and spray, well, everything--walls, tabletops, couch, cat, floor.

When she does that, I think, "Oh, good! The baby's cleaning."

Simple Dolls

Willow hasn't yet really been into dolls--sure, she had her fair share of eco-conscious cloth dolls and dolls made by Mama, complete with doll cloth diapers and kid-sized doll slings (which are great for carrying toy dinosaurs in, apparently), but the types of toys she prefers over dolls are vast, indeed. Sydney, now... Sydney likes herself some "babies." Sydney loves the cloth dolls and the dolls made by Mama and the cheap plastic discard dolls from Goodwill and stuffed animals you can treat like dolls and kittens you can treat like dolls and even playing with her old toy garage this morning, I heard her talking to the Matchbox cars--"Momma. Dadda. Baby car--night, night."


And so, as it was with the dinosaurs, when my kid gets into something, I tend to come to appreciate it, too. And by appreciate, I mean make stuff: I really love, now, felting old wool sweaters and sewing them (this post on SouleMama about dying wool felt is about, I fear, to take me in another new direction) into awesome stuff. I've done felt food, shapes for the girls' felt board, ornaments, pincushions, stuffed animals, quilts, and all manner of other things that both turn out and definitely do not, all with tacky old wool sweaters cut up and felted in the washing machine. I'm most fond right now, though, of making children's playthings, balls and cubes and bean bags and these dolls, for my Syd and my etsy, all with really simple shapes.
It's in some ways a response, I think, to the wide variety of overstimulating children's toys on the market today, sort of like in The Bean Trees: A Novelwhen Taylor's roommate, Lou Ann, goes to work at a salsa factory and all her cooking becomes really, really spicy, so on the nights when Taylor cooks she makes the blandest foods she can think of, white fish and mashed potatoes and such. I make really simple toys for kids, with simple, organic shapes and single fabrics with interesting textures----and my girls love them, at least. Although I don't know what possessed me to put the creepy eyes on:

Gettin' Our Jump On

I really did do lots of stuff today. I cleaned up after the party (a little), finished off the birthday cake, just nearly finished my stuff for my Christmas in July Stashbuster Swap over at Craftster, photographed these awesome little guys for my etsy shop----picked up all our stuff from the Monroe County Fair (Willow and I have both been obnoxiously toting around our Champion ribbons, on account of we are All That), hung out with some friends who came by (Oh, the party was yesterday? Oops!), thrifted at Goodwill (pillowcase for a dress, T-shirt for a quilt, book for my babies, videogame manual for my guy), and spent at least an hour coloring with Willow in her new stained glass coloring book. And yet, the vast majority of the day was still spent doing this:
and this:
and this:
until finally, finally, finally, for the first time in my life, I am rendered Utterly. Jumped. Out. What satisfaction can compare to the satisfaction of that?

And so, to tomorrow, when all I have to do is start getting ready for our Thursday trip to California. That won't be stressful, right? Right?

See the Happy Birthday Girls

Well, it was a heck of a party. It was exactly our kind of party, too--tons of good stuff to eat, all our favorite parent and non-parent friends, all the girls' favorite kid-friends, and a freakin' jump house! Let me tell you, that jump house is worth its weight in gold. It kept the kids entertained for the few hours today that Matt and I needed to set everything up before the party, it kept all the kids and some of the adults entertained during the entire party (no party games for me!), our family has jumped in it off and on for the whole rest of the afternoon and evening, and best of all--the party rental place is closed tomorrow, so the dude told Matt that we don't have to return the jump house until Monday morning. You heard me--Monday morning! I went a little crazy and invited pretty much everybody back tomorrow to jump some more, so it will be something like a party redeux.

This party is the first year that we did well, I think, with the food and drink. We stuck with the stuff that we, personally, love, Boca brauts, pineapple, blue tortilla chips, boxed organic salad greens--stuff like that, stuff that we can therefore cook up properly and serve nicely. The other day at our big-box Kroger's, Matt was walking by their tiny little shelf, between the refrigerated Sunny D's and the Lay's chips, of micro-brewery beers, and lo!, there was Shiner Bach, our local beer when he and I were just pups dating at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He bought a six-pack for old time's sake, and yesterday, both kids in tow, the shopping cart full of Amy's burgers and grapes, I went back and bought the whole rest of the selection, all seven six-packs. Hallelujah, and awesome beer for our buddies.

I also bought, instead of cake mixes (which I always mess up, for reasons I do not understand), a big four-pack of brownie mix at Sam's, and a biiiiiig cake pan and real live decorating tips at Hobby Lobby. I am utterly surprised at this, but all that added up to: It may not look like much, but seriously, this is probably the fourth time I have ever baked something and it both looked and tasted really good. The whole party, people were complimenting me on the cake and the decoration, and I'm all, "Oh, thank you! I'm pretty proud of it, too. It was my first time cake decorating, can you tell?" It seriously did not for one second occur to me, until after the party, that Matt was the one who actually drew in the dinosaur with the black frosting; I only colored it in. Oops.

I am traditionally really lousy at taking photos during parties--I'm always too busy partying and eating, but I did manage this year to get a photo of my girls with their birthday cake:

And the wish...
Right now, Matt is ushering two exhausted girls through a quick bath before bed. I'm about to head over to a date with Dick Blick to buy some class-pack art supplies for the girls, now that we have some basement storage room, and then tonight, after the girls are asleep, I have a date with Matt back in the jump house.

What are you doing tonight?

The Fair, It was Fun

It was another fine day at the fair. I actually made Matt work through lunch so he could get off early, we could pick up my friend Betsy, and all get over to the fair in time for this: Oh, freakin' yeah, it's a children's pedal tractor pull! And here's my little puller, with her Children's Pedal Tractor Pull PARTICIPATION RIBBON!!!!!
She's carried that ribbon around all day today, occasionally saying things like, "Momma, if we're outside and the postman comes, I can show him my ribbon!" or "Let's glue my ribbon to some cardboard and hang it on the wall." When little kids are proud of awesome stuff they've done, it's the best.

Matt is a terrific and patient dad who is great at hauling little kids onto carnival rides, waving animatedly every time they pass him on the ride, and then hauling them off the ride and over to stand in line for another ride, so Betsy and I snuck off for just a little bit to moon over more local work down in the Community Building. We looked mostly at our respective interests, crochet...

and quilting...

...but we also hung out for quite a while in the 4H building. The kiddos in 4H do this glamour-shot kind of thing in which they pose in all their different guises for this series of studio photos--one kid will pose in his football uniform, then in another shot with all his fair ribbons, then with his rabbit, then with his violin, etc. It was pretty awesome.

The highlight for the girls, though, was obviously the rides. They went on every single kiddie ride there. On the Crazy Bus...

..this big schoolbus on hydraulics that goes up and over and down, I swear to God just as the thing got some height on it, one of the freaking doors popped open and this kid almost fell out. The carnie made it come back down, closed the door, and off they go again. On the roller coaster...

...the carnie advised me to put Sydney not in the first seat, which was what I was lifting her into, but the second, because in the first seat, "I betcha she'll fall out." Seriously, how awesome can the county fair get? (Pretend not to notice how you can totally see that Sydney's armband is safety-pinned on, because Matt and I cut one armband in half to put on both girls. Have I ever mentioned to you that we're poor?)

Whew! And tomorrow, BIG JUMP-HOUSE BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!! I'm so excited, here's a county fair self-portrait:

Queen of the Fair

The Grand Champion Rabbit can see into your soul:Yes, peeps, it was an evening at the Monroe County Fair--we didn't ride any rides, being as we're going back again tomorrow night with my friend Betsy, but we did eat an elephant ear and nachos and a hot dog and a purple snowcone, nurse (at least a couple of us) in the Lactation Station, visit every single animal, look at all the rides and talk about which ones will be ridden tomorrow (um, all of them?), and check out our contest entries over in the Community Building. It was a red-letter day for our family in the Community Building, let me tell you.

Do you think our little prize winner looks proud of herself? Will has no concept of competition, obviously, but she was beside herself to see her work "in the museum, Momma!" She was a tad bittersweet about visiting her award-winning dinosaur collection, however...
...because she hasn't played with them since last Wednesday and she can't have them back until Sunday. Poor little dino-less lamb.

I was no less stoked about having my own work up "in the museum":
My photo of Will in the Exploratorium won a first place and my other two photos won second places; both my stuffed dinosaurs, the faux fur and the felted wool one, won first places in sewing, as did my pillowcase dress, netting me a champion ribbon in the sewing with recycled materials class, and my T-shirt quilt, soldered glass pendant, and felted wool flower pin all won first place, as well:
Some of them also had honor ribbons, as well, but I don't know what those are for--the Monroe County Extension Homemakers can tend to be a little arcane. I am totally going to join them...but do you think you're allowed to have a job AND be a homemaker? Or is it okay if you're a really unsuccessful homemaker, because I don't actually give a flip about cleaning? But I'm so sold on them because at their meetings...they do CRAFTS! Who could not like that? And I bet there's food. I love anyplace with food.

We're going back to the fair again tomorrow, but there will be less self-absorption--

--I swear. I'll actually check out, you know, what other people made, instead of just mooning over my own stuff, which I already know what it looks like.

P.S. I decided on eyes but no mouths for my simple dolls. Freaky, but awesome.

Grandpa Bangle's Toolbox

Seriously, I am still working on stuff. 

Yesterday I finished one awesome idea for my Christmas in July Stashbuster Swap family, and now I'm thinking through another, and I sewed not one, but two felt plates for the kids' play food stash, and today I've been cutting out some felted wool dolls, so simple that I'm conflicted about whether or not I even want to sew button eyes and bead smiles on them. I like really, really simple toys, really plain with really basic forms--as Anne would say, there's so much more scope for imagination that way. And I'm still working on plans for our California trip next week (Hello, San Andreas Fault!) and the kids' birthday party this Saturday (Hello, margaritas both virgin and not!). But in the midst of my busy life, I completely forgot to acknowledge a terrific gift I received several weeks ago.

Matt's last grandpa, Grandpa Bangle, died around Christmastime--he was an awesome guy, just as hopeless as me at Trivial Pursuit, kept trying to escape and give me "privacy" whenever I'd start to breastfeed (I've breastfed at the Louvre, so I'm certainly not squeamish about doing it at the breakfast table), totally sweet not just in that way that all old men end up sweet when their testosterone runs out, but sweet like you knew he'd been a gentle spirit his whole life. 

He was a crafty guy, too--we have a set of wooden reindeer that he made for us not long after Matt and I married. Actually, um, I keep them out all the time, on account of they're cool. 

Grandpa was apparently also into some jewelry-making, setting stones and such, because Grandma Bangle recently sent me Grandpa Bangle's old jewelry-making toolbox.

I cannot even tell you the awesomeness of such a gift. It was a combination of getting to feel nostalgic about Grandpa Bangle, finding some truly cool and useful stuff, and poking around in somebody's old cupboard and getting to prowl through all the artifacts. 

Grandma Bangle sent the toolbox off without even peeping into it, so she didn't actually realize that she was committing a felony by US mail, because pretty much the entire top half of this toolbox was full of little packets and bottles and cans of really old volatile chemicals. You know, fluxes and leaded solders and acids and etches--all the good stuff. 

Once that had been disposed of (A good homeschooling project--How does one dispose of dangerous chemicals?) we were left with this:

 

The gift includes a bunch of files, a stand like the one I use to hold my pendants when I solder, a saw, a bunch of hemostats (which I have always wanted!), a bunch of needlenose pliers (including one just like the one I'd just dropped eight bucks on--darn!--but a bunch just like the ones I don't have any money for--score!), and some beautiful polished stones, turquoise and quartz and some marble and I don't know what else, that Will has taken for her collection (she pores over them constantly like Scrooge McDuck--mental note to check out some books on rock identification to get the learnin' in).

We also found this in the toolbox, which Will has also spent many days walking around holding up to her eye:

  

She says, "Mama, it's magic! It makes things look bigger!" 

Science IS magic!

The best part of the gift, though, was folded up in the very bottom of the toolbox. Look, it's Grandpa Bangle's apron:

And now Matt wears it when he putters around the house, too. Thanks, Grandma Bangle.