Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts

Friday, June 29, 2012

On Barf, Birdseye, and Burp Cloths


Why I Prefer Birdseye 3 Ply Prefolds for my HoopDeeDoo Burpcloths.

{warning: super grody baby talk ahead!}

I've had some people ask about the burpcloths I'm making for the shop, so let me address it here:  I use 3 ply birdseye weave prefold diapers, which are lighter weight.  Many boutique burp cloths are 6 ply, but I don't use them anymore.

Why?


{fabric: ikea}


They don't fit the HoopDeeDoo philosophy of pretty + practical.  

My own personal experience as a mom comes into play here.  Sorry to get graphic, but I had a baby with severe reflux, so I know burpcloths.  I tried them all.   I gave up on the puffy 6 plys very quickly.  A 6 ply Chinese prefold gauze weave diaper is great for liquids (ahem: urine) and keeping it "inside" a diaper, but it simply doesn't absorb thicker liquids as quickly (ahem: vomit).   So you get the dreaded runoff or smearing.  Pretty, but not practical.

I eventually just bought a pack of plain white birdseye 3 plys and used them forever.  They worked like a charm and took up less room in the diaper bag, but were kind of boring. Practical, but not pretty.

I always wanted the kind of burp cloths that I am now making for my shop.


{fabric: alexander henry.  find in the shop here.}

Yes, the thick ones seem so luxurious and pretty on the boutique shelf.  But baby barf ain't pretty, folks.  Young mamas in the trenches of reflux and sleep deprivation need absorbency and less barf on their backs.

Just keepin' it real.

Put yourself in  a new mama's shoes for a moment.  Let's say it's Mother's Day and you got a 5 minute hot shower as your gift, and you're disturbingly excited about going to church because it's the first time you've left the house all week, and your precious 3 week old horks all over that fat fluffy burp cloth which doesn't absorb anything so all of the putrescence streams down the back of your new Ann Taylor sweater set (ok, it's a hand me down from your mother in law, but new to you) - yes, it will be the end of the world.  I promise.  You will first cry the ugly cry, and then you will crack and start using hand towels as burpcloths until you can get some decent absorbent burpies, even if they are ugly, just as long as they suck up the vomit and fold down small enough to get into the diaper bag.

(Completely fictional story.)


{fabric: alexander henry.  find in the shop here.}

Anyways, to keep things both pretty and practical, I chose an absorbent birdseye cloth as the base and added a cotton fabric strip to pretty it up.  Prewashed on hot.  Machine dried on hot.  Cause new mamas want to know that the thing is going to survive some harsh treatment. 

Give me practical any day of the week.  But make it pretty while you're at it.  :)



{fabric: vintage.  find in the shop here.}
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Sewing Tips I Learned The Hard Way, All In One Day, Actually.

Public Service Announcement:

1.  Always wear shoes when sewing.  That way when you knock over a box of straight pins, you won't get half of them stuck in your feet when you are trying to clean them up.

2.  Pre-clean your sewing room floor before vacuuming.  Lint rollers can be helpful.  Vacuums do not like long threads.  And vacuum repair and brush replacement is pretty pricey.  (So I'm told.)

3.  Slow down when serging.  Although it feels pretty cool to use the serger at top speed, it does a better job of transitioning across existing seams if you slow down a bit.  Hitting a bump at top speed can break your thread, or worse, your needle.

4.  Glasses are not only super hot, but they protect your eyes from flying needles.  Um. yeah.

Now I'm going to go find a box of band-aids to keep in here.  Just in case.


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Thursday, August 18, 2011

AWOL - good for what ails ya

yup. I went AWOL over the summer. Sometimes, when life gets overwhelming, I just check out of something without notice. I highly recommend it for every overachiever. Totally reduces the stress-load.

This time blogging won the toss-up. So did my etsy shop (which is still on vacation). The time away gave me a chance to consider with a clearer head what my goals for the coming year are. More on that another time.

So, what was going on, you ask?

1. End of the school year. That's always a busy time, but fun.

2. Not fun. Said goodbye to my sweetheart golden retriever, Baylor. She had cancer and we had to put her to sleep the day after my birthday. I was absolutely heartbroken. I loved this dog so much. She was my first baby. She kissed away my tears after three miscarriages and all of the drama with my dad's illness and so much more. I'll miss her forever.


3. Family trip to Colorado to honor my dad. Stayed at a dude ranch, took a very challenging trail ride with my husband and brother and lived to tell the tale (barely, and I am NOT exaggerating).


4. Helped my mom move out of my childhood home and into a new house and life here in Texas. She is busy, happy, meeting new people, and laughing again like the mom I grew up with. Soooooo good for my heart!

5. We didn't make it long without a dog. Meet Brisco, my 9-week old fuzzy bundle of joy. We've had
him for three days. I'm a little sleep deprived.



 

6. I also spent loads of fun, special time with my kiddos. Nothing exciting, just being together. I feel like I am finally a whole mom to them. I had half of my brain working the situation with my parents for all of these kids' childhood until the past year. They seemed to have turned out fine, but I am certainly enjoying them more fully now and am so grateful for each little moment.


So ya see, blogging just wasn't that high up on my agenda. I bet you managed just fine without me, blogosphere. ;)

P.S. Still not done with those tops I have been knitting for me and the girls. *sigh*

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Friday, April 1, 2011

Ultimate Blog Party 2011!

Hey all!  I'm in a party mood, so I'm joining in the Ultimate Blog Party over at 5 Minutes for Mom

Ultimate Blog Party 2011

It's just a way for bloggers to get to know each other, share a little bit about themselves, and make friends!  So here's a little bit about why I started blogging:


I needed someone to talk crafty to, other than my poor husband, who only speaks engineer.

I like to share my harebrained ideas with the world.

I needed an occasional soapbox.

I have an etsy shop for my creative overflow and wanted a blog to go along with it.

I like show-and-tell.

I wanted to make new friends online!!  (It is hard for me to make friends in person.)


 

Here's what blogging is teaching me:


I don't have to be perfect to be liked.  (There is no chance I will be perfect, so this is a very good thing.)

Bloggers are overwhelmingly supportive of one another, even their direct competition.  I love that!!

Twitter isn't just for 14 year olds.

I really really need to take pictures and write things down when I'm creating things from scratch.

I don't have to blog every day or even every week to be a "success." 

There are so many cool people out there that I can't wait to get to know!


So head on over to the party at 5 Minutes for Mom and meet some other new bloggers!  And please leave a comment for me and for them - we bloggers LIVE for comments!!

 


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ten completely random things about me

{inspired by my new blogger buddy, Skye}

1.  I have discovered that my children are twice as willing to eat anything if I call it "a snack"  or "snacky lunch" instead of a meal. 

2.  Yes, I'm allergic to soy, but I can sometimes eat small amounts of soybean oil in certain foods.  This is because soybean oil, properly processed, does not contain the soy protein, which is what you react to.  This does not mean that my allergy is not real.

3.  Ever had the rotavirus?  That's what happens to me if I eat soy.  Not pretend, people.

4.  I compulsively give to Goodwill.  I love Goodwill.  They teach people who want to work how to work.  They help people who aren't looking for a handout, just a hand up.

5.  Without Jesus Christ, I would be absolutely nothing.  He is my life.  He is my prince charming.  He is my hero.  He is the captain of my soul.

6.  I used to be a professional flutist.  I loved teaching and performing, but I gave them up willingly when I had my kids.  I thought I would miss it more, but I don't.

7.  I am blessed beyond words to be part of my church's worship team.  The greatest feeling in the whole world is to stand in front of thousands of people with a microphone and really loud speakers and monitors in your ears, but hear the congregation rise with a mighty voice above it all, singing praise to God!!  I'll never get over it.  {just got chills}

8.  I miss my dad more than I can even say.

9.  I have had a blast returning to sewing in the last two years!!  Some of my favorite memories as a child were sewing with my mom and my greatma.  I can't wait to teach my own daughters how to sew. 

10.  My husband is a saint.  He actually VALUES my creative messes and my obsessive behavior.  Definitely a keeper!!
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Monday, January 31, 2011

we now return to our regularly scheduled blog entry

Well, I took a little blogging break.  Like a couple of months.  I had some stuff to do.  
Thanksgiving, check!
Christmas, check!

(Like those are small things.)

Somewhere in there I managed to fill about 50 custom orders.  I may have lost my mind temporarily.

tissue covers.

kindle covers.

camera strap covers.

baby head covers.

apparently, I like to cover things.


A few cheesy Christmas song covers.  Duets with my bro.  Good times, y'all.  My piano skills are definitely not what they once were, but we had fun.
It's late January now, and I've had a nice little break.  Ready to tackle blogging again.  So...what better way to start than with a  giveaway?  Details coming in the next post!! 
It's good to be back!
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Thursday, September 16, 2010

soapbox moment: care

Hi, craftosphere.  I'm home.  From where?

Two funerals in three weeks.

First, my husband's grandmother.

Second, my father.

Both of them had been ill for a long time.  Both of them were suffering.  Both of them were believers in Christ, as I am, and are now free in heaven, with new bodies, healed and happy.

The rest of us are a little worse for wear.  We're happy for them both, peaceful of heart, but very very tired.

I want to say a couple of things about Huntington's disease, from which my dad suffered for almost 10 years.  Now that it's all over, I feel like I can talk about it publicly without being disrespectful of his desire for normalcy, his desire to live life to the fullest, to not be characterized by the disease.  He was an incredible man, an upright man, a model of Godly character and courage.  He was NOT defined by this disease.  But since so few know about it, I have a few words to say.

First of all, Huntington's disease is ugly, really really really ugly, and not a novelty.

You see it in the media, like with Thirteen on "House", or in a Harlan Coben novel, or if you've been around a long time, you might know it as Woody Guthrie's disease.

Don't be fooled into thinking it's cool.  If you have HD, then people often think you are drunk or mentally handicapped.  You fall a lot.  You can't drive, or shouldn't.  You can hardly work.  You possibly passed it on to your kids, and for this, you feel really really guilty.  Your personality changes so gradually that people don't always know that you've lost your ability to reason properly.  You sometimes are belligerent and cruel to the ones you love, and even when you aren't, your movements are so violent that you bruise and batter them unintentionally.  You slowly starve to death.  You are at risk for choking.  You know that there's no cure.

There's no cure.

There's only care.

But care isn't popular.  Care doesn't get big budget benefits and black tie galas.  Care doesn't get media attention.  Care doesn't get donations.

Care takes commitment from the family.  It takes unbelievable financial, physical, and spiritual resources.  Care is expensive in every way imaginable.  Care suffers quietly, anonymously.


Caring for someone at home is the most exhausting, the most demanding, the most noble and loving thing a person can do for another.  Even the most well-equipped nursing home can rarely handle a HD patient, so my mom cared for dad at home.  She loved him like nothing I have ever seen before, and she gave of herself every minute of every day, all for him.  Sacrificial love.  Up until the very last breath.

Why am I telling you all of this?  You came here to read about knitting and sewing.

Because you probably know someone quietly suffering, taking care of a loved one at home.  Maybe it's your grandma taking care of grandpa.  Maybe it's your next door neighbor with her handicapped child.  Maybe you actually know someone with Huntington's disease (unlikely, but if you do I'd like to know).  If any of the above rings a bell, and someone is now in your mind, then REACH OUT TO THEM.  They need your help.  They are TOO BUSY TO ASK FOR HELP.  You can give them a little bit of courage by a simple meal, card, ride, phone call, email, mow, errand, visit.

Care.  Focus on care.  Do what the big-budget galas can't do.

For those who reached out to me and my family during this dark turmoil of the last 10 years, thank you.  You were ministers of grace.  You were Christ in action.

As for the future?  I'm at risk for HD.  I'm not going to be tested, although I plan to enroll in some medical studies.

But, as my dad said, I'm not going to base my life on an "if."  I'm going to LIVE.

Time to sew.

http://www.hdsa.org/
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Thursday, August 19, 2010

this is a test of the emergency broadcast system

Hi to you all, just wanted to let you know what is going on.

First, thanks to everyone for the kind comments and attention regarding my recent Moda Bake Shop project!  I've got lots of ideas brimming for the next big thing!

But I have to put my ideas aside for a little while.

You see, my husband's grandmother passed away yesterday.  And my oldest starts kindergarten Tuesday.  And my dad is close to passing away as well, no one knows for sure, but we're talking days and weeks.

That's a lot to process.

My family needs my full attention for a little while.  I've got some Cascade Alpaca Lace Paints to keep me company, too.

Thanks to all my new followers.  There will be new content soon.

love, Amy
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Saturday, July 31, 2010

hooray for saturday!

Hey y'all, hope you are having a great weekend!  Lots o' fun going on over here.  I can't tell you everything because that would be against protocol, but here are some highlights:

  • awesome photo shoot with the lovely Jen yesterday, pics aren't quite ready to post but I will soon (they are part of a secret project).  Jen is so many kinds of awesome, she can do it all.  And her hubby even watched my kids while we went to play with the cameras.  whattaguy!
  • visit from a dear friend and her daughter, so fun to see all three girls playing together!  Don't you just love having the kinds of friends that you can pick up where you left off, and it's like no time at all has passed between you?  Jeni is that kind of friend.  She is family.
  • my 5yo lost her first tooth, had her first piano lesson, and got a new bike all in the last 3 days.  That's a lot of excitement!!
So for now, I leave you with a link to one of my favorite blogs, p.s. i quilt.  Rachel is hosting a giveaway over there for this pretty little item:



I can think of lots of lovely things to do with these 30's reproduction prints!  Click on over to check out her site and enter the giveaway!

see ya laters -
amy
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

dude. i made a button.

Look over there to the left!

i could not have done this alone.  let's give credit where credit is due:



Thank you, Oikology 101.  I don't know you, but your directions were impeccable, and it gave me the self-satisfaction of having done it myself.  Now I can go upstairs and brag to my husband, who will be totally shocked that I did it without interrupting his Starcraft game.
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Monday, July 19, 2010

Our Final Exhibit for Craft Fail Week: The Sasquatch Toe Socks

Dear Shannon,

Sorry it's taken me 6 months to come clean.  I tried.  I really did. I know your hubby really wanted these toe socks.  Thanks for being so kind as to supply the yarn and the pattern, and for your confidence in me.

It's a very good pattern.  That's not the problem.

I'm not sure the lady at the yarn store gave you good advice on this yarn.  It's lovely yarn.  But it's DK weight (or so it says) tweed, with no stretch at all, like the Cascade Fixation recommended.  It's also very scratchy.  I pulled out a significant amount of "VM" while knitting.  "VM" is knitter code for "vegetable matter"which is code for "bits of grass and crap" that gets into wool while it's still on the sheep.  Or at least that's one of the things I picked up from listening to some people talking about spinning.

I also had a little problem with gauge.  I had to go down to size 1's to get stitch gauge (but never got row gauge).  Not sure this DK-esque yarn liked being on size 1's.  It was kind of like knitting a brillo pad.


But they still turned out too big.  I say "they" but I should say "it", because after I finished the first sock my hubby tried it on and we both laughed until we cried.  So I only got as far as to make a few toes of the second sock.  I just didn't have enough optimism for that.

And I had to break into the second ball of yarn already to finish the first sock, so I don't think there's enough yarn anyways.

I'm really sorry.

In the end, it's probably a good thing I completely crashed and burned on this project.  Otherwise, you would have ended up with scratchy sasquatch socks that you felt obligated to pay for and your hubby felt obligated to wear.  Then he'd get some kind of itchy mysterious rash between his toes and you'd have to take him to a specialist who would charge you some ridiculous amount to explain to you that his in-between toe skin is just sensitive to sheep crud and sticks.

Would you like for me to frog it for you, or would you like the pleasure yourself?

Thanks for having such an awesome sense of humor about the whole thing.

Love,

Amy

P.S.  I'll give you a discount on that apron because I feel really guilty about the whole thing.  ;)
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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Exhibit B: The Applique Christmas Quilt

Before I get into Exhibit B, allow me to draw your attention (if you haven't noticed already) to the crappy job I did redesigning my blog layout. Ironic, don't you think, during Fail Week? I'm gonna get my tech support guy (aka hubby) on it this weekend, but tomorrow's his birthday, so I don't want to bug him about it until later. Anyhoo,



Welcome to the awesome hideousness of the Applique Christmas Quilt, circa 1999.

I moved into my house on December 23, 1998, and spent one night there before driving to Oklahoma for Christmas, in the worst icestorm Texas has seen in my lifetime (anyone remember the 80-car pileup on 183?). After the holidays at my parents' and in-laws' homes, decked to the halls of course, I came back to my new, shiny, and totally empty and boring home. A few weeks later I hit the craft store sales and brought home a big pile of fabric and a storebought pattern for something Christmasy, determined to get started on decorations for the next year. I distinctly remember having to do some very fancy talking to convince my husband that it was ok for me to spend all of that money, because it was an heirloom decoration we could pass down for generations.

In the words of that really old knight that guards the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

"You have chosen...poorly."
(Remember what happens to the bad guy then? That was me, trying to sew this dadgum thing.)

I was all gung ho at the beginning. I had my own craft room, for goodness' sake, in my giant new house with no kids or stuff in it yet. I had lots of time on my hands.

Time to discover some very, very important things about myself.

  • I hate tissue paper patterns.
  • Just because the fabric is on sale does not mean it is a good choice.
  • Just because the pattern is on sale does not mean it is a good choice.
  • Just because the theme is Christmas does not mean it is a classic style. (I suspect this was already a dated look back in 1999.)
  • I do not have the patience of a saint.
  • I do, however, have the mouth of a sailor. (This is a family trait - all the women in our family reserve cuss words for sewing time.)
  • And most importantly, I did not marry a man who likes moose and cutesy snowmen as home decor. (Actually, I don't like that stuff either, come to think of it.)


You know what the really, really funny part is?

I still have the dadgum thing under the bed.

I took these pictures today, and then I PUT IT BACK. Why? I'm not going to finish it, ELEVEN YEARS LATER.

Guess I've learned one more important thing about myself:

I don't know when to let go.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Epic Craft Fail Week: The Apple Green Shrug

Welcome to Exhibit A: "The Apple Green Shrug." I happen to really like this color, that's not the problem.

Let me state, for the record, that most of these craft failures are not due to pattern flaws. This is a lovely pattern, the One Skein Wonder by Stephanie Japel, whom I fervently admire. It's a fabulous little knit, great for a leftover yarn or something expensive. But I digress. This is about my disasters.

The most important reason that this project failed is:

I knit it while in the hospital after having my second C-section.

I was on lots of meds and it was pretty dark in there and I was sleep deprived. Not great conditions for successful knitting, although it turned out to be pretty successful as far as the kid was concerned!
Other than that, my most notable errors were:
  • Choosing a yarn with absolutely no bounce back or memory. This is Classic Elite Bam Boo, which has GORGEOUS drape, but doesn't lend itself to ribbing. Note the sagging in the first photo. This yarn would be better suited to a scarf or flowy top, but it can get quite heavy. A better choice for this project would be a wool blend or even something with a bit of stretch to help it out around the armholes.

  • Choosing a yarn with too many plies. This is only a problem because I was a very new knitter at the time, working in the dark, using pointy needles. Plies split. You can see a lot of them that went unknit in the photo below.

  • And last, but certainly not least, I was still a new enough knitter that I didn't know that I was twisting all of my knit stitches by knitting them through the back, and that it's a no-no.
You'd think that I would have stopped mid-way, what with all of these troubles with plies and sagging. But noooooo, I finished the whole thing. Guess I was hoping it would look ok in the end (like I said, I was on a lot of drugs). Alas, it does not. But the kids have appropriated it for dress-up, so at least it's not a waste entirely.

The kiddo turned out ok, though!!

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Epic Craft Fail Week: Prologue




I've been meaning to do this for a while. With all of the successful projects going out these days, there are plenty of dirty little secret unfinished ones behind the scenes.

Various friends and family members catch a glimpse of the etsy shop, pay a nice compliment, then casually ask, "Hey, whatever happened to the baby gift/sweater/quilt/doodad you were making for me?"


{cricket}


"Ummm...sorry about that...I told you it wasn't going so well, that's why I ended up getting you the book/bath set/gizmo/box of diapers instead."

And then I slink away, feeling guilty.

Time to come clean.

Look folks, making stuff is really really really really fun. Except when it fails. And sometimes, it fails SO BADLY, you can't recover. Not just emotionally (although that happens). Sometimes, you simply can't salvage the supplies.

Like yarn, for example. Some yarns just don't rip out well. Mohair. Acrylic of dubious origin. Really expensive laceweight silk. Anything with twelve plies.

Fabric, once cut and sewn, can't always be reconstructed into something else. Maybe the pieces are too small or the wrong shapes. Maybe it was stipple quilted far too late in the evening when someone had two glasses of wine instead of one and the bobbin tension was way off but went unnoticed for about half of the quilt. Theoretically speaking, of course.

And sometimes, I think I have the skill to do something BUT I DON'T. True story. Oh so painfully true. Just you wait until I show you some of this junk.

Last but not least, some failures boil down to BAD CHOICES, plain and simple.

So this week, I'm going to share with you some of my worst failures. Go ahead, laugh at me, and pretend you don't have a baggie of neon Red Heart acrylic granny squares in the bottom of your closet.
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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

in reference to flexibility and deep thoughts about water

The last few days have required a LOT of flexibility! No sewing for me! We had a hot water heater flooding incident, so I have been completely focused on cleanup and dryout.

This got me thinking: it's amazing how dependent we are upon fresh water, and how we completely take that for granted. I had to shut off the water to the house for a while to stop the flooding, and even for that short time it was a very different way to live. Can you imagine not having drinking water? My former youth pastor, Ken Surritte, heads an organization called Water Is Life. They provide these ingenious water filter straws to kids around the world. The straw hangs around a child's neck, and is good for a year. The child can use the straw to drink from any water source, even raw sewage, and it filters it into clean water. How cool is that? I was freshly reminded of how blessed I am to have cheap, abundant, clean water, and how important it is to help provide that for others. Check out their site to see how you can help.

As for sewing, I'm holding out for next week, when my kids will be at Camp Nana...planning lots of projects!!
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