quilt!

look! i finally finished the quilt i have been working on for aedan's bed. of course, it was a complete experiment; i had no idea what i was doing--and still don't. i got some great advice from  a friend, but i followed almost none of it. and that's okay with me--as long as none of you true crafty perfectionists come over to my house and really examine the darn thing. :)

i'm really proud of it, and it's really perfect for a twin bed. AND i even recycled when i made it--for the filling, i used an old quilt we bought at a five and dime type store ages (5+ years) ago. 

the backing is fleece, and if you look closely (but not too closely--i see some threads i didn't cut close enough ha ha), you can see that they are snowboarders. funny story: when i bought this material at hancock's, the 2 women working at the store commented as they were cutting it (yes, for some reason it took TWO women to cut the fabric...and they were as slow as Christmas, i tell ya, while rhys tried to wriggle out of my arms and destroy everything nearby...) that "we still can't figure out what these little things are on this material." 

oh yes, they had trouble making out a guy on a snowboard. hilarious. then again, we DO live in florida, so maybe that has something to do with it. and then again, i thought the dude was skateboarding at first. so who's pointing fingers? :)

(i swear i fix the orientation of these pics before posting--i'm wondering if it has anything to do with using google chrome. is anyone else experiencing this with blogger/chrome?)

i can feel myself starting to ramble and sound a wee bit crazy, which is probably due to lack of sleep lately along with giddiness at being able to say I MADE A QUILT!! hooray!

in addition, i've already started on my 2nd rag rug. this one is beautiful already, but i'm not going to share any sneak peeks--i'll wait until it's done. 

now if i can just get motivated to start this editing job...sigh.

bloomin' cactus! (plus a story about yarn)

we have the most hideous cactus growing on the side of our house. luckily, you can't see it from the street until you have almost gotten completely passed us. it's this ashy gray (ever since i tried to beat it to death, literally, with a rake--the rake just kept bouncing off the side).

we had some remodeling done on the bathroom, and the guys who worked in there actually chopped off one of the limbs, because it had grown up to the windowsill (which is pretty high up, maybe 7 feet?). well, now it's actually growing BESIDE itself. like a lizard i guess. 

after we moved here and started coexisting with this cactus, i recalled how a former coworker told me about a cactus in her yard--she chopped it down, threw it in her neighbor's yard (against the fence), and it grew back within a few months--she thought just to taunt her. now i realize this must be the same cactus.

however... (isn't there usually a "however"?)

once a year, this cactus, called a night-blooming cactus, produces flowers--big, beautiful, off-white flowers. the catch is this: each blossom opens for one night only and then turns black and falls off--and did i mention it blooms only at night? as in, pitch-dark...not as the sun's going down, not as the faintest light still brushes the sky. i mean the MIDDLE of the night.

so last year, i remember hauling my husband's parents (they are 84 and 79) off the porch and around the side of the house in all the darkness, with one lone flashlight, praying that none of us would fall in the process. we got to see the huge blooms, and it was a sort of holy moment, because i don't think i took pictures (i'm too lazy to check right now)--so there we three stood, in the complete darkness, alone with the cactus, petals stretched out to air themselves where no one can see.

this year, i have tried several times to "catch" one of these blossoms fully open. i dragged the kids out one morning early before the sun was up, but apparently that time it had opened the night before because it was clamped shut and completely black on the outside. but this morning, thanks to our overcast weather, one of the flowers was tricked into thinking it was still nighttime. (gillian wanted to know, "how does it know it's dark outside? it doesn't have a brain, does it?" alas, these answers elude me...)

so i ran and got my camera and snapped this shot: it's mostly closed, but you can tell (i think) how beautiful it must be in all its glory.

and about the yarn, well, i'm starting a project with some friends. we even have a facebook group ("knitting with laci and kristi" or something like that) if you want to join in. i'm excited about having a finished lacy scarf (that's the pattern), but i'm not looking forward to how frustrated i'll probably be by the time i've worked on it for, oh, say FIVE minutes!!

need i confess that i'm a very green knitter? as in, i'm afraid to go beyond the knit stitch. i can purl (i think), but i find comfort in doing something i feel like i can do well instead of branching out. of course, this translates into most other areas of my life as well. doesn't it always? ok, maybe that's just me. 

anyway, here's a picture of my new yarn:

i think the ladies who helped me at the knitting store were women of little faith (in me), especially as i stared and stared at my pattern (printed crappily on 3 sheets of printer paper and barely readable--AND crumpled because rhys kept trying to eat it) and kept saying, "i really don't know what i'm doing. i will probably be back. you're going to see me again soon."

they will probably change their knitting clinic hours without telling me now. :)

wish me luck!

ready for fall...

inspired by my friend amy's success last year with presenting handmade Christmas gifts to everyone in her family, i thought i would give it a shot this year. mind you, this is from someone who can't draw a stick figure to save my life. but i have discovered that i can have a creative outlet, i can be a somewhat nonoffensive artist, without having to draw a thing! 

the picture at the top of the post is what my living room looked like yesterday after working all afternoon to tear strips for a rag rug i will hopefully make before Christmas. again, i have NO idea what i'm doing--all i have area some really awesome instructions from amy. even long distance, she is a great teacher, but i still have my doubts that this thing will turn out looking like my 5-year-old son made it. alas, i will trudge on despite my self-doubting...

so last night as we were settling in to watch "be kind, rewind," the above picture is what i saw: marley thinks he is a cat. this means he picks the highest, most cushiony spot in the room on which to lay and he settles in there. so last night this meant my piles of rags. i wish i had a video to share of him  actually picking the right spot. it was like goldilocks and the 3 bears: he laid on the first pile and decided it was too hard; then he laid on the 2nd pile and decided it was too soft; then he nestled himself snugly into the 3rd pile (notice his nose is burrowed into the side of the pile) and decided it was JUST RIGHT. and he promptly passed out for the duration of the movie...

i worked and worked and worked on turning these strips into a ball. one thing i have discovered about myself during this crafting self-discovery is that i work very S.L.O.W.L.Y. so i worked throughout the movie on just one pile of rags, and i didn't even get all the way done: 

this ball is already gigantic, and look how many strips i still have left to add to it! so i'm already thinking i might have enough strips to make one big rug and two smaller ones.

i wish everything wasn't so girly and pink. normally i wouldn't be saying this, but i just feel like when i look at the ball of fabric it's too cottage-y for me, if you know what i mean. but then again, it's not for me...and i think the person it's for will really like it (that is, if it doesn't turn out to look like aedan made it...).

in other news, this weekend we just hung out and spent family time together. i'm trying to get into a routine where i only work during the day while the kids are at school. this is really hard, especially because i still put pressure on myself to try to turn jobs around really quickly--but i'm trying to stop doing this and just hope for the best. :) 

i'll leave you with one final photo that, besides me being in the picture (somehow i seem to be the one taking all the pictures, which means i'm almost never in them!), pretty much sums up how we spent the weekend:

you have to notice that the kids are still in their jammies, gillian's holding a book, rhys is plotting how to GET the book from gillian and subsequently dissolve it with his magically powerful saliva, marley's thinking "why are you making me sit here for a photo shoot?" aedan's making funny faces and trying to figure out how to be the center of attention, and everyone's sitting on rick's lap. see, i told you: pretty much sums up life around here! :)

have a great week everyone!

the weekend in pictures

this weekend was our last chance to take the kids to see the dinosaur exhibit at the local Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). it's been here all summer, but of course we procrastinated... 

gillian really wasn't that keen on going, since there were huge robotic dinosaurs that moved and looked at you with their robotic eyes when you walked past. the exhibit had only 10 dinos, so afterward we went to the kid area to play. here are my favorite pics from the outing.

obviously i have lots of favorite pics! when we got home yesterday i started off mending a few pieces of the kids' clothes and then decided to make a bag.

of course, i have never actually MADE a bag before, but i thought "how hard can it be really?" well, let's just say i'm glad none of my local friends sew so i won't have anyone wanting to really "look" at it. :) the best part is i used an old skirt and an old pair of pants (that no longer fit in the good way--hooray!), so i recycled! 

the fabric is very forgiving too--it's kind of a faux tweed, so  i could make seams all over the place and they don't show up! 

it was a great first project, and i feel a bit edgy with the skeleton. :)

and i sewed these pieces on the back of the bag from an old tshirt (that's where the skeleton came from as well) to cover up some of the oops seams from where i took out the zipper. 

maybe this will tide me over until i can buy that bag i saw on the Simple website (i LOVE their eco line, and i LOVE bags, so this is a bad combination...)

have a great sunday everyone!

my attempt at craftiness

gillian's 6th birthday is coming up next tuesday, so we are preparing to have a tea party for her the following sunday. she has chosen to invite 5 friends: "two old and three new," she says. this translates into three from her kindergarten class and two from her old preschool whom she hasn't seen in a year.

it's easy to be lazy when there is endless cash flow: you know what i mean; i could go on FOREVER listing the ways. the most a propos to this post, however, would be going somewhere cool and buying special invitations that are handmade or just on really interesting paper, or whatever. but, as these are the times of cash flow with a definite end these days in the bennett household, i was *forced* to be creative with what we already had on hand for gillian's invitations. so here's what i created: i'm pretty proud of myself, even if they are on a third-grade art class level. i have no shame!

in other crafty news, i was inspired by my friend amy, to try to learn how to knit. i bought the yarn and needles about a month ago, but just last night some friends came over to teach, talk, and learn. we mostly ended up talking, and i ended up frustrated, as i usually do when i try to do anything domestic (besides cleaning or cooking). as an example, i took a semester of sewing in 10th grade (yes, really), and one of my projects was a jumper with a gathered skirt. it's ok to laugh; i can't hear you. anyway, when i discovered i had sewn the skirt on sideways, i threw the whole thing out. i just am not a patient person. i want it to go the *right* way the first time or forget it.

which is why i surprised myself by going to a website amy sent me today called "Knitting Help." after a short review I was ready to tackle the whole thing again. i started completely over (i had only gotten 24 stitches casted on last night--not too far before the conversation completely distracted me!). this time, i casted on PLUS i did one entire row of actual knitting. i am extremely proud of myself. this could be the world's tiniest scarf--two whole rows! please keep telling me it gets better. i've heard "it's so soothing once you learn how." right now i mostly feel stressed out. but still proud.