Baby Model

Thanks for modeling the drool bib, Beatrice!

Now I'm on the hunt for an affordable but not crappy sewing machine so I can make more fun stuff!!!

In the meantime... maybe I can weave a blanket or something out of all the hair that's falling out of my head. So gross!! When will the shedding end?

A Little Bit of Sewing

I've been doing better at squeezing in time to sew here and there. Bea takes a pretty reliable nap in the morning now, and I can also get a little done when she goes to bed, usually around 9pm.


I tossed the quilting hoop aside right away since this quilt is so huge and there are so many pins. The pins get in the way of placing the hoop, and I was having to move it too often. I'm finding it a lot easier to quilt without it. I'm also using "tiger tape" but I decided I won't get more when it runs out. I can make smaller stitches than the 1/9" they print on the tape (but should I?). Really the point is just to keep 1/4" from the seams, and my local quilt shop didn't have plain 1/4" tape. Sometimes I just mark it with a chalk pencil instead. It really burns me that I can only use each piece of tape twice before it's not sticky enough to stay put as I quilt. Am I being too much of a cheap-o?

Sorry Beatrice, this was supposed to be your room, but it belongs to big orange for now :)

Here's a little drool bib I made from Lotta Jansdotter's book: Simple Sewing for Baby. It can be a bib that looks like a little kerchief (so cute!) or a headscarf thingie when she's bigger! I think Bea is still too small for this, and she's only super-drooly once in a while anyway. We tried to try it on her but we couldn't find her neck ;) I was inspired by Sew This is my Life - she's amazing!

Sorry for the lack of baby pics. We decided we didn't really want to spread our little muffin all over the internet (as if anyone really visits my little blog anyway). Maybe once in a while. I can always send you an email!!

Traitor Joe's

Alright, it's a lame pun, but they've pulled the old switcheroo again!

First it was Kettle Chips. They only had a few flavors of the real thing before, but now they only have TJ's brand and only Salt and Pepper and Lightly Salted.

Next it was Strauss yogurt. TJ's "European Style" yogurt is just not the same.

Now it's Niman Ranch bacon!!! Seeing as how this is pretty much the only meat (if you want to call bacon meat) we eat, this is a serious crisis! We haven't tried the TJ's replacement but I'm sure it can't be as good.

We do buy the TJ's imposters pretty often since we do most of our grocery shopping there, but when I'm at the regular grocery store, I make sure to stock up on the real thing. Our local grocery store doesn't carry Niman Ranch bacon yet, but I'll bet they'll give it a try if we mention to the manager that Traitor Joe's has let us down in the cured salty meat department :)

The last stand will be RitterSport candy bars. Mmmmm, quality in a quadrangle! I know they have these (and a way more awesome selection of flavors) at our local regular grocery store, so I won't have to panic when they disappear. Mmmmm, Qualitaet im Quadrat.

What We've Been Up To

It's tough to keep up the blog these days but here's what we've been up to lately:

- Went to the Computer History Museum: It's a really neat place with tons to see. We could have spent hours and hours there but we didn't want poor Bea to be stuck in the Baby Bjorn for too long so we sped through a few parts. It's only two miles away from our house and we'd never been before. I'd definitely recommend it if you're ever in Mountain View. I should take my students there on a field trip!

- We spent a three-day weekend at Yosemite: We were hankerin' to see some snow, and spring is quickly approaching so we went for it. All in all our first mini-vacation with the girl went pretty well. Daddy took care of the tire chains while mommy and Bea took care of the nursing in the nice warm car! We hung around in our cottage quite a bit - had time to watch the whole 3-hour version of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" in bits and pieces, and had great food at the Evergreen Lodge just outside the park where we stayed. We took some nice walks too. We had never taken the short walk out to see Yosemite Falls before, so we bundled Bea up and went to check it out. It was a pretty view and great to be out in the fresh air. The crowds are mostly gone in winter and the snow is so beautiful. No skiing or snowshoeing, I guess, this winter. Maybe next year :)

On the quilting front: things are progressing very slowly. When I get organized and sit down to work on it, it goes fast, but that doesn't happen too often. My friend Annie sent an AMAZING baby quilt for Bea so I have some fresh inspiration to keep working. I'll have to write about the baby quilt later - it deserves its own post!

Snippets of Free Time

Here's Beatrice now. She's so big!! Nice hair spike, Bea!

When Bea is sleeping and I decide to slack on the laundry, dishes, etc. I can catch an hour or two of time to work on this quilt I pieced while I was at Penn State (six or so years ago!?!?). Once the layers are all basted I plan to get a little table to set up in the office/baby room so I can work on quilting it without having to put it away each day and without taking up our little dining table in the living room. It's so huge I'm only able to pin half at a time and even then it takes up the whole floor of the office. Dude, it's using zillions of pins! The first/last quilt I did, I basted with needle and thread and I felt like it was not that sturdy. I'm getting the pinning done as fast as I can, which is not fast at all, so we can move the changing table and all sorts of other random stuff back into the office. We need the space!!

Ack! Beatrice is here!

Here she is on Monday, Dec. 13th: 0 days old.

8lb-10oz (whoa!). 20.5 inches long. Lots of brown hair! Hooray!

Done with Dots!

"What?" you say! Yes, Horst is still in there. Here we are at 40 weeks + 3 days.

Since I'm still just waiting around for her to show up, I had time to put the last few polka dots on the border of this quilt top. So it's done! I don't think I'll take up the quilting just yet, though. I don't feel quite mobile enough to set up the batting/backing sandwich; plus I have to think about the quilting pattern. That was a lot of applique!


Now I have two pretty big tops that need to be quilted plus a full-size quilt that's just tied that needs to have new batting and get quilted and bound too. I think that means I'm not allowed to start a new quilting project yet. Bummer.