Big projects don’t lend themselves to frequent posting.

I am just starting on the binding… FINALLY! My sister asked me to help make her a quilt a year and a half ago. She was getting tired of the bedspread she had, but still liked the fabric. So we livened things up with some deep red and added a few other elements by using similar styles of cloth napkins purchased from Ten Thousand Villages. This project all started before she was dating her now husband of ten months. It is funny to think back to the little debate we had about whether to make it twin size or big enough for a double bed. Little did she know she was about to be swept of her feet. So I guess that procrastinating can be good sometimes. I was able to add a little to the edges and turn it into a queen size. And I am hoping to get it finished very soon… soon enough for them to take with them when they move into there little cabin in the woods sometime in the next few weeks.

I have this pair of jeans with way too many pockets. They fit perfectly during the winter over layers of long underwear and fleece pajamas, even though they slide right off my hips during the summer. So the cold weather has had me grabbing this pair of jeans, but it’s pocket flaps always drive me crazy. They flip up every which way. See!

So I spent some fun time putting buttons together to hold those silly flaps closed. I love the way they look now. And I still have five pockets available in these jeans so I didn’t feel the need to do button holes to keep these extra pockets functional. It ended up being such and easy solution.

In other news, I have rejoined the ranks of home-schooling parents. That boy (the one that was driving me crazy at the end of the summer) went to first grade for a month and didn’t do anything except sit there. He is in such an amazing inquisitive stage and it was really hard to watch his curiosity being stifled by sitting in a classroom for seven and a half hours a day, plus time at home doing homework (mostly the stuff he didn’t do in class!) It has been a hard decision… and I had a good cry last night over my loss of freedom and a few dreams for the future. Despite all that, I do feel lucky that we are in a position to make a decision like this, that we aren’t up to our eyeballs in debt or have to quit a job, or anything like that. And for home-schooling, I think he has done more in a week at home then he did in a month at school. It is a trick to get him to do worksheets and the only way I can talk him into it without a battle is to tell him that if he can prove to me he knows how to do it then I won’t make him do it again. So I have spent the week studying the state curriculum standards for first grade and developing a rubric for tracking that he has everything covered that is required. And now I will mostly follow him around, collecting all the stuff he creates and slotting it into my rubric. Among other things, on Tuesday, he started to write a book… it was very cute! And today he spontaneously made a color wheel and spent about 20 minutes trying to identify a bird that landed on the window sill by using an Audubon Guide. It is crazy what he will come up with all by himself. And for the rest it, I guess I will just have to torture him with a few worksheets.

I am always amazed at how easily I can lose track of time. I was shocked when I realized it has been almost a week since my last post. How did that happen? Here is part of the reason.

Do you know how easy it is to lose yourself in buttons. Ooooh, they are mesmerizing. And when you happen to be compulsive organizer, it makes it even easier to get absorbed in them. My mom picked up a gallon size bag of buttons at a charity sale for $1. She also gave me an old tin full of buttons from my great aunt. She picked out a bunch that she liked and gave me the rest. It was one of those times when I was really glad that our tastes are different. I like the buttons she picked out to keep, but she still handed over a treasure trove of buttons she didn’t feel the need to keep. Yippee!

Thank you for all the sweet comments on my last post. I feel a bit embarrassed having said something to invite that kind of response, but I can’t say it doesn’t feel good after all. Thank you, lovely friends!