We have a new family member. This post is really for all of my relatives that know that I am not a dog person. Actually, not much of an animal person at all. I am okay with cats because they are independent and clean themselves. But I am also allergic to them, so that isn’t an option. So this little girl had a date to meet her maker on Saturday if a home couldn’t be found for her.

I am not a big fan of toy dogs. And I am especially not a big fan of the trend to take dogs of any size to the store, and I was shocked to hear over Thanksgiving that people are taking them on planes. Ugh! I am a fan of working dogs and despite her size she is still a terrier. She did inadvertently scare off a herd of deer when she went out to the bathroom last night. Yay! She was bought for breeding, but when she developed spine or back leg issues, that was no longer going to be a career for her. Unfortunately, the breeders decided they weren’t going to take care of her for the rest of her life either. Of course there are lots of things about this situation that I take issue with, but I won’t go into it here. She walks on four legs, but runs on three. And it doesn’t slow her down any. She is about a year old, so it is nice to not have puppy potty training issues. It is a little strange to have a dog that has been raised in a kennel with other dogs. She does not respond to any commands or a name. And she is so skinny. I think she must have been in the kennel with a dominant dog that didn’t let her eat much. We are working on getting her up to a healthy weight. So in many ways we are starting from scratch. The kids are thrilled to have a dog, I am thrilled that we don’t have the expense of feeding a large dog and it fits my requirement of “nothing with big poop!” I keep finding myself staring at her because she is so small. Smaller than a cat. And hey, I am not allergic to her.

It dawned on me that as we reach the three month mark after moving into this house that we can actually consider ourselves “settled.” There is still tons of work I want to do, but the truth is that it doesn’t all HAVE to be done. So I have finally decided to let it go, and get on with life. A fresh start. New (very old) house to decorate slowly and back to projects that are not house related. So anyway, here is a shot of the color in the kitchen and my new shelf.

It is the only room with color so far. I know that some people like soothing colors. I am one of those people that needs colors that will actually keep me awake. The white in the rest of the house isn’t working for me, but we will get to that… eventually!

While waiting for closing day (which kept moving back, and back again, and again) I made two more outfits for the girl. I took pictures of the other, but after moving to a newer computer, I can’t seem to find them. So I noticed she was wearing this one today and I had to get a few pictures of her with her new rabbit.

The yellow floral at the neckline I picked up from Joann’s clearance rack. The lining I picked up from Goodwill. The oriental calico I found at a garage sale. The calico for the capris was handed down from my great aunt. And the yellow bias binding I also found at a garage sale. I love mixing fabric! I also love that this outfit probably cost less than $2 total.

And of course, I love that my daughter still thinks it’s cool to wear stuff that I make. She got a sidelong glance from one of the older girls in band. But when she saw the same girl give me the same look she decided it must just be because that girl has no style!

Finally! These are twin size for my nephew’s beds. I love the fabrics. I didn’t choose them. The credit for that goes to my sister-in-law who sent me piles of fabric to figure out how to put together.

And here they are! I didn’t try to get the wrinkles out for the picture since I will be stuffing them in a box to put in the mail tomorrow.

Well, I wish I could think of more to write. I am amazed by bloggers who keep blogging through their transitions. I think the articulate part of my brain shuts down when I am moving. I end up doing a lot of grunting and pointing. And that doesn’t work very well for communicating online! Thanks for all the nice comments. I wish I had time to answer everyone’s questions and make patterns for everyone to use, but that will have to wait. I have a few other projects up my sleeve while we wait for closing day, so hopefully I will be posting again soon!

Wow, two months since my last post. Let me apologize for all the comments and questions left unanswered! It has been a crazy time. It seems to me that was about the time we started house hunting since my parents were listing the house that we were renting from them. In the end we were unsuccessful and decided to go on the vacation that was planned and payed for before we knew this summer would be full of transition. It was a wonderful two weeks off the grid and away from the pressure. We arrived back with two weeks to move out of our house and in with my parents while we continue our house hunting. That is behind us now, and I needed some sewing therapy. Joann’s clearance fabric to the rescue (my stash is all in boxes!)

The girl has been asking for a “play dress”. I thought that could be fun! But of course the quilter in me had to piece together a bunch of different fabrics first so it wouldn’t be boring!

I made a size 10 (even though she is 12) because she is so narrow. But it ended up too short to wear alone. My mom kept laughing to see that I passed on my spindly legs to my daughter. It is pretty funny to see your old legs running around on someone else. And back to the dress… I made two. One is for our neighbor’s daughter. I thought the girls would be tickled to have matching dresses. And now that my “to do” list is all packed away with the boxes in the basement, I feel like I have time on my hands. My next project is to hurry up and finish the quilts in my last post, so I can ship them and not move them to our new house… when we get one.

I was driving around yesterday running errands and I heard Garrison Keillor describe this time of year as “almost spring.” While the end of winter actually felt like spring, now we have been back to just waiting for spring. Which makes it easy to stay indoors and do some quilting. And I remembered to grab the camera a little earlier in the process this time!

This is the first time I have used pins instead of basting. It was much faster, but I had cheap pins and so I really should get some better ones if I do it again. Safety pins around here have always been disposable in a way. You use them for odd things and they rarely make it back into the pin bin. Here are the three layers I was turning into a quilt sandwich.

And here is most of the rest of the quilt. This will be for a twin size bed and I am making two of them.

I really love the fabrics. These were also sent to me by my sister in law to make quilts for her boys. So I can’t take any credit for the fabric choices. I love the mix of colors and textures. And I love the way she threw in a few Michael Miller prints in with the recycling of some old jeans and other leftover bits of fabric. It has been really fun to see them come together into one.

That’s me! It’s the way I work. I get pretty focused and forget to do other things… like take pictures for my blog!

I finished the quilt I have been making for my niece’s bedroom. At least I am trying to decide that I am finished, since I have some great ideas for some hand quilted embroidery. But I have taken my sweet time getting it done, as it is. So I guess I will have to save that inspiration for the days after my kids move out (that is still 12 years away, if we are lucky!)

My sister in law asked me to take pictures of how I sandwiched and quilted it, because she is planning to do a few quilts. Well, like I said, “a horse with blinders”. I have no pictures of the process, but I have seen a few good instructions out in blogland. I know I have seen more, but I can’t remember where. So if you know of (or posted yourself) some instructions on the quilt sandwich process, please post links in the comments!

There is a lot going on here, but I have been finding it hard to grab the camera. I am juggling a few crafty projects and will try to post them soon. It has been a pretty typical springtime in Michigan and we are enjoying the longer days and more sunshine. As soon as the weather was right we tapped the maple tree in the front yard and have been making some syrup. Here is our first batch and you can see the bucket hanging on the tree outside the window. It is fun to enjoy the bounty of our land even if it is only a small plot of earth. We are lucky that my grandpa chose to plant sugar maples when he put these trees in 40-something years ago.

Some days are warm (today feels like summer and the kids are in shorts!) and the snakes come out to enjoy the sun:

Last Wednesday my daughter was playing with one (that is a normal springtime activity around here), and she put this one out on the ice that was still covering the lake. It slithered away, then slithered slower and slower and slower… I walked up to look out the front door at that point and so we all jumped into rescue mode. Had to slide this little guy back over to the dock like a hockey puck so that we could grab him and put him back up on the warm grass. The kids said, “But he’s cold blooded.” So that led to a nice little science lesson about the pros and cons of cold-blooded vs. warm-blooded animals. Oh, the joy of homeschooling. I love how you can integrate these “lessons” into daily life and they haven’t got a clue that it is school.

As wonderful as the weather is today, we are still in Michigan and I have to remind myself that it could look like this again next week:

But for some reason this year, I am enjoying all of it. I don’t feel in a hurry for summer. I have a sneaking suspicion that having longer daylight hours is helping with that. And of course a few warm days are a nice reminder that winter doesn’t last forever. I also still have some sewing projects I would like to get finished before I start gardening again. These sheepskin slippers might still come in handy before the warm weather arrives for good!

My sister in law asked me how to store kids clothes without a dresser. Since we have moved a million times and not always had dressers for everyone, I have figured out a few things. My son currently has a pretty small room without much room for a dresser. Actually, there is room for one, but it takes up valuable floor space that he needs to play legos! He also has some built in shelves, so I decided to use those to store his clothes. This is the $1 solution!

It is just a cardboard box covered with some scrapbooking paper. Obviously, not a permanent solution for a destructive child’s bedroom. But it is doing the job and could be a good solution if you are living some where short term or as a stand in while you look for a more permanent solution. And yes… when I fold my kids clothes I sort them into outfits and put them in 2 gallon ziploc bags together. It may seem like more work, but has saved so much time because I don’t have to go pick out the kids clothes every morning, or wash clean clothes that they have left on the floor when I send them back to change out of the wacky outfits they put together on their own. I don’t care that much if they wear wacky stuff out in public or anything like that. It is just that if I have to look at them all day, I really like their clothes to be aesthetically pleasing to ME. I know it is one of those things I will have to let go of as they get older, but hopefully they will have better taste by then!

The boys socks and undies are stored in these cheap baskets from the dollar store. It’s working for now. His room needs an overhaul soon. New paint, new blinds, and some better storage for toys. So I will probably be rethinking all the containers on his shelves and come up with something a little more coordinated.

I also have a friend (with six kids!) who gives each kid a laundry basket that fits into their closet to store all their clothes. Everything is in there together: socks, undies, swimsuits, shorts, and t-shirts. It goes straight from the laundry room to the bedroom closet. She lives in the tropics so the kids wardrobes are a little simpler than living with seasonal changes. I have always kept this idea in the back of my head for use at an appropriate time. But at this point my compulsive desire to sort things has me keeping things in separate baskets, drawers, or tissue boxes.

Okay, here is a weird one. This storage idea has been working great for the last eight months and I have to say that I was surprised how well it has worked out. The main problem was that my 11 year old crafty girl has a lot of great ideas, plenty of supplies, and not quite enough organizational motivation to manage it all. So her room was quite a disaster most of the time and when it was time to clean it up she was devastated and I was always frustrated. So I finally just emptied her room, sorted all her stuff, and devised a “library style” system of checking things out. Each craft type is stored in it’s own big paper grocery bag with handles (Trader Joe’s style) and hung on a hook in the laundry room.

When she wants to do something crafty, she comes and “checks out” one of the bags with her stuff. She then has to put it away before she can get something else out so that she will always still have room on her floor to throw her clothes! I have been really surprised by how well this library system has worked. I have also been pretty surprised that the paper bags have actually held up and not fallen apart. At this point I am figuring that I will have to replace a few bags in another six months and probably add a few as she has picked up a variety of new media to work with. The best part is that it’s free!