Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Color Wheel Quilt, Part IV

After the shower, the hostess kept the quilt set up for the next craft night and craft day and we even got a roll done. After we took it home, Mom wanted to be able to work on it so we got it set up in the guest room for her.
She says that it's perfect there since she only needs half of the bed anyway, the cats can't get to it, and she can quilt into the night without disturbing us.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Baby's Quilt from Aunt Pauline

Willow's Great-great Aunt Pauline sent us this amazing quilt as baby gift.
It came with the book she based it on...

She also sent some other gifties, including a book about infant massage. I think Willow is looking forward to us practicing.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

First Day Home

I apologize in advance to anyone who reads this, if you want to read things besides cute baby pictures, you probably want to start reading again in a few weeks when I quit being quite so fixated on the baby girl. :)

We came home yesterday afternoon from the hospital. It was nice having a few days to get used to baby and recover from the surgery before coming home but it is wonderful to be back.
Q tried to get as much sleep as possible while we were being taken care of at the hospital. Their Mama Baby rooming in rooms are fantastic. He sure loves his little "Peanut".

I invited a few of my students to visit while we were there. Before Willow received her first visitors we decided we should dress her for the first time.

Q learned how to wear the Maya wrap today. One little hand was the only thing showing.
Since we're still having to pump then use a syringe to feed (Willow's still learning to latch) Q has decided to take care of all the feeding equipment. He found it handy to babywear while he did it today. She just seems so small to actually be put down somewhere and with three adoring adults around we easily never have to. :)
The cats are sad to be locked out of our room at night but they still get to sun at the sliding door during the day.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

It's a girl!


Willow Anne joined us this afternoon at 12:58 . She weighs 6 pounds 13 ounces, and is 19 inches long. She also is the cutest baby ever.


Sprout's Nursery

We should have a baby by about 12:45p today!

The final touches are finally done in the nursery and I love love love this room. The paint is Yolo Colorhouse Sprout.04 and Water.02. We were amazed by how little we actually had to buy for the room.

We already owned all the books and toys and took some bookcases from a different part of the house. I did the art quilt on the wall several years ago. The lamp was from Fred Meyers; we chose it because it's got a torchiere and reading light with different options for brightness. The glider is our beloved Dutalier that both reclines and glides. The sheepskin was from Ikea.

The swan is a watercolor I did in Teacher Training and Q did the charcoal bunny this spring.

The crib and dresser were Q's from childhood. The end panel at the wall is plexiglass and had primary color balloons on it so Q scraped them off with a razor blade and then we painted it. Mom and Dad bought us the chair at Fred Meyer. We wanted to have two seats in there so Q can hang out while I nurse and later on we can both be there for storytime.

Mama made the curtains I'd kept putting off with fabric we picked up at Mill End in Portland. I love how they turned out.

The dresser had primary color strips above the drawers which we painted over. The paintings, from left to right, are a print of Archangel Michael that we've had for a long time, a watercolor of a penguin we bought from an artist at May Faire, and the fresco my students did in 7th grade chemistry. I'm sure the stroller will end up finding a place in the body of the house closer to the door when we start using it. It's the Chicco Liteway.

Here's the changing table folded out. The changing pad is made from PUL and batting. The cover is made from fabric that Mom found at Goodwill that matched the room remarkably well. I've got enough to make spare cover as well.
The wall with our picture on it is going to be the "family tree" wall. We're going to put up framed pictures of all the grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Here are the before pictures...










Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Making Homemade Baby Wipes and Nursing Pads


Based on the size of the box Mom brought, I tore 7" wide strips of flannel from the full size fitted sheet I'd bought on clearance and stacked them all together.

Using the rotary cutter, I cut 8" long pieces from the strips.

Each rectangle got a serged edge. I ended up with 61 wipes.

I used 1 pint of water and 2 t. of Baby Wipe Juice to dampen 3 dozen of the wipes in the big box.

Mom layered two layers of flannel and one layer of fleece together. She traced around a CD and cut the circles out of all three layers. She then used the serger around the edge to hold them all together. I was appreciative for this post from Passionate Homemaking in telling how to make them.

In honor of baby's birthday tomorrow I've got a post lined up of the (finally) finished nursery and we can hopefully get a picture up of the baby itself on Thursday!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Lane County Fair 2011

So, I went a little crazy entering things in the fair this year. Ten entries in textiles, 25 in food preservation and 2 in land products. Part of the reason I put in so many entries is that with 25 preservation entries I got a free admission ticket so Mom and I went today on "senior day" and got several hours of entertainment that cost only her $2 admission fee. Overall, I'm pleased with how I did and managed to win just over $100 in premiums as well as a couple of special bonus awards, not a bad reward for stuff I was going to do anyway. It kind of feels like cheating since mine were the only entries in some categories where I got "1sts" but if they feel like giving the premium away, I'm willing to take it. :)

Below are the results so I can remember and compare next year.


Land Products
We'd never entered anything here before and I was really excited we placed in both categories.
We won 1st in the brown eggs (out of 5 entries) and I think the "Special Award" is Eggs Best in Show (out of 9 entries)

We were 3rd out of 5 in the Medium Strained Honey. You may recall the honey harvest; the end product looks so neat and clean compared to the process.

Textiles - 4 1st, 2 2nd, 2 Honorable Mention
Lester the Fox looks so cute on his outing to the Fair. I love the octopus to the left!

The cloud and grass sweater got 1st in Knitting Original Design and a special award for Most Creative from Ben Franklin Crafts.

I think this was the only entry in Texture Patterns: Pullover with Sleeves. :)

There was one other entry in Texture Pattern: Cardigan with Sleeves.



The purple and black hat got only an honorable mention but I included the picture because it has the first place over to the left. Aren't those whales amazing? I wish we'd thought to get a picture of 2nd place - it's flames going up the hat and changing colors - red, orange, and gold.




Food Preservation - 11 1st, 8 2nd, 4 Honorable Mention






Oregano was 1st out of 11 competitors!

I was the only entrant in three of the four fruit leather categories. Guess what? I got 1st! ;)