CHRISTEPHI

My grandma recently sent me two huge lawn-and-leaf bags full of fabric, eyelet, lace, trims, buttons, well, a whole bunch of wonderful supplies!  There's a huge piece of polar fleece, that I suspect is at least partial wool content (my nose tells me so, but I haven't done a burn test yet)...super soft and cuddly!  And scraps of Thinsulate -- the perfect size for making a coat for Miss M or the new baby. Also doll making supplies -- joints, eyes, hair, long doll-making needles, etc.  I probably won't use them, but I'm sure someone somewhere would be glad to trade for something I would use.  So, as a thank you for her thoughtful gift (I'm just 1 out of her 8 kids and 33 grandkids, so I'm sure she could have passed it all on to someone else!), I decided to make her a mini tree quilt. It's my first time ever doing a quilt binding and while it didn't turn out perfectly, I'm quite pleased overall!  I'm planning to make three slightly larger ones to

Miss M and I went on a short walk into the nearby park and took a few pictures.  We thought we'd share! According to my wildflower book, this sunny yellow fellow is Oxeye. The thistles are going to seed, see the fluffy thistledown? There were busy honey bees everywhere! Which is good because the local bee population has been suffering the past few years (or so I've been told). It took a while to identify these berries.  At first my dad thought they were hackberries, but I wasn't so sure since the arrangement on the branches didn't seem quite right.  So I kept looking and I'm pretty sure they're coralberries.  Whatever they are, aren't they pretty?! The leaves are just starting to change on the trees around here...this must have been one of the first to fall. Isn't it stunning?  I'm afraid my photography doesn't quite do it justice.  I do believe fall is my favorite season!  What's yours?

This is the fourth mei tai I've made from Kristen's Scandi Mei Tai tutorial .  I love every one of them!  The first three were gifts for friends and cousins having their first babies.  I finally made one for me! Here it is being tried out for the first time by hubby and Miss M. (Just imagine me trying to carry her around while 7 months pregnant...nah, I'll let hubby do the heavy work!) (You can click on it to see it a bit bigger). You can see how neglected Miss M is when I sew...that pathetic falling-down ponytail!  Oh well, at least she kept herself busy with stickers (you should have seen my pant legs)! Here's some shots of the ones I gave away.  I hear they are much loved! These two were for two of my cousins.  My other cousin picked out the fabric and I did the sewing.  Funny, I just realized that all of these were for boy babies!

When Miss M was born, we lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment.  The on-site laundry facilities consisted of a single coin-operated washer and two dryers.  Whenever I did laundry, I always washed the adult clothes first so the final load of baby stuff would have as little "contamination" as possible -- particularly the residue of other people's laundry detergents and fabric softeners.  Miss M had such bad eczema that her tiny baby cheeks would bleed on her crib sheets at night.  Prescription ointments didn't work.  I wonder now if cloth diapering would have helped with her sensitive skin, but it really wouldn't have been feasible for us what with the time involved and the expense of coin-operated laundering.  We finally discovered Aquaphor by Eucerin ; it helped keep the worst of the eczema at bay until she outgrew her hypersensitivity. This time around, however, I have my own washer and dryer (hallelujah!) and have decided to cloth diaper the new baby.  It was

I was recently given a few old books by a neighbor who is moving.  Lovely copies of Treasure Island , Rebecca , and an old book on etiquette called Social Etiquette, or Manners and Customs of Polite Society  published about 1900. (I discovered that you can read the full text online for free since it falls outside modern copyright laws). There is much in the book that is no longer applicable in today's society such as how and when to leave calling cards and when men should lift their hats in greeting.  However, the core premise of the book, the very essence of etiquette, is something that will be appropriate for all peoples, at all times, in all places. Truly good manners, truly good breeding come from cultivating goodness from within. If we try to "put on" good manners when we go out or for special occasions "they will fit but illy, as borrowed plumes are wont to do" (p. 20). And all this is based on one thing: the Golden Rule from Scripture which says, &quo