At last, the weather is cooling off. I’ve been waiting for Autumn since Spring, it seems. During the ridiculous heat of Summer, I want to do what all the other smart desert critters do–climb under a rock and sleep. This week we’ve been able to play outside without melting into puddles. Our back yard is really not the best place for children to play. It faces West, and there is not a stitch of shade, and there are bits of broken glass and rusty things hidden everywhere in the sand. This is a rental house, and although we’ve been here for almost two years, now, the previous tenants took "home maintenance" to a new, rather warped, level. We walk thru the yard fairly frequently to pick up garbage, but most of it is buried just below the sand, and hard to catch. The front yard is fairly free of pointy things, these days, so that’s where we spend most of our playtime, and since the garage is my studio (and I mean that in the messiest, most disorganized way possible), I can sometimes even get a few things done while we’re out there.

Now that the seasons have changed, it’s also time to change clothes. I switched out Gavin’s things this week. He had outgrown nearly everything in his drawer, and was starting to resent being crammed into too-small onesies. I don’t have a whole lot for him to wear, now, since most of the hand-me-downs from Olga are pretty girly. He’ll need some more pants and a few long-sleeved shirts, but I have plenty of fabric to make those. I want to try getting by with fewer things for the kids, since we have only one small dresser for both of them to share.

Olga’s clothes are next. She doesn’t have anything in storage, so anything new she gets will have to be made. She’s outgrown all of the dresses I made for her in the spring, and she’s so tall that most of the others don’t cover her bum anymore. I know she can’t wear them anymore, but I always have a very hard time giving away things I’ve made "just in case" we have another little girl someday. She’s going to be a little tricky to dress for the next few weeks/months. She’s gotten so used to running around in her birthday suit all summer, and she’s been using the little potty so consistently, but she’s more accident-prone when she has her undies on. I think some long-sleeved, but not to long-skirted dresses might do the trick for her.

I do need to make more diapers. Olga still needs them for night time and naps, but she’s too big for the diapers I’ve been trying to put her in. The elastic has been leaving a mark on her legs. That’s a job for next week. Gavin is on the edge of growing out of all of his, so half the time I use Olga’s diapers for him. There is a big batch of diapers that are ready for retirement. This hard water we have really does a number on them.

Gavin really enjoys sitting at the table with the rest of us at meal times, but since he still doesn’t sit up by him self, and still prefers to wiggle at all times, I needed a proper restraint for my old highchair. (Yes, this is the same highchair I sat in when I was a wee babe.) I made a new seat belt out of my old Mei Tai. I cut half circles out of each side, then bound the edges with double fold bias tape. Presto! Took about five minutes, after I got over the fear of cutting into something that was perfectly serviceable.

Time for a little show and tell. This is a quilt I made for Erik before Miss O was born. My mom saw something like it in a magazine, and collected a bunch of patriotic fabric for it.

I had the top assembled in a day. It was super easy. Just width of fabric stripes in various red, white, and cream fabrics, and 6-inch squares for the stars.

I used everything that had an Americana feel, even if it wasn’t strictly patriotic or red white and blue.

The stars are just appliqued on. I used fusible web (Steam-a-seam brand), ironed them in place, then topstitched around with the blanket stitch setting on my sewing machine. I’ve washed this quilt a bunch of times, and the stars aren’t fraying at all.

You can’t really see in the pictures, but I had this quilt professionally machine quilted with (this is the really cool part of this quilt) the Marine Corps Hymn! If you have ever heard a bunch of motivated Marines sing their song, you are very lucky indeed.

The Marine Corps Hymn:

From the Halls of Montezuma,
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of UNITED STATES MARINES.

Our flag’s unfurled to every breeze,
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in every clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far off northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job –
The UNITED STATES MARINES.

Here’s health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we’ve fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By UNITED STATES MARINES.

My second attempt at making some fabric brooches turned out 47 billion* times better. This may have had something to do with the fact that I actually attempted to pick coordinating fabrics before I started. You know, rather than make a bunch of parts, then try to make them look nice together (I’ll beat you with the snap press if you don’t settle down and look pretty!). Newsflash: Even Erik thinks these are cool. Wow!

I picked up some pinbacks today on our way thru town, so tomorrow I’ll be stitching these up and tossing them in the craft fair basket. I pulled out some other fabric this morning to make some patriotic pins in the same style. Seems like a good idea, since the fair will be held on the Marine base. I think maybe some stars and stripes pincushions are in order, as well. By the way, you can make your own brooches, too. This is Molly Chicken’s tutorial: http://mollychicken.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/12/last_minute_thi.html

*actual statistic

I made a big basket-full of pincushions for the fair coming up next Saturday. I used some of the hundreds of thousands of six-inch cotton squares that threaten our very lives every time we venture into the garage. Each "pyn pillow" has two vintage (or at least grubby) buttons. When Erik came home to see me working on these, I know I saw him shake his head and mutter something like "…totally lost it, now." I’m just not sure ONE basket of these is enough. What do you think?

I finally got around to making Gavin a new Mei Tai, like I’ve been promising for ages. I got some wonderful fabric from Fabric.com for this. The kids’ room is decorated with cowboys and farm animals, so I thought it was just perfect. The cowboy fabric is a wonderf ul quality quilting cotton from Alexander Henry. The back and straps are a medium weight cotton twill. I made up my own pattern after looking at a bunch of Mei Tais on various websites. My old Mei Tai was way too big; this one is about 15 inches wide and 18 inches tall. The long straps are about 55 inches long. I was worried that they’d be too short for Erik, but they seem to be right for him, too. Not that he’ll ever use this. But, you know.. just in case. (The one time I asked him to wear Gavin in public he made such a huge fuss about it that I will never–NEVER–ask him to do it again. But if he ever offers, this one is nice and plain and brown on the reverse. He won’t be able to complain quite so vehemently.)

This pin just didn’t turn out right. I think I’m going to clip off the buttons and put some different ones on. I used one of Molly Chicken’s wonderful tutorials for last-minute brooches. I want to make a bunch of little brooches for the fair, but I am not very good at these little things.