Mary's quilt

I finished my stripey, sunshiney graduation quilt for my cousin Mary. So what if she graduated last May, and is now nearing the end of her second semester of college? Whatever. Anyway, it's finished, almost... just the tiniest bit of binding to finish off, and some stray threads to clip, and it's in the mail. For which I will need her address... and probably also I'll need to go to the post office.

So...shootin' for July?


This quilt is mostly thrifted sheeting, which I love because it's so soft and thin and comfy. Nice and light weight for those Oregon/Wyoming winters. Yeah I suck.

Also, our house gets almost no direct sunlight if it's at all overcast. This allows me to keep my rep in our complex as "that crazy lady who's always taking pictures of blankets outside."


This is my new walking foot- enabling the completion of this quilt and making my life in general a billion times better. One of those "the right tools make the difference" moments. I told Chase "remember when I said I loved hand quilting? What I apparently meant was that I loved it in comparison to machine quilting WITHOUT a walking foot."

As I type this Jane has assumed her pooping crouch, so I should probably end this pretty soon. Now she wants to sit on my lap. "LAP! LAP!" she says. "HIGHER! UP! SIT LAP CHAIR!" Lots of new words these days, between the poop grunts. Nothing like a one and a half year old. She is a destructive terror and a delight. She enchants everyone at the grocery store, in between bouts of screaming and throwing all the food out of the cart. She stands, climbs, and leaps. She sings, but yells furiously at anyone else who sings. She dances to music, dances with her sister, clomps around the house in any oversize pair of shoes she can find, and regularly tosses whatever strikes her fancy into the front loading washing machine. My sweet fierce Jane baby. I can't imagine what kind of kid she will be in a few years.

And Wren and I have been going through a rough patch. She's a sass-monster. Which I never thought would bother me that much, because according to my dad, I was a pretty "mouthy" kid as well, deserving many a "because I said so" spanking. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for sassafras, so I'm half disappointed in myself for having a short temper, and half just so frustrated with Wrennel for pushing me all the time. If we were dating, we'd take a break. I'd go camping or something, and leave my cell phone at home. I think of Mrs. Rush, saying to Kelly in high school, I'll always love you, but I don't LIKE you very much right now.

The once vaunted time-outs are just not doing the trick as a cooling-off time for the two of us. She's still amazing and incredible and sweet. And now with some years of parenting behind me it's a little easier to see this for what it is- a temporary phase, not the new look of our relationship. Perspective is grace from God in parenting- because it's so easy to fall off either end- difficulty in engaging moment to moment, and difficulty pulling yourself out of a never-ending-moment, like it's 5:30 and Chase isn't home and the diapers are not washed and dinner isn't made and so on.

But for now I've got a diaper to change, and then it's time to pick up Miss Sassafras from school, and see if we can make a path through this afternoon that doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, and leaves us totally in like with each other at bedtime.