Under Construction

Bringing together various childhood hobbies

Found this Nancy Drew Fabric! via Craft.  Any other Nancy Drew lovers out there? Hardy Boys? Bobbsey Twins? Boxcar Children? Cherry Ames? Anyone?

I should start collecting now for Biscuit. 

Oh, maybe I already did...

And in a related story: when I was in sixth grade or so, me and my friends Katie and Keri started a club called the Just Have Fun Club. We had a theme song. And hats. And nicknames. Sounds fun, huh? Mostly we just played on top of the grape arbor in my backyard where we could look into Keri's backyard. And I guess we just had fun.

But one weekend we had a fundraiser where we sold our old stuff at the local swapmeet. At the time I was just coming off a major Nancy Drew phase and I had a TON of the yellow, hardcover editions.  Probably almost all of the books that were out at the time.  And I took them all to the swapmeet and sold them for a quarter each. 

I realized my mistake pretty quickly when I sold them all at once to the first buyer of the morning.  And later saw them for sale at his booth for fifty cents each. And by the end of the day the whole lot was at booth number three for seventy five cents each.  At the time I was sad about lost profits. Now I'm sort of sad to not have the books (since I had to pay like $3 for this one Nancy Drew).  Oh well, there were plenty of heavy boxes full of books to move when we moved to this house in 2005. And, despite missed profits, we still made enough at the fundraiser to take the Just Have Fun Club membership out to a very fancy lunch at Red Robin complete with Oreo Cookie Mocktails. 

So anyway, I think I may need some of the fabric.

Happy Easter!

A new Easter dress with shirring and rick rack! Loving how easy the shirring (gathering) is with elastic bobbin thread!

I need to fix the straps. She can't stand the bows.

An ugly Easter bunny

And, unfortunately, what may be an Easter ear infection. All in all it was a lovely day with a yummy brunch and an egg hunt.  Biscuit started feeling crummy in the late afternoon so we dosed her up on Tylenol and it's off to the pediatrician in the morning.  Hope you had a wonderful  holiday.

Coconut cake report and a book report

Just checking in during an unexpected nap:

• Dad is back from India. Survived. Took 400 photos. Glad to be home.
• Coconut cake received rave reviews at work. I was disappointed. I used coconut milk and about 2/3 can of condensed milk and found it unexpectedly dry.
• Tried making this rice pudding with brown rice. Crunchy texture, decent flavor. I left out the raisins.
• Working on a little Easter treat out of this new (to me) book.
• 
• Mr. H loaned the camera to his parents; new photos tomorrow.

Hope your weekend is going smashingly.

About the red shoes

Since "far from CA" loved the shoes. And I love the shoes. And apparently Biscuit loves the shoes.  Some more about the shoes.

I realized yesterday that the red shoes are signs of two facts of my life:
1. My mom is crazy good at garage sale shopping*
2. My daughter is opinionated**

*I think I've mentioned before my mom's garage sale skills addiction. Biscuit is nearly one and a half and I can probably count on two hands the number of clothing items I've purchased for her.  Every time we see my mom I get a stack of about $5 worth of freshly washed (and ironed!) appropriately sized and in season clothes. On hangers! (oh, and a book) Mom told me the red shoes were marked $2 at a garage sale but after explaining that she really wasn't sure they were the right size and asked if they could possibly part with them for $1 she walked away with these new looking sandals and some equally new looking tennis shoes for a buck each.  I think I'm going to finally break down and support my mom's addiction with a list of items I "need." Put in your orders now....

**Now when did that happen?  The other night after fighting to get her into the dress for the photo shoot I bribed her with a trip to the park as long as she put her shoes on. I pulled out her matching brown sandals and another fit ensued.  Turns out SHE WANTED TO WEAR THE RED ONES, thankyouverymuch. We put on the red, she was pleased as punch and off we went. Really, an opinion on fashion? At this age? I'm screwed.

And we're talking about shoes because, despite Easter baskets being "due" in a few days, I've been doing other stuff. Tonight I'm making this. I'll report back tomorrow.

New dress

One of the works in progress is done.

As usual with my projects, I was afraid of making it too small and made it too big and too long (it's hard when your model is always sleeping during sewing time).  The up side is, she'll keep growing and eventually it will fit. 

I used a thrifted Ann Taylor wool-blend skirt to make the dress--not exactly an ideal toddler friendly fabric so we'll see how long this lasts.  It buttons down the side and at the straps like the sample dress I used as a pattern.

So far it works for playing at the park (the bark chips stuck to it really well).

Weekends with Biscuit

With the beautiful spring weather, we've been having the most fabulous weekends filled with a whole lotta nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but Mr. H and I are so used to weekends crammed full of projects that a trip to the mountains or a little gardening feels like nothing.  I keep meaning to blog about the exciting nothingness but last weekend I ran out of steam on Sunday night (doing nothing with a toddler is tiring, you know).  So, here's an update.

Last weekend
Saturday--Planting hanging baskets for the porch (baskets made by Mr. H, dirt scooped by Biscuit, supervision provided by me)

Sunday--More flowers at Daffodil Hill

This weekend
Saturday--Playing in the outdoor sink

Sunday--At the park in Sonoma with Grandma, mommy and a new toy

This appears to be the "Biscuit walking away from me" series.  I guess that about captures us these days. She's getting more and more independent (read: opinionated) and her backside as she runs her own way is a typical view.  I guess I have to get used to it.

It doesn't look like that will be changing anytime soon: