birthday love from Atlanta

 Just right 1st birthday gifts for Asher...

and amazing 5th birthday gifts for Audrey.

The reaction: 

Lucky, lucky us!

Oh, and by the way, Larissa, I just added the movie to my queue, so we'll see if it still holds the same allure now as it did when I was a kid. Popeye didn't fail me, so I have high hopes. 

simple top for girls of all ages

Here's an easy top I made for Aud last summer, but never got around to posting. I used this tutorial, which was super simple and straightforward, for the basic construction, adding a band of contrasting fabric along the bottom.

Image courtesy of Banana Republic

I was reminded of it recently when I saw this lovely, grown up version. Who'd have thought? Doesn't it look like a variation on the simple pillowcase dress that so many folks have made, including myself? Never really thought of making an adult version, though. I may have to go find myself some printed silk...

whether you're a mother or a child or ever were a child with a mother...

Here's a poem for you...

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

(You should really listen to Billy Collins read this poem himself here.) 

Happy Mother's Day to you all, and especially to you, Mom. Can't wait for you to get here so I can tell you in person. 

hello mummysam, i love you

I was just browsing Flickr for some wall art inspiration for Audrey's room when I came across these:

photos via mummysam's flickr

What?! Love them. And, apparently just about everything else this inspired crafter does. Maybe you've heard of mummysam, but I had not. I foresee many hours of poring through her archive... (yay for nursing breaks)

And we're all in luck - looks like she's got a book coming out this fall that's available for pre-order here. Can't wait to get my greedy little craft-book-obsessed hands on it.

photo via mummysam's flickr

Ha - just found this. So true. 

aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh...

I'm breathing a HUGE sigh of relief over here. What you may not have noticed is that my entire crafting life (aside from these little guys) has been put on hold since, oh, around October, when I started making this quilt for my bff, Larissa. For her birthday. Her December birthday. Right.

The front is made up of completely improvised, scrappy, log-cabin-ish squares. The back is pieced with leftovers, with a nod to the stacked coin quilt, which I'd originally planned to make for Larissa, until she wrote this post back in July. (A sane person might have taken that post as practically divine confirmation that that was the way to go. I, on the other hand, freaked out thinking that she, being the crafting whirlwind that she is, would make one herself that would far outshine my own in about a tenth of the time, and so changed my plans immediately. Then proceeded to hem and haw over design, fabric, etc. for the next 3 months, thereby killing any head start I might have had on actually finishing the dad burn thing in time.) 

Okay, other details. Basted using this pinless technique, which I loved. Quick and tidy. Quilted in the ditch on the log cabins then in large, irregular, concentric squares around those. Made my bias tape using this tute, which, good grief, makes a lot of tape, then bound the quilt by hand using a similar method to the one described in this book. 

So, anyhoo, it's done. Not my craft opus, which might justify its almost 4 month overdue arrival, but made with love all the same. Hope you like it, Larry.

you wear it well

Asher, 9 months

See any resemblance? 

My good friend Amy of Amy Prats Photography came over last week to document The Hair. You can see a few more shots of our boy here and, while you're visiting, find some great tips on getting better results with your own photography. Bonus! 

eyvind earle

I don't really consider myself a huge Disney fan, not like some people (I know one 30-something man who hits the Magic Kingdom 3 or 4 times yearly - without the wife and kids), so when this exhibit came to town, Rich and I thought we'd take the kids for their sake, not so much for our own. I guess we've become jaded by the commercialism and general gagginess of our princess-saturated market, to the point that we forgot just how much genius went into making the classic Disney films so, well, classic.

Okay, so we were wrong and you should totally go check it out if you're anywhere near New Orleans while this exhibit lasts and you have an interest in the creative process. It was great.

I was already a fan of the fabulous Mary Blair, so seeing her original sketches and paintings up close and in person was a treat. (By the way, Disney has recently released Blair's iconic concept art in the form of  storybooks retold by current authors - Cinderella, Peter Pan (those mermaids!) and Alice in Wonderland.)

Even better, though, was discovering Eyvind Earle, background artist and creative director for Sleeping Beauty. Okay, so I've seen Sleeping Beauty at least half a dozen times and never really noticed the scenery all that much. But, again, seeing those hand drawn cels in person! Dreamy. I especially love the botanical details (me = former plant geek). Earle had a modern sensibility that made his art really striking for its day. (From what I gather, that didn't win him the affection of some of his more traditional fellow illustrators. Boo.)

Sigh...