Judah's First Birthday: Part Two

Secondly, the Mama Makes

I had all sorts of plans that didn't happen.  But given the time that I had, I actually got a fair amount done.

Decorations
We didn't have a party, but I still wanted to decorate for Judah's birthday.  So I made some garlands out of circles I cut out of felt and sewed together and another with some wool felted balls stung up on yarn.  I also used some pom-pom fringe I had on hand.

I forgot to take a picture specifically of the garlands all hung on Judah's birthday.
They looked better then, but this gives you an idea.

Here's a [terrible] picture of everything all decorated.

Crown
I made Judah a birthday crown loosely based on this pattern.  I'm hoping that I can just replace the elastic as his head gets bigger, so I just tacked the 1 on a felt diamond that I can easily replace with a 2 next year.

Spoiler Alert: You'll see more pictures of the crown in the next post in the context of the day's festivities and (more importantly) on the head of one very adorable birthday boy.

Crochet Ball
For Christmas, I crocheted a blanket for Judah.  I had some yarn left over, so I decided to crochet a ball for him to match.  I used this website, which I found on pinterest.  But the website is in German, so I had to improvise a bit here and there because despite taking 2 years of German in high school and 2 semesters in college, I was never taught crochet vocab.  Can you believe that?!?  I feel a little cheated by the sub-standard quality of my education.  (Sidenote: In adding this website, I just noticed that google chrome can translate it into English for you.  That would have been helpful to know 3 months ago.  Also, I just realised that I probably could have easily found another pattern for a crochet ball with a simple google or ravelry search, but this also did not occur to me.)

Draw-String Bag
Back in the fall, Jason and I scored a bunch of books and toys for Judah at a yard sale that we saved for Christmas and his birthday.  We got this set of blocks for 25 cents, but they came in a ziplock, which I thought was unacceptable.  So I made Judah a drawstring bag to put them in.  (Sidenote: no matter how many bags I make with flat bottoms, I always sew the corners wrong the first time and have to rip them out and redo them.)  And speaking of ripping things out and redoing them...

The Quilt Saga that Epically Broke My Heart
I finished the top of this quilt before Judah was born...so that's over a year ago.  It was loosely based on this sewing machine cover design in this book by Malka Dubrawsky.  I used a log cabin strip quilting technique to make 120 little blocks.  I pieced it together beautifully.  This thing was perfect...every little block perfectly squared.  But I never got around to quilting it.  Because I had this baby, and the rest is history.  Still, it was just so pretty that I used it in Judah's monthly photo shoots.

I was determined to have it finished for his first birthday.  It was going to be his big special gift made especially for him by his mama.  I worked on it all week...adding the borders, laying out the backing and batting, pinning every few inches, and finally, quilting it all together.  It was hard to pull all the layers through my basic singer sewing machine, but it was a matter of will.  I got to the end and inspected my work, and here's what I had done:

My perfectly squared blocks were all askew.  The back was all ripply.  I had ruined my masterpiece.  Apparently, the reason it was so hard to quilt was that my tension was off, and I didn't have a quilting presser foot.  I called my mom to ask her what I should do.  She said, "Well, you have two options.  You can just add the binding and call it done.  Or you can rip it out, bring it down to Jersey, and quilt it on my Elna 6003 Quiltmaker's Dream.  Do you want it to be finished, or do you want it to be done right?"  Boo.  I was hoping for "It's not that bad.  You're being silly."  But she was right.  This was Judah's baby blanket, and I wanted it to be an heirloom.  So I put it aside with a frowny face, feeling like a total failure of a mother, artist, and person in general.  Nevertheless, this was Judah's birthday.  And I wanted it to be about him, so I put the quilt out of my mind and moved on to the celebration.

[Edit: Since then, I did take the quilt down to Jersey, where my mom and I patiently ripped out the quilting.  She gave me a new piece of backing fabric, and we pinned it together.  Then she set up her Elna 6003 Quiltmaker's Dream, and I went to town.  And it turns out...it wasn't my Singer's fault after all.  I'm just a bad quilter.  I think I hold the fabric too tightly as I pull it through.  Because Judah's quilt was still ripply.  Jason and my mom both said it looked better, but if that's true, it's a minimal improvement.  I wasn't about to rip it out a second time, so I let my mom sew on the binding fabric, and I proceeded to hand-stitch it to bind the quilt together.  Finished.]

[Edit 2: But then I ran it through the wash, and the batiks bled onto my beautiful, clean, bright white fabric.  My mom says that if I keep washing it, eventually, the fabric will stop bleeding, and the stains will go away.  But the machines in my building are $3 per load, so that's just not going to happen any time soon.]

So for now it lives on the back of Judah's little recliner...wonky, wavy, and splotched.  So very far from the perfection of my original vision for the project.  But he is my sweet little boy, and he has compassion on his mama, and he's started taking it down and playing on it just to let me know that he likes it and that he loves me, despite all my insufficiencies.

Thanks, Judah.  I love you, too.

2011 CM4: Trivety

In addition to Miss Sadie Joy, my family drew my mom and dad in our Giberson Christmas lottery.  You'll have to wait to see what I gave my dad because it's one of the more impressive and extensive things I've ever made.  For my mom, I did a sampling of littler presents...nothing very grand but all given much thought and made with love.

At the beginning of November, my mom had knee surgery.  I'll save you all the gory details and all of the reasons it's totally unlikely that my mom would rest through the prescribed recovery period and just suffice it to say that I went down to Jersey for an extra week before Thanksgiving to help out.  In the midst of helping to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, I noticed that my mom was in need of a few things in the kitchen: kitchen towels, potholders, and trivets.  So I set to work on putting together a lovely little set of trivety* goodness.

*Trivety is a word that I have invented to mean having the properties of a trivet, which are to save whatsoever you desire from getting a nasty surface burn.  You're welcome, English language.

I originally thought about buying plain towels and appliqueing on them and making potholders from scratch, but then I got reasonable and went to Target.  I found a set of blue kitchen towels that I liked and set to work crocheting a few trivets.  I started each using this book of crochet motifs and then improvised my own extra rows if the pattern was too small.  Here's how they turned out:

(Click to see in more detail.)

I made a few of these a while back just because I wanted to make them.  I didn't know what I would ever use them for, but I wanted to try my hand at some crochet motifs beyond the simple granny square.  I really enjoyed making them but since they didn't have much utility, I forgot all about them and hadn't made any since.  But recently, I've been using them as trivets and hot pot lid grabbers.  They are absolutely perfect when you have something that's too hot for your hand but not quite hot enough to justify putting on the full oven mitt.  So there you have it: trivety pot lid grabbers.

So...towels, check (thanks to Target).  Trivets...check (thanks to the magic of crochet motifs).  Now for the pot holders.  I found some simple potholders (also at Target) that I intended to embroider.  But as impeccable as my hand-stitching is, it is not one of my speedier skills, and that Christmas clock just doesn't yield to embroidery.  Also, I figured that potholders need to hold up in the washing machine, and I didn't want my handiwork to unravel.  So I decided to use fabric paint instead.

I had done freezer paper stenciling once before on a lion burp cloth for Judah.  (It's cooler than it sounds, but it has gone missing, so I can't prove that.)  The lion was pretty detailed but it was nothing compared to my idea for the potholders.  I wanted to copy the design on the set of towels I bought.  But my freehand drawing skills are just not up to snuff with my visionary skills.  So I brought the towels up on the Target website and traced them.  Then I traced the design onto freezer paper and proceeded to cut it out with an exacto-knife.  Twice.  (Because you need 2 matching potholders, obviously.)  I ironed my stencils onto the potholders, sponge brushed the paint in, peeled off the stencil, and voila!  Custom potholders to match the kitchen towels!  (For a thorough tutorial on freezer paper stenciling, check this out.  It's even Harry Potter themed.)

The paint ran a little, which is disappointing.  I'm not sure if I used the wrong kind of paint or just applied too much or if the design was too intricate to hold up or if I didn't iron well enough or if the fabric isn't conducive to this procedure.  But in the end, they are still functional and prettier than they were before I put my hand to them, so I am satisfied.

And now my mom has a complete set of kitchen linens to cook the day away without further damaging the nerve endings in her hands.  How perfectly trivety!

2011 Christmas Makes 1: Mammamade Goodness

When I first found out I was pregnant, I couldn't wait to start making things for my baby.  I was thoroughly impatient to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl so I would know what color yarn to buy.  At 18 weeks, I saw Judah for the first time and instantly fell in love.  But Jason and I had only agreed on girls' names.  So right after the ultrasound, we went to Panera, and I said we weren't leaving until we agreed on 3 boy's names that we both liked.  We decided on Jacob Alexander, James Richard, and Judah Benjamin.  Once that was settled, we headed to A.C. Moore for some yarn.  I picked out a few and started crocheting blankets.  I wanted to experiment with variegated  yarn because I love colors but hate having to weave in the ends when I switch yarns.

The first one I started remains unfinished because I ran out of yarn and can't decide what to do with it.  But even in its unfinished state, it came to the hospital when Judah was born back in March, and it was the first mommamade goodness that ever wrapped him up:

The hat was made by my lovely friend Heater, artist and crafter extraordinaire.  You can check out her blog here.

The second blanket I started for Judah presented several challenges:

1. It took me forever to decide on a pattern. I searched and searched: google searches, ravelry searches, crochet book searches...but nothing was quite good enough for this yarn that I was so in love with.  So I decided to make up a pattern of my own: just a simple shell stitch.  It was perfect for how often my yarn switched colors.  In the end, I decided to add a half-double crochet border, which also worked nicely with the rate of variegation and gave it a nice finished look.  Problem solved.
2. I ran out of yarn.  (I've learned my lesson, and now I know to buy way more yarn than I think I need for a project.)  It took several months and several desperate trips to A.C. Moore before they stocked it again, and when it finally came in, it was a different dye lot, so the colors were slightly different.  But I dug through the bin to find one that was close enough that I don't think anyone would ever notice.  Problem solved.
3. My new skein of yarn had the colors in reverse order.  So I had to pull from the outside of the skein instead of the inside.  Granted, this is not a big deal, but it did result in some nasty, time-consuming tangles.  Luckily, next to my impeccable hand-stitching, untangling is one of my most advanced skills.  Problem solved.
4. My beautifully variegated yarn was naturally creating a perfectly randomized spattering of color.  But then, out of nowhere, for No Good Reason, it started patterning!!  Looking down at the blanket, I was horrified to find about six inches of very distinct stripes.  I pulled it out and did it all again.  Same thing.  I tried varying my tension.  No difference.  I pulled it out and tried again with even weirder tension tricks.  Still striped.  I walked away and tried again a few days later.  Stripes stripes stripes.  I must have pulled it out and tried again a good half dozen times.  Maybe more.  I finally settled into defeat.  The blanket would just have some stripes in it that I would probably be the only one to notice.  Problem accepted.
5. Judah was born, and I ran out of time to devote to crocheting.  But I decided that 9 months was long enough to wait for a complete mammamade present, and I determined to finish it for Christmas.  And I did.  Problem solved.

And here it is:

Do you see the stripes?  Even now they drive me a little crazy.  I have to force myself to not think about them.

Half double crochet border.

(For those of you who are not crocheters, I am not being redundant--half double is different from a single crochet.)

And here's Judah opening it up on Christmas morning:

Momma, you made this for me?

Yes, Judah.  Yes I did.  It only took me about a year.

That's great, Mom.  But this box is ever cooler!!

Where's Judah?

There he is!

Cozy up, little man.

 And there you have it.  Judah's first completed mommamade present.  I don't think he's very impressed, but I'm quite happy with it.  I love how the shell stitch shows off the colors.  And it's a good size for the crib and for a little playmat.  Despite all the issues it presented, I really enjoyed making it, and I've decided that it's going to be my go-to pattern if I ever need to make another baby blanket.  And now that I have it all figured out, I just might be able to finish another in less than a year.

Supernatural Self Control

I did it! Friday night when I signed off, when I was sure I would fritter away hours playing bejeweled, I actually popped in a Christmas movie and made something. I made this little guy:
And here he is with the new birdfeeder we just put up.

Keep in mind that he is a prototype. His mouth coals are too big, and his button coals should all be on his middle bump. But otherwise, I'm pretty happy with him. I debated about how to do his arms for quite a while. I jut don't like felting appendages, and I wanted him to have branch-like arms but figured that pipecleaners wouldn't be the right scale. So I settled for wire, and although it isn't brown, I think the silver gives a nice festive effect and may just be my future snowman arm solution.

As to the Christmas movie dilemma, I've decided to throw caution to the wind and just start watching my Christmas movies. It's not easy to fit 20 movies into a month. Last year, I was saving Year Without a Santa Claus for last and didn't even get to it. No Snow Miser. No Heat Miser. Unacceptable. So this year, I'm starting early. I don't know how I feel about my departure from tradition, but I'm trying not to think too much about it.

In other news, I stumbled upon a site with over 1500 free crochet patterns from Lion Brand yarn. I skimmed through them and found 15 new crochet projects I want to try. I think this might be my next crochet venture. As my baby bump begins to make an appearance with promises of bigger things to come, I'm starting to realize that I need a few more sweaters so I don't stretch out my entire current wardrobe. And I can wear it after my pregnancy because it's open in the front so my bump won't hugify it. Win-win. I'm a little nervous about crocheting clothing, especially in a "one size fits most" pattern. But it's basically just a rectangle, so if it doesn't work out, it can just be a baby blanket. Win-win-win. Speaking of babies, if our little turnip is cooperating, we should find out if it's a boy or a girl a week from today!!! Woohoo!!

Inconsistency, excuses, and the like

Well, so much for consistency. I guess it's just not in my nature. For instance, Jason and I were talking a few weeks back about scheduling. Jason is a teaching assistant for Greek this year, which means he has to be at an 8am class every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So he's been waking up early every single morning so as to have a consistent sleep routine. This does not seem at all logical to me. If I had to wake up early three days a week, you'd better believe I would be sleeping in as late as possible on the other days to help my body catch up for the glorious morning sleep I'm missing.

Consistency, discipline, routine...just shackles for a boundless imagination, right? I know that in order to be a serious artist, I need to work on that. At the moment, I could blame it on the little avocado growing inside of me, turning my days into an endless cycle of eating, being hungry, feeling sick, and eating again, but I was no more consistent when I was not pregnant, so it seems unfair to cast the blame on my unborn child. Let's just say that unemployment has not corrected all my shortcomings as I had hoped that it would. I keep telling myself I'll get serious as soon as I start to feel better, but that is a very subjective deadline.

Last week I did have a better excuse. Jason had a week off from school, so we planned a quick trip to Jersey, just Monday to Wednesday. Now, in order for this story to have full potency, you need to understand something about me and roadtrips. I. Do. Not. Stop. The only reason I permit a pause is because the car has run out of gas. Then it's fill up, grab something quick to eat from the gas station, and--if you must--go to the bathroom, but do it quickly, and we're on our way. Normally, Jason and I do the approximately 6 hour drive from Boston to the Promised Land with one quick gas stop on the Garden State Parkway, never leave the car, eat only the snacks we've packed for the trip, and we're there. But then I got all pregnant, which means that little apple baby was pushing on my bladder, and I just could not take it. So we pulled over in Connecticut, which is about 3 hours sooner than I generally permit a stop. I ran into McDonald's, took care of business, and when I came back out...the car would not start. Would. Not. Start. So we called AAA, watched helplessly and mournfully as the Wiggler was pulled onto the bed of the tow truck, checked into a Connecticut hotel for the night and sat in said hotel room watching Sports Center, Gator Hunters, and American Chopper until 3:00 the following day, when finally, with a new fuel pump, a large sum of money evaporated, and a very frustrated Robin, we went on our way. That will teach me to stop for a bathroom break. Never. Again.

Well, being that we didn't get to Jersey until Tuesday evening, it seemed silly to just stay the night and head out the following day after all that trouble. So we said we'd leave on Thursday instead. But then along came a Nor'easter, which is just no fun to drive through, so we ended up happily stranded in Jersey until Saturday, which meant that I got more time with the fam, and Jason got another round of golf with my brother-in-law Justin. Win-win-win.

But...that also meant that I didn't blog last week. I figure it's a pretty solid excuse. Except that Friday night brings my first post of this week. But what you have to understand is that blogging for me is not just about posting. I also have a HUGE blogroll that I read, and if I get behind, it's quite overwhelming, and the blogosphere becomes a dark and dangerous place that I avoid at all costs.

Nevertheless, I have begun a few new and exciting projects, which I will now reveal for those of you who championed this very long prelude.

This lovely little work in progress is going to be a cuff. Cuffs have been pretty big in the crafting world for a while now, and I have never gotten on board. I think they're kind of silly. But I found a pattern for one on ravelry that I fell in love with--probably mostly due to the color, harvest gold, which is my current color-crush--and I decided to suspend my prejudice for a chance to have a harvest gold crocheted cuff and to learn a new crochet technique called broomstick lace (I followed the tutorials found here.), which I simply adore but makes me quite nervous, which is why I haven't finished my cuff yet. Yup, we'll say that's the reason.

Here is a yard sale find from a few weeks back. It is a copper helmet ice bucket. I saw it, and I said to Jason, "How likely is it that someday we are going to throw a medieval-themed party and need a helmet-shaped ice bucket." Jason: "Um..." Me: "Pretty likely, right? We can't not buy this!!" Jason: "Yeah, you're probably right." And it was only five dollars...a total steal for something that most people would find completely unnecessary and odd but is now on display in our apartment as a victory and a treasure. (Sidenote: I have the most wonderful and obliging husband in the world.)

Here are a few felted projects that just require a few finishing touches. The holly is going to be a hairclip, and the little ball will be an ornament once it has a hook. The star was an experiment in felting with a cookie cutter, and I'm not entirely sure yet what it will be when it's done. I felted these pieces in preparation for the seminary Christmas bazaar that I did last year. I decided that this year, I really want my inventory to be all about Christmas. So I plan on making all sorts of Christmasy things from stockings to nativities to ornaments to aprons complete with Christmas cookie recipes to Christmas accessories like holly hairclips. I even took the time to list out everything I want to make, complete with pricing plans and special deals and everything I need to buy for supplies and display. And that's as far as I've gotten for five reasons:

1) I'm going to a wedding the first Saturday in December, which is when the bazaar was last year. And if I'm not going to be there, motivation becomes more difficult. I should just prepare anyway because I don't know when the date for this year's event will be announced, and it's not like things like stockings and felted creatures go bad. But still...no deadline = no motivation. Such is my way.

2) I don't have everything I need at my fingertips. I desperately need pipe-cleaners and just haven't gotten my act together enough to get dressed and go to the store.

3) I've found that my compact little crafting arrangement in my one-bedroom apartment is just too crowded to be a happy space. And before I can get down to sewing Christmas stockings and Christmas bunting and other miscellaneous Christmas cheer, I need to clean the bedroom, which has become the shove-zone for all things left homeless in the move from two bedrooms to one. And let's face it...brainstorming about all the wonderful things I can make is WAY more fun than cleaning.

4) I really don't like felting that much. But I know that people would buy felted nativities because they're unique and adorable and a person can't have too many and this is a Christmas fair on a seminary campus and I've figured out the perfect pricing model for them if I can make them simple enough to be cost effective. Win-win-lose. Win: I sell stuff. Win: People get to buy something that's handmade and high-quality and unique and affordable that they will use for years and years to come. Lose: I have a lot of felting to do.

5) I am a staunch traditionalist. My family would tell you that this is a gross understatement. For example, one year my family had to delay Thanksgiving dinner for 2 hours because I threw a holy fit that there was no cornbread and how could it be Thanksgiving if there wasn't any cornbread and I don't care that stores aren't open let's just figure out a way to make some cornbread. (My magician of a mom somehow pulled it together, and I think I ate only cornbread that Thanksgiving dinner to complete my emphatic principled stand.) All that to say, I desperately want to get in the Christmas spirit in order to jump-start my Christmas production. In order to do so, I would love to pop in one of the 20 Christmas movies in my collection and felt up a winter storm. But I do NOT start Christmasing until the day after Thanksgiving. Ever. And it isn't even Halloween yet. So I'm having quite the ethical dilemma here.

So there you have it. Excuses, excuses. But now I'm going to quit my whining and actually get something done. Because it's about freaking time, yes? I couldn't agree more. But maybe I'll just find something for me and little avocado to eat first. And then maybe I just might turn on the tv to make sure there's nothing on. And then I will probably just finish reading Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time before hopping on facebook and bejeweling myself into a stupor. You know, self-knowledge can be kinda dangerous when not paired with supernatural self-control. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Reentry

In which Robin welcomes herself back with a grand announcement...

I'm pregnant.

And the long and short of it is that that is the reason I haven't been blogging.

I quit my job back in May, and my last day was July 6th. And very shortly thereafter, I got pregnant, spent three weeks traveling up and down the eastern seaboard and the following weeks feeling very ill indeed. So here I am, in the middle of my 14th week of pregnancy and starting to feel slightly more human in the moments that Jason and I manage to keep me hydrated and fed (which--let me tell you--is a never-ending battle for a person who normally enjoys a constant state of dehydration and does not enjoy eating).

In addition to the whole building a baby thing, I have actually gotten a lot done in my absence. There's so much making and living and processing that I haven't told you about, and it started to feel overwhelming. So I put it off. And then it was really hard to re-enter the electronic universe when I had been away for so long and not only had to catch up on writing my blog but also on reading everyone else's, not to mention email and facebook and etsy trends and mod cloth new arrivals and playing family feud. *phew* Back when I worked in an office and didn't have enough to do to fill the lonely hours, I built a very complex and time-consuming electronic universe. It was my lifeline. But now that I am not confined to my office, it's a little harder to motivate myself to stay connected online, especially with such a backlog. And that--in addition to being pregnant, and maybe moreso than the excuse of feeling sick--is why I have not been blogging.

But that just about catches us up on a personal level, and I trust you will forgive me for being m.i.a. these past months. I'm officially back now. I promise.

With the exception of August and September, I actually have been pretty consistently diligent on the making front. Here is all I have done in my absence:

• Compiled a recipe book of all my favorites
  

• Finished the massive (5 ft x 5 ft) granny square blanket I started back in February
• Finished Megan's birthday (last November) felted gnome
  
• Finished Amy's birthday (last December) crochet purse
• Made a crazy quilt pillow for my friend Thais's high school graduation present
• Made dolls with a few ladies in my church for a charity
• Learned a new recipe (Avacado Salad) and mastered a few that have previously given me grief (Pizza Dough and Guacamole)
• Wrote an extensive manual for work
• Designed a new crafting space
  
• Made a tote bag/road trip kit for my neighbors who moved to Mississippi

I've decided that that is sufficient for a catch up. I'm not going to write separate posts for the above projects because that's just too overwhelming a task. But if you have any questions or want to hear more about any of them, let me know.

I also:

• Hosted my in-laws and brother-in-law for a weekend
• Moved into a 1-bedroom apartment
  
• Saw Mary Poppins on Broadway
  
• Spent a week at Delanco Camp, during which I was a teacher, craft lady, dean of women, and on the music team
• Spent a week in South Carolina playing with my 4-year-old nephew Jesse and meeting my newborn nephew Micah
• Took a side trip to Williamsburg with my mom on the way back up the coast
• Spent a few random days in Jersey with my family
• Found out I was pregnant

I spent the next two months feeling sick and overwhelmed, but now with the help of bullet points and the start of October, I am turning over a new leaf:

• I'm very close to being finished with a crocheted blanket I started for my dad's birthday (back in April). I finished all the squares last week, and now I just need to hook them together.
• Last Friday, Jason and I played at another Kalos Coffeehouse. This time, we got to be in the front scheduled half of the night instead of the open mic section, which was a nice little love-pat for my ego and also a lot of fun. We played Run That Darkness Down, Orion, and Ebony. Jason played piano on the last two, and I LOVED what he was able to put together. We also figured out that in order to have fun practicing music together, I need to eliminate the phrase "can you do something that sounds kinda like [insert ambiguous semi-musical nonsense]." All in all, despite the fact that our actual performance was a little shaky, I think that it was a great success, if only because we actually enjoyed playing music together during practice, which just might be a first.
• Last night, I did some drawing/coloring to help reconnect with my imaginative self. I drew a morning glory, a little sailboat on the ocean, a scene with assorted fairy tale abodes, and a ballerina playing a 3-stringed mandolin. While I was drawing, I listened to a Seabear album, which was totally relaxing and good for my soul.
• I finally joined Ravelry, which is a huge network of knitters and crocheters. And I found some lovely and exciting free patterns that I really want to make along with some good crochet book suggestions and overall inspiration to start spreading my hooks beyond the realm of the beloved granny square.
• In 4 weeks, I get my first ultrasound, which--if little lemon is cooperating--should reveal the gender of my baby, at which point, I will begin a flurry of baby-themed-making that is gender appropriate and the results of which I have absolutely no room for in our new apartment.

So there you have it. Robin is back.
[hooray! confetti! streamers! hallelujah chorus! cake for everyone!]

A Brightly-Colored Mushroom

Last Saturday morning, I woke up early. Not on purpose. The one day I get to sleep in...but no such luck. There really is no good explanation for why I was so wide awake on a Saturday morning. I am never ever wide awake. Ever. The only reason I can conjure is that I was having a dream that would not allow me to sleep any more. In my dream I was crocheting. But I wasn't crocheting the granny square blanket I've been working on for almost 2 months now. And I wasn't crocheting the cute slippers I made for my sisters for Christmas. I was crocheting a mushroom. And in my dream, I figured out how to do it. So I think my dream woke me up so that I could use this new knowledge it had worked out for me.

I obediently got out of bed, packed up a hook and some yarn, and Jason and I headed to Panera. Because really, if I'm going to be awake in the AM hours of a Saturday, I'm getting an asiago bagel bacon egg and cheese sandwich out of it. (Seriously, if you haven't had one of these, it will change your life. Go to your nearest Panera tomorrow morning and get one. They serve them up to 10:30am Sunday-Friday and up to 11:00 on Saturdays.) There we sat in Panera, Jason working on the computer and me crocheting a mushroom.

And as it turns out, my dream was right. I do know how to crochet a mushroom although I had never done it whilst awake. Here it is:

Pretty cute, huh? I have absolutely no idea what the point is of a crocheted mushroom is, but there you have it. I can do it. My dream taught me how.

Also during that Panera trip, I read through a journal I wrote while I was on a 3 week wilderness expedition before I started my freshman year of college. I had never really been camping before, but I thought that if I could get through 3 weeks hiking through the wilderness with 8 complete strangers, freshman year of college would be a breeze.

So I set out into the woods with my new hiking boots and my new hiking backpack and absolutely no idea about what I was getting myself into. And let me tell you, it was one of the most difficult and physically taxing experiences of my life. There were times when I thought to myself, "What if I just walked into that ditch right there and twisted my ankle? They couldn't make me keep going." Don't get me wrong...it was also one of the most satisfying and beneficial things I've ever done. But there were moments and days when it was really hard.

In one of those moments, I saw a little brightly-colored mushroom growing on the forest floor. It was a little burst of orange in an otherwise brown landscape, and I thought to myself, "That is one colorful mushroom in an otherwise very drab environment. It looks so out of place, but here it is. And it's doing just fine. If that little mushroom can survive and even thrive in this environment, so can I." And from that moment on, whenever I saw a brightly-colored mushroom, I was reminded that I belonged there and that God was with me and that I could still be my colorful little self, even in the middle of the wilderness.

It was one of many lessons He taught me in those 3 weeks. But I think it's especially pertinent to my life now. So I brought that little crocheted mushroom into my office, and it's now sitting on my desk reminding me that I can be a little burst of color in a somewhat drab environment, that God is with me, and that I'm going to be just fine.