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.

Valentiney

So I'm back at Gordon, working at that job I quit two years ago.  If I could go back in time, I probably would not agree to do this--it's put a good amount of strain on Jason (taking care of Judah while I'm at work) and on me (having to leave Judah and sit in an office by myself).  But this is where I am, and I decided that while I was here, I would make the best of it.  And that is why, when an email went out to faculty and staff announcing a game of "Secret Heart," I decided to be a little joiner.  Secret Heart is kinda like Secret Santa, but it centers around Valentine's Day.  You have a few weeks to send encouraging notes, candy, little presents to your person and then there was a big reveal party...which I did not go to...because let's be honest: I'm not REALLY a joiner.

But I did put together a little make for my Secret Heart.  I tried to think about what would be encouraging to me...sitting at my desk...bored and unmotivated.  And I thought that something homemade with a daily little encouragement would be nice.  And this is what I came up with:

 

It's a little bunting with five little pockets, one for each day of the work week.  It was a simple construction...didn't take me very long.  And I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I filled each pocket with a verse or several...some of my favorites in the "chin up" category.

And I wrapped it up with a note of explanation (because sometimes I just get self conscious and wonder if a recipient will "get" a Robin-made something), a mini box of chocolates, and a little felted heart.

I actually drove to Gordon and dropped it off, Judah in tow, which I was pretty proud of myself for doing because I don't get out much, just me and Judah.  When we got home, I decided to have a little photo shoot with my little man to send to his daddy while he was at work.  So to round out this little Valentiney post, I thought I should share some pictures of a boy I love very very much:

Forget toys.  He prefers coasters.

Paper is pretty high on his list, too.  Especially for a light snack.

Happy [belated] Valentine's Day!!!

Disclaimer: I do not actually allow Judah to ingest paper.

2011 CM12: Cathedral Window Quilt

And here it is.  The Christmas make to end all my other Christmas makes.  The Cathedral Window Quilt.

When we drew names back in July, I was really excited to get my dad.  He is generally im-poss-uh-bull to shop for because the kinds of things that he wants can only be found on ebay, and he's the only person who knows what they are, so he just buys them himself.  But two years ago for Christmas, I made him this cathedral window wall-hanging.  It's now hanging in my parents' living room, and on several occasions, my dad has mentioned how much he loves it.  So I figured that this Christmas, I would go for the gold and make a whole cathedral window quilt.

This is the project I wanted to start in August.  This is the one that had me moaning throughout the entire fall, "I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!!"

Countless hours of ironing to make 120 blocks:

Then sewing them into strips...

And then I was so busy cutting and pinning in the colored windows and sewing around each one, sewing more strips together, pinning more windows, sewing them in, and repeating...that I forgot to take any more pictures until it was done.

Front

Back (I love the trellis pattern that cathedral windows make.)

And here it is in its home, which gives you a little better idea of the scale.

Close-up!!

Unfortunately, the pictures don't do it any justice in the slightest.  I've been putting off posting this for a few reasons.  The main ones are:

• I just cannot think of sufficient words to describe this project.  The hours it took.  The strategic, systematic production mixed with the joy of creative sparks throughout.  How much I truly enjoyed seeing it grow and come together.  It was just so lovely, start to finish.  And I know that without really wonderful pictures, I have only my words to tell you about it.  And that makes me sad.
• All those makes I wanted to do in January to put away with my Christmas decorations...didn't happen.  No huge surprise, but I was really excited about them.  Then I want back to work.  It's temporary but still vastly consuming (time, energy, lifeforce, etc.).  I really wanted to go full speed ahead posting 2011 Christmas makes right into 2012 Christmas decorations.  Oh well.  I'm done working in 2 weeks, and then Jason has promised to still take Judah one day a week so I can get my creating mojo back in orbit.

I did manage to make a project for Valentine's Day, which I will post soon.  For realzies.

2011 CM9: A Tangerine in the Toe

Being the youngest of three, I never remember believing in Santa Claus.  Older sisters tend to do that for you.  They pave the way in school so your teachers love you before they know you.  They look out for you and give you hard-earned advice.  They take the brunt of your parents' discipline leaving you to coast through your adolescence.  But they also tend to ever so slightly tarnish the magic of make-believe.  I count myself among the fortunate youngest siblings of the world in that my sisters humored me more often than not.  And when they were being rotten, either by my blind faith in them or by their own convincing, I believed that we were just playing, and I loved every second.

When Christmas time came around, I still wrote letters to Santa asking for presents, but I knew my parents were behind it all.  Still, the tradition in my family somehow landed in this happy compromise between reality and deception: all the big presents wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper were from Mom and Dad.  But the stocking presents and everything wrapped in white tissue paper in neat piles under our stockings were from Santa.

Now, for those of you who didn't grow up with stockings or never welcomed the illusion of Santa into your home, let me tell you: there is a precise science to the way a stocking is filled:

• There is always candy involved.  This includes candy inside the stocking and 2-3 candy canes hung over the edge.  There is also usually a toothbrush to compensate for all the sweets.
• Presents are wrapped haphazardly with white tissue paper, closed with one piece of tape, and labeled with your first initial.  You can usually see through the wrapping to the present.  Because really, Santa has way too much to do to worry about pretty wrapping jobs for your stocking.
• There's some saying that originated somewhere about having a "tangerine in the toe."  For some reason, in preparing and opening stockings, we always say it, and it's very important.  But we use clementines instead because they're better.  And we just pretend to not know or notice the difference because it's just tradition, and that's how it's done.

And all that preamble is leading up to the fact that this was Judah's first Christmas.  And if you hadn't noticed, I am very particular when it comes to tradition, especially at Christmas.  So there was no way Judah's first Christmas wouldn't include a stocking.  So I stayed up way too late on Christmas Eve finishing this for him:

The front is pieced using a technique called crazy quilting.  It's probably my favorite way to sew because it doesn't require precision in cutting, piecing or sewing.  It's kind of like putting together a puzzle or a collage.  Once the top was done, I embroidered Judah on it.

Then I sewed the top to the lining and a layer of batting and did the same with the backing, lining, and another layer of batting.  Then I stitched the front and back together by hand.  To finish, I stitched on the gold trim, also by hand.

When I was in Jersey for Thanksgiving, I raided my mom's fabric stash so that Judah's stocking would match Jason's and mine.

With our lack of mantle, we had to hang our stockings on the kitchen cart.

 And here's Judah opening his stocking on Christmas morning:

J is for Judah!!

Don't worry--the candy canes were wrapped, and we took them away promptly after we were done taking pictures.

While we were opening presents, Judah stopped every so often, gave us a look like "are you sure it's okay for me to do this?" and then went right back to the paper.  I guess all of those, "Judah! Stop eating that wrapping paper!"s of the preceding weeks sunk in enough to make him hesitant.

He did this totally on his own.  The boy was made for product placement.  We really need to cash in on that.

And of course, the tangerine in the toe.

Merry Christmas, Judah.  Welcome to the family!