Celebrate Easter: Sock Hop

It's Easter week and today we're making a sock bunny! Super quick and easy, you could whip one together in 15 or 20 minutes while you're frantically filling Easter baskets after your kids go to sleep. Everybody has spare socks lying around with long lost mates! Put a little hop back into your discarded socks of any color, pattern or texture with this easy sock bunny tutorial. I'm not the first one to do

this. Elsie Marley has a tutorial HERE.

A few weeks ago Baby P and I took a trip to the beach and met my sister and Mom. Grammy is a big favorite with P, when we say,  "where's Grammy?" he runs to the computer to skype! Cracks us up every time!

Of course, Grammy brought lots of fun things for P, including this great book!

It is adorable! The story is fun and creative and I love the simple illustrations that are all in shades of blue, white, black and yellow (and flesh...). It's all about a boy who wakes up with a bunny named Fred on his head. Even the endpapers are clever!

After the boy wakes up, he goes about his day, doing everything with a bunny on his head.

This is P's favorite page, he constantly turns back to it if we go by without reading it four or five times and pointing out all the parts of the moped.

Because this book has become such a favorite, I decided to make a Fred bunny for P to play with.

Here's what you need:

a sock (I used one of my athletic socks that has been lonely for far too long)

polyfill or scraps of batting

white sewing thread and a long embroidery needle

scissors

embroidery floss (I used light blue and black)

There's a lot of room here for variations, just push and pull the stuffing until you get the shape you want. I wanted my bunny to look like he was sitting up on his hind legs. 

After you get to the fourth step above, take your scissors and carefully cut down the front and back of the sock opening, leaving you with two ears. You may need to trim a little so that you are left with a real 'bunny ear' shape. I took blue embroidery thread and did a blanket stitch around the edges to give it a little cuteness and hopefully decrease the unraveling. A few dabs of no fray along the edges would be a good idea too. I also tied blue floss around bunny's neck and tail. If you had a girl you could use bright ribbon with a big bow. 

For the face, there are so many options, but I wanted to mimic the look of Fred the bunny. I started with a single strand of black floss, knotted at one end. I began stitching at the nose so it was easy to hide the knot. The only thing you really need to remember with this is whenever you make a stitch, you need to bring your needle out wherever the next stitch needs to start. In the middle picture below, my needle went in to finish up the mouth then came out where I wanted to position Fred's eye. 

For Fred's eyes, I made French knots. Simply wrap the thread around the needle a few times (see above right), and keep it snug while you sew back into the bunny through the loops. Bring the needle out wherever you want to make the second eye, sew another French knot. I brought the needle out at the back of the bunny's head, tied a small knot then pushed it inside the sock. 

Voila! That's it! Pretty sassy looking bunny for an old sock. 

This would be a fun addition to any little one's Easter basket! I'll add a picture of my little "boy with a bunny on his head" when he gets up from his nap!

Think it Through Thursday

I just started reading Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts. If you haven't read it, put it on your list and have a box of tissues ready at your side. It's a book you should read slowly, to be digested slowly. She deals with big, hard questions in this book and talks about real, hard life issues. It's convicting and inspiring in so many ways, God speaks through scripture on every page  In the book, the author is struggling, (at least in the first 5 chapters) to grasp and fully know the joy that God promises in a world that is full of pain and loss. Ann's premise is that ingratitude is what keeps us from seeing and knowing God's grace, at the challenge of a friend she begins to list one thousand gifts. Many are simple, everyday things. Noticing beauty in the common, in the details. She looks at this list as a way to learn gratitude, to be thankful and to see God's grace in the big things, one has to be thankful for (and notice) the small. Here is a section of the book that I found particularly convicting.

"It is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo (thanksgiving) for the deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. [...] Gratitude for the seemingly insignifican--a seed--this plants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life--even the hard--is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.

I, too, had read it often, the oft-quoted verse: " And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20). And I, too, would nod and say straight-faced, "I'm thankful for everything." But in this counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life. A lifetime of sermons on "thanks in all things" and the shelves sagging with books on these things and I testify: life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time." (p. 57)

I am so guilty of that "slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving," especially in my prayers. "Lord, thank you for your many blessings." Does not acknowledging each blessing keep me from fully seeing the incredible gift? I think this acknowledging would definitely focus my mind and heart on what I have been given, on the grace, rather than on what I don't have. Contentment starts here. I'm tempted to start a list of my own, train my eyes and mind and heart to see the grace in everyday things. 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things!!

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel...so baaaaaad!

These are a few Christmas gifts this year that make me particularly glaaaaad!

This gorgeous book from my dear friend, H. It's by one of the gals from Purl Soho (which has beautiful things and a great blog). There are patterns and tutorials for all sorts of amazing projects. The photos are lovely and the pages are glossy and perfect. I love books and I'm especially going to enjoy this one.

I pinned this next book on Pinterest a long time ago and I have stopped by Barnes and Noble more than once to flip through it and get ideas. It comes with an envelope of pattern pieces and great ideas for those wild boys. Everything is practical and wearable. This was a gift from my Mom, I might have dropped a subtle hint like finding it on Amazon and putting it in her shopping cart :).

This is the "Little Heartbreaker Jacket." I want to make it in a light, seersucker with a little pair of shorts for P for Easter. How cute would that be?!

Also from my Mom, the new BBC Emma mini-series!! It's sooo good and sooo much better than the Gwyneth Paltrow version which tended to make me feel slightly ill.  I could watch Jane Austen adaptations all day, every day so I'm thrilled to add this sparkling, jewel of a film to my library.

I watched this BBC version of Sense and Sensibility two years ago when I was in the hospital on bedrest with P. I loved it then and had it on my list to buy at some point. It is fabulous and so close to the book, great actors, (blows the Kate Winslet version out of the water). Get it, watch it, then watch it again. (Thanks, Mom.)

This was a little gift from the Hubby. We got to go on a date one night when we were visiting KY and stopped by our favorite bookstore, Joseph-Beth Booksellers. I have several Jane Austen biographies and am so interested in all the details of her life. This book was written in a really interesting way and incorporated tons of details from her novels as well. There were some new things that I hadn't heard before! Thoroughly enjoyable! (Sidenote, keep buying those paper books, people!! Even if you have a Kindle (like me) let's keep those beautiful bookstores in business!)

This favorite thing I bought for myself. A few little bags of vintage buttons. I found them in a random drawer in a desk at an antique store in KY, I've never seen buttons there before. These white ones and the fluorescent red are my favorites. I definitely need to incorporate them into a fun project.

The large blue buttons in the top right of this picture are actually snaps! I haven't seen that before.

Until next time!

May you bloom and grow forever!! (I really need to get The Sound of Music out of my head)

Baby Photo Album

There are lots of adjustments after having a baby. You get used to so many things being different, waking up at night, picking up the floor hundreds of times a day, gathering snacks, drinks and diapers before leaving the house, lots more laughing and playing, many more moments of pure joy. I will say, however, that those little moments of joy generally do not occur during a long car trip with a baby.


For every car trip we prepare the standard emergency food (in P's case it's blueberries and goldfish), an array of new toys to inspect, a stack of familiar books, and Baby Beluga on repeat (must I say ad nauseum?). After these have lost their magic, what to do? I was lying awake making plans for a trip we took a couple of weeks ago and worrying about how to entertain Baby P. My thoughts kept gravitating to the idea of a soft, baby photo book. P enjoys books and loves seeing faces he recognizes in pictures. Because we live away from family right now, it's nice for him to be able to know everyone when we visit. There are probably places you can buy these (in fact, I just saw one in the One Step Ahead catalogue), but I wanted to choose my own fabrics and it didn't seem like a complicated project. I was right about how much P would like it. Look at this reaction to the first competed page (you'll notice it's lacking a cover, etc...).

 It was a little time consuming (especially if you make your own bias tape like I did), but it was definately worth it and I love that I can change out the pictures periodically. The photos are covered by plastic, protecting them from grubby, Blueberry fingers. It holds five 4x6 size pictures and two (approximately) 2x3's.

Here are a couple more views, I am thinking of creating a tutorial sometime soon.

I'm wild about that colorful chevron print, it's "Remix" by Robert Kauffman.

I was really in a hurry for this, I think it would be cute to do felt applique letters or add another photo sleeve to the front. I just handstitched the letters and added big, fat French knots to them.

This is our dog Leo, Baby P's best buddy. He LOVES pulling back the flap and seeing him. The pictures aren't exactly the right size, I was cutting/folding the edges in the car. I had the book done as we were leaving for our trip, but I didn't have time to put the pictures in.

This was a fun and super rewarding project. P carries it around the house and is thrilled when I plop down on the floor with him and say, "Where's Grammy?," "Where's Jordan?" "Where's Mac?" and let him point. This would be a sweet baby shower or toddler birthday gift as well.

Doodle Stitching!

I'm so excited! The items I ordered from Amazon came yesterday!

I was hooked when I saw the fanciful cover and there's something I just love about handstitched embroidery. I imagine it on baby shirts, sheets, pillowcases, pillows (projects that take a very long time to finish). The book is great! Lots of pictures, I love the author's color choices and ideas.

There are really good, clear explanations of all the different stitches with photos.

Here's a really original idea, stitching on balsa wood to make charms for bracelets or necklaces.

There's also a CD in the back with templates for embroidery ideas. With all these ideas, I started thinking about this little shirt I found for Baby P on clearance at Old Navy.

I thought it would be easy to outline a few things with embroidery thread, but where to start! The birds were easy, but I didn't know what to highlight on the dune buggy.

The tires seemed fun and maybe the main body of the car, but I thought that thick orange line on the left side brought out the wrong perspective and looked odd.

So...I took out some things and added some others, but still thought it was too much.

Here's what I ended up with, just a few things highlighted, a few drops of water on the surfboard and light reflecting on the windshield.

Not perfect, but interesting. I think it might be harder to embellish an existing design than to embroider something from scratch. It's too easy to accidentally highlight the wrong parts or overwhelm what's already there.

The other thing I ordered from Amazon is this 2 inch, Clover, bias tape maker. It's humongous! I can't even tell you how big it looks compared to my 1 inch. I can finally finish my quilt!

Here I am making tape out of white muslin for the edging on my quilt...many, many yards.

Two Good Reads

A Discovery of Witches

(From Goodreads.com)

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism

I loved this book and think the review above does a great job of summing it up, although I usually cringe when anything is compared to the Twilight series. I am an unabashed Twilight fan, but the whole new "vampire/werewolf" genre that is trying to ride on its success is full of absolute trash. This book is not in the same category at all, despite 'vampiric' characters and a brief reference to werewolves.

Anyway...this book was a recommendation from a friend who has tossed other great books my way, so I bought it immediately and didn't put it down. Six hundred pages later I was hankering for more and tantalized by the hook at the end which clearly pointed to an upcoming sequel. I will definately be looking out for it!

After finsishing A Discovery of Witches, I felt the need to supplement my diet of fantasy fiction with a little biography/literary criticism. I am a huge Jane Austen fan. I've read several biographies on her and I have one of those neat folio books from Barnes & Noble with maps, pictures, paintings, copies of letters and drawings, among other interesting facts and things about Jane Austen and her life. I've even read Jane Bites Back (in which Jane is actually a vampire and still living today), although I did refrain from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...

I'm now reading Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman. Isn't the cover great!?

I'm only a few chapters into it, but the preface was fascinating. Harman goes into the different ways that Austen's work (plots, titles, and quotations like the intro to Pride and Prejudice) have been used in everything from major news headlines to commercials to movies to operas to Facebook quizzes.

" 'All the reading world is now at Miss Austen's feet,' and a hundred years on, Austen is the only author who is instantly recognizable by her first name." (Preface xx)

That's true, you know! If it's an uncommon name, you could make some guesses. Charlotte. Ernest. Homer...no, wait?

Flowers...Spies...Spies posing as Flowers...Posies of Spies...

1908 edition

So one of my all-time favorite books is the Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. If you haven't read it, shame on you, go run right out and find it. The sad thing is that the Baroness (yes, that is actually the author's title) didn't write much more. There is a sequel to the Pimpernel, but it's not readily available and lacks the 'pzazz' and excitement of it's predecessor.

Several years ago, in my rambles through the fiction section of my favorite bookstore (Joseph Beth), I came across a series by an author named Lauren Willig. She took the concept of the Scarlet Pimpernel and created a new set of books based on the idea of English spies during the French Revolution and beyond. Sir Percy Blakeney (the original Pimpernel) is present in the series, and he hands over his spying dynasty to the next Flowery Hero in Willig's first book The Secret History of the Pink Carnation.

Here is what I love about these books:

1) Historical facts match real history. There's nothing worse than..."ummm, that historical figure wasn't alive yet during the time in which you've chosen to set your story." Willig has clearly read and researched and is a great writer. Get this, she has a bibliography for each book on her website filled with both primary and secondary sources. The ol' writer of research papers in me loves that!

2) There is a mystery (or several) in every book that isn't immediately 'solvable' to the reader. I can't stand when there is an obvious answer to the riddle for hundreds of pages but the author refuses to admit that the plot lines aren't complicated (or interesting) enough for hundreds of pages. Willig doesn't commit this faux-pas. There is actually a modern storyline (a young woman doing research for a PhD thesis) as well as the plot unfolding in history, it always makes for a page turner. Although each story is about a different main character or characters, there is always some relationship to the stars of one of the other books-siblings, friends, etc... This gives some continuity and context that I enjoy.

3) Romance and Substance. If I read a book that contains not an ounce of real plot or internal struggle or real-life hardship (i.e. Shopaholic), then there's something missing from the reading experience. Willig's books are funny and romantic, but there is also some real issue at the heart of the action. The character development is really good, by the end of a book you understand and sympathize with characters that you detested at the beginning.

4) Beautiful cover art. I know the old adage "don't judge a book by it's cover," but these are lovely on the outside. I will say the newest one looks different and not as attractive, I'm going to see if it's the same artist.

This is the first in the series of seven.

4) They're long enough for real enjoyment. Being a quick reader, I am often disappointed with short books,  large print, etc... these do not disappoint, except for the obvious sigh when the rollicking good story is over.

Anyway, I'm greatly looking forward to these two new books by Lauren Willig that I am admiring in their substantial, hardback, papery goodness (not Kindle format).

Released in January, the cover seems
different but the story looks exciting as ever!

A Christmas book, released in October 2010

(that I wish I had known about in December).

The Kindle...

So, I already posted about my birthday, but the rest of my gift from my sweet husband came two days ago. It was a Kindle!! Ok, so I've always said I didn't want any sort of electronic reader. I'm a book purist, I love the way they feel and smell and I love reading books more than once. I love all different sizes, I feel that I should have a large copy for home reading and a tiny copy for travel reading of the things I really love-Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre are two examples. I love a good bookstore and shopping for new books is sort of like a treasure hunt to me. I would be horribly sad if one day there were no bookstores, only virtual books, or real books that you have to special order and that cost a fortune. I also don't like looking at a glowing computer or phone screen for long periods of time, it makes my eyes and head ache.

However, there are times when I wish I could travel more easily with a week's worth of reading (you can't find tiny copies of everything). I had to take 5 books with me to the beach a few weeks ago and several were hardbacks. I felt no resentment, because I heartily enjoyed them all, but it would have been trouble if we were flying. Also, I don't often use the library, which would be a smart thing, because I like to own books. This becomes a problem with limited space and when you buy things that you realize later you will never read again. I will never read the Stieg Larsson books again. They were exciting, but way too much for a second go. Now, I have two cheapo paperbacks in weird fluorescent colors (can't use them on a mantel) and one hardback, which I actually am going to return to Target, because it's in perfect shape. Don't mention it to Target, please. Those would have been great books to read on the Kindle. I'm also reading Shopaholic on the Kindle-I do not want to own those books, I probably will not want to re-read them, but they're funny, light stories that I am enjoying for now at a very discounted price.

Furthermore, the Kindle is super light (only the width of a pencil)! I can hold it in one hand while feeding the baby and not get tired (it weighs less than an ounce), not fuss with page turning, and not drop the hardback on my foot binding down, for the third time (all hypothetical of course). You can turn pages from either side, forwards and backwards, with just your thumb. This is great for me because I like to read in bed lying on one side, and I'm constantly having to flip the book back and forth to see the pages and flip my reading light as well. With a Kindle you can buy a new book anywhere there's wi-fi access. You can highlight or make notes if you're reading something for a book club or study, like I'm going to be doing with Tim Keller's Counterfeit Gods. (A book that costs $19.99 in real life, but only costs $9.99 on the Kindle).  Also, the Kindle screen looks like a printed page. It's doesn't glow or light up in the dark (so you do still need a light) and it doesn't hurt your eyes--although reading anything for 9 hours straight will strain them a bit. I've never done that...except for Harry Potter 5, 6 and 7 and maybe all the Hunger Games...ok, never mind... Also, the makers of the Kindle seem to be kind of reading purists themselves. They are not going to make the Kindle in color, or with games, or any function other than for reading. (Update: Obviously I wrote this before the newest Kindle tablet came out, color, touchscreen, games, etc...) Ok, that's all good, but...Amazon sold more books on Kindle last year than real books. I'm still not sure about the repercussions of that.

In conclusion, the Kindle has it's place. I'd rather people be reading good books than watching a billion hours of TV or Facebook stalking and looking at pictures of total strangers for hours on end. Also, there are millions of free books on Kindle, anything in public domain and written before 1923 is free. That means most of the classics and all of Jane Austen. Last time I checked, bookstores were still making you buy them. So now I can have my big copies, tiny copies, Kindle copies, and audio copies (on my phone for when I'm cleaning or driving, not a joke). I will never be without Jane Austen again!! Thank you, husband!

P.S. It stays charged for a month!