Practice makes... well, hopefully at least better.

I planned on quilting Brenna's quilt by hand... which would take approximately twelve and a half years.

But then I came across this and this.  So fabulous.

And I also love her free motion quilting.  Which is faster.  And hard.  So I started looking for directions, tips and tricks.  I found directions, but as for tricks... well, most everything I read said practice.  Practice, practice, practice.  I hope no one paid money for that advice.

So I have been practicing.  Since good quilting fabric is expensive, I went to my handy local Giant Discount Establishment and bought a couple yards of cheap fabric.  But even then, batting was still more expensive than I wanted to pay for practice materials.  So upon consideration of the materials at hand (meaning, spread across the floor of various closets) I decided to quilt one of the "mess" towels we keep around for cleaning up the plentiful spills around here.  Brilliant, right?  Well, sort of.  Not really smooth, and TONS of lint, but it's doing the job.

Free motion quilting is basically using your sewing machine needle to draw pictures on the fabric.  But instead of moving the pen, you move the paper.  So the key is to keep the foot pedal at a steady pace, while also moving this huge, heavy quilt around under the needle... and make it look nice.

 

I divided the quilt sandwich into squares, and I'm practicing a different style in each.

I love spirals.  And I suck at them. You can see here how moving the fabric and the pedal at the wrong speeds really impacts stitch length.  It's totally like learning to drive a car again :).  One of the tips that I keep coming across is "don't look right in front of the needle.  Look where you want it to go."  I think I heard that a time or twenty when I was learning to drive!

I think this is the one I'll use on Brenna's quilt.

How cute are these guys?

This one is Nathan's favorite.

I'm not ready to start on the quilt yet... I really want to get my stitch lengths under control, but I think I might be able to start next week sometime.  Yay!

Just had to share...

Isaac OWWW! from Miranda Stewart on Vimeo.

A couple notes:

This display was after a pillow fight, which is why Isaac didn't think anything of Brenna popping him in the nose.

There are shoes everywhere because they are Isaac's latest obsession.  He carries them around and throws them at whomever he thinks might be in need of a pair of shoes (and he always carries the pair).

Poetry

I've never cared for poetry.  I don't really get it.  As a kid, I couldn't write it, and well... there just was no reason to try.  Except Shakespeare, because actually, I love the sonnets.

So it has come as a fun surprise to me to read kid's poetry.  I love it!  A.A. Milne is a favorite, sweet, personable.  And to be honest, one of my favorites was a bit of deja vu:

Spring Morning

Where am I going?  I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow-
Anywhere, anywhere.  I don't know.

Where am I going?  The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going?  The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"

Where am I going?  The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going?  The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going?  I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere.  I don't know.

The first time I read this to the kids it sounded very familiar.  I read it through again and realized where I've heard it before- one of my favorite movies as a kid: Kindergarten Cop.  As silly as it is, every time I read it now, I wonder what it is about this particular poem that the writer's of that movie wanted to share it.  It is definitely a read-aloud.  If you're not a fan of poetry yet, try reading it aloud.  It has the most beautiful rhythm.

So that's what I'm thinking about today.  Poetry, and starting back at the beginning to learn to love something.

Splash!

Rainbow Making

To make a rainbow,

light must learn to paint

with beads of water

mixed with air

just right,

and master every color 

row by row

to shape a bow.

It seems to take 

a lot of stormy tries

to watercolor-paint

on misty skies.

Purple!

When I brought this beauty, an Islander bell pepper, home from the store, I mentioned to Brian that it was purple, but he was in a 24 induced TV coma and didn't hear me, apparently.  So a few days into our trip to California I called and asked how the garden was doing.  He went back to check on it.  Our conversation went like this:

"OH NO."

"What?  What happened?"

"I think I killed the peppers!"

"Why?  What happened?"

"They turned PURPLE."

I laughed.

This morning started out so well.  Our whole family was up and out of bed early,  dressed and eating breakfast an hour before we needed to leave for church.

As I was upstairs fixing my hair, I heard thunder roll overhead.   I thought, this is an alternate definition of insanity: flattening my hair before going out in a thunderstorm. Little did I know!

I came downstairs, and Brian was checking the weather.  The rain was pelting the windows so hard it sounded like drums.  I tried to make a video of it washing up over the curb in front of our house, but mostly just succeeded in soaking my pants and the floor six feet into the house.   I never stepped out the door.  We couldn't see the storm drain in our driveway at all.   

So we decided to wait for the rain to die down, then make a run for it.  In the meantime, we played twister, strategized out trip to the car and enjoyed the show outside the windows!

When it finally calmed, we ran out the door, and our neighbor was on the porch.  I learned he plays the piano at his church, and couldn't get a ride.  We had plenty of time, so we drove him in the wrong direction to his church.  The trip was pretty amazing.  And scary.  Here are some pics I took with my camera phone, in between quizzing Brian on all the reasons we were NOT going to end up like all the cars we saw dead in the middle of the road.  My husband is quite intrepid!

This is St. Charles, the main historical street, about half a mile from where we live.

 

This is also On St. Charles.  We were driving on the neutral ground (the median) on top of the street car tracks.

 This is a four way intersection with sidewalks.  That car up on the left is dead in the water.  As we drove down the street, one of the several people we came across standing out in the water directing traffic around the deepest parts of the very potholed streets, yelled at us to slow down.  As we made wakes, water was being pushed into peoples cars and houses.

 

We were circling around the freeway, trying to find an open on-ramp.  That car was blocking the one we needed.

So finally, we got to church.  We ran in, because we were pretty sure they were going to be short staffed, and we were teaching the three and four year olds second hour.  A very relieved woman who was caring for ALL the under-fives by herself during the Sunday school classes quickly left the room, taking the smallest babies with her.  As things settled, Brian and I ended up with the two to five year olds.  TWELVE of them.  Chaos ensued.  

Oh, a hilarious moment during the Bible story time:  our church here brings the kids into the same room for the Bible story, then sends them back for snack and crafts and whatnot.  So during the story today, the teacher asked "what do we hear with our ears?"  The kids yelled "sounds!" and "music!" and one five year-old yelled "NOISE POLLUTION!"

After church, we experienced our first crawfish boil.  I'm not gonna lie; I found it a little bit alarming.  At one point, a gentleman I really like asked me if I sucked their heads.  Um.  I turned around and looked at him, and said, "I'm going to pretend you did not just say that."

There was face painting, balloon sword fighting, and a toddler rolling around in the mud (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of, but someone else did, so hopefully I'll be able to get it).

A very, very full day.  Followed by much needed naps.

Thinking...

I feel like lately I start every spoken deep thought with, "I don't know if I can articulate this properly, but..."


So.  I don't know if I can articulate this properly, but...

I've been thinking about parents parenting differently.  I suppose more basely, about being judgmental.

For the purposes of this post, please know that I am thinking only of the impact of parenting, and not at all of kids' personalities.   

Brian and I want so badly to raise well behaved, godly children.  I want my kids to be articulate, thoughtful, intentional in their relationships.  But too often, I find myself parenting to avoid things.  I don't want my kids to do that, behave like that.

And the thought keeps occurring to me are those kids any less likely to know Jesus because they are allowed to behave that way?  Or, conversely, is the standard of behavior we expect going to impact whether or not our kids know Jesus?

Obviously, I don't know the answer. 

We probably won't relax our standards.  And really, that's not even what this is about; it's more the idea that every parent parents differently.  Brian and I parent differently.  My kids will turn out with a very distinct set of strengths and weaknesses, the particular combination of which will be different from any other parents' kids.  And I only have it in me to cover the things I can cover.  There are going to be things that I miss, or just do completely wrong.  And there are things I will do really well; the things that I focus on because they're important to me.

So I guess I'm glad that we all do it differently, that we discipline, educate and relate differently. 

I wouldn't want my kids to face a world full of people who share the same difficulties or talents.  We are a community, and we need the differences to function, since none of us are, you know, God. 

And my oft-uttered closing:  Did that make any sense?

Or are there major flaws in my reasoning?  (come on, let me hear it!)