laser beams

Ta da!  Skully's all finished - now what to do with him?

This weekend I finally convinced Jesse to hang the art we'd purchased for Quinn's owl and bird-themed nursery (this is a man's job, you know).  I also dressed her crib in the adorable bird bedding set my sister and mom got for us. 

There is a small bare wall above the "head" of the crib (on the right hand side of this photo) and I've decided to embark on a more elaborate embroidery project for that space.  In keeping with our decorating theme, I found this gorgeous vintage owl pattern.  I added Quinn's name (which won't be as contrastingly bold when I embroider it) and came up with this template:

How cute is that?!  What color scheme do you think I should go with?  I don't think I want to overdo it with pink on this.

As for a pregnancy update, I'm still feeling pretty good as I near 30 weeks (though Quinn is kicking my guts out as I type this!).  My belly is growing one centimeter every week, and I'm definitely aware of it!  It can feel pretty taut and uncomfortable at times, but warm baths and Bio-Oil help a lot.  Here's an amusing photo Jesse took the other evening (from above my head) after one of my Bio-Oil applications (that's the only reason I ever walk around the house with an exposed belly).  I look fairly misshapen, which would either be because Quinn was struggling to escape or I was having one of my mega-frequent Braxton Hicks contractions.  These poor laser cats don't know what to think.

sugar

Where to begin?  I won three prizes in a raffle today.  :)  My luck had waned after my grand prize of a positive pregnancy test, so I welcomed the renewal.  I was awarded a $5 gift certificate to Sonic, a dinner-for-two certificate to a small, local Italian restaurant, and a free oil change.  Dinner's on me tonight.

I've been spending a lot of time preparing for my first craft night.  Jesse recently went back to school (this is very exciting!) and he's now working most evenings out of the week.  As a result, I have a lot of time on my hands and I decided it couldn't hurt to have some girls over for a fun evening of chatting, eating, and crafting.  I'd had my eye on some cool embroidery books for many months, and I determined that it would be the perfect group-conducive craft to try.

We'll be practicing a variety of stitches, learning how to transfer an image onto fabric, and then working on a small project.  I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before trying to show other people, so I spent a night trying about 10 different stitches on scrap fabric.  I then moved on to a small sugar skull design that I found in the book Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart.  Here's my progress so far:

This piece incorporates the backstitch, split stitch, cross stitch, straight stitch, and the lazy daisy (aka isolated chain stitch).  The lazy daisy stitches (in the center of the eyes) was the trickiest, but I think I did a decent job.

I have a couple more lazy daisies to complete, along with several French knots, then I'm finished.  I have a million different projects I'd like to try out, it's just a matter of deciding which one is next!

veinte ocho

28 weeks

dear zachary

You've got to watch this.  Just trust me.

Available on Netflix.

milk

I've been doing some reading on the topic of balancing a career (and personal identity) and motherhood.  It's something that causes me a bit of anxiety, because I don't want to imagine failing at one or the other.  Literature on this debacle tends to fall toward one end of a spectrum or the other, that being that either (a) the mother feels an almost undeniable urge to stay with her baby and forgo selfish career development or (b) the mother cannot imagine becoming a homemaker and is more than ready to jump back into the workforce when her maternity leave ends.  In the first scenario, a mother's identity is tied to her role as mother, first and foremost, and in the second she believes she must maintain her identity outside of motherhood - in order to ultimately be a good mother.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that I don't really know which pole of that spectrum I'll most identify with when the time comes.  I suppose the fact that I'm worried about how this blog entry will be received (I don't want anyone to think my life is already being consumed by my unborn baby and I've lost my personality) indicates that I'm more of a (b) type.

I'll just wait and see.  At the very least I'm concurrently reading one baby-related book (e.g. Milk Memos - I'm serious) and one non-baby-related book (e.g. Paul Auster's Moon Palace) at all times. 

Here's the gratuitous belly photo that I'm too shy to post on Facebook.  This is 23 weeks, though I did grow overnight just after this photo was taken.  That's how it works, you know.

And here's the adorable little cap my friend Nikki crocheted for Quinn.  I plan on honing my infant portrait skills once Quinn is born and I'm off work for a while, and I can't wait to photograph her in this hat! 

What else have I been up to?  I've been using a CD-ROM instruction program to learn Adobe Photoshop, for one thing.  I am already fairly familiar with Adobe InDesign and I think having a solid grasp of both programs will open up unlimited possibilities.  Photoshop may be the most complex, difficult program I've ever worked with, but I'm making progress.

One project that's constantly on my mind are the invitations to my sister's July 2011 wedding.  Though the wedding is a long time off, and invitations won't need to be mailed for some time, I want to have all my ducks in a row before Quinn arrives.  I've purchased all the paper and embellishment supplies I'll need and I'm waiting for the final shipment to arrive in the mail.  Kate and I have developed a plan for the overall construction, now it's up to me to work on design elements, make edits based on Kate's desires, then print and assemble the 150 invitations.  Here are some of the supplies I'll be using for the fuchsia, white, and white shimmer project.

bloom

An in-process shot of Chloe's t-shirt.  Pre-fancy embellishments like glitter and gemstones.

Lindsey's sweet baby, Hadley.  I visited her at the hospital when she was less than 24 hours old.

A crinkly ribbon toy I made for Hadley.

My notes for planning my sister Kate's wedding invitations.  Approximately 100 invitations with 7 components each.  This is going to be fun!

The Seattle Squid.  Jesse and I took a fun mini-vacation up there this past weekend.

The Puma gear I bought for Quinn.  I just couldn't resist...

flourish

A recent Etsy purchase I had to share.  You've got to get yourself some of these...

Lip Balm Set of 5

flourish bath & body

I chose Black Plum, Blood Orange, Asian Pear, Vanilla Mint, and Red Currant.  Deliciously aromatic, with a perfectly silky texture.  Yum!

nonstop

It's not that I've been doing nothing.  The days just seem to slip away and when you look back, it appears as though little has been accomplished.  Jesse and I both work full-time, and our evenings are spent preparing meals and spending time with Chloe.  I'm guilty of sometimes giving up on that plan and instead hiding in my room with a book.  Bad wife.

Right now I'm in the midst of helping Chloe make a "Big Sister to be" t-shirt, which I plan to have her start painting tonight.

Here's a photo of the plain t-shirt and the "rough draft" I asked her to create.  I drew the letters and Chloe colored them in and added embellishments to get an idea of what her final project will look like.

Here's a photo of Chloe at the Beaverton Farmers' Market, which we visited this weekend.

And finally, isn't this picture adorable?  It's Chloe at her grandmother's house in Arizona - she must have been about 3 at the time.  Darling.

It's only a week and two days now until the three of us go to the doctor to find out the baby's gender!  I'm getting so excited... it's hard to believe nearly 17 weeks have passed and Chloe will soon know whether to expect a baby sister or a baby brother!  It'll be wonderful to finally put an identity on this mysterious little avocado in my belly.

cupcake oh cupcake

I made some lemon-berry cupcakes for a lovely picnic we attended this past weekend at Laurelhurst Park.  And I can't... stop... thinking... about... them.  The final product was a combination of recipes, and I decided I'd share them here.  I was only able to snap a single photo with my phone before devouring my treats, so here it is:

I began by making a batch of Bakerella's Simple Sprite Cake, using lemon pudding rather than vanilla.  Now, it's usually against my beliefs to use a box of cake mix, but the exhaustion of pregnancy while parenting an 8-year old will make you do crazy things.  If you click the above link, don't feel bad if you get caught in the vortex that is Bakerella.  The woman is some kind of magical wizard in the kitchen and on the web.  Both of the recipes I've tried from her site turned out delicious and the site is very entertaining to browse.

I baked the cupcakes till plump and golden (the recipe yielded about 24 regular sized cupcakes).  As soon as they were out of the oven, I poked copious holes into the top of the warm cupcakes with a fork, then let them cool completely.

I mixed 1 cup of boiling water with 3oz. (I used half of a 6oz. package) of raspberry Jello.  Then, using a spoon, I ladeled the Jello liquid over the cupcakes until they were fairly soaked.  Using all of the liquid, I managed to cover each cupcake entirely with red.

Refrigerate these for an hour to let the Jello solidify.

Then I made a quick, light frosting by thoroughly mixing 1 cup of milk with another small package of lemon pudding.  I then folded in an 8oz. container of Cool Whip, stirring gently until no streaks remained.

I topped each cupcake with a healthy dose of lemony frosting, then garnished each with 2 rasperries and 2 blueberries.

Yum.

patchwork

Wow.  Have any of you ever pre-washed your fabric before beginning a sewing project?  I clearly had not - until Sunday.  And let me tell you, it went horribly, horribly awry.  Turns out I have a friend who knows about 30 tricks to make this process easier, but I didn't know any of them at the time. 

I took a nice, long solo trip to Joanne Fabrics earlier that day to choose fabric for two new sewing ventures.  One, of course, is the ballet-themed messenger bag I'm constructing for the winner of my contest.  The other is a floor-length patchwork skirt for my stepdaughter, Chloe.  I'm still developing the concept for the ballet bag, so I selected 4 different fabrics I think I'll use.  For Chloe's skirt I needed a big array of fun, lively fabrics that would work well together.  Here's what I came up with:

Once I got home, I tossed all of the washable fabrics into the washer.  I don't normally pre-wash, but I did so in this case so that both items will be washable without the risk of color bleed or weird shrinking.

To my aggravated dismay, when I pulled the yardage from the washer, it was one big tangled, unravelling mess.  I spent at least 20 minutes unknotting twisted balls of fabric and snipping long, loose threads with scissors.  Lesson learned.

In the future I may try (1) cutting the edges of all pieces with pinking shears rather than straight blade shears, (2) tucking the fabric inside a pillowcase before washing, (3) enjoying a cocktail before opening the washer [after December, of course].

Once I iron the heck out of the wrinkly bits, I'll be on my way.