It’s such an easy project. The Fabricland at North York Centre is closing and has lots of interesting things on sale so I picked up some gridded interfacing, and used the tutorial from Oh Fransson, one of my favourite quilting blogs. This quilt is now living with Ari’s cousin who turned 4 recently!

It’s her happy baby Niamh enjoying herself at the park while sitting on a quilt I gave her. See? It is a picture of the thing I made and gave away being used. This is what I wish everyone I gave my shit to would do and yet, sadly, they don’t. Perhaps I need to be more explicit when I give away something that has taken me hours of labour, blood sweat and often tears, “when you get this home I need you to take a picture of it somehow, preferably with you in it. And smile, dang it.”

Luckily Niamh doesn’t need to be told to smile.

This is me hoping that anyone who is in current possession of something I have made and given away will kindly take a couple of nice pictures and send them to me. You are allowed to say that I’m not allowed to blog it, that’s fine. Please!

I went to a craft show last weekend and wound up walking home afterwards. It was a good walking day, cool and damp, and I popped into lots of interesting gift stores on Bloor that I’d never seen before. I was inspired by the woman running one store who admired my nails and then told me they don’t really carry baby gifts even though people ask for them. By the time I got home I’d made my mind up, to make half a dozen baby quilts to bring to her and see if she would take them on consignment. This is number 3.

The black and white gingham will be the back, the red and white spots will be binding. I need batting and a trip to my mom’s next week will hopefully take care of that.

I promise to blog more. I got a camera and I’m feeling more positive right now.

Waving! Already!

Laughing. I told her about the great battle of Rob Ford and Marg Delahunty. Hilarious!

Then I taught her how to whistle. She is pretty good.

Then she posed for a silhouette which we gave to her mom. It was a good visit, we got a lot accomplished. Next week I’m teaching her to knit and how to rig a small sail boat. Should be fun!

Not a great pic of me, but it was the only one where her eyes were open. Out of 8. She was wide awake.

I’m hoping to get some decent sleep tonight. On top of my usual stresses in life, I lost my skull ring on Monday afternoon. I noticed it missing when we got home from High Park, ugh, and we drove back to do some searching and turned up nada. Tears, many tears were shed. Teeth gnashed. More tears. I turned our rather messy home upside down looking in all the obvious spots, then the less obvious spots and then the ridiculous spots. Nada. Looked everywhere another dozen times. I made posters for the park (honestly, I had no idea where I lost it) and a craigslist ad and told my neighbors and posted on Facebook and twitter.

Agony. My heart was in serious amounts of pain. And then my dad had his hip replacement surgery that did not go as well as planned and when I talked to my mom to find out how he was doing, I burst into tears in the grocery store.

No sleep+stupid amount of stress=crying in public. Vodka helped. Vodka is very helpful in small amounts. Ditto mind numbing video games.

Fast forward to today, 5 days from the day I lost it and guess what? Ari found it on the floor of the truck, in the back seat! I don’t often hug and kiss her, but today was certainly exceptional and I did plant a few on her rosy cheek. As a reward I gave her the pink knitted squid that she has been begging for since I made it. And Shannon got her a new game for her ds.

And my dad is recovering nicely, he is out of bed and enjoying the women’s world cup soccer.

Sleep? Come back please. You are missed!

It should work well for diapers and wipes. I know nothing about babies so I honestly have no idea what kind of clobber they require, I imagine it’s a lot? Anyway, it was nice coming up with a dual purpose gift.

…sillier than skinny jeans for newborns? In GOB Bluth’s voice: “Come on!”

…more relaxing than a hammock in the city?

Ali, you are going to be a GREAT MOM!!! You are going to ace this, I know it! I wish I could be there to help out more. And I hope your address hasn’t changed, ok?

Love you!

Sigh. New babies are the best. And like Ashley said, naming new babies is the super best.  Freddie? Love it!!

Now I have to beg all of you to make this frosting. I am not shitting you, it’s the best frosting ever in the history of frosting. Which I prefer to call icing, but frosting seems to be the more common term. I spread it on vanilla (made from a mix!) cupcakes and it’s delicious.

Caramel Frosting

3 tbsp butter

1/4 Cup heavy cream

1/2 Cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 Cup confectioner’s sugar

Pinch of salt

Over medium heat combine butter, cream and brown sugar. Cook until it starts to boil (I stirred the whole time), remove from heat and stir in vanilla and salt.

Cool, then stir in confectioner’s sugar.

I think it would be delicious on any kind of spice cake or chocolate cake too. Or spooned directly from the bowl into an open, salivating mouth.

Now I must figure out footwear. I tried today but failed miserably…