Tag: Penguin

Needles, Thread, and Halloween Dread (Just a Little!)

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Another week in October is DONE and it was another busy one: Donation pick-ups for the band fundraiser, setting up volunteers to sew/reinforce buttons on band uniforms, various doctor appointments for the kids, the Cross Country Leagues race, dinner with my granny and aunt…all good things.

Freshly-Quilted Quilts!

I picked up the freshly-quilted Penguin Party and Layer Cake Crepe quilts from the quilter and they look FABULOUS. I was pleasantly surprised, as was the quilter, that the Layer Cake Crepe quilt turned out so well…it’s kind of a boring pattern, but when you get the quilting done on it, it really starts to sing! I’m looking forward to binding those soon!

Rachel’s Graduation Quilt

I even managed to sneak in some sewing and I am ecstatic to report that the top and backing of Rachel’s Graduation Signature Quilt are pretty much DONE! I thought they were done-done, but then remembered I still have to appliqué a couple of late signature blocks to the quilt.

ASAP Projects

But I can’t get to any of those quilts until I finish up two projects: The Ward Harvest Party Chili Cook-Off Champion apron and the Band vests’ buttons.

Chili Cook-Off Champion Apron

The Ward Harvest (really: Halloween) Party is this week, and we always have a chili cook-off competition at the same time. I’m a huge fan of friendly competition, so I suggested we award some sort of prize with low-key bragging rights and volunteered to make Champion aprons for our various cooking competitions throughout the year. I made one for the cobbler contest we had at our Pioneer Day BBQ and it turned out super cute! I decided to go more gender-neutral on the chili apron because I think we’ll get a lot of guys participating and rick-rak isn’t a favored look by that demographic.

I was having a hard time motivating myself to work on the apron last week because I want to finish Rachel’s graduation quilt, and eventually I had to crowdsource some motivation from my family: Renaissance offered to “bully” me by refusing to watch the series we’re working through together UNLESS I was working on the chili apron. Worked wonders. Something went a little wonky with vinyl placement–shocker (vinyl is not my preferred creative medium!)–so I need to create and cut another little bit of the illustration to fill in an empty spot, but then it’ll be done.

Band Vest Button Reinforcements

The band vests aren’t that big of a deal, but they popped up out of nowhere and it’s just another thing I’m keeping tabs on until they’re done. Our director noticed that the buttons were wearing through their attaching stitches and asked if it was something we could fix before it became a bigger problem. I threw together a Facebook post asking for sewing volunteers. Some people offered to help, I told Nathaniel to bring the vests home from school, and the volunteers came to my house to pick up their assigned vests. No biggie. Love being part of a community that helps!

I did notice some vests were missing buttons, so I’ve taken over those particular ones. Of course, they’re satin-covered buttons that match the vests’ golden-butterscotch color, but I just got off the phone with the company that made the vests and it turns out you can just order the buttons from them. They will be here sometime next week and I’ll reattach them then.

Another Christmas Knitting Project

I also decided to throw prudence to the wind and commit to another Christmas gift project, but discovered that I didn’t own the correctly-sized knitting needles for it. So I ordered those, and they’re set to arrive sometime this week.

Last-Minute Halloween Preparations

Oh, and it’s Halloween Week, duh. So I need to be working on Michael’s and my costumes for the Halloween party, and our trunk-or-treat setup. Might go super simple, might go super creative and awesome. It will really depend on how this week goes.

Last Week’s Progress:

  • Picked up Penguin Party and Layer Cake Crepe quilts.
  • Finished piecing the top of Rachel’s Graduation Quilt.
  • Almost finished the Chili Cook-off Champion apron.
  • Distributed Band vests to sewing volunteers, ordered replacement buttons.

This Week’s Goals:

  • Finish Chili Cook-off Champion apron.
  • Halloween costume creation.
  • Create Trunk-or-Treat decorations.
  • Ward Harvest Party miscellaneous creations.
  • Reinforce Band vest buttons while waiting for replacement buttons.
  • Maybe start working on the new Secret Christmas Knitting Project. I need a good codename for this one…I think I’ll call it “Project Snickerdoodle.” I don’t know if I can pull this off in the time left before Christmas, but the beauty of knitting is that it doesn’t go bad. If I completely miss this year’s deadline, it can always be a gift next year.
    • Milestones I’ll need to hit if I want to finish this in time for Christmas:
      • Oct 26-Nov 1: 13% done
      • Nov 2-8: 25% done
      • Nov 9-15: 38% done
      • Nov 16-22: 50% done
      • Nov 23-29: 63% done
      • Nov 30-Dec 6: 75% done
      • Dec 7-13: 88% done
      • Dec 14-20: 100% done
      • Dec 21-24: Blocking & wrapping

The Lovely Hurry of Ordinary Life

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The school year is massively underway! Life is operating at a breakneck, nonstop pace!

Cross Country

We hosted the Cross Country team dinner before this week’s meet, and it was so much fun! If I could do my parenting all over again, I would have pushed for every one of my kids to run cross country. That group of kids and their parents are just the best sort of human beings. They all work hard, they’re all polite, and they’re a no-drama group who are always thankful for anything you do for them. I love that Nathaniel runs cross country.

We served a pasta bar with amazing garlic breadsticks, and Renaissance spent three days making custom decorated sugar cookies for the team. Nathaniel sure has a sister who loves him!

The meet went well. I always enjoy cheering with the other parents as we move from spot to spot on the course. I think Nathaniel finished fourth on his team, and, compared to this time last year, he is running faster. He’s not at a personal record (PR) pace just yet, but he’s steadily improving.

Relief Society Activities, Now Featuring Rachel

Rachel is serving on the Relief Society Activities Committee and she conducted the activity that was held this past week. She was adorable. It’s so funny to me that she doesn’t really like public speaking, but she’ll soldier through because, while she doesn’t like doing it, she fully realizes it’s not going to kill her to speak in front of people. Sometimes that’s the healthiest mindset for getting through something.

Pep Band

Another home football game, another potluck for the pep band! We did a chili and baked potato bar this time and once again had too much food left over. Better than the alternative!

It was also our Alumni Night, where we invited any and all band alumni back to play with the band for funsies. The turnout was a little smaller than we’d hoped, but Renaissance and her two band buddies decided to go and it was so cute to see both Nathaniel and Ren playing in the same band. It was a nice evening.

Three young adults pose together at their pep band alumni night.

Rachel’s Graduation Quilt

Haven’t touched it. Not one bit. When would I have had the time?

Husband Christmas Socks

Still slogging away on ’em. They look good; it just takes a long time to knit socks for man-sized feet.

Gardening

We’re trying to tidy things up in the yard before winter arrives. We’ve cleared the area where I want to plant the bulbs, and then Michael offered to build me a raised bed there, so at the moment it’s a bit of a mess. AND…our plans for next weekend have changed drastically, so I don’t know if we’re going to get this project finished anytime soon. Eek!

There’s another busy week ahead of us, but it’s mostly really fun stuff! It’ll be fun to share with you next week!

A red, white, and blue sawtooth star quilt block with farm animal fabric squares

Crafty Goals: July 2026

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Welcome to Full-on Summer, otherwise known as July! Whew! You guys, the Brookes were very, very busy in the month of June; I’m so glad I didn’t make any actual crafty goals for the month because there simply wasn’t any time available for crafting.

Debrief: June 2026 #craftygoals:

Music and artist ribbon graduation leis in maroon, gold, and white.

Graduation: Rachel is officially graduated from high school! I love graduations so much; the only celebrations I love more are weddings and babies. These life milestones are so special, and I try hard to make sure that they feel extra special for the individuals involved. I made a cute artsy ribbon lei for her and music note lei for one of her friends in the band because I think she’s awesome, and we threw a big ol’ graduation party as well. So much work! But everything went well and the party was well attended, so I’m satisfied.

Rainbow paint chips board with bags of chips attached

Summer Plans: Well…sadly, my husband’s mother passed away the day before Rachel’s graduation ceremony. June 2026 was all about graduation plans and funeral plans. Once graduation was done and dusted, I pivoted immediately into funeral trip preparation. I was also invited to sing at the funeral, so I spent the weeks leading up to it feverishly transcribing (finally) a song I’ve been working on for years and working with Renaissance to write a flute part so she could be a part of it, too. I’m happy to report that it went well. With all of that going on, it’s easy to understand why summer planning has not happened yet.  

Family dressed in black at an LDS funeral.

July 2026 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Graduation Quilts: All the signature blocks have been collected, so it’s time to start piecing! It’d be really great to get Rachel’s quilt completely done this month, but it will probably take longer than that, much to the dismay of the many people in our circles who have become (in their own words) obsessively invested in the final outcome of her quilt. Hey, if peer pressure helps you move forward with positive, productive things, then put that peer pressure in the driver’s seat and let it motivate you to push towards the finish line! (Looking at this in a realistic light, I think there’s a good chance I can pull off getting both of the flimsies complete in July.)

I am not sure when I’m going to get to Renaissance’s graduation quilt, though. With the realization that I want to put the signatures on the back of the quilt, I now need to create an entirely new quilt for the front of the quilt. As luck would have it, I just purchased a pattern not too long ago to make for her “someday,” but it’s a bit involved. I might work on a “palate cleanser” project once I finish Rachel’s grad quilt and before I get going on Ren’s again. I want to finish Ren’s grad quilt before the end of this year, though, that is a definite goal.

Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: I knew June would be busy and I’d fall behind on this, so I’m not panicking, but it is a goal to get caught back up with my blocks in the upcoming month. It’s just NINE blocks, no big deal…ha ha ha. I guess I’ll shoot for three per week. Oh, man…

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

  • Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: The binding is done and Emily even slept under it when she was here for Rachel’s graduation. The label is not done yet, and I got it into my head to make a complicated label, so I’m working on piecing the label during my self-imposed mandatory 15 minutes of “Finishing Time” at the start of every work session in the craft room. It’s possible to get this done this month and do a legit photoshoot and all, but I can also see this label taking longer than that. Hopefully it all gets finished this month.
  • Riley Blake Designs’ Block Challenge Quilt: There’s so much on my plate this month, so I’m going to shoot for getting six of the chevron blocks done.
  • Baby Quilt: A friend is pregnant! There’s a baby on the way! Yay for babies!!! I’m trying to decide on the direction I want to go with this—I have a flimsy already made, the “Best Friends Farm Wonky Stars” quilt from during my Blank Quilting ambassador days, that would work beautifully, but I feel guilty re-purposing something I already made? That guilt is silly, right? If I decide to go with the partially-made quilt, I’d like to have it basted by the end of the month. If I decide to make a new quilt from scratch, I will need to decide on my pattern and acquire the fabric by the end of the month. As I write my options down and look out upon the expanse of projects waiting for my schedule to open up so I can work on them, I’m leaning heavily towards using the already-existing flimsy.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: Get as much work done as possible on Smitten. It’s HOT in the craft room in the summer, so hand-piecing is perfect for this weather. I should set a daily stitching time goal for this. Fifteen to thirty minutes a day or something. We’re in the slog of it; I just need to sit my butt in the chair and stitch and it’ll be over faster.

Knitting: I usually work on the Husband Christmas Socks in secret, but I am much further behind on them this year than I normally am, so I’m going to talk about them because publicly shaming myself works for me. I try to have the Husband Christmas Socks done by the Fourth of July so they don’t hang over me, but here we are, almost at the Fourth of July, and I’m only about two-thirds done with the FIRST sock. Eek! The situation isn’t dire, obviously, but some heat needs to be applied. I’ve been working on them for fifteen minutes a day for some months now, but I guess I need to bump it up to thirty minutes until they’re done. It’d be great to finish them up by the end of the month, but a practical goal would be finish the first sock and get to the heel of the second sock? That’s actually a little ambitious, but possibly doable. I have some other socks I’d like to knit up as gifts this year, so being behind on this is annoying to my Christmas junkie senses.

Embroidery: None for this month. But it is July and hand stitching is lovely in the summer, so hopefully I get through my projects so I can visit some embroidery projects. There’s nothing like sipping lemonade and embroidering in the garden while the bees buzz in the lavender plants.

Summary of July’s Crafty Goals:

  • Rachel’s Graduation Quilt: Finish both the signature back flimsy AND the pencil crayon top flimsy.
  • FQS Sewcialites 3: Sew up blocks #15-23. (3 per week.)
  • Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: Finish the label, photoshoot, blog post.
  • Riley Blake Designs’ Block Challenge Quilt: Sew up six chevron blocks.
  • Wonky Stars Baby Quilt: Baste. (Do I need to secure a backing and batting?)
  • Smitten EPP Quilt: 30 minutes of stitching a day.
  • Husband Christmas Socks: 30 minutes of stitching a day.
  • Embroidery: Indulge in some summer garden stitching on Sunday afternoons and soak in the aesthetic.

Old Photos, New Thoughts: Looking Back as Spring Marches on…

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Whew! April is HERE and we are happily enjoying its beauty and all the work that it brings our way. Children prance about in the sunlight, there’s Easter and General Conference preparations to take care of, and there’s beginning to be a bit of “school will be ending” energy in the kids’ activities, despite there being a good two months of attendance left. There’s just something about the beginning of April; it’s peak spring and looking-to-the-future vibes. I love it!

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The band was involved in a big bunch of parades over the weekend, so there was a lot of prep work for that. Band Boosters pack lunches for all the kids and chaperones, which requires a bit of logistical tap-dancing, but we got ‘er done. Rachel also got to be in the parade this year—she pushed the wheelchair of one of the band students. As luck would have it, that student plays percussion, just like Nathaniel, and the two of them were placed next to each other in the parade formation so I was able to get photos of both Rachel and Nathaniel together in a parade! I never thought that would happen. (I’m not going to post those photos because there’s a whole bunch of other kids from the school in the shot and I would not like it if other parents posted pictures of my kids in public spaces on the internet.)

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I was looking through old photos of the kids doing gardening and Easter prep work throughout the years and feeling all the feels from those days. What a blessing it has been to be able to easily share their childhood moments with family through the blog and through social media. It was not part of my plan to have lived so far away from family while my kids were growing up, but at least there was an easy way to keep in touch. I’m so thankful for blogging and social media in that regard, and more grateful on top of that when I consider all the great opportunities that have come into my life because of the blog, namely, the opportunity to collaborate with Fat Quarter Shop, Blank Quilting, and the other businesses that I’ve teamed up with to promote quilting and knitting projects.

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I’ve been on Instagram for over eleven years now. Who would have thought that little free photo-sharing app would turn into what it’s now become? The online world has changed so much over the years, and I’m a little sad to say that I’ve found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace. The pressure to stay relevant and adapt to new trends can sometimes overshadow the joy of creating. More and more I find myself wondering if I want to keep participating in a rat race where the rules keep changing without any notification or warning. Somber thoughts for such a beautiful time of year, but there you go…

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Happy April!

Two Weeks of Creativity in One Post: A Birthday, a Quilt, and some Music

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The past two weeks have been full of color, celebration, and music! Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve been up to:

Birthday Magic

We celebrated Rachel’s seventeenth birthday last week with doughnuts and a tea party! We had to postpone the family birthday dinner due to last-minute glitches with the tea party scheduling, but that will happen pretty soon. She had a fun time with her friends and I tried to make things nice for her last “childhood” birthday. I can’t believe these kids are getting so old!

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Nearing the Finish Line

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The King David’s Crown quilt is nearly complete. The “finished” photos of it were due this last week, so those have been taken and submitted, but there’s still some last bits of quilting to do on it and the binding and labelling, which I’m going to do slowly because I’m really burnt-out on crafting at the moment. (Blame the Februaries…blah.)

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So Much Music-ky Goodness

The past two Sundays had a lot of music in ’em. Ren and I performed a beautiful arrangement of “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” two Sundays ago, and last Sunday the choir sang a really pretty arrangement of “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need.” Music takes a lot of work to happen, but it’s work that matters! I love the enthusiastic musicians in our ward who are always up for the next thing. Work continues on the Easter program and I also need to spend some quality with the latest batch of newly-released hymns so I can write up a game plan to get them introduced to our congregation.

Also Some Sugary Goodness

Renaissance was asked to help out at the Relief Society activity this week and showed the ladies how to decorate cupcakes in three different ways. She did so good! Yay for fun church activities!

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Up Next…

I’ve got some “finished project” posts coming soon…there’s a pair of socks that took a tub-tub this morning and currently drying on their blockers. I’ll try to get that post written up ASAP to share with you! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Feral Choir Concert Toddler

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Seeing how I posted my goals for the week on Wednesday, the chance that I’d make significant progress on them was small. It’s just been such a busy week, and with needing to still rest when I start feeling tired I just don’t have a lot of time for the extra things. It’s a frustrating place to find oneself, but nothing terrible will happen as a result. I would just like to be able to do all the things, is that too much to ask?! 😉

Top priorities this past week:

  • Processing the garden harvest
  • Ward Choir logistics
  • Band Booster everythings
  • Walks
  • Secret Christmas knitting

Caring

Rachel had her first choir concert of the year on Tuesday and it was really lovely. I love seeing how much kids can do after only a handful of weeks into the school year. Even the freshman choir sounded great!

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Unfortunately, the family that sat behind us at the concert had a free-range toddler who pulled out some of my hair, and when I turned towards whatever the heck had yanked hair out of my scalp the offender wetly sneezed directly onto my eyeballs.

Zero stars. Would not recommend. It got even worse later on when the toddler tripped and smashed its face into the back of my seat and screamed their anguish into my ear. I was very glad when the concert finally ended and I got to go home.

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Nathaniel had his last cross country meet today and he did SO GOOD. He placed TENTH in his race with a time of 20:00.0. He wanted a 19-minute-anything time so badly, but alas…ha ha ha. Considering that he ran his first race of the season with a time of 23:03.0, I think he can safely be pleased with his progress over the season.

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Garden

I think all we managed to work on after all the work at the beginning of the week was to get the last pumpkin roasted and pureed. I did go to the store and purchase ingredients to make Green Tomato Mincemeat, but the excursion made my incisions hurt, so I decided to rest a bit before continuing with my plans. Unfortunately, I started feeling crummy that evening, and I woke up Friday morning feeling awful and ended up sleeping most of the day away. I think I was fighting off whatever the Choir Toddler sneezed into my face. I needed to do a bunch of other stuff today, so I still haven’t gotten to the mincemeat.

Community

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The church Halloween party was last night and Rachel and Renaissance helped out with the face painting. Renaissance also took over getting our van ready for trunk or treating once it became obvious that I would not be attending the party due to feeling so yucky, and she did a delightful job!

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Ward Choir logistics were dealt with this week and we’ll have sheet music to sing from tomorrow as long as I remember to make copies in the morning. I also ordered all of the Christmas sheet music and expect it to arrive next week, and I could cry over how much it all cost, but if I can get everyone I want to help out with the Christmas program it will be amazing. I am very excited about the possibilities.

I did not get to Band Booster stuff, but it’s high on my list of priorities for next week. The fabric for the table runners should arrive Tuesday afternoon, so I guess I’ll start sewing up table runners on Wednesday or Thursday. (Boring! But needed.)

Health

I went on zero walks this week. Between getting over the cold from last week and dealing with the Choir Toddler flash illness this week I just haven’t had the energy to do much more than some halfhearted office-y work from the couch. I’m doing my best, folks.

Healing from my surgeries is feeling good. One of my incisions is healing a little slower than it should so I have to do some extra care for that three times a day, but it looks like it’s working and the wound is finally closing up. Grocery shopping really tired me out on Wednesday, so I’m still working towards having more energy. It’ll come back.

Creativity

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I worked on my not-secret knitting for a little while before Rachel’s choir concert. Emily and I went on a little yarn crawl together in July and I saw a skein of self-striping yarn in perfect Christmas colors and I had to have it. I’m making some adorable Christmas socks for myself from it and adding in solid red heels and toes because it’s perfect. I’m almost done with knitting up the heel flap of the first sock. I love that you can take the downtime of daily life (like waiting for a concert to begin) and use it to get further along on a project, rather than wasting that time looking at a phone. More crafting in public is needed! Join the cause!

I didn’t work on anything else due to the aforementioned ickiness that prevailed all week. I’m falling so far behind! Fingers crossed for a healthy new week!

Highlights

  • When Nathaniel came running over the crest of the hill before the finish line in his race, way before I expected to see him.
  • The huge smile on Rachel’s face when we handed her the bouquet of flowers after her choir concert.
  • How cute the van looked after Renaissance finished decorating it for the Halloween party.
  • Emily brought me Panda Express for lunch one day as she came home from running errands because she thought I’d like it.

Lowlights

  • The Feral Choir Concert Toddler :::squinty side-eye:::
  • Two illnesses in one week

Despite all the illnesses, I AM getting stronger and feeling better each week, so that’s good. Michael and I both are really excited for how much better I could potentially feel in my daily life once I get all healed up. Ugh, the amount of pain and lost days I’ve had to deal with for the past ten years is gobsmacking. And it could just be over now. Maybe. That’s incredibly exciting. We shall see…

I’ll leave you with a photo that Nathaniel texted me while he was out on a run this week. I may not be getting out a lot to enjoy this beautiful autumn weather, but my kids send me pretty pictures of it, for which I’m grateful. There’s always happy little glimmers to make one smile…

Renaissance’s High School Graduation

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We made it! She’s a full-fledged high school graduate!

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I’m just so proud of her. She’s always been a hard worker and these past two years have seen her working harder than ever, which has been awesome to witness. She’s ready for the real world with a plan and a work ethic that will bring her success. I just love these milestone moments; these chapter endings. She’s done with being a child, which is bittersweet; but she’s got a whole blank canvas of adulthood ahead of her, which is so exciting. I am so glad to be a mother and to have done the work of mothering this sweet girl. She’s been such a joy to raise and I can’t wait to see what she does in the next chapter of her life.

Enjoying the End of Year Festivities

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This week was full of fun activities—the end of year film festival for Rachel, Nathaniel’s final middle school band concert, and the senior honors night for Renaissance.  It’s so much fun to see the culmination of everyone’s hard work at the end of the year, and, in Ren’s case, at the end of her K-12 school career.

Top priorities this week:

  • Graduation & recital clothing
  • Graduation quilt progress
  • Party decorations & ordering progress
  • Planting last of plants in garden
  • June’s hymns

Celebrate

Graduation party preparations are going well.  My credit card fraud department gave me a call this week to make sure my card hadn’t been stolen because I’m ordering large quantities of things from businesses that I don’t normally do business with, so that was a funny little moment.  We will have shelter from the weather and ways to keep the food warm.  Excellent party prepping.

I made a lot of progress on the signature quilt as well; all pieces have their top and bottom borders.  I’ve had a number of requests to mail blocks to people who will be unable to attend the party, and I need to get those out in the mail.  I ordered more of the white fabric because I think I’m going to have to either make a bigger quilt or incorporate some signatures blocks into the backing, which is an awesome “problem” to have.  It’s so nice that people want to share their good memories and well wishes with Renaissance.  She’s such a kind soul.

We went to a graduation party for Renaissance’s friend Riley on Saturday. We’re really there! Graduation things are happening! It was such a nice event; there were all sorts of band families there and lots of great people who are involved with the school in some fashion. Riley’s mother, Chrissy, has been involved with everything forever and wow, does that ever create a fantastic village for your kid when you do that. Good food, good friends, and the best picture wall I’ve ever seen done. It was lovely.

Gardening

I haven’t planted my remaining plants in the garden yet because budgetary constraints dictated that I wait until next week to purchase the planting containers and extra potting soil.  It’ll be fine.  Nathaniel is so pleased that we’re going to have raspberries and Rachel is really looking forward to her strawberries.  It makes me so happy to stoke their interests in gardening; it’s such a great hobby and skill to develop for their adult years.

It’s rained a lot this week, so the plants are well-watered and I haven’t been out to check on anything too much.  From my kitchen window it doesn’t look like the slugs have been getting to anything, so I’m optimistic that we got the majority of them killed whilst weeding over Memorial Day weekend.  Fingers crossed!

Community

I haven’t touched anything church music this week, which is OK because I always post a month’s hymns through the next month’s Fast Sunday, so we’re fine.  I’ll get June’s hymns finalized and posted during church on Sunday.

Highlights

Nathaniel’s concert was so great.  I am just so impressed with our music programs in our school district.  Proud to be a part of it all.  Nathaniel had a big part in one of the songs they played where it looked like his arms weren’t even connected to his body because he was drumming so fast.  So proud of him.

Renaissance participated in the elementary school walk through this week where the seniors go to their old elementary schools in their caps and gowns and parade about and talk to their old teachers, which I think is the cutest idea ever.  Since she didn’t attend elementary school here she decided to go to the elementary school where she volunteered and read to children last year, so some of the teachers knew her anyway.  It was even topped off with the PE parachute being brought out for the seniors to play with one last time.  Because honestly, gym parachute was peak elementary school enjoyment.  What a fun week for her.

At the Honors Award Ceremony Renaissance was awarded cords for a high GPA and having 50+ hours of community service, and she received her stole for National Honor Society.  A wonderful surprise that evening was the announcement that she’d been awarded two $1,000 scholarships from our community’s scholarship foundation!  Those scholarships will cover her expenses for her first quarter of pastry school!  We are so grateful for our community’s contribution to her post-high school education, and proud of her for doing all the work to earn those awards.

Renaissance will be playing her flute during Baccalaureate next week, and so she was flipping through our church’s hymn book and all the flute books for church and asking me if specific hymns were LDS-oriented only or if they were well-known in other denominations, and it was nice way to spend an hour together.  I was pressing quilt blocks and making my guesses and she was confirming with some internet research, and we learned a lot about different songs, some that I would have guessed were only known to the LDS church and then we’d find out that it’s been around since the 1600s and we’d laugh at our silliness.  I’ve missed doing church music stuff with my kids—I’m proud of their work in the school bands and choirs, but church music was where they started and I’ve always enjoyed doing that with them.  We figured out which hymns would be recognizable to people of other Christian faiths as well and she created her program from those choices.

Lowlights

I have a smattering of ant bites on my left wrist and hand from a Memorial Day gardening mishap and they have swelled up angry and red and they’ve itched and ached all week long.  I look like I have some sort of communicable disease. 

Rachel asked that her final film project NOT be shown at the film festival. She was heartbroken over how all it shook out. She loves making films, but this was a group project gone sour. Thankfully, her teacher respected her wishes and didn’t show the film.

The five-year-old dishwasher developed a hole in one of its hoses and leaked all over the kitchen and ruined the wood floor we had installed just a few years ago from when the fridge developed a leak and ruined the wood floors.  This is bad for three reasons:  1) The floor is warped and absolutely ruined, 2) We’re hesitant to make another claim on our homeowner’s insurance and risk our rates going through the roof, and 3) Our family must handwash the dishes until the replacement dishwasher shows up next week, and a family of six creates a lot of dirty dishes.  It’s been a moderate source of stress.  One of my work arounds has been to have whoever is on dish duty to start working while I prepare dinner.  I like the results so much that I may keep this arrangement going in the future.  *silver linings*

Another week done and dusted! Oh, next week will see me on the verge of tears pretty much every day…I’m so proud of my girl, but so sad that her little childhood is ending. I have absolutely loved being a mama to these sweet people. I’m excited to see where adulthood will take them, but do I ever miss pigtails and brown paper bag puppets. There will be new cool things! I just don’t know what they are yet, and that’s ok.

The Beginning of Renaissance’s Graduation Signature Quilt

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I’m a huge believer in the power of a debriefing at the end of a project, event or era.  I think it’s monstrously constructive and therapeutic to take a minute to pause and reflect over the past [whatever] and feel all the feelings and think through the highlights, lowlights, and ways to improve in the future.  I love reading the wisdom of those who’ve been through it before me and I love celebrating the wins.

I also love the idea of heirlooms and traditions, and I’m hoping to solidly get some things established in that category with Renaissance’s graduation party.  I’ve been researching so many different ideas for her graduation party and one thing that popped up was having a signature quilt that people could sign for the graduate.  I had been thinking about a book of wisdom or index cards with words of wisdom or something like that, but the problem with those is that they get tucked away in a box and rarely seen ever again, and a signature quilt could be a tangible reminder of all the great things people have to say about you and what they hope for you, left out for memory jogging and having the potential to really become a part of your early adult years and memories.  And, really, HELLO—quilt.

So I started looking around for a possible pattern and stumbled across this post, which featured a quilt pattern that I’m mighty familiar with, seeing that I was one of the debut sewists for it when Fat Quarter Shop released the pattern back in 2020:  The Jelly Belly Bars quilt.  It’s an easy sew and it uses precuts, and that’s what I need right now.

I texted Ren and told her to choose a jelly roll from Fat Quarter Shop* and was not surprised at all when she decided to go with the Here Kitty, Kitty fabric collection by Stacey Iest Hsu*.  Renaissance and Quesnel have been joined at the armpit since Quesnel joined our family almost fourteen years ago, so cat fabric makes complete sense.  I’m pleased that she picked out something by Stacey Iest Hsu as well, as my kids’ childhoods have had many of her fabric collections and dolls hanging around in the background.  It’s a perfectly fitting choice for an end-of-childhood memory project for my girl.

My plan is to sew up the individual blocks and have a quilt block-signing table at her graduation party.  I’ve also extended the invitation to loved ones who will not be able to travel to her party to contribute a block to the quilt, whether I send them a Jolly Bar-sized (5×10-inches) piece of fabric or they cut fabric themselves.  It’s been a good reception thus far!

These next few weeks are going to be an absolute flurry of graduation activities and party preparation, but I’ll try to show updates on this quilt when I get the chance!

*Affiliate link: When you click an affiliate link in one of my posts and make a purchase from that vendor, I receive a small commission at no cost to you.

The Month of May Churns Away

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I cannot believe that it is still the month of May.  So much has been going this month that is seems like it’s been two months in one.  What a busy, fun time of year!

Top priorities this past week:

  • Get grad party invitations out
  • Get Christmas tree down
  • Garden
  • Cleaning
  • Laundry

Celebrate

Graduation party invitations are almost all mailed or delivered, yay!

The Christmas trees are officially dismantled and stored away until November.  For future reference, Future Cara, it only took an hour to take down the giant Christmas tree, so stop dragging your feet about it in the future.  And also, Future Cara, you are freakishly busy from January through May for the next four years, so take down the Christmas stuff before the New Year.  Just do yourself that favor.  Please.

Garden

It’s radish season!  I need to spend some quality time with my mandoline slicer in the next weeks.  We’ve not eaten a lot of radishes as a family, but boy howdy are my kids going to get some exposure in coming days!  I purposely planted a purple variety in the hopes that it will make Rachel happier about eating them.

One of my big plans for the Memorial Day weekend is to get the garden and yard cleaned up and we spent a big chunk of yesterday doing that.  There’s still so much work to do, but we got a lot of the worst of it done so I’m hoping that tomorrow’s work will see it through to the end of everything. 

There are so many signs of potential in the garden right now from the little bits of work that we’ve been doing up until now.  It’s so exciting to watch spring burst onto the scene.  I really, really love seasons and how everything changes and has signs about new parts of life on the horizon.  There’s so much excitement in nature!

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Cleaning

Prom preparation messes have been cleaned up.  I also ordered a storage box for fancy hair accessories so we can store them out of the way during most of the year and be able to find them easily when the next dance rolls around.  Ren and Rachel have amassed a beautiful collection of formal hair accessories over the years, and it’d be a shame to lose them.

Prom dress construction has almost been cleaned up.  I just need to clean up the leftover fabrics and I’m dreading opening the tote bins of apparel fabric and potentially finding out there’s no room for the prom dress scraps.  I’m making myself write that down because it’s such a silly reason to be avoiding a task, and hopefully, by writing it out and acknowledging how ridiculous it is, I’ll be extra motivated to just bite the bullet and get this rather simple task done.

My back was hurting a lot this week from overdoing it in my Tuesday workout, so I didn’t get a lot more cleaning done.  I traded off for getting a lot of office work and grad party planning done.

Clothing

I made a little bit of a dent in the looming folding pile.  It’s nice to reclaim the space that’s been storing the laundry bins of clean clothes .

Highlights

Nathaniel had his last Cross Country meet this week.  All season long he has consistently run his 2 miles in 15:55-16:05 minutes.  All season long.  After his last race he quickly logged on to the website that reports their times and a look of disbelief and then joyful surprise crossed his face:  Somehow, even after having to take a week off of practices due to being sick all last week, he shaved off an entire minute and finished his race with a time of 14:55!  He was a very happy boy for the rest of the evening.

Renaissance had her final band concert and it was such a great evening.  She had a solo in jazz band, the entire concert was fun and upbeat and sincerely impressive with the music each group was playing, and then we had a reception afterwards with cake and treats and a tear-inducing slideshow of the seniors throughout their band years.  I really, really love being a band mom and I’ve really enjoyed all these years of helping her make music with her friends.  It is incredibly sad that this part of her life is over.  I think the only thing that keeps me from being downright depressed about is seeing how excited she is to begin the next phase of her life and her pastry chef training.

Emily and I went out for lunch on Thursday and had a great conversation about her future plans.  I don’t want to get my hopes up too much too early, but it feels like she’s starting to get to the end of working through some of the hang-ups that have been plaguing her for the past couple of years and is getting ready to surge forward into adulthood.  Sometimes you just need a little extra time to sort stuff out, right?  It’s scary to allow that time to take place, but we might be getting to the end of the tunnel.  At any rate, she seems to be less anxious about things, which is such a relief.  The high schoolers that were in the thick of it during COVID have really struggled with a lot of stuff ever since.  Perhaps normalcy is starting to catch back up with them finally?

On Wednesday, when my back was twinging the worst, I gave myself permission to go down a research rabbit hole, partly because I was in too much pain to think logically and partly in the hopes that doing crafty research would help me relax and send the message to my muscles that they could also relax.  I spent multiple hours tracking down as much information as I could about bead embroidery and beaded embellishments because I want to continue making formal dresses, but I’m finding that even if you make a gorgeous dress it often needs a little dose of embellishment to truly make it sing, and I think the skill of bead embroidery would be absolutely fantastic to fill that void.  I’m thinking about dedicating time over the next year to learning the skill so I can apply it to next year’s prom dresses.

Lowlights

  • Wednesday’s back pain.  Totally did it to myself because I was enjoying my workout on Tuesday and decided to go for far too long in it.  Consistency and moderation win the race, not frenzied extremes.  This is a battle I fight in my soul on a daily  basis.
  • I hit a flock of baby birds with my van as I was driving to work on Friday.  Not my best Disney Princess moment.

It was a really good week, despite the few setbacks. This really is a lovely time of year and I’m excited for what’s coming our way in the upcoming weeks! End of school year is exciting, exhausting, and fun.