Our good friend Pat (known around our house as Uncle Pat) is getting married next month. He and the groomsmen are wearing traditional kilts. They ordered tartans from Scotland (Homeland Security actually held them in customs for a while before they arrived here) and Libby and I are making the kilts. We have six to make. Three groomsmen, 1 groom and 2 ringbearers. We found a site online that has a decent tutorial and we have a pattern that is approved by the Official Scottish Kilt people (yes, they have a more official and respectable sounding name than that but I don’t remember what it is). The nice people at Treadle Yard Goods assured Libby that kilts are easy. The person who wrote the rather humorous tutorial reminded us that it’s a myth that kilts are hard to sew.

Um…yeah. They’re not. They are complicated and time consuming. Libby and I have it figured out and if the little kilts are any indication of how the full size one will look, the guys will be looking pretty good. But these are going to take a while to make. The groom’s kilt has over 8 yards of fabric and the groomsmen have about 5 yards. And about 3/4 of that fabric needs to be hand pleated. That’s going to take some time.

I’m excited to see how these turn out. It’s a big project and the fabric is gorgeous. Pictures will be posted as soon as they are finished.

Yesterday I talked about the mama to mama projects. Tonight I made six of the caps. It took me about 45 minutes to make all six. I’m planning on making a pile more before I send them off.

Since I’ve been trying to keep myself busy during our long wait for a baby, I’ve started sewing. A lot. But I’m starting to run out of people to give my stuff to (because I can only make so much for my family). Tonight I got an e-mail from Steph with a link to mama to mama. Amanda Blake Soule has a lot of artsy-crafty talent and is the one behind mama to mama. She says this about her idea:

As crafters, the reasons we create are many. Just one may be to spread a little bit of peace into the world, to make a small but meaningful difference in one person’s life through a simple act of crafting with intention. Mama to Mama seeks to find ways to connect handcrafters with mothers, children and families in need of a little bit of handmade love.

I am in love with this idea. And I’m totally on board. The first project is to make infant caps for newborn babies in Haiti which will be distributed with safe birthing kits in Haiti.

Anyone who wants to join in all the directions are on the mama to mama website, including the downloadable pattern. Alright - go get sewing. Go on. Go.

We got up at 6:30 this morning. Not by choice. Lexi woke up sick (seriously, that kid throws up more than I’ve ever seen any other kid throw up) and so she hung out in our room watching movies while Kevin and I attempted to get another hour or so of sleep. Didn’t work so well. We moved the party downstairs so Lexi could watch movies on the laptop and I could sew. It didn’t work so well since all she wanted was to eat. Which she couldn’t do because it all would come right back up. I did get some sewing done in the morning but most of my morning was spent trying to console a very pissed of sick and hungry toddler who kept lifting up her shirt and shouting “See?! My tummy’s not sick!” She did manage to keep food down and then take a nap. She woke up from the nap crying. Kevin and I raced in there thinking she may need to throw up again. She was didn’t. We asked what was wrong. “I’m just still so hungry! I want to go to Los Cabos.”

While Lexi was sleeping I did get a lot of sewing done. I finished another Christmas present. I made myself a cute cell phone holder. (I had a bunch of scraps and I wanted to see if an idea would work. It did.) And I finished my 12 quilt blocks for the quilt square exchange. I also got 2 new blocks in the mail this weekend. Keep on sending them in people!

Kevin was also productive. True to form, he’s ahead of schedule for NaNoWriMo.

Daylight Savings has also thrown everyone for a loop today. Lexi started asking to go to bed at about 5:30. I was ready to crash by about 8. (Although I just got a second wind). I forgot how much I dislike it getting dark at 5 in the winter.

I’m really excited about Christmas this year. Since I’ve decided to go handmade with most of my gifts, I’ve had to really think about what I can make (or who I can hire to make it) and what people would appreciate. I’m not going to go through the effort to make someone something just to have them say “thanks” and stash it in a drawer. I’m trying to come up with stuff that people will actually use or wear or play with. I started working on a couple of things this weekend - trying out a few ideas to see how they would turn out and sketching out patterns for other things.

Sorry I can’t go into details. Pictures will go up on my flickr site after the gifts have been opened.

Could someone please buy me this for my birthday? I’m trying to do quilt math and I think my head is going to explode.

….go check out my sister-in-law’s etsy shop. Aside from all her play food, she also has some new produce that is sort of food, sort of a doll and very cute. Think Christmas shopping people…

Some of you may have heard that our wait for a referral has had another 3 months added to it. That doesn’t mean it still can’t happen anytime now but it means that more than likely we won’t hear anything until the holidays.

To fill the time I’ve decided to make a quilt for the baby. I made one for Lexi out of her baby clothes and I want to do a special one for the baby as well. So I am undertaking a pretty big project involving lots of people (including you, if you want to participate). I organized a group of about 15 moms who are all adopting from Ethiopia. We are each going to make 15 identical quilt blocks, keep one block for ourselves and then send 1 block to each member of the group. Then once we get all of our blocks we can piece them together however we want. The kids who come home from Ethiopia will all have a quilt with a common theme running through them (just like they are all from Ethiopia) but the quilts will be different in their own way - just like the kids are all different.

15 blocks is only about half of the front of a quilt. To piece mine together I would like help from family and friends. I’m modifying an idea I’ve seen a lot of other adoptive parents do. It’s from a tradition in China called a 100 Good Wishes Quilt. I was originally going to just do a 100 Good Wishes Quilt but I liked the idea of tying in some of Ethiopia as well.

If you want to be a part of the quilt, cut a piece of material (any kind as long as it can be machine washed) into a 12 inch square and send it to me. Pick a material that you like - something that could represent your family, you, your interests, you favorite color, a favorite flannel shirt you never wear anymore- and send it too me. I’d appreciate it if you’d include a note as to why you chose the fabric. I’ll save these and put them in the baby’s life book (side note: A life book is the adopted child’s version of a baby book). I’ll use all the piece I receive as a border for the quilt and to fill in the middle if needed. You don’t have to limit it to “1 per family” either. If you’ve got kids and want to do one for you, one for your spouse, one for each kid, go right ahead. If you want to do one as a family, go right ahead. I’m also planning on creating a page on my blog to post pictures of the squares I get.

If you’re a time line sort of person, I’d like to be able to put the quilt together over my Thanksgiving break, so if you could send it before then, that would be great.

If you need my address, just e-mail me or leave a comment and I’ll send you my address.

**Note: This is an open invitation for anyone who reads my blog. If we’ve never met but you feel like you want to do this, please do.**

This Christmas, I’m going to try really hard to buy handmade for everyone’s gifts. Even took the pledge to buy handmade.

If you want to buy handmade but don’t know where to start here are some of my favorites:

Ten Thousand Villages. Everything in the store is handmade by artisans around the world. And it’s fair trade. Double bonus.

Etsy.com. About a zillion talented people who make just about everything you can think of. Plus, my sister-in-law has a really cute shop.

A couple of my favorite etsy shops: SewYummy, Flaky Friends, Project8256, Junk Posse

The Black Apple. Art work. Very Cute.

Global Girlfriend. Shopping here helps fund microgrants for women. All the products are hand made by women around the world. Another fair trade organization.

Happy Shopping.

This summer I did a lot of sewing.

I made a quilt for Lexi, a few string backpacks, a taggy blanket, a wipes case and I think I’m going to try my hand at making felt dolls (except I’m not going to use felt).

I also want to make a few bibs and a small blanket/quilt for the new baby.

After that, if I have time and we aren’t on our way to Ethiopia, I want to try making clothes.