4 or more years.

It is 6 minutes until my forth anniversary.  He has been in my life in one way or another for the past 10 years.  We have seen many things.  Distance, silence, happiness, tears, nostalgia, live music, good food, and personal growth.  This past year has been as hard as it has been amazing.  We became new parents but then almost immediately we had to spend a week in the hospital, away from our son.  These things happening at the beginning of the year was almost a fore warning of how things would be for the rest of the year.  There were constant ups and downs, but I am grateful.  It is almost as though we have reached the summit now, and we can finally rest and move on from all of our struggles with a new clarity.  Everything that happened, needed to happen and now I know we can take on the next phase of our lives together with confidence and certainty.  If I can make it through the cold season unscathed, that would be awesome.

Tonight we did everything we could possibly fit in in the time we had.  Live music, we ate twice and had a serious discussion over tea, where we only briefly mentioned how we were missing our little guy.  It was nice to be two adults just enjoying each others company again.  I can't wait to do it again next year.  :-)

 Headphones are a must...

Stay warm

How awesome is my neighborhood?

























We have experienced a very cold arctic wind come through here in the mid-west.  It's not quite the cold that stings your face or makes your eye lids stick to your eyes when you blink.  Nope, not there, but it's still pretty cold.  Someone in my neighborhood is awesome and put out a few handmade hats.  This is why I love Madison.  :-D

it's winter out there!

Wow, it has been cold these past couple days.  Well cold to what I have been used to living in Wisconsin.  It's really nothing compared to what I've been seeing back home... -44 degrees Celsius! Compared to that -12 Celsius isn't bad at all but hey, I've been spoiled living here in the "south".  Either way, it's time for wool! 
This is a little thing I have been working on and planning out as I go.  I didn't use any sort of pattern or make any plans prior to starting.  I have to say that winging it has worked out this time.  Thank God.  I really need to learn my lesson and plan out my projects ahead of time to reduce the chances of hitting a snag and completely abandoning the whole thing as a result. 
The jumper is made out of 100% recycled materials! :-D  Which makes me happy.  Here is the break down:
-Brown wool is vintage and picked up from freecycle.
-Blue wool is also vintage and picked up in the same freecycle batch.
-Lining is from a shirt is also recycled from a friend.
-Buttons were from a little thrift store I like to pop into from time to time.
Only the snaps and the thread used to keep it all together were new.  All in all I am really pleased with the outcome.  My little guy tried it on but since it's not a stretch fabric the snaps keep popping open.  I'm currently thinking about how I can remedy this.  As a last resort it will become a sweater.  

Here is another cold weather find I picked up at a local rummage sale.  Normally I am not too keen on posting clothing items but this is just so much fun that I decided to make an exception. 
Vintage mens L sweater with stripes down the side.  :-D I have been having thrift store withdrawals so when I saw the flier for the rummage sale I was basically salivating at the mouth which makes this find soooo much better.  I am addicted to thrift shopping, end of story, so what? ;-P  Oh, did I mention it was a buck?  Yup it was! I also got a couple of other shirts for a buck each as well.  Score.
I paired this sweater with a pants originally from Lands End Canvas that is currently for sale in stores, thrifted for $4.00.  Those items combined with my thrifted toggle winter coat for $7.00 and I am warm and thrifty this winter.  I can only equate the feeling of finding and wearing great thrifted pieces to those that a Vegan might feel.  That you are making a difference with the choices you make on a daily bases.  It might be a stretch but hopefully it's a little insight into why I am the way I am.  I really can't pay retail for anything besides the essentials. It's  not that I don't love shiny new items, because I do, but only at 70% off.  In my opinion retail=robbery, considering that clothing is made at a very low cost and not in the greatest conditions.  The difference is in quality.  If something is quality and you know that it was made by someone who is doing what they do well and what they feel a calling for, then yes.  Those things are worth their price tag... but in this age of consumerism that's hard to find.

Hmm, now what to share with you.  This is hard because I have been listening to so much lovely music.  Winter is the time that I really fall in love with music.  It's cold and the air is dry.  Everything outside looks so brittle and some how it makes me more receptive to music that is fitting to my feelings in this season.

It's not in English, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it anyless.  Just let your imagination take over.
Pascal Pinon - Ekki Vanmeta

First Pets and mommy projects

My little little nugget just had his first birthday!  I can't believe it's been a year already and it's so amazing and sad at the same time.  He is literally doing something new everyday.  I am so proud but it's bitter sweet.  <3

A week before he was to turn 1 I decided that I NEEDED to make him a handmade gift.  I also wanted to make him a banner that read "Happy 1st Birthday Qais!"  The latter did not get completed because I didn't realize how much work designing and sewing letters really was.  I also kept elaborating on the original idea.  When I realized that it just was not going to be finished I put all my energies into completing his gift.  After much contemplating I came up with a stuffed fishbowl! 

The body of the bowl is made out of vintage hounds tooth blue fabric that I picked up from someone on freecycle! Yay!  Also included in that batch was a lot of wool fabric, some kind of heavy duty off white fabric and other various interesting vintage fabrics that I have been making use of.  The heavy duty off white fabric is reserved for a straight jacket that my sister asked me to make.  It may sound odd,  but if you knew my sister, you would totally understand ;-P




Everything else is made from felt that I picked up at the thrift store that I used to volunteer at.  It came with several 8" x 10" sheets of various colors all for a mere $1.49!  The stuffing was left over from old couch cushions that I picked up to use for the floor cushions that I made a few years ago.  I still have tons left that I have used for several more pillows I have to show you soon. :-)

Here is the starting of the banner.  The idea developed into having the letters being attached to the string by buttons so that it can be changed for any occasion.  That will resume progress once I have finished with some tailoring for my better half.  So far 95% of the banner has been constructed out of old clothing owned by myself and a friend.  Out of the things that I owned, all of it was pre-owned as well.  So I must say that it is reusing at its finest!  The other 5% has been from the batch of freecycled fabric that I got and used for the fish bowl as well.

My last post was about re purposing and we have furthered that project as well.  Our trunk as officially turned into a place to hide the little little nuggets toys.  Early on we decided that we didn't want the fact that we had a child rule our living space.  We knew we wanted to try and keep our place, "our" place and have visible toys and things to a minimum.  I have to say, so far mission accomplished but who knows how long we can hang on!  

Everyday the toys come out and every night, or mostly every night, the toys go back and we have our space back.

I am currently finishing up this post while Daddy feeds LLN his lunch and I can tell that my assistance is needed.  Back to motherhood for me, but I look forward to sharing more projects with you in the near future!