my fingers fly yet

Tags

birthdays, crafting, cross stitching, felt, quilts

so. with the fun of finally being back in a city, and having lots to do, see and explore outside of my house, i have not forsaken afternoons with German TV programs [later about that] sewing my man-hands off. the first project that i got started on was a baby quilt for our good friends back in vermont, joyce & ben. joyce made a pillow with this very same triangle fabric a few months ago. so, when i ran into it [hello old friend] in a fabric store here in berlin, i knew i had the backing for the quilt.

also, i burned the crap out of my arm while ironing this here sweet cuddly baby quilt. evil. the scar seems as though it’s here to stay as it’s a dark chocolate brown two months later. they say love hurts. now i know it’s true.

i also the baby a cross stitch of the alternative pledge of allegiance that ben was taught as an elementary school boy. it was written by his librarian dorothy vickers-shelley. she seems to have been a really amazing woman.

my next two projects were to celebrate the birth of some about 30 some odd years ago. i made eddie a travel backgammon set. we traveled lightly with our games for our year in berlin, but we LOVE to play most things. so i figured a compact set would easy enough to get back home.

then, after eddie started a fierce whining campaign, i made him a felt ipad carrier.

i can’t get away from felt it seems.

fertig.

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januar [said with a german accent]

Tags

nature, outdoors

i’m climbing out of my january hole. it was somewhat crazy.

it started off with my best friend meeting me & the mister at penn station as we trained our way back north from d.c. christmas. she flew in from santiago and roamed around nyc for a few hours before we got there.

someone is tiiiiiiired. and yes, we all three were sitting in two amtrak chairs. personal space is not really our thing.

we came to some good old fashioned vermont snow.

an temperatures.

and a christmas vergennes laundry stag

no filter, just an amazing winter sky. this was at 3:30. le sigh.

the kids all tuckered out from a new years eve day of skiing. they have very serious faces eh? the world from our frosty windows. very “little house on the prairie.”

january is also our friend joyce’s birthday. happy birthday joyce! it was group effort birthday cake. eddie made the smooth white base layer for us, and mariana and i frosted the rest! the ever so nice people at blue bird tavern bbq were really sweet and held it in the back for us. it might be the best thing i’ve ever made.

[our waiter even said that it was the best looking homemade cake they’d ever seen.]

on a beautiful day in january, i was convinced to do the impossible/inevitable. i went skiing. to be fair i stuck to the magic carpet most of the day. mariana and eddie hung out with me in shifts, talking me down the bunny hill. till they convinced me to go down a really hill. bad choice. i “went down the hill” with my skis tucked into mariana’s and my arms wrapped around her waist while eddie skied ahead of us while laughing his curly ass off at me. all parties have to end. mariana had to go back to chile. boo.

one of my cloud puffs at home in santiago summer.

and then things got crazy. german class 5 days a week for 2 hours a day, then german lunch, and german movie night, and german cake & coffee hour. then of course about 3 hours of homework every night. then i was teaching my own graphic design class 9 hours a week. and i was working on a freelance book. and i made all the following things as an outlet to forget the crazy.

my dad called me before christmas and asked me to make him “a muffler.” huh? like an turn of the century hand warmer? “no, like the wool thing that wrap around your neck.” oh, you mean a scarf. have you been reading dickens? “don’t make fun of me. english isn’t my first language.” fair point dad.

my first attempt at seed stitches.

he wanted it to be “cheerful”

a scarf for my sister. she lives in Texas, so she needs a lighter weight scarf. cloud pot holders! i love them if i do say so myself.

fertig.

hither and dither

in august we celebrate our birthdays. born two weeks apart, i’m robbing the cradle. this year we decided to ditch the separate birthday parties and start acting like the grown-ups that we are. so we had a wonderful and large combined party with a whole host of friends. but this post is not about that joyous event [i was too busy to take any photos, but sufficed to say, we had a great time], but about eddie’s actual birthday and wee bit of inner-vermont travel that occurred.

first stop mad taco. not so the california style taco that i miss so, but more authentically mexican. a beautiful drive over the lincolin gap. not so much paved the whole way though. i may or may not have panicked while turning a couple of u-bends on a dirt road. all was well though.

oh you clever signage you.

man oh man! the rock of ages. the largest granite quarry in the western hemisphere if my memory serves me correctly. it’s in beautiful barre vermont. actually, barre vermont is just about the only town i’ve seen that’s not so beautiful. living in the champlain valley, we don’t see much of the super poor, depressed towns that have cropped up over much of the united states in the last five years. but barre is really quite depressing. the granite quarry though, DOPE.

the mister getting on the birthday granite tour bus!

the water is this color because it’s reflecting the dust of the granite.

cutting and processing plant.

GRANITE BOWLING ALLY!!!

champion.

the promised land. i am obsessed with the fairbanks museum planetarium and eye on the sky weather forecast. i LOVE it.

they were closed, but dad, this photo’s for you.

around st.johnsburry

the fabled, and blurry, hen of the wood. thank the gods for this most delicious slice of bourgeois dinning.

der grosse abenteuerurlaub-days twelve/thirteen/fourteen/fifteen

after one night in d.c. hanging out with the fam, we headed up to the jersey shore to spend a few days with the mister’s family and celebrate our niece’s first birthday. and what a celebration it was!

we also took this time to get ready for the last leg of the journey, germany. i got the latest twilight movie to watch on the plane, eddie got me hello kitty socks as a bribe to get on the plane, and i got the 12th sookie stackhouse book. i spent a lot of time reminding myself that this flight will only be 1/2 longer than going from d.c. to san francisco. it’s a breeze. no really.

we also jumped over a boro to get some burritos from the 10th ave burrito company. it wasn’t bad, not the most amazing, but it was great coming from vermont!

me holding 20lbs of pure cheek.

nose bump.

cake made by grandma, frosted by mom, and enjoyed by baby. one lucky girl.

heartily enjoyed, and lustily lamented when take away.

WHY? why did you take my toy away??? oh. to put the batteries in. well then, in that case, thank you.

our little cousin teaching eddie some karate moves. he nearly kicked his mom in the head.

happy grandma

eddie’s photo titled “when the day ends”

all tuckered out after a long day of celebrations…