KCWC Days 2 & 3 - Halloween Hats

For days two and three of Kids Clothes Challenge Week I fed two birds with one seed so to speak and worked on the kids' hallloween hats. As I've mentioned before, Ava has known for months (without wavering) what she will be for halloween this year. I won't give away her secret yet, but I'll say that she will be a feline character from a classic series of books - and that her costume has required me to go hunting through local antique stores to find a pinafore and tucker that fits her. I'm certain that few people will have any idea who she is dressed up as when she goes trick-or-treating, but hopefully that doesn't deter her or dampen her spirits. She is quite excited about her choice.

For both hats I used Oliver + S's Cozy Winter Hood pattern from Little Things to Sew. If you love sewing for kids and don't know about this book, you are missing out. It is beautifully put together with a variety of useful and creative projects, and the patterns are so well written. Every pattern that I've used from this book has resulted in a high quality product. And I usually learn at least one new thing with every pattern of Liesl's that I follow. 

For both hats I used wool for the outside fabric and flannel for the lining. I really would have preferred velveteen for the lining, but - get this - Joanne only stocks velveteen in dark colors. Why?? I'm not blown away by the fabrics I chose, but I do think they work and are, most importantly, true to the color of the characters we are portraying. My girl is a stickler for details. Both hats sewed up quickly and easily.

two little kittens

Given his inability to speak intelligibly as of yet, the boy surrendered his power of authority to his big sister and she chose his halloween costume (yes, months ago) for him. I suspect she will enjoy making many other major life decisions for him in the future - at least until he grows bigger than her. Without giving it away, I will say that Eli is going to be a rabbit from a classic story who has a penchant for stealing vegetables from his neighbor's garden and wears a blue jacket with brass buttons, "quite new." For all those who have no idea who Ava is, I'm certain many will recognize him.

To be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with how Eli's bunny ears turned out. The Oliver + S pattern includes bear ears, so I had to draft both sets of ears for these hats. Mainly, I wish Eli's ears weren't quite so floppy and would stick up more. If I was thinking clearly at the start of this project I would have used interfacing or some stiff batting to perk them up. But, I'm going to let it go and won't blame anyone for mistakenly calling him a dog. He won't know the difference anyway, right?

Assuming he keeps his costume on, this boy will be a cute one hopping around the neighborhood.

For day four, I'm hoping to experiment with knits. It will be my first time, so wish me luck. I hope you all are feeling good about your progress and having fun with your sewing!

KCWC Day 1 - Big Butt Baby Car Jeans

I decided at the last minute (though truth be told, I had been considering it for a while) to join in on Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week Challenge. I'm certain I won't be able to spend as much time devoted to sewing as I'd like to this week, but I figure if I make it official the support and motivation of the group will keep me sewing when I can. At the very least, it will be fun to gather inspiration from all the others who really will be able to throw themselves into some serious sewing. 

For day one I completed another pair of Big Butt Baby Pants (pattern by Rae), but this time in heavier fabrics for the cooler weather. I used a denim from Joanne and canvas Trefle by Kokka, which I was lucky enough to get from a small remnant in the sale section at Crafty Planet. I love this fabric and love love the ways the pants turned out. I had actually started the pants last week, but completion is half the battle around here - so, no, this is not cheating.

Let me just add, that never before have I had such a hard time getting a photograph of pants - or anything for that matter. Our boy is seriously on the move and getting into all sorts of baby trouble. In the course of our photo shoot books were kicked over, rugs were pulled up from the floor and wrapped around his little bod burrito style, dolls were pulled at and made soggy with baby spittle and my camera was in jeopardy of being yanked from my grasp (perhaps you weren't aware that those bulky neck straps are actually made to soothe the sore gums of teething babies). It would be embarrassing to tell you how many photos I took, most of which were blurs of wagging feet and shuffling butts. 

He thought this was all very funny.

lunging for mama's camera strap

Yes, our boy is on the move, keeping us on our toes - and getting underneath our toes. Now back to chasing these characters around - and hopefully getting to work as soon as they hit the sack. Happy sewing to you all!

Apple Picking

As summer heat cools and our gardens start to wither, we begin our gradual contraction into the cooler seasons. The return to school and acceleration in our schedules that this time of year brings help shift us out of the daze of summer as we embrace fall. For our family, in which birthdays and anniversaries begin in October and continue monthly through the onset of spring, fall is a time when holidays and celebration begin again after a long spring and summer lull. Beyond these once-a-year celebrations, there are the more regular shifts in what we do, how we live, how we dress, that reflect and remind us of where we are in the year. Traditions add meaning and color to our days, helping us orient within this cycle of seasons, of time.

One tradition that helps me really register the shift to autumn is our trip to the apple orchard. As the weather cools, I start to feel it. Yes, it is almost time to go picking. I check the calendar and reminisce about our previous year's trip. Who came with us? What kind of apples did we pick? What did we do with our harvest? How long did it last? Because if there is anything more autumnal than apples (there isn't), then at the very least those amazing golds, reds and oranges that color the drive to the orchard will fill you to the brim with the feeling that, yes, it is finally fall.

We were so lucky last year to happen upon Sweetland Orchard when searching for a place to pick apples in our new state. It is the antithesis to corn mazing, petting zooing, hay riding, inflatable castle jumping apple orchards - a pastoral retreat. A professor at a local college and her husband, a chemist, moved out here and bought an orchard where they raise their young daughter, dog and chickens. They keep it simple and lovely. Come. Wander through the orchard. Pick apples. Have a picnic among the trees. Take home some cider (apparently the best in Minnesota), and super yummy donuts. And have a good year until we see you next time.

This year Minnesota's apple crop had a pretty rough time. With a frost following warm temperatures in early spring, much of the crop was lost. Mike, one of the owners of Sweetland Orchard, estimated that they had lost 90 percent of their crop. But we had no trouble finding what we desired - apples, certainly, but more than that. Our yearly tradition. Our official step into fall. And we will be reminded daily, as we eat our way through our harvest, of Ava's grin as she picked the first apples off the tree herself, of Eli's first taste of apple, of the warm sun as we picnicked among the trees - for I know that warmth is fleeting, and I will be hard pressed to remember it in just a month or so from now.

all the pretty (little) horses

Sometime within the last couple weeks Ava decided that when she grows up she will be an 'animal doctor'. Though the word sounds more like 'vegetarian' in her toddler lingo, if her love for and connection with animals is any indication, I do believe she would be an amazing veterinarian. This girl, who at times seems more comfortable with animals than she does with humans, whose imaginary friends are four baby ospreys, two cardinals and one caribou (because she can only carry one), whose very favorite toys have been (for over a year now) five miniature farm animals that accompany us on many of our adventures, who opts for bird field guides as bedtime stories, who interacts with and manipulates our feisty calico in a way that Lola would never tolerate from another human, this girl is  innately a lover and nurturer of animals.

Who knows how long she will hold onto this dream. We all remember (or recall stories retold to us by our elders) our early ideas of what we wanted to be when we grew up. Perhaps they were passing dreams, improbable dreams (as in, "I want to be a superhero"), dreams fulfilled, or dreams we are still pursuing. I don't know how many of these childhood dreams manifest in reality, though I do know Ava's ideas tend to have staying power. She is decisive and unwavering. Alarmingly so, actually, to this mama who often wavers back and forth between options in my mind for extended periods before making a decision. I find I must hold myself back from questioning her immediate decisiveness with an 'are you sure you want this over that?' I see how easy it is to pass down our own insecurities and neuroses in these daily moments of life. But I sense that this girl, who decides with finality months in advance who she will be for Halloween, may very well follow through on this idea of hers as well. 

All summer we had been meaning to head out to Two Pony Gardens, where we visited once before last year. Fresh baked pizza, good people, flowers, tomatoes, chickens and two erroneously named 'ponies' who will take you for a carriage ride through the surrounding trails in the woods. With warm, glowing sun, and fall colors blazing around us, we finally made true on our intentions and headed out there this weekend. Getting there a bit earlier, both in the season and in the evening, afforded us the opportunity to explore the farm a bit while it was still light out. 

We strolled through the maze-like dahlia garden with flowers topping out over our heads and children making waves of plant limbs as they raced through the narrow garden paths. We walked through the woods among rich colors of fall to the tucked-away yurt, visited with chickens, peeked at the farm store and chatted with others who were spread out among picnic blankets dotting the land around the farmhouse.

The highlight of the evening (particularly for our future 'vegetarian') was undoubtedly the carriage ride. Two stunning Shire horses - really I can't emphasize how impressively BIG these creatures are - appeared from the dirt road in the woods pulling a beautiful carriage and waited for us humans to hop on. This 20 minute ride through the woods with Mickey and Pete has fueled Ava's imagination and play since, it being the very first thing she talked about upon waking the morning after.

I am amazed by how deeply our children feel these experiences, how they integrate them into all aspects of their minds and activities. All they experience literally shapes them through their senses and stays vivid with them, becoming more elaborate over time, for days, weeks, months and longer. When Ava responds so strongly and deeply like this I am reminded of how important it is to be mindful of what she is exposed to. Not that I wish to or think it would be beneficial to shelter her entirely, no no. But I am reminded that she and all children, I believe, are not small adults, nor do they understand and process reality as we do. They are literally soaking up what is around them with their entire being and forming an understanding of themselves and the world with it. They are becoming, in some sense, what they see, what they hear, what they eat, what they feel.

After the ride, we shared our pizza and cider as the sun was setting, giving rise to a gloriously bright Harvest Moon. The air grew cooler and it was nearing time to return home.

I ask myself what I want my children to be reenacting through their play? filling their dreams? informing their sense of the world, the earth, the humanity around them? The magic of riding through woods of gold, green and red on a carriage drawn by enormous horses. Strangers converging to celebrate good food and a beautiful evening on the farm. Stone oven baked pizza with veggies grown in a garden only a few yards away. That delicious smell of country air that we just can't get back in the city. I want more moments like these.

Manly Pants

As the younger brother of an older sister, Eli has from time to time been subject to feminine hand-me-downs. Will says, "it takes a real man to wear a pink diaper." After some criticism that my previous Big Butt Baby pants fabric choice was a bit "girly" (you know who you are), I set out to make a pair that are a bit more 'masculine'. Though, really, I see no reason why tools can't be feminine. Girls like to play with tools too. Plungers? Sure, leave those for the boys. But I admit to having had a love affair with a cordless drill in the past - particularly in my solo apartment living days. It occurred to me that I might be infatuated when I realized I was looking for excuses to drill more holes into my wall - as in, "This looks like a great place to hang something. I'll just throw in a couple more wall hooks...." So, perhaps these pants are not so masculine after all.

For this pair I used a fabric from Caleb Gray's Suburbia collection paired with Woodgrain from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 collection. The Suburbia collection has been discontinued, but I found several options for purchasing it online and was able to find it in one of my local fabric stores.

I referenced Rae's errata for the pattern, which was not only helpful but encouraging when I realized it wasn't just me who was having issues with puckering at the bottom of the butt panel. If you ever make your own pair of big butt baby pants, be sure to check out her revisions before you begin sewing.

I wasn't kidding when I said these pants are addictive. The facts that they come together so quickly and that there are endless options for cuteness make them pretty irresistible. And no, I haven't had my fill yet - you can expect to see more big butt baby pants here again soon.

Apparently the boy thinks they're pretty cute too. 

loving garlic

It is possible you, too, have been feeling excited about garlic lately; though I suspect if your passion is lacking it may be because you haven't had reason to give much attention to this root vegetable. Personally, I hadn't thought much about garlic until a former housemate grew it in our yard several years back. I remember watching in wonder as the scapes curled and climbed towards the sun, thinking "what is that plant? garlic. really?", then lusting after the pile of harvested garlic with shoots still attached, sunbathing on the picnic table. Growing garlic seemed exotic and complex. I just never thought of it as a veggie you'd typically plant in your yard. 

Memories of that garlic on Fountain Street emboldened me when I started with a few heads of Armenian Porcelain purchased at the Mill City Farmer's Market last fall, pictured above and in this post. It was October and seemed a good time to throw some cloves in the ground and cover the patch with leaves we had heaped in a pile from the latest raking. I shouldn't have been surprised when one spring day I walked around the side of our house and was stunned by six inch shoots sticking out of the ground. But seriously, they just crept up on me - a pile of leaf mulch one day, garlic shoots the next.

I am always amazed to watch plants do what they naturally do. I often feel a bit of doubt when I first plant a garden and leave the recommended space in between seeds or seedlings. The garden seems so sparse in early spring; the lush fullness of late summer an impossibility. And yet, every year it happens. "Plants want to grow" a wise woman at the local farmer's market replied one day when I presented her with my concerns about ailing chard starters. We trust that biological urge of survival - the same trust we rely upon when our babies are fighting their first cold, or when we feel uncertain in the face of a particularly difficult parenting challenge. Plants want to grow, just as children want to grow. And with such grace. 

And that grace becomes ever more apparent as the lovely garlic shoots her scape up into the air in a showy display of curls and swoops. It is recommended that you cut these scapes off your garlic plants when they begin their backbends in order to direct the energy of the plant to the bulb. And here we are given the first taste of our harvest - a prelude of what's to come.

Surely, there are many ways to eat a scape. But year after year, this double garlic soup is my favorite. And it was made better this year with scapes from our own crop. The texture is delicate creaminess, the flavor subtle yet strong and the color (for those of us green lovers) perfect. You'll be rewarded if you go heavy on the scapes. I tend to use garlic cloves instead of green garlic when I make this soup only because it is easier for me to find the former. This is truly a once a year pleasure. You may be able to find berries and peaches in the frosty months at your grocery store, but you'll be hard pressed to find garlic scapes out of season. Enjoy them while you can.

I did much reading in trying to figure out how to care for my precious plants - how much to water, when to stop, how to identify optimal harvest time. Luckily, University of Minnesota Extension put out a really nice, thorough document on growing garlic in Minnesota. For the most part the bulbs really didn't need much help. There was a bit of trial and error in figuring out when to pull the bulbs. I read somewhere that if you leave the scapes on a couple of your plants they'll indicate the bulb's readiness by standing up straight once they are done curling. I did try this method with one of my plants and was amazed that the plant must have reached five or six feet as it shot straight into the air. But when I pulled it I was a little disappointed in the bulb's small size. I gathered my patience, stopped watering and waited one more week.

I'm certain you don't need me to enumerate the benefits of children taking part in the process of growing their own food - countless people have addressed this hot topic, including perhaps most famously Alice Waters and, more recently, our first lady Michelle Obama. In addition to the many socioeconomic, ecological, and health reasons, there is the simple excitement and wonder when a little one plants a single clove, cares for a shoot and eventually pulls and pulls and whoops, out comes a bulb of garlic from the soil. It really confirms my desire and commitment to grow as much of our food as we can. Because more valuable than any money or carbon emissions we save and pesticides we avoid, is that gratitude and appreciation our little ones gain for their food and all that goes into growing it; the understanding of where their food comes from - how it seemingly miraculously appears on the table each day; the skill and wisdom of increased self sufficiency; and the openness to trying, and enjoying, new foods.

And for me there's still just a tiny bit of disbelief (garlic. really?) mixed with a little swell of pride when I glance over at our beautiful bunch of garlic knowing that I helped usher those bulbs to life.
Though, clearly, it's they who did the real work, just "wanting to grow".

This Moment

{this moment} - A SouleMama Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.