on my desk and at the high line

On the docket right now?  In my little studio?  Plans and then more plans. That’s what there is.

For starters, I’m slowly beginning a new quilt.  I’m following along with the wonderful quilt design from Ellen Lucket Baker over at Sew Mama Sew.  I haven’t quilted, in earnest, for a while.  Probably not since making this and that was small-scale and came together quickly.   I sometimes forget how tedious quilting can be…piecing and piecing and piecing.  Compared to garment making, which comes together quickly and most tasks are new, not repetitive, quilting takes so much time.   But, it’s not just the time it’s the time spent doing the same thing over and over.   For this quilt I need 144 of these quarter moons…I have made fifty so far.  Fifty feels like so many and it feels so good to have made fifty until I look over at the stack waiting to be sewn and then 144 feels like a huge daunting task.  Yet, I love it.  I love how it all comes together and looks so pretty.  So, I keep going and circle back around, emotionally speaking.  It’s very schizophrenic.  I’ve been thinking a lot about this post  Michele wrote to herself after she finished her incredible hexagon quilt.  One of her brilliant strategies was to set herself a daily task and accomplish that bit and no more.  It helped her stay excited about the quilt and avoid burning out.

Once I have a goal in mind, I get very driven to get to it.  I want to finish.  I want to be able to tick the thing off the list.  It helps me when I need to be efficient but it’s my worst enemy when I need patience.  Quilts require patience.  Doing a bit at a time is hard for me.  I set a goal to complete 10 half-moons and just as soon as those are done I want to make more until I’m so sick of making half-moons that I could scream.  That would be the burn out Michele was avoiding.   So, I’m keeping her wise words in mind as I quilt and doing my very, very best to work on it piece by piece without going into the rage.

Come to think of it, Kids Clothes Week might just be my antidote.  Oh, how I love KCW!  I wasn’t sure if I would join in the kids clothes week for fall, it starts tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist.  I love all the new people I ‘meet’ and how inspiring it is to see what everyone is making.  Plus, the boys do need clothes right now.  They don’t like any of the pants and long-sleeve shirts in their clothes cabinet.

I pulled out all of my books to help me decide what to make and ended up deciding on patterns in Sewing For Boys and Little Things to Sew.  I really do not know of a resource quite like Sewing for Boys when it comes to making boy clothing.  I’m not crazy about every single pattern but I do like most of them.  This time I’m taking on a few challenges and also sewing up some tried and true items.

Now I will name everything so I am kept accountable:  From Sewing for Boys, I will be making 2 pairs of treasure pocket pants, 2 long-sleeve t-shirts probably with a freezer paper stencil design, and  2 luka hoodies.  From little things to sew, I’m planning on making 2 explorer vests.  The boys have a few patches and I have been wanting to make them vests to put the patches on that they can wear for collecting things when we go hiking. C is getting a little old for mama-made clothing so I’m hoping the vest will impress him.  Wish me luck.

Both C & J are really into wrestling and ‘playing fight’ these days.  It doesn’t seem to matter how much we redirect them, they always wander back to pummeling on each other.  It’s wearing out my patience.  I’m pretty at peace with this kind of play sometimes but all of the time?  It’s driving me batty.  So, yesterday when it started up again I decided we needed an adventure of some kind and we jumped on a train and visited the Highline in NYC.

 

If you don’t already know, the Highline is an old above-ground train track in Manhattan that has been converted to a walkway in the sky.  It’s fantastic.

 

Adventuring always shakes things up and, sure enough, it quelled some of the misbehavior.  As is evident below, it didn’t exactly shake out all of the wildness from J.  That would just be too much to ask.

We had an amazing time even with the bits and bobs of unhinged wild boy activity.  The Highline is just incredible.  You can really see the city without the distraction of traffic and congested sidewalks.  It’s hard to believe this was our first visit.

C brought along his camera, it’s a Fujifilm Mini, it’s basically a mini Polaroid so the pictures print immediately.  It’s a bit expensive and you have to purchase the film for it but I’m really happy we have it.  C loves it and has gotten really into taking pictures.

He was really bold on this trip.  I stopped to take a picture for a group visiting from Africa and when I turned around there was C with his camera, waiting for his turn to take a picture of them.  It was adorable!  He took pictures of murals and people and cool buildings.  He even insisted on taking a picture of me taking a picture of him.  He’s a budding photographer with this thing.  It does a mama-heart good to see it happening.

There is so much art work dotting the sky in Manhattan, and the Highline affords an incredible look at all of it. Here is a peek of some of it.

I’m always really happy to have access to Manhattan and all of NYC.  We live only an hour away from it all, which seems just far enough to appreciate it every time we pop in.

Of course, we had to stop for pasta and pizza, too.  Photographers get awful hungry and mamas and papas need cappuccinos.