Instagram
70: It took me two solid weeks to find the 20 minutes to sew on the handles but I did it! I finally finished my Maker’s Tote (awesome pattern by @noodlehead531)! Lining and accent fabrics are mostly from @carolynfriedlander and @alisonglass, exterior fabric is a mystery fabric that showed up in my stash three years ago and I’m grateful for it! 😀 I made the smaller version, which isn’t all that small. I can only imagine how roomie the big one is! (Last picture for scale.) this is designated for my hand sewing transportation. 😂 #salmonandsouvlakisews #100usefulbeautifuldays #100dayproject #noodleheadpatterns #carolynfriedlander #alisonglass #makerstote57, 59-61, 63-64, 67, 73-75, 77-78: Remember that #100usefulbeautifuldays #100dayproject that I started over two months ago? My posting may have stalled but the progress has not! 😀Much of my time over the past three weeks has been spent working on our basement. We paid someone to do the actual installation of the tile but somehow it still ended up taking up a lot of my time. Part of that was my ignorance and I’ve learned a lot about grout haze and what it takes to scrub it off. But thankfully, Im almost done with the cleaning and we are getting close to being able to use the whole room. As you can see, the kids have already spread out into the useable space. 😀 The best news though is that my washer and dryer should be in working order by Saturday and I will be able to do laundry at home for the first time since the beginning of May. I hope I never take the luxury of an in-home washer and dryer for granted again.It’s a good thing I didn’t rip out our sugar snap pea plants last week when the weather started to get hot. 😀 Somehow they are soldiering on despite the intense heat! Hooray! 💚 P.S. Did you know that radish bouquets are all the rage in Baltimore? 😂 #salmonandsouvlakigardens #sugarsnappeas #growwhatyoueat #organicgardening“We wish you not to get shoved, instead get love.” Collaborative song writing by Marko and Ellie (rhyming by Marko), orginal choreography by Ellie (shared with permission from the kids) . . . Happy Father’s Day! and especially so much love to our Baba, @nikzb7e plus Grandpa @dalejudge, and a bunch of awesome uncles!! 😍I drove straight from my quilting workshop to Greektown to meet up with the fam for St. Nicholas’s Greek Festival. As always, Yiayia treated us to some delicious food and we had fun watching the dancing and even doing a little dancing ourselves. Opa! 📷: stolen from @nikzb7e, my most favorite Greek. ❤️ #itsgoodtobegreek #greektownbaltimore #baltimore #ilovebaltimore #greekdancingI had a great time today at the @baltimoremqg workshop with @duringquiettime. Amy, thanks for teaching us about improv paper piecing! In the second picture, you can see most of the blocks that people came up with. Using the same process, we ended up with an amazing variety! And the third picture shows you a mock up of what I could make with this block. I’m not showing you the actual thing because it’s a surprise for someone. 😉 #salmonandsouvlakisews #baltimoremqg51-56: In #100usefulbeautifuldays news, look Mom (@priscillaljudge)! My hexie quilt covers my legs now! 😀 Also, thanks to @nikzb7e’s prompting, I replaced our terrible old chipped porcelain mixing bowls with beautiful stainless steel bowls from @crateandbarrel. And finally if you would like the long promised actual tour of the basement, swipe to see two poorly lit videos. Videography is not my speciality! 😉 . . . #laurashexiequilt #salmonandsouvlakisews #100dayproject #mixingbowlselfie #mixingbowlsofinstagram #stainlesssteel #baltimoremqg #eppeverywhere #englishpaperpiecing47-50 (50!!): Today marks the halfway point of my #100usefulbeautifuldays project. I should probably call it my “finish our basement” project but I suppose I am accomplishing a few other things as well. 😉 In honor of making it halfway through, I took you on a tour of the current state of our basement. (That’s really our dehumidifier making all that noise). And swipe to see my #makerstote. It’s finished enough to carry my hand sewing supplies inside of it so that I can finish the outside. 😍 #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews ETA: I forgot that IG only lets you post one minute videos so two minutes of that video got cut off. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to post the rest of it. 😉39, 41, 46: A girl can’t slave away in the dungeon every day right? So, in other #100usefulbeautifuldays news, I finished the third and final section of my #laurashexiequilt! I am so close to finishing the whole quilt but this project is no longer portable, which means I need to find another hand sewing project. 😀 And, in other news, I’ve added both gussets to my #makerstote and basted in the zipper. I’m getting really close to finishing this too! #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews #noodleheadpatterns #quiltersofinstagram #eppeverywhere #englishpaperpiecing #scrappyquiltsarethebest40, 42-45: The basement. My whole life, consumed. The end. (In case you can’t tell from these pictures, I’ve been scrubbing excess grout off of the tiles in the newly-painted room and then moving all kinds of stuff from the other room into this room so that we can tile the other room. Seriously, it will never end. I have been throwing away all kinds of stuff though. That has been satisfying. The basement is so close to being ready for the next stage and it’s starting to look great. The rest of my house? Totally trashed. 😂 Nik is doing his best to help out but his commute is so much longer now that he’s just not home nearly as much as he used to be. I keep telling myself that this is for a short season and soon the basement will be done and I can focus back on the rest of my house again, which was the original point of this project.) #100usefulbeautifuldays #100dayproject35-38: Dear naive Laura of last Monday morning (May 7th), you sweet little thing, when you filmed that video, you thought you were almost done cleaning. Silly you! That was before you discovered that there was 65 years worth of dirt and construction debris on top of the beams that was going to get dislodged by the ceiling spray painting and so had to be removed although it was totally hidden. And then you figured out that there wasn’t room to get the vacuum cleaner up there, and so you had to scrape it out by hand. So then you worked for hours and hours, including until midnight on the next day and continued to work while the painters were starting in the other room and finally you finished, just in time. And then you started thinking to yourself, “Should I really have started this #100usefulbeautifuldays project? It is CONSUMING my life!” But then you consoled yourself with the thought that you’ll never have to do that cleaning job in your house ever again and would you look at the beautifully painted room, finally functional after 2 years!! Hooray! Well done, Last Week Laura! . . . This skirt is also the only #memade article of clothing I own. It’s a self-drafted elastic waist A-line skirt and I need to make another one. So here’s my one and only entry for #memademay18! 😂 #100dayproject #salmonandsouvlakisews #mmmay18I am grateful for these two precious children who changed me forever when I became their mother. I am so grateful for my own mother, @priscillaljudge, and all the sacrifices that she made for me. I am also feeling the pain of the difficulty of Mother’s Day for those for whom the topic of motherhood is fraught with tension, sadness, and pain. My heart is with you. ❤️Categories
- AIBLW (14)
- Alaska (62)
- baby (52)
- baking (19)
- books (116)
- canning (7)
- cleaning (18)
- cooking (178)
- crafts (4)
- dating (1)
- Ellie (573)
- engagement (17)
- faith (31)
- family (339)
- Finishalong 2017 (1)
- friends (85)
- gardening (90)
- Greece (29)
- health and beauty (50)
- holidays (36)
- house/neighborhood (42)
- How To ___ Without ___ (9)
- just for fun (117)
- KIOS (80)
- knitting (2)
- linguistics (5)
- love (67)
- Mark (225)
- marriage (5)
- movie (74)
- nursing (32)
- organizing (5)
- parenting (107)
- photography (4)
- politics (12)
- pre-kids (6)
- recipe (27)
- reflecting (116)
- school (144)
- series (1)
- sewing (318)
- travel (119)
- tutorial (19)
- Uncategorized (4)
- useful beautiful (11)
- weather (60)
- wedding (40)
Archives
- December 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- February 2017
- December 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Baby Update
I had a midwife appointment this morning and the baby is head down! Hooray! I know having a breech baby is really rare but I’ve read enough/known enough people with breech babies to be worried about it. So hooray for … Continue reading
Posted in baby
4 Comments
Some large things
or a baby in a uterus (at 34.5 weeks), an alpaca, a llama, and an ignored zucchini plant (oops).
Posted in baby, gardening
Leave a comment
(Only 4 1/2 hours late!)
Technically it’s only 4:30 in the morning Alaska time so I’m only going to be 4 1/2 hours late to wish Meggan a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We’re looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks!
Construction and beginning again
I taught in our school district for the last five years. In those five years, I taught at 3 middle schools. I started at a new school in 2005, 2008, and 2009. All three times, the school was under construction … Continue reading
Christmas in August
Last weekend, I was in charge of a craft-making party for the women at our church. We made felt Christmas ornaments to sell at the Advent Bazaar in December, to benefit the mercy ministries at our church. I searched the … Continue reading
Posted in sewing
6 Comments
Likes and Dislikes
Some things from the past week that I DON’T like: 1. Unasked for, insensitive, badgering parenting advice. I suppose I’m just going to have to develop a thick skin about this kind of stuff but seriously? Do you really think … Continue reading
Posted in baby, sewing
3 Comments
Fun fabric + quick project = satisfying afternoon
My friend Sharla gave me a bunch of fun fabric as part of my shower present – she used it to wrap her other present, which went along with the “green” theme of the shower. (She very thoughtfully gave me … Continue reading
Posted in baby, sewing
4 Comments
