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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
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Monthly Archives: March 2015
Sometimes Your Animals Just Need To Be Close
The other day, Mark asked me to help him put Bunny and Puppy on his back. He seems to have fond memories of being worn because now he’s helping out his animals in the same way! 🙂 I made him … Continue reading
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March Sewing: Flowers and a Heart for a Special Baby
I had the privilege of attending a baby shower on Saturday for a friend who is expecting a little girl in May. I made her a little baby blanket and wanting to add a bit of pink to the otherwise … Continue reading
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Favorite Books of 2014: Non-Fiction (everything else)
I read almost 100 books in 2014. Here are my favorites (and yes, I realize I’m nearly 3 months late with this list). I track my reading on Goodreads. So if we’re not friends there, you should join me! Here … Continue reading
My No-Shave Experiment – 121 Days and Counting (The REVEAL)
I haven’t shaved my legs or my armpits in 121 days (since November 22, 2014.) I did this deliberately. That day, I said to myself, “I’m going to shave today and then I’m not going to shave, for a long … Continue reading
Cute Children, Singing
My apologies for overwhelming you with videos this week! Ellie has been teaching Mark her Sunday School songs and here’s one. And, finally, I prove to you that Ellie has progressed beyond “Chukka, chukka, oh wah die” when it comes … Continue reading
Why Sourdough? Why Soaked? Why Even Bother?
A few weeks ago, my friend Liz left this comment on my “Seven Essential Tools for Baking” post. I answered her briefly in a comment there but promised her that I’d write a fuller response because I think it’s a … Continue reading
He Counts In Greek! And Sings in English!
It’s only fair that we show off Mark counting in Greek, right? Ellie had her moment in the spotlight, so here’s Mark’s. Unlike Ellie at this age, Mark is regularly and consistently counting to 20, usually perfectly, on his own. … Continue reading
