MASTER!

Yesterday I successfully defended my Masters Thesis. I am a Master (or Mistress) of Science!!! YAY!!!

Technically I still need to complete thesis revisions and turn in all the necessary paperwork to the Grad School, but the big stuff is done!

HUGE HUGE thanks to J for supporting me and encouraging me through this process.

Sisterly love

These are the photos a (sometimes too) adoring big sister takes of her beloved little brother.

As you can see, he's already accustomed to the paparazzi. Best approach: either ignore...

...or flee.

Isn't she sweet?
(most of the time)

Favorite Doodle quote

"He's my best baby in the whole wide world!" - said by Doodle a few days ago, regarding her favorite little brother.

Four

Our days are packed right now, though with what I'm never entirely sure. It's kind of a whirlwind, a crazy blur. But I wouldn't trade a minute with this little family of mine for the world.

Which is which?

I guess my babies *do* look similar.

He's here!

Tyler Jesse was born on Thursday, 8 Oct. at 6:25am. He's 7lbs and 20 inches long. Labor was less than 3 hours long. Our midwife, Melissa, was here for 8 minutes before Tyler was born into his Papa's hands. We're all doing great.

I'll post the full birth story plus cute photos of my little harvest baby soon.

technically...

... this is my first quilt. The other one was my first patchwork blanket and second quilt. But this one feels less quilt-y to me, with just two pieces of fabric and minimal "quilting" involved. So I unfairly dismissed it. But to be fair, I should share it too.

This is a scalloped baby blanket, also from Amy Karol's Bend-The-Rules Sewing book. Yes, it'll be sad in a couple days when I have to return that book to the library.

Anyhow, this blanket used a random piece of light green fleece I had laying around for the back, plus one vintage thrifted pillowcase for the top. Yes, I know the flowers are kinda big and the colors are kinda ugly. But that's the joy of vintage: it's often a strange mix of "Hmm, that's kinda ugly" and "Ooh, that's kinda cute!" I don't think J likes this one yet... give him time.

Here is my giraffe assistant, demonstrating the size of the blanket. Good for a Doodle giraffe or her many toys.

She loves it. See?

39 weeks

Less than a week left until our due date. Still feeling good, and baby has not dropped. J took some bellypics yesterday with our neighbor's very nice camera. These are my favorites.

Show, part 3

Here is video of Doodle performing during intermission. No audio.

Presenting: My Quilt!

At some point during this pregnancy I got a strange urge. Not to clean obsessively, nor to search Northern Utah for the fattiest food imaginable (though both of those urges did arise at some point). No, this urge was different. I wanted to learn to quilt.

Yes, quilt.

Being the good grad student I am *cough cough* I put off this urge for as long as possible. But with chapter drafts in my committee's hands and J needing lots of post-travel on-campus time, what else was there for me to do but indulge myself?

I started with this book, Bend-the-rules Sewing by Amy Karol. It's a perfect book for a rookie like myself who is totally overwhelmed by the precision required in fancy schmancy quilts and other advanced sewing projects. She encourages some level of winging it, which works perfectly for me.

I found a pattern in this book for an Easy Lap Quilt. It looked easy indeed. And I just so happened to have some pieces of fabric that went well together and I thought would look pretty in a quilt. Plus the directions specified that the quilting required to finish this piece was simple and easily done on a regular home sewing machine. I could do this! With nothing to hold me back, Doodle and I bought some fabrics to complement my stash and I pieced them together. A couple of hours of fussing over fabric order, plus one day of machine sewing and a couple hours here and there to sew the binding, and Ta Da!

I present my first quilt, completed today.

It's a lap quilt, so it measures ~40" x 40". Good for a full-size Doodle blanket, or smallish grownup blanket.

Here you can see the backing - just a solid piece of the green circle fabric.

It has passed family inspection, and will hopefully get a lot of snuggling time this winter.

Show, part 2

The real star of the show was Doodle. She owned the stage during intermission. She ate up the attention, loving every second of it.

I'll post video soon.

Show, part 1

The bellydance show last night went really well. Our performances were great, and went off without a hitch (or the breaking of water on stage). After all the practicing leading up to the show I will be glad for a little break from dancing. Lots of photos and video were taken, though very little by us. I'll post more as I get them, but this will have to do for now.

Can you spot the belly?

How about now?