so quick update

So as usual life has gotten in the way of blogging.  What is UP with that?  I am working full time as a Middle School chorus teacher, helping out with the school's production of Seussical Jr. (costuming and vocal coaching).  I have been sewing a lot too, but tomorrow everything will be put on hold and I will be heading out on vacation.  Disney World, here I come!

Pin Spin: The making of the ultimate picnic blanket

I have dedicated many hours to pinterest browsing. Too many hours. Hours I could spend crafting instead. As much as I love winter (read: snow) I have been longing for the sun dresses, daffodils, and picnics of spring. In my hours of browsing aimlessly, I came across two different pins that I thought looked especially promising as items I MUST MAKE.

Bandana Quilt

Bandana quilt (with tutorial) perfect to keep in the car for that impromptu summer picnic! So Bandanas are super cheap at walmart and these would be awesome for when we go for a picnic. :)

Lined Beach Blanket

Used old towels to make this huge beach blanket. Add a vinyl tablecloth to the back: blocks sand, doubles as tablecloth. Road trip must-have! ----

The info the commentors had put in with the pins had made both look promising... but I didn't open either of them to read the directions at the time. I broke the cardinal rule of successfully navigating pinterest, I know.

Fast forward a week or so and both projects had been in the back of my mind. I happened to be in hobby lobby when I passed by the racks upon racks of bandanas and the lightbulb went off “Hmm... maybe I should actually make that bandana picnic blanket...”

When I opened the link to the first pin, I was disappointed because it linked to a tutorial on creating a quilt with your child. Not quite what I was looking for. Undaunted, I forged on, deciding to wing it. My original intention was to make a bandana “sheet” out of the sixteen bandanas I purchased for $.99 each at hobby lobby. I did everything you are supposed to when you quilt (prewash, press, cut down so each square is exactly the right size and all of the corners are square). Then I settled in for the long haul with a cup of coffee, my trusty Singer Confidence, and the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice. I had wanted to join the squares at the edges by zig-zagging over the seam but the thin fabric did not like that idea. A few minutes of drooling at Mr. Darcy and unpicking the thick black stitches, later and I was back to a pile of squares. Not to be deterred, I stitched it all together like I would a quilt, pressed the seams, and laid it out on my bed to be admired. Done? Not quite.

Pin #2 had been in the back of my head the whole time because as I was planning on making what would essentially be a very pretty sheet, I realized that if I were to actually throw it on the ground on the grass any where but the desert, my butt would be damp as fast as you can say “May flowers.” Hence the trip to walmart to purchase flannel backed vinyl table cloths for less than $5 each.

Let my preface all of this by saying this blanket is a monster. It is 80” x 80”. So I purchased two beige table cloths (the nice[er] ones you find in housewares, not the disposable ones you buy for parties). While I had been planning on a print or at least a cool color, it isn't spring yet. The picnic/spring kind of stuff is thin on the ground and the prints were HORRENDOUS. There was not a print that didn't include garish colors and pictures of food. You have no idea. It made boring beige look incredibly appealing. Other problem: the the largest square table cloth available was 52” x 52”. Not going to work. So I bought two 60” x 102” cloths, stitched them together and cut them to size with minimal errors. I decided I didn't want to fuss with binding (actually, I couldn't be bothered to leave the house mid-project to go to the sewing store to buy the 500 or so packs of double fold bias tape this would inevitably take...) so I put in my ultra-sharp needle, stitched it right sides together, turned it inside out, and then top stitched around the edges to make it look more finished. No need to press (unless you want to melt your project. In which case, go ahead). Just shake and done.

Check it out.  It is huge!  Not perfect (check out that huge wrinkle) but it will do wonderfully.

Admire that lovely beige backing

Oh yeah.  That beige table cloth is SEXY.

All that's left is for there to be a warm spring day to merit a picnic. And possibly a tall, dark, and handsome man to bring the picnic basket and bouquet of wildflowers. ;-)

The only thing I would change: I meant to sew large washers into each of the corners to make sure the blanket won't go flying on a windy day but I completely forgot until I was ¾ of the way done top-stitching and really didn't want to undo it all. As my mother has requested one, perhaps I'll remember next time. And maybe write a tutorial that actually has all the relevant info.

  

I promise I'm not dead

So I have had all of these grand plans.  I had all of these plans to review pinterest tutorials and post them for the christmas season.

Yeah, that didn't happen.  The reason?

Working full time.

For those of you who work full time and have a gorgeous well maintained blog, kudos.  Do you sleep?  I have a tendency to come home and collapse into a heap.  That or I make a gorgeous handmade item and forget to take pictures.  Or lose the pictures.  Or whatever.

The majority of the bloggers I follow are stay at home moms who can write ten posts during naptime and schedule them so their blog practically writes itself.  And any of those mommy bloggers who are reading this are mentally reminding me of all the responsibilities they have because they stay at home all day.   I get it.  I'm not criticizing.  You are my crafty heroes and you are all domestic goddesses.

So hopefully I update soon?

A few thoughts on Sandy Hook

Dear Readers,

As a nation, as a people, as a world, we mourn for what happened in Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday. There are no words that can satisfy my heart or help me to wrap my head around what has transpired. I read the stories of the beautiful children, gone before they even had a chance to live, and of the brave adults who dedicated their lives to the kids in that school. A principal and psychologist making a desperate charge to take down the shooter. A teacher dying as she shielded her children. A music teacher holding a closet door shut as the shooter tried to get in. Sparks of hope in a dark tragedy. There are no words that I can say that are deep enough, comforting enough, wise enough to make the pain go away.

I am a substitute teacher who spends her time with kids of all ages. My favorite days have to be my days when I am with the young ones, the precious boys and girls who are just learning how to live, who are relatively free of the pain and scars living in a sinful world leaves. They live in a world where best friends are made in an instant, where boo-boos can be kissed away, and everything can be created in beautiful bright colors. They don't all color in the lines. They occasionally throw tantrums. Sometimes they don't listen to the directions you've given them 500 times but they're learning. Have you ever been hugged by a line of fifteen six year olds? I have. It's pretty awesome. I struggle with imagining someone who could want to hurt them.

I have spent the last three weeks teaching high school art which often feels like an exercise in futility. Yesterday, however, I started my new long term (meaning a few weeks) position teaching middle school chorus. Middle school kids are a kind unto themselves. They are testing their wings, often thrashing against authority. Their hormones are going crazy. They often talk too much. They can be cruel to each other and to adults. But they are also funny (sometimes without intending to be so) and sometimes sweet and vulnerable. They drive me crazy more than half the time, but man do I love them.

I read through my code blue drills in my new classroom today and spent several minutes looking around the room wondering, “How will I protect them? How will I keep them calm?” And still worse, in a classroom where the positioning of the windows and door is the worst for trying to keep kids out of harms way, how do I shield them all if the worst happens? I don't know.

Many of my friends know that I don't especially enjoy my job some days. Being a sub is hard because I am usually in a different classroom every day. These two long term jobs have had there own difficulty. As an educator, their safety is my number one priority. They come first. All of them. And I hope that I am one of those teachers who stands up and protects my kids over myself because that is my duty. If that is not something you are willing to do, this is the wrong profession.

I am going to tell a story from about ten days ago while I was teaching high school art. I had assigned my kids the task of creating origami projects and some were very creative and made beautiful projects while others did the bare minimum or skipped it all together in favor of a zero. One student however decided that in lieu of making origami, he was going to take the black construction paper and make a gun. Many of the students thought it was cool. Even before recent events, I completely flipped out on him. I informed him he had 30 seconds destroy it unless he wanted a referral.

I wasn't very old when the Columbine shooting occurred but I do remember it on some level. I was in elementary school at the time. The VT shootings happened when I was in high school so this young man was pretty young when it happened. They don't understand the horror of even seeing the events on TV. They don't understand the fear of it happening in your town. I am willing to bet that if the creator of said paper gun pulled it out today, it would be seen as a threat because we are so scared.

I'm not writing this post to make a point about gun control or the school systems or even mental health awareness. I'm writing to address a few issues near and dear to my heart, issues about faith in times of crisis and the problem of suffering in the world. I hate that we are so cynical that we assume that just because bad things happen in the world, God can't exist. I assure you that he does.

The question many people ask is how God can allow bad things to happen, how he allowed that man (I do not wish to remember his name) was allowed into an elementary school and was allowed to take the lives of innocent children, shattering our hearts. I think God allowed it because he had to.

When God created man kind, he created mankind with free will. With free will, unfortunately, comes sin, the root of all our problems. God does not force us to obey his laws, as much as he desperately wants us to. I like to think of God as the parent of an adult child. No matter how well you raise your kids, they are going to make mistakes, probably lots of them, and probably bigger mistakes as they get older.

We are addicted to sin like some people are addicted to heroin. We know it's bad for us but we can't stop. We are like adult children. No matter how much our loving parents beg us to stop, they cannot make us do so. They cannot shield us from the consequences of our own actions, just like God cannot shield us from the results of our own sin. If he gave us our free will, he can't selectively take it away to save us from the consequences. For those of you who are parents, have you ever let your child make a mistake so they would understand the consequences, even though it hurt your heart? It's like that.

I have no doubt that God mourns for what happened in Connecticut even more than we do. He is able to love more completely than us; and he knows each of them more completely than anyone else. He knows who each of those beautiful children could have become and His heart is broken that they never got a chance to be those people. But those children are now with God, safe in his arms, and we are the ones we ought to feel sorry for. We must continue to live our lives in a world of sin.

I said the following on facebook on Monday:

"People ask where God was on Friday when all those children died. I can tell you where. God was in Sandy Hook School on Friday. He was there escorting each of the little children to heaven, and he was there with the teachers who kept their children calm in the chaos. He was there with the parents that learned that their child would never come home. He was in Sandy Hook, invited or not, as he is in every school."

I hold tightly to every word of that statement. On Friday, when the world was busy asking where he was, God was with the children of Sandy Hook, those who lost their lives and those who have to live in the aftermath. He held each tiny hand, calmed fluttering hearts, and whispered calming words in the ears of terrified children. Do you know how hard it is to keep a first grader quiet, even when there isn't anything going on? God was with those children.

God was with the principal and the school counselor making a desperate attempted to take the shooter out. They gave up their lives for those kids. He was also there with the teachers that had to protect their kids and keep a level head in chaos.

God was there in the aftermath, with the first responders. He was with the husbands and children who learned that their wife or mother had given up their lives. He was with the parents who learned that their child would never come home from school. I cannot even imagine.

As a country, we have decided that God is not invited into our public schools. I think God is kind of like that friend of a friend who always comes along when you make plans, invited or no. He doesn't particularly care that he isn't invited; he's coming in anyway. I believe that God is with us always. Always. God doesn't escort us into a school building and wait at the door.

We have seen a lot of tragedy through the years and a lot of difficulty this year. Hurricane Sandy rocked our country. But the difference was that we felt like there was something we could do. There was a cause to donate to, there were tangible needs to fill, and physical damage to repair. There is none of that in this case. We can only pray. While many think it's like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound but it's not. Gaping wounds take time to heal and they often have to be healed from the inside out. Prayer is like a salve. Applied daily, it helps heal the wound but it takes time.

I hope my words, inadequate as they are, might bring comfort to you. Comment, if you would like, but any posts meant to inspire arguments will be deleted.   

Holiday Placemat Tutorial

Hello my dear crafters! This post was originally to Sugar Bee Crafts as part of Mandy's Holiday Guest posting extravaganza.  To see the original, please look there, but this one contains updated photos.  

Materials Needed:

1 yard each of four different coordinating fabric

2 yards of a coordinating fabric for the back side of the placemats and runner

Interfacing, iron on or sewn in (I used about 5 yards since it is only 20 inches wide)

6 packs of ½ inch double fold bias tape

Sewing machine

adjustable binding foot like THIS

Or, alternatively, patience in attaching binding without one

Step One

Pick out a pile of gorgeous fabrics from your local store. I suggest four for the top of your place mats and then one for the backing. I purchased one yard of each of the top fabrics and two yards of my backing fabric.

The bottom fabric is my backing and the top four I used on the top

Step Two

Pre-wash, dry, and iron your fabrics. Then trim your selvedge edges.

Step Three

Let's talk math. My place mats are 14 by 18 inches. This pattern uses quarter inch seam allowances so the strips are cut to 3 ½ x 14 inches to allow for seam allowances. I decided to make six place mats and a table runner that is five feet long. You need fourteen 14 x 3 ½ inch strips of each of the four “top” fabrics to make what is shown.

Note Here: In a perfect world, everyone who have a cutting mat, rotary cutter, and quilting ruler. Mine is currently in the mail so I completed this using a yardstick, scissors, and a carpenters square.

Step Four

Press each piece and place the pieces in the order they will be sewn together. I then grouped them so I had six pieces for each place mat and twenty pieces for my runner.

My fabrics nice and cut, ironed, and organized. 

Step Five

Start pinning. I prefer to pin all of my seams together for each place mat and then sew everything at once, rather than pinning as I go. Pin wrong side to wrong side, going in a row as shown below.

Place your second piece on top of your first, wrongsides out.  Pin along top.

Open up the fabric

Pin piece three to piece two and repeat the process until all pieces are pinned.  

Step Six

Stitch each seam, removing pins as you go and then press all the seams and if you, like me, were less than perfect with your measuring and cutting, trim the edges so they are all even.

My seams, some pressed and others waiting for my nice hot iron

Step Seven

Cut your interfacing and fuse to place mat according to package directions 

The wrong side of my place mat with interfacing fused on.  Word to the wise:  Make sure the side with all the little dots is facing your fabric.  I almost fused this to my iron...

Step Eight

Cut backing fabric to match and then pin all layers together. At this point, use safety pins in the middles of your rectangles since you are going to be quilting soon. 

See all my layers just waiting to be sewed together?  So close to finished!  

Step Nine

Attach your binding.  There are many tutorials that explain this much better than I can.  THIS one explains how to use a binding foot and THIS tells you how to attach double fold binding tape using a standard presser foot.  It takes patience.  

Step Ten

"Quilt" your place mats. I chose to do a simple outline of each block. 

Ain't it purty?  

Bonus:  Step Eleven

If you like the detailed edge finish of my final place mat, I achieved this look by using one of the embroidery functions on my sewing machine.  I have a Singer Confidence.  

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will visit me at my blog Songbird Takes Flight.  If you like the "snowballs" in the centerpiece, there is a tutorial to make them and faux mercury glass ornaments in my blog.  

~ Caitlin

P.S.  Special Thanks to Mandy for the opportunity to share this tutorial with all of you.  :)

so About that...

So I'm sorry I've been AWOL lately.  The reason?  I'm crazy.

No seriously.

I took a long term sub job teaching high school art.  It's... interesting.  And also a huge time suck since I have to write my own lesson plans and grade my own papers so I get stuck at school for a long time afterward.  Such is life.  It's money, right?

so I've had to come up with art projects to do with teenagers.  Sadly, they don't respond too well to crafts... That and I don't have the ability to requisition supplies...   Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to add more stuff soon...

Recipe: The Best Blueberry Topping Ever

I know.  It's kind of an inflammatory title.  There is going to be someone out there who disagrees.  But Whatever.  This is my blog so I am calling the shots.  I made this topping to go on my white chocolate cheesecake that I am making for my big family thanksgiving.  Cheesecake is my specialty and I am fairly sure that failure to bring one to Thanksgiving would result in my removal from the family.  This topping would also be delicious on ice cream or yogurt or oatmeal or anything else that blueberry goes well with.  So here you go.

The Best Blueberry Topping Ever
Time:  20 minutes
Makes enough to top one cheesecake

1 bag frozen blueberries
1 lemon
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup water

1.  Pour half the bag of blueberries into a small saucepan.  Add all other ingredients, reserving the other half of the blueberries.  

Reserved about this much

2.  Stir over medium heat.  When mixture comes to a boil, reduce to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes.  

I love the way the lemon zest contrasts with the blueberries.  Not that you actually see the zest when it is fully cooked and ready to go.  

3.  Add the rest of the blueberries to the saucepan.  Stir.  Allow to warm over low heat for 5 minutes.  

4.  Remove from heat and enjoy.  

Jealous of my family for tomorrow?  This is one of three delicious desserts.  

In other news, sorry for not posting in so horribly long but you know  Life is life and I'm also writing a novel and getting ready to decorate for Christmas.  

Happy Thanksgiving!