New Old Things

Without planning to, I've amassed a small stash of old and made-to-look-old things.  I could have said "vintage" instead of "old", but that word has become waaay overused.  Ever pick up a gossip magazine and a celebrity is wearing some un-identifiable brand?  It's immediately labeled "vintage." Not "some old thing they had lying around in their closet".  I'm going to start calling my ancient, ratty tennis shoes and college hoodie that I still wear "vintage" and I plan to refer to myself as "vintage" once I'm in my eighties.

Anyhow, while we were on vacation we visited a town in New Hampshire near Lake Winnipesaukee called Moultonborough.  There was this area alongside the road with about half a dozen small sheds that were small antique stores, all grouped together, called The Shoppes at Red Hill.

While we were there, my dad and I took a liking to those plaid coolers sitting on the front porch in the photo fourth from the top.  They were a little pricey so we wanted to check Ebay--my dad found some similar ones for less money and ordered one for me:

Also during our visit to New Hampshire, I stopped at Keepsake Quilting and they had a huge collection of 1930s reproduction fabrics, kits, and patterns.  I found this adorable fabric panel with four cut-outs to make rag dolls and their matching pets:

It's made by Blue Hill Fabrics, and they also make a bunch of other cute templates that are similar to this.  I plan on making these for Charlotte for Christmas, and I love that all I have to do is cut them out, sew, and stuff.  Bonus: totally washable.

I also found this old-fashioned lace-up Christmas card set:

My plan for those is to frame them and use as Christmas decorations.  Speaking of Christmas, there's also this new-to-me tablecloth that my mom found at one of the Red Hill shops:

And finally, this:

My dad found it at a flea market and it's admittedly pretty beat up, but I'm hoping I can restore it somehow.  Once finished, I want to line the inside with fabric and use it as a holder for all of the stuffed animals in Charlotte's room.  Granted, by the time it gets finished Charlotte will probably be ready to graduate high school...do a doll house and baby carriage make appropriate graduation gifts?  No?

Happy Monday (blah).  I've been trying to keep myself off the internet as much as possible so I don't see any of the Olympics results before I can watch the events.  That's the downside of both A) technology and B) time zones.  Watching the live stream online is not an option with a baby in the house and with hoping to be productive in any way, so I wait.

Enjoy your week!

~Stacy

Table Topper

It's been awhile since I've done any sewing.  I tend to go in spurts with it, where I'll make a bunch of things for a month or two and then let my machine collect dust for an entire season.  The dollhouse  took up all of my sewing table and crafting time for awhile, but it's time to put it away for awhile bring the sewing machine out of hibernation.  I had a layer cake (collection of 42 10" squares) of an older line called Neptune by Tula Pink, along with a bunch of yardage and odds and ends from other projects that used that fabric.  I had no idea what to do with it, so I cut the layer cake into fourths to make four charm packs.  I think charm packs are the easiest cuts to find patterns for, which is why I have so many of them.  I found a pattern on Moda Bake Shop , by Camille Roskelley, for a cute table topper that used one charm pack and some backing fabric.  It's already a simple project, and I made my version even simpler:

The pattern uses almost the entire charm pack--40 squares total (5 down, 8 across), along with two strips of fabric at each end and enough backing fabric and batting to accommodate the 25"X44" (approximate) dimensions.  Just arrange the squares, sew five together in eight strips, then connect the strips.  Connect the outside strips to a 2.5" strip of solid fabric cut to the same length as the charm strip.

Make the quilt "sandwich" and pin.

Quilt as you wish--I kept mine fancy free and just stitched in the ditch inside every seam to make a checkerboard pattern.

Finish it up with binding and voila!  Table topper.  It could also do double duty as a wall hanging, which I'm considering for this one.  I like these because they're not as long as a traditional table runner, which I find tend to get pulled and caught in the lap of anyone who sits at the end of the table.  They also get pulled on by tiny, curious hands.  This table topper is large enough to be useful but not so large that it gets in the way.

 I'm crossing my fingers that the weather clears up soon.  I just discovered that there's an event down the street from me from 9-4 today called Summer Market, where over 50 artists and vendors have outdoor tents to display and sell their handmade goods.  I went to this a few years ago and didn't realize it was an annual event.  I really want to check it out, and it doesn't hurt that there's a mobile cupcake bakery on site...

~Stacy

Olympics Obsession

As of 7:30 tomorrow evening, the 2012 Summer Olympics officially begin.  Deep breath.  I love the Olympics.  Love as in obsessively watch every primetime second and then read all about it again the next day.  I love everything about it--the events, the symbolism, the rivalries, those special interest back stories they do on some of the athletes right before a really important race or event.  Love those.

Let me back up by saying I'm really not a sports person.  I'll glance at a football game on TV here and there, but unless one of the teams I root for is doing really well and in a playoffs situation, I couldn't care less.  And let's face it: I'm a Cleveland sports fan, so it's not often that we find ourselves on the edge of winning any kind of championship, ever.  When the Cavs made it to the NBA Finals several years ago, I knew nothing about the team other than LeBron James was a player and he was very good.  By the time they beat Detroit to play the Spurs in the finals, I knew the entire team and most of the guys they were playing.  It's bizarre, but I guess I just enjoy the excitement of that level of competition.

While I like the winter and summer Olympics, my favorite is the summer games.  The first time I remember really getting into it was during the Atlanta games in 1996.  I was 12, which was in itself practically a requirement to be gymnastics-crazed.  When Kerri Strug vaulted the womens' team to gold, I couldn't get enough.  I even saved the newspaper article from the Plain Dealer the next day (and I still have it, tucked away safely in my cedar chest).  I saved my money and bought a huge book all about "The Magnificent 7", as they'd been nicknamed, and saved even more money to go downtown to see them perform in a live show.  Bless my dad, who took me and a friend down there and suffered through 2.5 hours of gymnastics routines and bought us programs to take home.  That had to take some serious stamina, which I did not fully appreciate at the time.

Source: kndoty.wordpress.com

From there my interest in has only grown and has expanded into other events.  I was pretty much plastered to my TV at the 2008 Beijing games during all of Michael Phelps' events.  Remember Phelps' miracle finish in the 100M butterfly, where he swung his arm out and managed to touch the finish line a mere blink before the guy next to him to win gold?  That was intense.  And awesome.  I hope something like that happens during this Olympics.

Source: si.com

I've downloaded all my Olympics apps, brushed up on the athletes of Team USA, and read the Olympic Preview issue of Sports Illustrated (the only issue of said magazine I read, which means I pick up a copy of SI once every two years).  I think I'm ready.

I'm especially excited about the Olympics this year because of their location: London.  Chad and I went to London in the fall of 2008 and thought it was an amazing place.  The history there is unmatched by anything we have in the U.S. and it was just a wonderful experience.  It didn't hurt that we were there to literally watch history being made:  Barack Obama was elected President during our stay.  It was fascinating to see that from the perspective of another country.  I'm curious to see what the games are like--and where they plan to fit all those events and athletes.

So, at 7:30 tomorrow and from 8pm-midnight for the next 17 days, you can find me glued to my couch, obsessively soaking in every moment I can until the closing ceremonies tell me I can stop.  Thankfully Chad and my brother and sister-in-law share my extreme interest in the Olympics and are coming over to celebrate the start of the games with a bunch of delicious food and desserts.  Because what better way to admire elite athletes than by stuffing our faces with appetizers and cookies?

~Stacy

Willowbrook Village

One of the first activities we did in Maine was check out this 19th century reproduction village called Willowbrook, located just a few miles from where we were staying.  Willowbrook is set on about 16 acres of property in rural Newfield, ME and was designed to show how people lived in the 19th century.  The village has houses, a carousel, a schoolhouse, carriage house, blacksmith building, barns, and many other exhibits that illustrate Victorian life on a small scale.  It felt like we were stepping back in time and that the Ingalls family would roll up in their wagon at any moment to pick up supplies from the general store.  It was such a neat little place and, since it was the middle of a Monday, we practically had it all to ourselves.

Inside the general store

Victorian mansion

Entryway of the mansion

Nursery

One of the (many) bedrooms in the home

Check out this baby carriage! 

Tiny old schoolhouse

Inside the schoolhouse

Newspaper article from the The New York Herald detailing President Lincoln's assassination.

If you're interested in reading more about Willowbrook and the history of how it was built, check out their website.  And if you ever find yourself near the southern coast of Maine, consider adding it to your itinerary!

We are finally easing back into something resembling a normal sleep schedule.  While Charlotte was a super traveler, she became a total mess pretty much as soon as we got home--not sleeping, crying for literally hours during the night, general irritability bordering on madness.  I know that we're spoiled and very lucky to have a baby who is (and always has been) an awesome sleeper--as in, goes to bed by 7 and sleeps about 12 hours without a peep and takes two naps each day like clockwork.  She's always been serious about her sleep, but while we were gone things went a little haywire.  Today has been the first mostly normal day in almost two weeks and that makes me a very, very happy mama.  :)


~Stacy

Maine (Part 1)

We are home at last!  Why is it that traveling home always seems to take much longer than traveling to?  That was definitely the case yesterday (and this morning).  We left Maine around 8:30AM on Friday and drove in spurts while Charlotte napped.  We decided not to leave in the evening and drive all the way through to the morning since we wanted to get home and still be able to sleep for a few hours before Charlotte was up and ready to go.  We knocked out about 5 hours total before her bedtime, when the bulk of the driving was done.  Thankfully, she did sleep most of the time and was a spectacular traveler, but we didn't end up getting home until around 4:30AM this morning.  Needless to say, we're tired and totally off schedule.

The trip was wonderful--I'm too tired to give many details, so here's some photo highlights:

The dock at the house we stayed at in Limerick, ME

Charlotte found this mesh toy box and promptly climbed inside.

Portland Head Light

I took many, many pictures of Portland Head Light.  It's impossible to take a bad one; so beautiful.

 While we Chad and Charlotte were admiring the views, I took this picture and immediately afterward heard a tiny voice say "Uh oh!"...

...turns out she threw her Daddy's sunglasses.  Over the fence.

View of my beach house (I kid, I kid) from Cape Neddick, ME.  I took this because it reminded me of Grayson Manor (Revenge, anyone?)

Cape Neddick, ME

I have a bunch of great pictures from this museum village we went to (kind of a much smaller scale Colonial Williamsburg) that I'll put up in a separate post later on.  

Even though the trip was fun and we got to do so many great things and visit with family and friends, Dorothy was right:  There's no place like home.

It's good to be back :)

~Stacy