September Projects

This month, in addition to finding places in my house to paint and re-do, I've finished a few small sewing projects and revived a past project that had been on hold for over two years.

First, the sewing.

I love the line of One Yard Wonder sewing books by Rebecca Yaker, and the newest version is no exception. It's called Little One Yard Wonders and all the patterns are things to make for babies/kids.

I made this top in less than an hour (and less than a yard of fabric):

It's hard to tell from the photo since the fabric is kind of busy, but it has a button closure on the back and both sides have a small center pleat.

The second quick project was another T-shirt dress, this one using a long-sleeved shirt. The shirt fit everywhere except length (it was getting too short), so I chopped off a little at the bottom and sewed a two-tiered skirt to it. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

The project I revived was from waaaaay back in June 2012 (see the original post here): the dollhouse. I had stowed it away in a closet ever since building it, dreading the final stage of gluing all those roof shingles on. I finally got brave and decided to tackle it, and it wasn't quite as bad as I expected. Not a picnic, but not so bad.

It's hard to tell in the photo above, but the house is painted light pink (I used the same paint that we used in Charlotte's room). I can see why the dollhouse directions advise painting every piece before putting the house together. Painting afterward is difficult and tedious, to say the least. Plus the wood soaks up paint like crazy, so I had to do four coats of white on the trim and three coats of pink.

As for the exterior, that'll be a project for yet another day so back in the closet this goes for awhile longer :)

~Stacy

Patterson Fruit Farm

Unrelated: when I was typing the title to this post I had to retype "farm" four times. "Fram" is not correct.

Last weekend we went to Patterson Fruit Farm for the first time and it was such a wonderful place. It's in Chesterland, about 45 minutes away, and is such a pretty drive. I never realized how gorgeous it is out that way--rolling hills and packed with trees, and probably unbelievably pretty in just a few weeks when all those leaves start changing color.

We went on Saturday, and it was perfect weather to do something fall-ish--chilly enough for hoodies but not raining or too windy.

There are two locations for Patterson's, located about 5 minutes away from each other. The first place is a cider mill and bakery where they sell fresh produce, cider, maple syrup, donuts, and just about every kind of pie you can think of. And apple fritters the size of my face. Next to that is a small restaurant and playground. At the actual farm, down the road, are apple orchards and their Fall Festival (which goes on weekends now thru October). There's apple picking, wagon rides, a huge corn maze, a playground made of hay bales, play houses & barns, pony rides and a huge tree house. And more donuts, cider, kettle corn and delicious things.


We picked apples (a first for all of us) and it was really fun. They don't use any nasty sprays or pesticides on their fruit so you can pick them right off the tree and take a bite. We picked Galas, since that day they were at their peak. They were delicious, and every time Charlotte picked one she got so excited :)

~Stacy

I've Been in the Kitchen.

Since my last post I've pretty much been holed up in the kitchen--but not cooking. There's been very little of that happening lately. I've been painting. Trim, cupboards, baseboards, drawers, walls, doors. Painting, painting, painting. I'm finally done and, as is the case anytime I repaint something desperately in need of repainting, I'm shocked at how much difference just two cans of paint made in this room.

The kitchen was the last room of our house left that we hadn't repainted since moving in eight years ago. And when it was painted back then it was walls and trim only--no cupboards or drawers. I knew the white had dulled over the years but I didn't realize just how much until I painted a fresh coat of white on top and there was a four shade difference. I got lucky this time and only needed to do one coat of white to cover everything, yessss.

A word about our kitchen. It's small. That about sums it up. It has everything we need and we do our best to make it as functional as possible, but it's small. This means paint color and extra stuff matter a whole lot--so we changed both. The old color wasn't bad (buttery yellow) but if I looked at it for one more day I would have gone crazy. I was so tired of it. And there were issues with extra stuff that had taken over that needed to be addressed, so we purged quite a bit of excess. And found smarter ways to store smaller appliances to free up precious countertop real estate, and figured out a pantry solution. 

Our kitchen has this weird area in the back, by the mudroom, that we turned into a makeshift pantry with shelves. The shelves have pretty much been garbage since day 1 when they kept ripping holes into the plaster and bending. And they were ugly. So I made a curtain, hung it from a tension rod, and covered the mess and that's been that since 2006. When we tore out the hold shelves to patch the wall and repaint, the shelves went straight into the garbage and I went straight to Lowe's to find a better solution. Answer? A pantry that just so happened to be the perfect height (this never happens in a 100+ year old house. Never. Everything is some ridiculous custom measurement. ClosetMaid, I thank you many times over).

The trim/cabinet color is Delicate White by Olympic and the wall color is some variation of light gray (also by Olympic, don't remember the actual color name).

On to the next project...

~Stacy

First Day.

And so here we are. The first day of preschool. The day that Charlotte has been looking forward to pretty much since she started talking and the day that I've been looking forward to and kind of dreading ever since last winter when we decided to send her to preschool this year.

And, much to my relief, it was a smashing success. She loved it and she can't wait to go back. The first day was a shorter day (90 minutes), and parents were asked to come too. So we went, and several times she said "okay Mommy and Daddy, you can go home now!" It actually made me feel really good to hear her say that since I want her to like it and I would feel awful if I dropped her off and she was sobbing and begging me to stay.

The school is wonderful, the teachers are wonderful and I think she's going to have a great year. Several people asked me if it was hard or if I cried at all, and the answer to both has surprisingly been no. I think seeing how much fun she had that first day, coupled with the fact that it's only two days a week for a few hours each makes it easier. I was feeling a lot of feelings the night before, telling Chad that I was about two steps away from forgetting about the whole thing and just starting her next year. Or running away to some remote part of Vermont and homeschooling and living off the land and avoiding all contact with the rest of the world as a way to convince myself that I had stopped time. 

I've never been good with change, but thankfully my daughter is much more of a chameleon :)

She drew her new teacher two pictures at home and insisted on bringing them the first day to give to her. She also gave herself and Winnie several pep talks about how he couldn't come in to school but that he would have to "stay safe in the car" while she was in school and she would see him soon.

Her second day of school, tomorrow, is "Bring Your Favorite Stuffed Animal Day" so she's pretty excited that Winnie can actually come with her then.

~Stacy

The Week Before School

In this last week of August before school starts (which is also just the last week of August...) we've gotten to celebrate a birthday, go to the beach, go swimming, and grasp at these last several weeks of summer before they give way to fall.

Between my mom and I, Charlotte has a slightly excessive amount of sundresses. Sewing dresses for little girls is just too fun. She still had one left in her closet that she hadn't worn yet, so my dad's birthday party was the perfect occasion.

And an evening bike ride to the beach:

Slow it down August, slow it down...

~Stacy