Well then

As a parent I often question the sanity and relevance of what I'm doing.  Daily.  Should I force her to clear her plate, where are her manners, do time-outs really work?  Then, once in a blue moon, they say or do something that makes you stand up and applaud yourself.  Yay, something I'm doing in sinking in! Case in point, this morning.

The Monster: What are you doing Mama?

Me: Making peach crisp.

The Monster: Oh, can I have some? (picking at the topping)

Me: Just one piece, the rest has to go on top of the peaches.

The Monster: But Mama, I'm just an Eater.

I won't be changing the name of the blog anytime soon, but she quite handily settled the debate between Foodie and Gourmet.

Sneak Peak

Are you sick of seeing that grass quilt yet?  Well, you probably want to see the finished quilt already.  So do I!  I did manage to get the binding sewn on last week, but I still have to handstitch it down.

In the meantime, I've started another project.  I'm waiting to see how this one turns out.  The colours are out of my normal range - cream - and I'm trying out something design wise.  If it works and the response is positive I'm hoping to share it with you as a quilt-along. So far so good, but I need to make one more block.  Yes, just one more block.  Before I can do that however, I need to find a nanny and find childcare for a weekend trip I have booked. Gee, this mommy thing sure gets in the way of my quilting sometimes.

Denyse Schmidt Ninja

Thanks for all your encouragement last week.  I too wish you all lived closer.  I'm sure I could learn as much from each and everyone of you as you from me.  I am beyond exited to get this opportunity.

To completely change the subject, I had to share this pic of Smilosaurus. I came from a particularly trying day at the office last week and this is what greeted me.  How can you not giggle at that?  

In our shared dining room/sewing room/home office I keep a little basket that holds selvages and scraps until it is full and I sort them.  The girls love to go in a play with them, usually with The Monster practicing her knot tying.  Well this day it turns out that the girls and our lovely nanny were all sporting bands of selvages at one point during the day, but Smilosaurus would not take hers off. She wore it from naptime to bedtime.  My little Denyse Schmidt Ninja.

Another Form of Improvisation

Just in case it wasn't obvious in those photos of the water layouts, here is my current design wall. It's our brand new fence.  Gates optional at this point. It sure works well as a design wall, with one of our old white sheets thrown over it.

I haven't had a chance to work on any more layouts for the water quilt. And sadly now, some late summer rains are here for a few days so I'm not sure I'll get to them these weekend.  At least with the rain it means I am let off staining duty on that fence!

In the meantime I'm plugging away on the quilting of the grass quilt.  Over half done now.  And when I'm not quilting I've been trying to gain some order in the house and find another nanny. Our wonderful nanny decided to go back to school in September.  I've known  for a few weeks but Hubby was out of town and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything.  Despair is setting in. Good thing I have some vacation time to use.

There is more quilty stuff to come in the next few weeks.  I have a couple of announcements and bigger projects in the works.  Stay tuned!