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Saw this on Twitter and had to share! I love Wendi Gratz’s work—her book is one of Beanie’s go-to resources—and this doll + clothes pattern club such a fun idea I had to share.

You’re Invited to the Dress Up Bunch Club! – Shiny Happy World.

Join the club and on the 13th of every month you’ll get a brand new, never-seen before pattern!

The pattern in January will be for a new Dress Up Bunch doll (a human girl).

Every month after that for the rest of the year, the pattern will be for an outfit and some accessory (or accessories) to go with the doll. I don’t know what they’ll be yet (though I have some ideas) but at least some of them will tie in to seasons or holidays.

You’ll receive the pattern by email. You can start sewing that very day!

This isn’t an affiliate link or sponsored post, just a gift idea I thought some of you might enjoy.

Rilla, as you know, is eight years old, which means it’s her turn for the family tradition called Daddy Reads Mommy’s Martha Books to You. Which for all four of my daughters now has meant, as sure as the sun will rise, a sudden burning need to learn how to spin. I understand; the passion gripped me, too, when I was writing those books. I never did score myself a spinning wheel (it’s on the Someday list) but I had to have a drop spindle so I could know what it felt like to fumble along like beginner Martha. She got good at it way faster than I did, though. In my defense, she had Auld Mary for a teacher, whereas I? Didn’t even have YouTube yet. It was 1997, which means the internet helpfully told me what books to read.

Now this lady—her I could have learned from.

How to Spin Yarn Using a Drop Spindle.

Rilla found a Winky Cherry beginner sewing kit on the shelf—one of those things I’ve had stashed for ages and forgot we owned. I used to feel pangs of guilt over forgotten acquisitions, but they so often seem to turn up at exactly the right moment, such a nice surprise. She’s busily stitching away and I look forward to a menagerie of felt critters in the days ahead. Felt is the nicest thing for a beginner, don’t you think? For both sewing or embroidery. No hemming required, overstitch looks lovely, it’s stiff enough not to need an embroidery hoop (for small pieces, at least), and no matter what you do it always looks cozy and cheerful. I love Felt Wee Folk and Doodle Stitching for ideas.

I had all sorts of little stitchery projects going before Huck was born (a mere four years ago), but I put everything aside when he came along and haven’t returned to it since. (To my chagrin: I still owe a couple of quilt blocks to certain VERY UNDERSTANDING members of my virtual sewing circle, and I never even sent out my own fabric for them to magic into something wonderful. IT’S STILL ON MY LIST OF THINGS TO DO, THOUGH.) (I’m shouting at myself.)

We had planned to go to the zoo today to celebrate Beanie’s 12th (TWELFTH!!!!) birthday, but the rain foiled our plans. Perhaps next week. Among all the other delights of the zoo, I want to give Rilla and Huck a chance to pet a real sheep, feel the lanolin in its wool, for a little sheep-to-yarn rabbit trail I’ve planned for Rilla, who got knitting needles for Christmas. With pink cats on the ends! And how’s this for incentive to pick up my own needles: I was sent a KnitCrate package to review for my subscription-box series at GeekMom—it’s loverly. The two yarns they included are to swoon for. I’ll let you know when that post goes up, probably next week.

One of the activities in our Advent Calendar this week is to make paper chains for the Christmas Tree. I remember making them as a child in red and green construction paper. I've made them as a teacher with first grade classes for many years. It is a great joy to introduce them to my own two boys, who had never made them before. I consider myself privilaged and honored to be the one who

One of the gifts I am making my six year old son is a rock collection with words. Sort of a sight word vocabulary drawn from the creek bank. He loves rocks and collects them. On one recent nature walk he filled his pockets so full his pants fell down when he tried to run down the path ahead of me. He is learning to read and collects words. He reads signs everywhere we go. He reads me books

The other day our Advent calendar activity was to make these paper stars. I am so happy with the way they came out! The red one I made out of an old Christmas card. It was a little too stiff and hard to get the glue to stick without holding it together for a while. I tried using pictures from the World Wildlife Fund Catalog, after we made our donation online. The photos of the birds and

It seems hard to believe but Advent is already here! This year we are counting the days to Christmas with a new Advent calendar I made out of felt stockings. (I'll come back and post directions to how I made them later in the week.) In each stocking is a card with a family activity to help us celebrate and prepare the way for the Savior's birth. The picture above is a bit misleading because

…then you know that it was inevitable that this day should wind up here.

The doll formerly (and briefly) known as Susie K. has now been rechristened “Jennifer.”

• Craft Hope by crafthope on Etsy – “All proceeds of the Craft Hope Etsy shop will benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. All items have been generously donated by the crafting community. If you’d like to donate an item please visit the Craft Hope website (www.crafthope.com).”
• FT.com / Reportage – Moscow’s stray dogs – “Every so often, you would see one waiting on a metro platform. When the train pulled up, the dog would step in, scramble up to lie on a seat or sit on the floor if the carriage was crowded, and then exit a few stops later.”
• Cybils: REVIEW The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. Turner – “This Scientists in the Field title is about Berkeley professor Tyrone Hayes and his research into the effects of pesticides on frogs.” TBR!
• Flying Bicycle Lane Lets You Soar Above Traffic | Inhabitat – Can you imagine?
• What America owes to Haiti | Cranach: The Blog of Veith – “So if you are glad America’s independence was not snuffed out shortly after birth, and if you are glad you are not ruled by the French, and if you live in what used to be the Louisiana Purchase, thank the Haitians.”

Technically, this isn’t a quilting project at all because I didn’t do any quilting and didn’t use batting. It’s just a pieced quilt top backed with fleece.

We adore it.

I had some Moda Objects of Desire charm packs and used everything except the prints with shoes on them. Found some green fleece that matches the green prints exactly: joy!

The charm pack pieces are 5″ square. I pieced them into nine-patches (the girls loved helping with that part) and assembled the blocks into a 4 block x 5 block rectangle. No binding, just sewed the quilt top and the fleece together right sides facing, turned it right-side-out, and sewed up the little opening. The whole project took me, let’s see, about four baby naps plus maybe another three hours in small chunks of time.

We wanted a light but snuggly blanket for the living-room couch. I didn’t want it to be as heavy as a real quilt, so that’s why I skipped the batting, and skipping the batting meant I didn’t have to fuss with quilting stitches. I was going to back it with flannel—I’ve done that for a few baby blankets here and there, and it’s a nice weight, but I wasn’t sure how it would work on a larger scale. But then at the fabric store, Rose and I stumbled upon this fleece in a sale rack, and it matched so perfectly we couldn’t resist. And the cotton quilt top plus the fleece backing turns out to be the PERFECT weight and loft to cuddle up under on our cool mornings and nights. The air trapped between the two layers makes it cushiony and cozy and completely irresistible.

Just ask Rilla. If you can find her.

Has it really been a week since I posted? Just busy being busy, I guess. Lots of creative juices flowing here lately. Rose is hard at work on a novel inspired by Erin Hunter’s Warriors series. I haven’t been granted a peek at it yet, but her first effort, a twenty page tale filled with swash, buckle, and feline romance, was delightful. I’m eager to read this next installment.

Now that the baby is sitting and playing, and scooting around until he wears himself out and collapses for a two-hour nap, I’ve been able to grab some time for sewing again. I pulled a piecing marathon this weekend and completed three(!) blocks for my virtual quilting bee. Gosh I love piecing. Made two log cabin blocks on Saturday, my first sally at log cabin, and I am completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love with it. Log cabin is like the best parts of Legos, crayons, and yarn all in one.

Here is an excellent log cabin tutorial at Crazy Mom Quilts.

One of the best things about the quilting bee is finding a use for the little bundle of Japanese fabrics I got on sale last year. Like this one:

Couldn’t you just die from the cute?

But as you can see, I’m still having trouble making my seams go where I want them to go. I am just not a straight-line kind of girl. Happily for me, wonky is in. (Making this the best time in history to take up quilting. Fabu deals on Japanese fabrics at a zillion Etsy shops, and crooked seams in vogue? I’m in!)

Although I nicked the handle, this teacup makes me swoon.

Another thing we’ve been having great fun with is watercolor journaling, for which I must send Alice Cantrell a giant cyberkiss. A while back I blogged about our backyard art bag, which brainstorm transformed painting into a suddenly easy pursuit. A chief factor in its success was Jenn’s brilliant idea of cutting watercolor paper into postcard-sized pieces. GENIUS. Small paintings are less intimidating, are quickly finished, are easier to frame, mail, or store. Well, Alice Cantrell liked the art bag idea and carried it even farther, creating mini watercolor kits for her children. And then she shared a link to a Watercolor Journaling DVD, which I promptly ordered because I am completely in awe of Alice’s painting abilities and I not-so-secretly yearn to be able to create lovely pictures myself.

Well, we—my five oldest children and I, from the 3-year-old up—loved the DVD. It got us painting right away. Rilla insists upon my ‘making her a painty picture’ every day. Mind you, I still don’t know what I’m doing. Jane has taken a watercolor class and she is teaching me some techniques. Despite her instruction I have yet to manage a non-blotchy wash. But I’m learning. And the colors are so bright, so fresh, so cheerful, that I really don’t care how many mistakes I make.

Say! If your blotchy wash is in blue, it looks like sky!

My kids have been watching old episodes of Magic School Bus on VHS. (That’s how old the episodes are.) And when I’m painting or sewing, I hear Ms. Frizzle shouting in her merry way: “Take chances! Make mistakes!” This is quite a comforting mantra to keep in mind when attempting to learn a new art or craft, I find.

by Andrea J. Buchanan & Miraima Peskowitz. Collins, 2009. Review copy. Back in 2007 I reviewed the Daring Book for Girls and found it to be full of fun stuff to do and learn. I am excited to get my hands on the latest volume here, also overflowing with exciting things to do. A lot of the activities in The Double Daring Book for Girls are fun to do together, like the section on the Japanese Tea

Jone at Deowriter has set up the auction site to benefit the medical fund of blogger/author/librarian Bridget Zinn. Bridget in in an aggressive, expensive treatment program battling cancer. Her next chemo is on May 8, which we have designated "Bridget Zinn day". Your thoughts and prayers for health and healing and strength are greatly appreciated! When I was dealing with cancer last winter it

her child all grownshe treasures the baby quilt;too precious to use I spent the afternoon sewing a baby quilt for a friend. It made me think of this quilt, made for me by an aunt. I loved it so much I never let the baby use it at all. It's folded up in my closet, a treasure never snuggled. My baby is 21 years old now. I hope my friend lets her baby use the quilt I made and she

Block A-2. Lots of little pieces. Came out pretty well, just that one wonky triangle. I'm battling a cold and my head was so fuzzy while I pieced this...I had to pick out one seam three times because I kept sewing the fabric on backward over and over.

Yikes, blurry pic. Will replace it later.

Since this quilt is going to take me years to complete (heck, could be decades), I think I'll jot down notes about what was going on when I made each block. This one was constructed mostly on a rare rainy Sunday, during another one of Scott's marathon work-weekends. Most of us have this ugly cold. Jane spent the day crocheting a blue & white striped skirt. I moved the ironing board & cutting mat into the craft room and was able to work much more quickly without having to trot back and forth to the laundry room. A little hairy, though, with the hot iron by the bookshelves. We'll have to see if we can come up with a better arrangement.

As I was sewing the pieced strips together, the girls did a long overdue Heavy Cleaning of their room. The baby was in his chair at my feet, and Wonderboy felt it was his solemn obligation to entertain his baby brother. Rilla emptied a drawer full of pencils. I tracked crushed chalk all over the big blue rug.

I'm pinning the squares to my bedroom bulletin board as I finish them, and I have to say they make me so happy every time they catch my eye!

It is astonishing how much attention my hubby pays to my enthusiastic chatterings. Especially when the topic is something he has absolutely no interest in personally, like, say, quilting.

One of my birthday presents was a book I’ve been hankering after: Dear Jane: The Two Hundred Twenty-Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt by Brenda Papadakis. I learned of this book, and of the incredible Jane Stickle quilt itself, from a link on Twiddletails, one of my favorite crafty blogs. Anina, the Twiddletails blogger, has a second blog called (for now, at least—yesterday a bit of a trademark dispute arose over the name) Dear Baby Jane, an amazing site on which Anina posts step-by-step photo tutorials for making every single block in the Jane Stickle quilt.

This is no mean feat. Jane’s quilt is a masterpiece. Every single block of this large quilt is pieced in a different geometrical pattern. Many of the patterns are traditional quilt blocks; many seem to be unique to Jane.

An autographed corner square tells us that Jane pieced the quilt “in wartime, 1863,” and that she used over five thousand separate bits of fabric. A farmer’s wife, she lived in the little village of Shaftsbury, Vermont. She was born in 1817, which makes her roughly a contemporary of Charlotte Tucker Quiner Holbrook, the maternal grandmother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, whom I wrote about in my Charlotte books. This is one of the many reasons the Jane Stickle quilt intrigued me when I first read about it at Dear Baby Jane. Charlotte was born in 1809 (along with Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Louis Braille, British statesman William Gladstone, Charles Darwin, and Felix Mendelssohn—some year, eh?) in Roxbury, Massachusetts. As a young woman, Charlotte worked as a seamstress, advertising her services in the local papers. By 1863, the year Jane finished her quilt—four years before Charlotte’s granddaughter Laura was born—Charlotte had been living in the “big woods” of Wisconsin for decades. Jane Stickle, meanwhile, lived her whole life in the Shaftsbury, VT, area, and instead of a storytelling granddaughter, the legacy she left us was her incredible wartime quilt.

Here’s a link to a good-sized image of the Jane Stickle quilt—dubbed the “Dear Jane” by Brenda Papadakis. (Contemporary versions of the quilt are nicknamed “Baby Janes.”) I don’t know if it’s kosher to post the image itself, so I’ll just stick with the link. The color scheme is what’s known as and “around the world” pattern: the blocks move through a range of shades in concentric circles (more or less) beginning in the middle of the quilt.

A whole Dear Jane subculture exists in the quilting world, both online and off. There are many gorgeous quilts modeled after or inspired by Jane Stickle’s masterpiece. On the Dear Baby Jane blog, Anina leads an online community of quilters who are piecing the quilt a block at a time, two blocks a week. (Marvel at the photos here.) Just reading Anina’s instructions has been a tremendous education for me. (I was sorry to read, yesterday, of the trademark stickiness and the possibility that Anina will take down the entire blog. I am hoping hard that this does not come to pass.)

My indulgent but wise husband will read this and fear that I am poised for a dive into the world of Dear Jane creators, but he need not worry. Having never completed so much as a simple block quilt (Rilla’s little quilt is still only half quilted, if you can call the mess I’m making “quilting”), my attempting a Baby Jane would be something like a starling chick trying to soar with the flock while it is still in the egg.

But oh how I love to look at the gorgeous variations others have created, and to read about the gradual progress of people attempting the ambitious project right now. And I can’t wait to dive into my new birthday book to learn more about Jane Stickle and her quilt.

I took a leaf from Jenn’s book today and raided our scrap bin to make a spur-of-the-moment flannel quilt top for Rilla. We are in the process of transitioning her to her own bed in the girls’ room. (My three big girls share a room, and we’re adding a trundle for little sis.) This is something that’s always on the to-do list during a pregnancy, moving the toddler out of our room to make way for the newborn, but I admit I’ve been a bit lax with it this time around. Rilla still nurses a little at night; that’s part of it. And also, she’s very cuddly. Toddlerhood passes so quickly, and I like to savor every breathy little snore of it.

A month or two ago, we set up a (bedraggled old) child-sized futon next to our bed, and Rilla has been starting out her nights there. At some point in the night, she climbs into bed beside me. She’s like a cat, the way she sort of pours herself under the covers and curls up next to me with a contented sigh. She’s also like in a cat in the way she’ll turn on a dime and hiss and snarl at the blankets because they have offended her somehow, and she’s all flailing paws until the malevolent covers are no longer touching any part of her body. A mercurial little creature, is my Rilla.

Yesterday we moved the futon into the girls’ room. She thought this whole “sleeping with the big girls” thing was a pretty swell idea right up until bedtime, when suddenly it was The Most Offensive Idea Anyone Has Ever Had in All of Human History. But I snuggled up beside her in the dark, and her sisters whispered to her, and the devious plan I’d carried out earlier in the day—feeding her marshmallows at naptime instead of putting her down for a nap—paid off pretty quickly. She sighed, and sank, and slumbered, and when her limbs began lashing at the covers I knew it was safe for me to slip away. (Sob.)

Jane and I thought a special new blanket for her special new bedroom might help ease the transition. Rilla doesn’t have a blankie she’s attached to, though she does like the little patchwork baby quilt I made her before she was born. It’s way too small now, of course. So this morning Jane and I pieced together the remnants of the same cozy flannel plaids and prints I’d used for that baby blanket nearly three years ago and came up with a sort of wonky, large-patch quilt top. We’ve got a big piece of pink plaid-and-polka-dots to use for the backing. I’ve never actually quilted anything before, mind you—the baby quilts I’ve made are just patchwork tops with flannel backing, no batting in between. I need to go buy some batting tomorrow and we’ll see if we can pull this thing off.

In the meantime, the quilt top seems to have passed Miss Rilla’s muster.

The little embroidered kitty with flower umbrella at the bottom is a pattern from the Wee Wonderfuls “Tulip Fairy” Stitchette set, which I bought a while back and forgot about until today. That blank pink patch was just begging for a bit of embellishment. And I have to say, I am completely enchanted. The Stitchette pattern is a reusable iron-on which took all of ten seconds to transfer to our fabric. Suddenly everywhere I look are blank bits of fabric crying out for a little Wee Wonderfuls snail, or the mice pouring tea from that cunning acorn teapot, or that kite-flying ladybug, oh the cuteness of it all.

I've just found a new craft blog called Mama to Mama and I am excited about joining in on her Caps to Cap Haitien project. She is organizing a drive to make and send handmade newborn infant caps to be distributed with Konbit Sante birthing kits in Haiti: "The Caps to Cap-Haitien Project: A Partnership with Konbit Sante, will initially provide newborn jersey caps to be distributed in Safe

Have you ever pre-ordered a book and then forgotten you’ve done so? And then months later you get the shipping notice, and it’s like a little piece of Christmas in your in-box? That’s what happened to me the other day when a certain online book retailer notified me that my copy of Alicia Paulson’s long-awaited Stitched in Time: Memory Keeping Projects to Sew and Share was on its way. It’ll be here today. (You may know Alicia from her delightful blog, Posie Gets Cozy, which was the very first handcrafts blog I ever subscribed to.)

Hurry on over, Mr. UPS Man; we can’t wait to get cozy with this book! (Good thing I got all caught up on my Cybils reading yesterday. I can’t peruse any more nominees until the next batch of library holds comes in, or until another nice fat packet arrives from a publisher. Which may well be today. We’ve been keeping Mr. UPS Man hopping lately. And may I just say he is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet? One day he brought us a bag of clementines from his neighbor’s tree—he said he’d been given so many he couldn’t eat them all and he thought maybe my kids would enjoy them. Don’t think I’m unaware this is all Rilla’s doing: she charms him daily with her warm reception as he jogs up our driveway with packages stacked high. “Hi dere! You ’liver dat for me?”)

I’ve added a list of my favorite handcrafty blogs to the very bottom of the righthand sidebar. What it really is is the handcraft folder from my Google Reader—I’m sure this is very old news, but I just figured out that I could make individual folders on my Reader public, and therefore accessible via link or RSS. Nifty. One of the options available is sharing the folder as a blogroll, so: there you go!

If you’re a craft blog addict too, please check out my list and let me know of any gems I’m missing!

I promised to show a picture of the table runner I made. It’s not a great picture, but that’s okay because it’s not a great table runner. But I’m pretty pleased with it. The runner, I mean. The other side is the same green floral as the ends here. The checked fabric—which has green in it and isn’t as orange in real life as in this photo—was a long scrap from the curtains I made for the kids’ craft room.

I had fun with Flickr’s “add a note” feature if you want to click through for commentary on the photo. Well, actually, it’s another photo almost exactly like this one, revealing what happens when Scott walks into the room.

I’ve been in a very handcrafty mood lately, as my last couple weeks’ worth of posts probably make obvious. I tried my hand at the zipper pouch from Bend-the-Rules Sewing, inspired by Jenn’s lovely pink patchwork pouch. This was my first-ever attempt at putting in a zipper, and, well, it zips. Just don’t inspect the ends too closely…

And now that it’s finally feeling cool enough (in the mornings, at least—we’re melting by noon) to think of baking, I’ve been pining for my lost sourdough starter. We suffered a little fridge snafu a while back, and room temperature was way too hot for my starter, which had been living in the freezer through the hot months. It got moldy. Sob. Also, ick.

So I’ve been tempted to order a new one, but I thought first I’d try my hand at starting one from scratch. Some sites describe this as a ridiculously easy undertaking. Other sources say ominous things about poor success rates in arid climates, which we certainly have here in the decidely dry eastern half of San Diego County. But hey, a cup of flour and a cup of water is pretty low overhead for an experiment. So on Thursday morning I mixed up a batch and put it in a warm corner. By Friday it was already looking promisingly bubbly.

I fed it twice yesterday, and this morning it looks frothy and vigorous. (Blurry photo: snapped hastily in the midst of getting breakfast for my little people.)

Think I’ll give it one more day to get established and maybe try it in some biscuits tomorrow. Just about time to move it into the fridge, too.

And finally, a little backyard beautification project: the kids are decorating our side of the neighbor’s big ole wall with sidewalk chalk. It’ll last a long time here in did-I-mention-it’s-very-dry? San Diego County. I think we’ve only seen rain once in the last four months.

• twelve by twelve - Another one! Oh!
• Flickr: The one quilt Pool - And here's another virtual quilting bee. Delicious. I may not do anything for the rest of the day except look at these quilt squares.
• Flickr: The The Virtual Quilting Bee Pool - Well. I am completely enchanted. I don't remember how I came across this virtual quilting bee, but I can't stop ogling these photos. 12 women agreed to make 12 quilt squares through the course of a year—one square a month, each month devoted to one woman's quilt. The quilt recipient of the month sends out two fabrics to the other women in the group as a starting point for their squares. The results are stunning.
• Quilts & ATCs: Disappearing 9 Patch Tutorial - Smitten, I am.
• february block on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - I am so completely in love with this quilt square. And also this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78168838@N00/2297623659/in/pool-quiltingbee/

Have been on a roll lately.

1) Picot squares for end table coverings. Have begun the 8th square.

2) Made a reversible table runner from fabric leftover from the craft-room curtains. The backing (which I actually like better and will probably wind up turning it to more often) was a green floral remnant from Joann's. Am tickled with myself for pulling this off. The pattern I was following had you cutting the short ends of the runner into points. I had no confidence I could make them come out right, so I chickened out and just sewed straight-across seams. But when I'd finished and was pressing my seams, I tried just tucking the corners in and ironing points into the ends. And it worked beeyootifully. I am so pleased.

3) I put in a zipper! Made the zip pouch from Bend the Rules Sewing. Copied Jenn's trick of piecing together some different fabric to make a pretty striped pouch. Totally botched the putting in of the zipper, but it works, even if it looks a little funny.

4) Cut out a pair of wool felt hearts to embroider and stuff to make an ornament. Pretty.

5) We've had a Hearthsong quilt kit sitting in the closet for ages. Bright cotton prints already cut into 4 inch squares. I finally got around to deciding on a pattern. Have the rows all stacked and ready to sew. Hope to do a big chunk of that tomorrow.

Gosh, that sounds like a lot!

It's Simplicity Crafts #5420, and it's the first and only sewing pattern I've ever bought. And it only sat in a drawer for four years before I opened it.

Besides the dress pattern (which has lots of possible variations—long sleeves, short sleeves, collar, fancy skirt, stuff I can't even understand because I am pattern-illiterate), it includes patterns for pantaloons (long or short), a bonnet, a vest, and of course the skirt of the dress pattern could just be a skirt).

I got thoroughly confused about the instructions for attaching the facing to the bodice, mostly because I only vaguely knew what facing was. So I ignored them, a not-so-brilliant tactic in sewing. And now I have raw edges at the armholes I have to try to tuck under and hem, which I did see would be the case as I was sewing, but I couldn't make out what I was supposed to do to avoid that. And the neck hole is too high and tight, so I need to figure out some solution for that.

Last night at bedtime I suddenly grasped what the instructions for attaching the facing had actually meant, and I gasped and told Rose, and she laughed ruefully and said, "I guess we'll just have to make another dress then!"

When I was working on the curtains last night, doing a great deal of rassafrassin under my breath because I could NOT keep my seam straight—even though this is a checked fabric and I had a line to follow!!—I made some grumpy remark about how I'll never be a good seamstress because it's all about straight lines, cutting them, ironing them, sewing them, and PRECISION is not my thing, and Scott laughed and said, "No, it really isn't. That's the same reason you're an amazing cook but not such a great baker."

He's dead right, of course. And isn't he brave, speaking a truth like that to a frustrated pregnant woman with a very hot iron in her hand? I'm just saying.

As the Olympic ceremonies close tonight I am I am reporting in on my two Debt Proof Living Olympic events. Mary Hunt, on her Debt Proof Living blog, challenged us to use the time of the Olympics to accomplish personal goals. I joined two events; one to quilt and make Christmas gifts from my fabric stash and one to open a new savings account for Buddy. Here's how I did: In the Serious