I wish we were able to take life at a slower pace these last few days before school starts, but we’ve got a very full agenda. The most important thing we have on our list is Sam’s surgery tomorrow. He has to undergo another round of treatment for his hearing problem. The tubes that were inserted a little over a year ago have worked their way out and his hearing has become significantly poorer since then. He’s also going to have his adenoids removed, which should help decrease the number of infections he gets in that area. I hate that my baby has to go through all of this, but hopefully, it will help him. He doesn’t want to be struggling to hear things in the classroom–it makes that already challenging environment even more difficult for him.

Of course, we had to get all of our school shopping done. The kids are now fully outfitted and supplied. Usually, I’d take Sam in for a haircut, but the short summer ‘do he got a month ago is still in good shape. Claire is the one who needed serious help with her hair. It had grown very, very long and was prone to tangling in the worst dread-locky sort of way. If she were a tougher kid, I wouldn’t mind combing it every day, but our daily sessions had turned into torture sessions. She agreed to having it cut much, much shorter.

Here’s the Long of It:

And the Short of It:

Pretty darn sassy, no?

In the middle of getting everything in order for the surgery, and taking care of all our chores, I’ve been working on a cute little jumper for Claire:

My goal is to use up a lot of fabric that’s just uselessly occupying space in my closet. The problem is, I often don’t have enough of things to use them without some fancy piecework. This jumper is going to have some unusual seams. I hope they won’t detract from the overall cute-factor or wearability-factor. We’ll see…

I’m also packing up a few things to keep me busy in the hospital tomorrow. I think I might take a little embroidery project to work on:

I’ve been wading through the hundreds of snapshots I’ve taken during our many outings this summer. I feel as if I’ll never get through them all! So many fun excursions and so many sweet moments, which I was lucky enough to capture with my camera. Here’s some of my favorites:

Sam’s uncle loaned him a guitar during his stay in Montana.

I stumbled across Claire in a huckleberry patch where she was stuffing her mouth full of the tangy fruit. She calls them “pickleberries.” I believe that’s her shorthand for “picking huckleberries.”

Sam turned seven this summer. Time’s flying by!

We went to the beach, where we got very sandy and very wet and very sunburnt (despite the sunscreen) and had a very, very good time.

There’s more–but I haven’t made it through those photos, yet

I have had time for sewing and dreaming up many more projects (I’m looking forward to school starting so I can actually finish a few things). I made the Tokyo Tie Bag from Diana Rupp’s book, Sew Everything Workshop:

It’s very cute, but too small to be of much practical use to me. I’m a big bag sort of person. Claire has offered to take it off my hands. It’s just right for her!

Next up: a new dress for Claire and a pair of denim pants for me.

I imagined this summer would have been filled with long, lazy days, but it wasn’t like that at all. First, there was my sister-in-law’s wedding, then we moved to a new home, and after refinishing three pieces of furniture, I dragged the kids to Montana to visit their grandparents, go camping and sight-seeing. After that, we all returned to Seattle, where more family came to visit. We had a birthday party, trips to the zoo and beach and a jaunt to Victoria, B.C.

So, with all of that, there has hardly been a spare minute to catch my breath, much less do any crafting. You can imagine that I rushed into my craft room the minute the dust settled and frantically started tossing fabric about, cutting and stitching…

After a year or so of working on it, I put the finishing touches on this quilt top:

(This is an old photo–I’ll post a new one when the quilting is DONE.)

All the pieces are stitched down, I did a little hand embroidery and added the borders. It looks really great (if I don’t say so myself). That was the beginning of the end, though. I got a little bit ambitious and decided to quilt it myself on my machine.

I did all right stitching-in-the-ditch around each panel; however, when I tried to get fancy with it and do some free-motion quilting around the appliques, I started breaking needles and my arms and neck started hurting like crazy. The truth came out. I’m just not cut out to manipulate something that heavy–at least in my present condition. I’m going to start lifting weights so I can become a better quilter (yeah, right).

So, I spent yesterday ripping out every last quilting stitch on it. I called a quilt shop and made an appointment to have someone stitch the quilt up on a long-arm machine. I feel a little melancholy about relinquishing creative control of it over to someone else, but it’s just not worth all the pain and frustration to keep going.

Today, I’m going to do something easy and fun–either stitch up the wide-leg lounge pants from Amy Butler’s book or make a cute little purse from Diana Rupp’s book.