there's no place like gnome.

Baby quilts x 3.

Two just went in the mail this past week and one was gifted months ago.  Here’s the breakdown:

Left: A quilt with Japanese flair, made for a sweet girl born in Japan while my college friend and her Army husband are stationed there.

Middle: A nautical quilt (My first attempt at triangles!) with anchors and waves and boats for a baby boy born to a Dancing Banana and her submarine-ing husband.

Right: This has got to be my favorite pattern – plus signs.  (It’s currently in progress in queen size for my bed.)  This particular quilt went to a boy named Henry, son of dear seminary friends.

Next up:  For a while, I was quite backlogged with quilts of the baby size but these were the last three (that I know of right now).  On the cutting table now is a quilt for my bed in chorals and yellows and grays, and a mini quilt to hang on the wall.  Then there are always the EPP stars and about three other quilts I’m itching to start for no purpose but to start a new quilt.

I feel the strongest urge to share with you my love for paper straws.

I had a l-o-n-g (and wonderful) Palm Sunday.  The end of the day found me wandering the aisles of Target in Rochester at 7pm, recharging my introvert batteries after gathering with a family around the bedside of a loved one, sharing stories and laughs.  I couldn’t quite drive home right away; I needed to recharge.  Walk.  Take a break.

Hello Target.  Hello new paper straws.

It’s my retail therapy – buying more paper straws.

This jar sits on my counter, a product of years of buying a packs of straws here and there.  You could have no idea how much joy it brings me to pick out a straw each morning to drink my iced coffee.  Some days it takes many moments to choose the perfect one.

The striped ones?  Those are my favorite.  Only for use on special mornings when I need a particular boost.

I try and keep a good mixture in the jar.  The rest live in a gallon ziploc in the cupboard, years of collecting gathered together.

It’s grown quite out of hand but it doesn’t necessarily help when Target carries them in their dollar section.  How can I turn down $1 paper straws?

Answer: I can’t.

Today, in the latest episode of “Things I Really Don’t Need to Sew but Do Anyways” are cloth napkins.

I’ve been a pretty big fan the last couple years. Of cloth napkins, that is. I’ve got a stack that have served me well. It’s all I use – whether I’m by myself or have guests at my table. It just makes me feel fancy and put together, even if it’s grilled cheese on my plate. But here’s the thing: these cloth napkins I’ve been using, I didn’t make them.  I bought them. And it had just gotten to the point where I couldn’t live with that. Plus – they were all the same color. Or the same design. I needed some homemade variety!

The push came when I was the first host for our Lent book&supper club. We are reading this book (It’s quite delightful with delicious recipes.) and there is a group of women who are meeting weekly over supper to discuss what we’ve read. I hosted this last Tuesday. I NEEDED to have new cloth napkins by then. There was no other option (in my project-minded brain).

So I set about cutting and sewing napkins. I made five. The five pictured below. But five isn’t enough!  And so there is a stack of seven more waiting to be sewn in my craft room. Why does a person who rarely hosts more than two or three or four people at her house for a meal need a dozen cloth napkins?  (When, mind you, all those cloth napkins she had before are still in the drawer too.) Because the fabric is pretty and I simply couldn’t stop.

My weekender tote and I are in Montana. We arrived by train last Thursday and have been hanging out ever since. Here’s what’s been happening:

Thursday: Train arrives on time to Havre, MT. Picked up at the train station by Melissa and her three adorable munchkins – H, H, & H. Meet newest munchkin, Hadley Hope. We paint. Settle in. Meet Melissa’s twin sister and her daughter, who have also come to stay, all the way from Alaska. YAY to it all!
Friday: Travel to Fort Benton for our annual lunch trip to the cutest little coffee shop. Make glitter playdough and hang out for the rest of the day. Sprinkle pancakes for supper. YAY!

Saturday: Cookie day! Mix dough, roll, and bake. YAY! Saturday afternoon it all began to turn into a BOO. I started to not feel well; retreated to my room. Stomach flu hits. Huge, gigantic BOO.

Sunday: This was to be the day that Paige and I officially became godparents to Miss Hadley in church. I was sick in bed instead. BOO. Eventually return to the land of the living by evening for some toast, after naps and many episodes of Game of Thrones on my iPad in my windowless basement room. 

Monday: Head for Essex at Glacier for our conference. Snow, mountains, and trees. Feeling better. YAY.

Today: Currently on break from class.  Hanging by the fire at the inn, cross stitching and quilting. Class again tonight, once more tomorrow morning, and then we are back to Big Sandy for one more night before the train ride home.  It’s gone too quickly, especially with losing two days due to icky sickness!

Views of the afternoon (You’ll have to tilt your head on the last one – the WordPress app won’t let me edit or delete it.): 

Yes, my last blog post was about moving forward.  Yes, this one is about looking back. Yes, I realize those are two opposite things. Just stick with me, okay?

We’re going to look back. Two years specifically. January 20, 2014. 

It was a Monday night and I had a date. (Monday night might seem weird for a date but I was leaving for Montana that coming Wednesday and we wanted to squeeze it in.) If I’m honest, it was my third first date in two weeks. (Thanks, online dating.) If I’m completely honest, it was my third first date in two weeks in which the gentleman suggested dinner and bowling. I bowled more in those two weeks than I had in the previous two years!

So I arrive at the bowling alley to meet a gentleman whose name I think is Brennan. We shake hands.  ‘Lindsay?’ he asks. ‘Yup.  Brennan?’ I asked. ‘No. It’s Dave.’ Wait.  What?  (To be fair, his last name is what I thought his first name was so … honest mistake?)

We bowl. We drink a beer. We talk. We finish up our game. I return my shoes and he carries his out the door with him. (He brought his own bowling shoes!  Dork alert!). We decide to meet at a local pizza place (where I was the week prior for date one of three), and then, after pizza, we decide to see each other again. 

Two years later, we keep deciding to see each other again. Even though he is a dork who brings his own bowling shoes.  (I’m a dork too. I brought a board game to our second date).  We won’t be able to recreate the date tonight, like we did last year; alas, I have confirmation class. We will go out for pizza tomorrow night and, if anything like last year, Dave will request we sit at the same table.  

Last May on a bike ride in Decorah.

I won’t make any excuses for my absence.  I won’t say where I’ve been or what I’ve been up to for the past, oh, three months. Just forward.  Like Wisconsin. 

(Forward is Wisconsin’s state motto.  Fun fact for you there.)

I’m here today, breaking my blog silence, to brag share just a little bit. But first a story –

There once was this bag. It was called the Weekender Travel Bag. It was a pattern by the lovely Amy Butler and all my favorite quilty/crafter blog friends were making it. I’d see pictures. I’d read their tales of construction. I made a Pinterest board dedicated to the bag.  And I really wanted to make one. But I was intimidated. Oh, so intimidated. These bloggers that I follow – they’re, like, really good.  Like professionals in their fields. And they wrote about how hard the weekender was to make. Surely, I didn’t have the skills to pull it off. 

But you know what?  I just did. I was telling the boyfriend about this bag last month. Now, what you have to know about the boyfriend is he is really good at pushing me beyond what I think I am capable of myself. (It’s usually a good thing.) Buy the pattern, he said.  It will be fun, he said.  And so I bought the pattern and embarked on my own weekender tote adventure. 

And I did it.  Can you believe it?  I actually have a completed weekender that will hold (in theory) a weekend’s worth of stuff.  And it has flamingos!  And a green zipper I’m in love with!

   The instructions were so super clear and I took it step by step over the course of a couple weeks. There certainly were moments (It is hard sewing so many layers!) but I broke no needles and only stuck myself with a needle to the point of bleeding, like, nine times.  I’m so super thrilled with it that I’m already planning the next one. 

It will get on the train with me next week as I head to Montana for my annual adventure to see friends.  And I will guard it from getting dirty with my life.

October 31st it be – a day for pumpkin pancakes and handing out candy.   This post is also for Grandma – she sent me a letter inside the cutest Halloween card saying she’s been waiting for a blog update. Here it is!  Hi!  (As of right now, I plan to be home for Thansgiving so I’ll see you then!  Count me in to bring a dessert; Thanksgiving day is Dave’s birthday so I’ll take care of the birthday treat.)

Pumpkins were carved last night. Dave’s pumpkin wouldn’t stand up so it’s a face on its side … which turned out pretty cool.  I made this for supper (I recommend it!) and then we watched Inside Out – super cute and funny.  Tonight we’ll hand out candy at Dave’s house and then, delightfully, I’ll get an extra hour of sleep!  So excited.  

 What else is new since the last blog post, you wonder. Last Sunday was confirmation Sunday. Four young people were confirmed in a lovely church service.  

 I got a new tea kettle. It’s very exciting. Really. It is. It was a gift. A beautiful green Le Creuset tea kettle. Be still, my heart.  

 What else is currently bringing me joy?

• The new season of Homeland. 
• Having a few nights at the sewing machine. 
• The annual fall theological conference for the synod’s pastors begins tomorrow in LaCrosse. It’s always a good time with colleagues. 
• A new polka dot Fitbit band. 
• It’s lefse season. 
• Finding a pair of shoes that I had forgotten about and loving them.
• Discovering a new, sneaky way of hemming jeans that works incredibly well. I have jeans that are the right length!
• Dreaming of doing this in my back entryway.   

Happy Halloween and happy-extra-hour-of-sleep day!  Hope it’s both spooky and restful.  🙂

Two quilts have been delivered to their respective baby girls. The first to Miss Charlotte, daughter of my friend Sara, and the second to Miss Hadley, daughter of my Montana pals Joel and Melissa.  Check and check. Both babies are well into the infant stage at this point; I was pleased as punch to get them finished before they started walking!  (That’s the new baby quilt goal. Before they walk, I hope to have their quilt completed.) 

   
And for a quilt in progress?  This is the current state of my coffee table. It’s always in progress, one paper pieced diamond at a time.  

It’s not often I talk about work on the blog anymore. I don’t necessarily know why. (Maybe because, uh, I just don’t blog very much anymore?). But tonight I need to process in writing so here I am. 

Tonight we kicked off Wednesday night family night/Sunday School/whatever you want to call it. Our Sunday morning education program simply was not working anymore and we had to try something new. So we chose to try Wednesday night. 

My wise ministry friend told me to look for small wins when I told her we were trying something new. Look for small wins. Don’t call it all off because it doesn’t work as you planned. Stick with it. Small wins. 

There were definitely small wins tonight. Parents blessing their children. Families we haven’t seen in church for many weeks came tonight. People who belong to the same small church but don’t know each other interacting. There were definitely small wins. 

I’m trying hard to let that be my focus. Not the fact that this evening has stressed me out all week. Not the fact that there were lots of squirmy kids doing their own thing. Not that we budgeted time incorrectly. Not that I can’t help but wonder what everyone thought and if they are going to come back next time. 

Trying new things is exciting – and I’ve been super excited about it – but, boy, is it hard too.  Trying something different than what has been done for decades is not easy. But I also believe it had to be done. We need to try something new … so small wins. I’ll take ’em.  We try this again the first Wednesday of November. Hoping for more small wins then too. 

Ice water always available. 

The control of the tv remote. 

A kitchen to cook in.

My own bed. Mabel. 

A room for sewing. 

The coffee beans I prefer. 

It’s funny how a week away makes you appreciate those little comforts of home all the more. I’m excited and I look forward to vacation … but at the end, coming home again is its own kind of (lame) excitement. 

I was away last week, riding shotgun in a car for thousands of miles. Here’s how the epic roadtrip Dave and I took went down:

Austin to Edgerton. Depart after work.  Hi, Mom. Night one. 

Edgerton to Indianapolis. Hi, sister Emma (who goes to grad school there).  Let’s eat pizza for a late lunch while the car tires get balanced. 

Indianapolis to Asheville, NC. Rain. Late night of mountain driving. Tunnels!  Hotel. Night two. 

Visit the Biltmore (and get soaked in the rain) and the Asheville Pinball Museum. (Guess who put that second destination on the itinerary …) 

Asheville to Winston Salem. Nights three, four, and five with Dave’s brother and his family. 

Daytime exploring in Charlotte: Billy Graham library & NC Aviation Museum. 

Coloring and playing trains with Dave’s niece and nephew. Lots of coloring and trains. 

Winston Salem to Pittsburgh. More pinball excursions. Eat supper in a church-turned-brewery-restaurant. Night six. 

Pittsburgh to Michigan. Visit Pink Castle Fabrics in Ann Arbor (one of the few modern quilt shops in existence). See Dave’s childhood home, feed carrots to donkeys, and eat supper with Dave’s parents. Night seven spent on an air mattress at the apartment of Dave’s childhood friend. 

Last day: early morning departure (Dave had ants in his pants which led to a 5am packing of car and leaving. I slept in the passenger seat.), survival of Chicago traffic, and safe arrival home to MN.   

The week went by so incredibly fast. I feel like I blinked and was home again. Hours upon hours of driving were filled with car games (We found every license plate but Alaska & Hawaii – of course – and New Hampshire and Nevada.) , Harry Potter on audiobook, conversation, and watching the mountains pass us by. (Though most of the trip it rained and made looking out the car window gloomy and difficult.) I also passed time by binding two quilts and basting a whole lot of EPP diamonds! (I did a total of, oh, five hours of driving. The rest was all Dave and me quilting.)

It’s now back to life as we know it, appreciating a little more the comforts of home. And hitting the ground running at work as church is a busy, busy place these days. Here’s hoping the time away restored me enough through rest and relaxing to get me through the next weeks!