a crown for Kiyomi

I am making wool crowns again and love making them each so unique. This one already has a home for our very special new friend Kiyomi and her 3rd birthday. I am making a bunch of these and selling them on my Gnome Made shop at 1000markets.com as a fund raiser for Salmonberry School.
I

almost unpacked!

Dennis is transforming his studio as I type to make it neat and tidy!
Asher and Emmit have a large room with an enormous closet and alcove so we have made it work for both of them and they are eagerly awaiting the promised bunk beds. I need to get some photos of their room looking neater then this. Today we set up their play stands with silks so it looks really nice and not so cluttered as in this photo. Asher's is nearly done with his crib or so I hope since it is on its last legs.
Emmit's nook and under the window seat is a secret hiding spot for his most special treasures that he doesn't want a certain two year old to know about.
The view from the second floor and our new green chair. I love having hard wood floors again and the fire place is so much fun.
Even fewer boxes now and a couch was just ordered from Overstock and will help get the room ready for the surprise birthday party that Dennis is throwing me!
Coming upstairs to where we all sleep.
The kitchen is fun to cook in and we have a huge front and back porch. Isn't the chair just divine!
My favorite room in the whole house is my sewing room which also is the guest room when you come and visit! The wood table is now totally cleared off too!

Our Sunday Hike

We are all moved in and got all of our deposit back from the blue plastic box house and all other bonuses we negotiated with those old landlords fulfilled. I will post some photos off the camera later of the new place. There is a perfect hike we can take to the very top of the hill we live on and from there we can see both sides of the island since we live at the thinnest part of the island where it bends. To drive from the tip to tip of the island length wise would probably take around an hour whereas at the bend it is about one mile in width. We have been doing various different hikes each week but we all agreed that we will commit to this particular hike each Sunday since we don't have to drive and we can watch it change with the seasons. We even found some apple trees to munch on along the way. We forgot water bottles so the kids were licking grass and foraging for berries. We saw a few green frogs at the top and the kids played for an hour building fairy houses and pulling apart rotting logs. A family reunion on Orcas for summer 2009 is already under way which was totally inspired by my uncles movie. Oh and Claire- my Mom went by Ruthie when she was little so that is who she is. Kids continue to sleep together and are now napping together flawlessly. We all stayed in bed until 6:30 this morning which is another sign of progress in the sharing a room adventure. I love love love having my own sewing room too.

ode to the family from Uncle Jerry

My Uncle Jerry just created this which is such a gift since I haven't seen a video of my grandparents talking before so it felt like they were right here again. Also hilarious to see that Ring Around the Rosy was a huge family past time for adults as well as children! Those that know my family will recognize many beloved and familiar faces and bums! Oh and yes, we are all moved into our absolutely beautiful house which belongs to our friends Kari and Christian. Their son Lion is in Emmit's class. It is a true Orcas Island beauty with tons of natural wood, windows, view, skylights, vaulted ceiling.....oh and a very nice guest room/my own sewing room so come on out for a visit! Right here and right now I swear to you all that I will never live in a plastic box again (aka that place we moved out of).

so many photos never get taken

September is beautiful in the NW and we have had day after day of warm sunshine although nights are getting cooler and there is hardly any light at 6:30 in the morning let alone 5:30 which looks like the middle of the night. For many of you it still is the middle of the night! So often I am so busy living my life that I forget to document it for the blog let alone a photo album. There was the hilarious bike ride to the beach where Emmit tried to attach so much stuff to his Skuut that it was as if he thought we were going camping instead of for a quick walk before bed. The photo I didn't get is with all the wires and carabiners holding even more stuff onto and behind the bike. Today, while Emmit was at school, Asher and I enjoyed the beach together. It was so much fun that we lured Dennis away from the computer to come and join us. We live in such a beautiful place and everyday we have to gasp at how lucky we are to be living this life that we have chosen. It is an incredible feeling to make such a choice and realize how a one year trial on Orcas is already a 5+ year commitment with a house on the way. Salmonberry is going wonderful and I am loving seeing Emmit getting all the beautiful benefits of a Waldorf kindergarten experience. I am so glad he still has another two years after this year before he starts the grades. Oh and the kiddos are sharing a room now in hopes of getting bunk beds. Oh and Jodie/Jason, we might be begging you to pick up those said bunk beds when you head up here since the sharing a room is going well although morning comes a bit to early. The reward for me is my very own office/sewing room with a door I can shut at the new house.

Gnome Made (click me to go to the shop!)

I have the very beginnings of a shop. I might need some help from my partner in crime with the camera. He has a shop too if you search for him by name!

a week and a day since my last post...

Sheesh......you regulars start getting a bit restless when we lag on our posting!
So big news here is that Dennis bought a chainsaw. He keeps remarking that it is an unusual purchase to get excited about because it requires a lot of hard work and sore muscles to use and is nothing like the feeling of buying, oh say a new camera! Needless to say, there has been a lot of chainsaw play around here that is actually dying down now after a week. After enduring several chainsaw related tantrums by my oldest monkey, I thought I would leap out of bed and help the kids each make their own cardboard chainsaw. I remember a post on this on Soulemama's blog awhile back and felt totally inspired. The chainsaw I made was watched with four highly speculative and critical eyes and scrutiny. Mine even had a gas tank and pull toggle to start the motor! I thought they would be fighting over it but instead Emmit declared that Papa was going to make him his chainsaw. I was quite proud of my chainsaw and showed it to Dennis, still in bed, and even he feigned astonishment at my life like abilities. Emmit was still not convinced and and put Dennis to work. So what does Dennis creat but a sheer work of art and realistic duplication. Needless to say the one I made instantly got tossed aside.



It is some sort of quilting month on blog land and I was invited to participate and even claimed that I would post a bit about my process but due to the last two photos (aka moving in less then a week) there has been little time to post oh and did I mention I have been working a ton at my job at the school! So anyway this is a much belated, actually almost a year late, quilt for my niece Dalia. This is an example of a style I like to do from time to time which requires simply sitting at the machine with my bin of scraps beside me and cutting and sewing as I go. the quilt is now attached to my machine in mid sew during the final stages of piecing the front, back and inside together. I rather don't like doing bindings although I love how they look so instead I sew all three pieces together and turn the whole thing right side out and start machine quilting and going around the edges. Dalia's quilt has bits of fabric used in her older siblings quilts too so that they can all three match since they share rooms. This is my super simple style of quilt which is a great way for beginners to start. It is bright, playful with multiple textures which is ideal for babies although she is now nearly one!



We move in less then a week to a beautiful house about a mile or less away. I can't wait to live in a real wood house in the trees with a view. In a month we start building our house. Dennis has posted the blue prints and more photos on this on his blog. We got to start picking out all the little details like cupboards, flooring, lighting fixtures, washer/dryer, counters......Very exciting to think we will be moving into it in about a year!

The land that our house will sit on

Burning Man, Orcas Style

Our friends Adam and Sara who own the Outlook Inn on Orcas, hosted a very colorful late night tribute to Burning Man.  There was the great yellow school bus, that took fifteen islanders to the real Burning Man last year, decked out as the lounging pad.  The party lasted on into a pancake breakfast in the morning that we missed.  We managed to stay until 11:30pm when it was just getting going.  Too bad there aren't any shots of the two of us in our costumes!  Lets just say there were plenty of sparkles (both kinds Georgia) and tutus between us. Dennis had a wonderful cathartic opportunity to burn something (see below) on the "altar".  Tomorrow school starts for Emmit and in the evening Dennis and I have our first home building meeting!  I have been working a lot to get everything ready for tomorrow and can't wait to see all the littles decked out in their first day of school attire.