jump up and down

sweet shoes

A good friend of mine recently had twins.  And the journey they took to join their family was neither short nor easy.  I wanted to do something special for the precious new girl and boy.  When I saw Kirsten's post a while back, I knew what to do.  

 

I embroidered these sweet linen shoes - a pair for Ella and a pair for Joshua.  The monograms came from some vintage embroidery transfer sheets that I have and I freehanded the flower and pinwheel.  I used vintage sheet scraps for the lining.  

They were made using this pattern.  I like that the entire top of the shoe is one piece of fabric - it made it easy to fit my embroidery pattern there.  

I haven't seen the babies yet - unfortunately, we are many miles apart, but the twins were preemies, so they probably won't be fitting into these shoes for a while.  I'm so happy they're here!

half

It's seems like there are many half or at least partially finished things around here...

a half finished mini quilt.

a partially finished pile of books (which also includes Einstein Never Used Flashcards, but I left it at speech therapy this morning).

a half finished crochet dishcloth (from a skein of yarn that I thrifted for 10 cents a couple of weeks ago).

an embroidery project...embroidery done, now on to some sewing. 

And an almost finished decision, which is probably why there's so much half finished stuff around here.  I've been thinking a lot about Peter and school next year...maybe obsessing a little too much about it, but I really think these first few years of school can set the tone for the rest of his life.  After that rough start to summer school, Peter did finally survive a day without me and has been doing well since then.  Those first few days were a real eye-opener for me and I was grateful to be there to see what goes on - so many worksheets and so much sitting!  Is this just how kindergarten is now or is it just here?  This is my first experience with it in almost 30 years (when it was me going to kindergarten), so I'm not really sure.  I know Peter is ready for the "academics" of kindergarten (it really seems silly to say that, but I don't really think there is a better term for what kindergartners are expected to know), but I'm not sure he's ready for how it's being taught here.  I assume they do it this way because they are dealing with a large group of students.  We do have some options, each with its pros and cons of course, and I think we've almost come to a decision...more on that later.

the embroidered pillow

I had a few questions about the embroidered pillow in my last wip update.  Yes - it is embroidered with a whole ton of french knots.  It didn't get really tedious until that outer layer and in the end I was super pleased with the result, so it was worth it.  I got the idea from the Purl Bee blog here and also gained some inspiration from the Flickr group here.  I blogged about it previously here, but it was at the bottom of the post and a couple of months ago.  I did the embroidery just after Christmas - right before school started again.  Let me know if you have any other questions - I'd be happy to answer them!