Quick Takes: Edition 4

As I've done in the past, linking up to Jen for 7 Quick Takes Friday - a great format for the random assortment of thoughts floating around in my head!  Despite the title, I haven't managed to master writing about anything "quickly" - more rambling here...be forewarned!

-1-

We went to the fabric store yesterday for some material to make Anna some fall dresses.  It brought happy memories for me to see her playing with the fabric when we got home, as I remember the excitement of new fabric for things my mom was going to make for me.  I once spread out at least 8 different cuts of fabric - to be a summer wardrobe one year - and jumped from piece to piece in our family room.  Anna preferred peek-a-boo and making it a scarf, head-covering, and blanket for her horse.

I'm excited to play the mom role [here, as simple as shopping for fabric!] in re-enacting such happy memories from my childhood.  I hope they one day are happy thoughts for Anna, too.

-2-

In addition to the gray & pink plaid above (that will be a jumper if there's enough of it - it was just a remnant), I got this incredibly happy fabric:

I was imagining something much daintier when I started looking for dress fabric, but I just couldn't pass this up.  And, at age one, a whale dress is totally acceptable :)

-3-

I just realized that showing you that fabric can be good incentive for both sewing AND blogging.  If I don't show you a picture of a finished whale dress within the next few weeks, someone bug me for an update!

-4-

Anna's been really fascinated with putting things "ehn" (in) other things, so we've been a little worried that we'll accidentally empty a trash can without noticing that she put a toy in earlier.  It turns out that I'm the one we had to worry about, as I think I accidentally recycled one of my favorite possessions.

As a back story, my grandmother makes these lovely knitted dish cloths.  She taught me to make them when we were on vacation together when I was maybe 11 or 12, and wrote wrote the instructions on a piece of pink notebook paper.

I was recently getting some pictures ready to hang in the house, and I thought I would also frame the instructions to put on my sewing table.  I took it with me in the photo envelope when I went to buy frames, but didn't find one that looked right for the instructions.  I brought home the other photos, framed them, and hung them up and then recycled the envelope, forgetting about my treasured instructions inside.  There's a tiny chance that I remembered to take them out and have since forgotten where I put them, but I think they're gone.

I could have her write them out for me again (I'm thankful that it's a possibility), although part of the charm was the memory of her writing it back at camp on the paper I carried with me to write to my pen pal, as well as the her lovely writing that arthritis has slowly distorted over the last 15 years.

Ultimately, it's just a thing.  But I'm still mad at myself for losing it - especially in the process of trying to preserve it.

-5-

On a more happy note, Anna's skills at putting things "ehn" came into practice this evening while we were making dinner.  I was making eggplant parmesan, and just as it was time to bread the eggplant slices, she was getting a little fussy with her toys.  I sat her up on the counter next to where I was working, and I handed her an eggplant slice from the pile and showed her the bowl of eggs where it needed to be dipped.  She was SO proud of herself for putting it in (complete with clapping), and I was impressed that she stayed still and patiently helped with putting at least 15 slices in, one at a time as I would ask for them.  Even more impressive, she didn't put her hands in the egg at all.

I'm excited about having a little helper - it makes household chores a lot more fun!  She seems to enjoy it as well, and loves to help clean (she likes to "wipe" anything and everything with a dry rag), although - despite her enjoyment - she's pretty counterproductive with folding laundry.  

-6-

While we're talking about Anna's household chores and her fascination with putting things in, I will note that she's particularly fond of putting things into the dryer while I transfer the wet clothes from the laundry machine.  I had to run downstairs today after noticing an unusual "thump" in the load I had just started - and rescued a board book in that mission.  The mesh filter from the coffee pot also made it through a full cycle not too long ago (that one, a result of her burying it in the basket of partially-dried towels that sat in the kitchen between their time on the line outdoors and my emptying the entire basket into the dryer without checking for stow-away kitchen appliance parts).  I consider both of these mishaps an improvement to her prior interest in emptying the lint trap...into her mouth..., which was her preferred way of helping in the laundry room until a few weeks ago.

-7-

I posted on facebook earlier today that I had an entire post written (in my head) and was hoping for time to type it all.  Prior to sitting down at the computer, it seemed like I had 70 (not just 7) things to share, but now I'm clearly running out of steam......Happy Weekend!