trying to get myself to start working on all of the 1561 photos I took on my trip.

thinking about routines and how I don't want to slip back into some of my old ones.

processing some writing ideas.

loving that all of autumn didn't pass by while I was in Italy. My valley is beautiful!

loving, in fact, where I live, even though it's not really fancy and big-city and a cultural mecca for anything. Sometimes you have to leave just to see what you love. I am so happy to see my mountains again!

hoping for good report cards next week for all three boys.

reaquainting myself with my real life (read: lots of laundry, some big school projects to help with, all of the organization projects I left until after the trip)

adjusting (still!) from jet lag.

pondering the timing of the traditional Halloween sugar cookies. Also, we haven't bought any pumpkins yet!

leaving for the fabric store so I can finish Kaleb's Halloween costume today.

How is life in your world right now?

Three years ago, I was in a fabric store one late-summer day and came across a witch-themed fabric that I immediately feel in love with. See, I sort of have a Thing for Witches. The first research paper I ever wrote was on the Salem Witch Trials, and I am drawn to novels about that time period. Also fantasy novels with witches. And horror novels. 

Not to mention cute Halloween witches.

So I bought the witch fabric and I gave myself a challenge: to freeform quilt on my very own machine. I kept the design simple and the quilt fairly small, because my machine just really can't handle something very big. I found the perfect sashing and binding fabrics and even a black striped flannel for the back.

I pieced. And then I took a deep breath and I freeform quilted on my very own machine. It's not perfect, but it isn't bad for a first (real) attempt at something I find incredibly difficult. It's a process of balance between thread tension and hand tension and how smoothly you move the quilt top and how quickly you press the foot pedal. Plus, even with a pen I don't have the best of handwriting, and freeform quilting is sort of like writing. In big swirls. With a needle.

Anyway.

I finished the freeform quilting:

I quilted around the witches and then in loopy swirls in the sashing.

I was entirely happy with the quilting, despite its imperfections. I loved the way the swirls turned out, and how the quilting around the witches' outlines helps them to sort of jump out of the quilt a little bit.

Then I started on the binding.

When I bind my quilts, I start by sewing the binding (which has been ironed in half, so it's two layers at this point) onto the back of the quilt. Then I fold it over (turning it into a double French fold binding) and sew it, with my machine, onto the top of the quilt. The traditional way is to do it the opposite (sew to the front first, then fold over to the back and hand sew it), but I do it this way for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, my hand sewing is atrocious and I have zero desire to do anything about that. Second, it's much faster. And third, my method creates an extra little border of stitching, right at the edge, that I am fond of.

And since this witch quilt was all about trying something new, I decided to sew the binding to the front in a different way. Namely, instead of a straight stitch, I'd use the loopy stitch on my machine that I'd long admired. I dug out my machine's instruction manual so I could figure out which foot to use. And how to change to the fancy stitching. And I learned that I needed to use the double needle that came with my machine (and which I'd never taken out of its packaging).

So I figured it out. I did a few practice swaths of swirly stitching. I took several deep breaths. Then I started sewing the front side of the binding. Everything was going just fine, it was looking just like I had imagined, and it was working, it wasn't too thick like I'd worried.

Until the double needle broke.

Yes...I got fifteen inches of binding sewn onto the quilt with pretty loopy stitching and then I was needleless.

And at that point I just gave the whole thing up. Because by then it was only five days until Halloween and I still had sugar cookies to bake and Nathan's Aragorn cloak to sew and a half marathon to run and I couldn't face the thought of going into the fabric store and finding a double needle. I just folded it up and put it in the closet under the stairs (home of several unfinished quilts, in fact) with the goal of finishing it the next year.

Except I forgot about it.

Until a week before my trip when I was dragging out stuff from the closet under the stairs, and I found the suitcase but I also found my unfinished witch quilt. So what did I do? Pack? Nah. Not until the day before I left. Instead, I bought a double needle. And I reacquainted myself with how to use it. And I finally finished my witch quilt!

It only took me three years!

Do you have any unfinished-for-years works in progress?

I really wanted to post some photos tonight from my already-half-over vacation, but I can't figure out how to upload them in typepad!

So let me describe instead.

Right now I'm sitting on the floor in my hotel room in a town near Florence. Right outside the bathroom (which is beautiful, by the way: a big bathtub with a window right next to it, and not just any window, but one with wooden, painted shutters that open out onto a courtyard where, when I take a bath after I post this, I really hope no one is sitting), in fact, as it's the only way to stay connected to the wireless.

I keep writing about it in my travel journal, and using words like “amazing" and “incredible" and even “ridiculously beautiful around every corner" but none of them quite say what I feel, which is that feeling when you stand somewhere old and think about all of the people who have stood in the same exact place except in a different time, and you can almost push aside the layers in time and ask them their story.

But also, here in Italy, it has this strangeness as real people and real lives--- cell phones and cigarettes and stories happening right now. Like this story is happening right now, right NOW: I am in Italy.

I wept in front of Michelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's basilica.

I walked on the rim of the Pantheon.

I touched Medieval castles and stood in awe at the corners of churches and I did the silly hold-up-the-tower-of-Pisa pose.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the David statue.

And then I'll be home and this will feel only like a story.

So I'm going to take my bath and I'm not going to be afraid to open the window. I'm going to see a famous statue. And ride a gondola in Venice.

Because really, that is this trip's destination: the reminder that I am here and breathing and alive.

(Plus: gelato! )

It’s October, my favorite month! To celebrate, I wore my favorite orange dress to work. Well, I only own one orange dress, so it’s my favorite by default, but I’ve loved it for a long time...I bought it twelve years ago! (How can that be?) It’s one of those classic pieces that don't get dated. 

Every time I put that dress on (which is closer to bittersweet than true orange) I remember how much I love it. Not so much with the heels I wore today. I mean: they are cute. Brown leather with a brown leather flower. But my ankle doesn’t get along with heels and my bunion won’t cooperate with pointy toes...

But still! I celebrated October with my clothes today. If dinner, homework, the mechanic, and a small Amy meltdown hadn’t gotten in the way, I would’ve asked Jake to take a picture for me.

You’ll have to imagine instead.

I think tomorrow I’ll celebrate October in a different way (definitely without high heels), but before we get too deep into my favorite month of the year, a September recap:

Driving. We finally decided that we need to get Haley a car to have at college. I don’t know if I’m being overprotective or not...or if I am just worrying too much. But she’s been riding her bike back to her dorm after work at midnight and 12:30. And it will snow there soon. I can’t decide: overprotective? Or spoiling her? We drove to a bunch of different used-car lots to find something decent but still within our budget. Someone clued Kendell in on the Chevy Prism and that’s what we finally found. We’ll take it up to her this week or next.

I think that looking at used cars has been good for Kendell as he’s been able to see that most cars aren’t in pristine condition, which has helped him realize that my slovenly ways of car upkeep (read: there are always seven or eight books in the trunk or the back seat, flopping around, and I have been known to occasionally leave crumbs, or a Burt’s Bees or two in the door cubbies, and once I even left an empty water bottle in a cup holder) aren’t quite as bad as they could be.

 In other news: Jacob got his learner’s permit. I repeat: Jake. Is. Driving. That’s all I have to say. Or all I can say, as my jaw is clenched in terror...

(He’s actually doing just fine, and has already driven on the freeway twice. It’s just so scary, teaching teenagers to drive. It doesn’t seem like the smartest thing our society has ever decided on.)

Reading. I started The Interestings. I got halfway through it, in fact. But it wasn’t interesting enough to really, truly grab me. Instead, when my family drama started to build and I was feeling sad anyway about Haley being gone and the power went out...I’ve been doing comfort reading ever since: rereading Harry Potter.

I know. I’m weird. But it is like slipping into sweats and wool socks, rereading a story you already know. I like slipping back into that world.

Jake is reading Tarzan of the Apes for English.

Nathan read The Giver for his English class; he hated the ending!

I started reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle out loud to Kaleb. I loved these books as a kid. As an adult (and a parent) I think they’re a little bit strange. (I do wish, though, that I could find a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle-esque cure for all the video-game-playing that goes on around here.) Kaleb’s loving them, though, so I’ll stick with them.

Kendell read nothing. Haley, I’d imagine, read a lot in her biology textbook!

“Exercising.” After the swelling that came back on Labor Day, I took two entire weeks off from actually moving my body. I started back up last week, with a mix of running and walking. I was ridiculously proud of myself on Friday for running 12 blocks. Not even consecutive blocks! Baby steps I guess. I ran/walked an impressive 20.8 miles in September! (Sadness.)

Baking. I made four chocolate zucchini cakes, three loaves of lemon bread, two loaves of pumpkin bread, and two batches of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. (Yes! I am still blaming my chubbiness on my ankle!)

Eating. In an effort to combat said chubbiness, I’ve been trying to eat fewer carbs. (Shhhhh. Ignore the baking.) Which translates into: smaller portions of rice and potatoes, no corn, nary a slice of bread except for one PB&H sandwich when I was desperate one day before work. And no cereal. (I confess: I love cold cereal. Or oatmeal. Or cream of wheat.) Instead I’ve had eggs nearly every morning for breakfast. As I love cereal and I do not love eggs, my new goal was immediately challenged on the first day, when I cracked open an egg and it had a big red spot. 

EWWWWW.

I’ve been camoflaging that eggy taste with salsa. And reading while I eat because that way I notice the taste less. And trying to think of some other high-protein, low carb breakfast food.

Gah. I wish scrambled eggs tasted like they look like they would.

Cleaning. I’ve gone to my mom’s house three times this month to help her declutter so she can sell her house and move. It’s been....a project. We’re not even close to being done, but have made a big dent. I wish I would've taken a picture of the junk room before we started on it, but imagine this room:

completely full of stuff. Like so full you couldn't see the window.

Nathan was certain I’d find some treasures, but not much so far: some negatives of some photos of me doing gymnastics. A blue glass whisky bottle that my dad had saved and which I loved until I washed it and discovered that it was only blue paint. (Sadness.) A letter from 1981 saying I’d won the runner-up position in a little-miss-something pageant (I had entirely forgotten that part of my life until my mom found the letter). A box with a few of the ornaments from my grandma’s tree. (They are blue so I’ll wash them very, very carefully.) And a Hall’s Superior autumn leaf mixing bowl.
I think my grandma owned several of these pieces. Suzette already has some, and Becky is keeping another bowl we found, but now I’m finding myself wishing I had just two more. Maybe the curvy little pitcher...

Shopping. Dillard’s had one of their awesome extra-percentage-off-clearance-items sales. I bought a couple of things, but Kendell got an awesome deal on four new shirts. I love a good Dillard’s sale!

Scrapbooking. I made nine new layouts in September. Six of those are for a BPC workshop I really, really hope gets picked up. If not, it will be fine as I only ever make things for classes that I would make if I weren’t doing it for a class—but I am hoping for more than “fine.” I love what I’ve made so far! I also wrote this post about writing about color for WCS.

Quilting. I made that one baby quilt for the shower I went to, and started on two others for a neighbor (whose baby is already born!) and a family member. Need to finish them ASAP. I started shopping for pieces for a new quilt for Nathan, as he needs something new for his new (to him...it’s actually 21 years old) queen-sized bed. I’m doing a variation on the quilt that’s on the cover of this book:

His will be shades of green, blue, teal, turquoise, and grey. 

It also won’t be done any time soon, but shopping for scrappy quilts? So much fun! 

Photographing. Almost nothing. I seem to have lost my take-a-picture tick somewhere. I do have this one of me and Nathan though:

(I desperately need a hair cut. And a color.) 

Learning. Italian! You know...because I am going to Italy in two weeks. I know I won’t be able to learn an entire language from a book, in a month, by listening to audio stuff. But at least I can ask where the bathroom is! When I told Jake I was learning Italian he said “Italian isn’t a real language. They speak Latin in Italy.” and then I had to very gently correct him... 

Please not that none of this September recap includes hiking. That is because we did zero hikes. ZERO HIKES IN SEPTEMBER?

What. The. Hell?

That’s like...as crazy as letting a 15-year-old boy drive a real, live automobile!

How was your September?