A Small Fox in a Big World

2009: A Year in Pictures

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Merry Christmas

I'm an auntie! This is Miss Kennedy Renee. Born Christmas morning at 12:06am. She is 6lbs 14oz, 18 1/2 inches long. YAY CHRISTMAS BABY!

Quiet A Little Longer

It's been far quieter in this space than I wished. There's a million things that need doing and I'm behind on everything. More than once I've thought of giving up this space, but I like a visual record of my year that I can look back on, however sparse my posting may be. I have two quilting bee blocks that I haven't finished, a few presents that aren't done, a diaper bag for my sister who could pop a baby out any day now, a house that needs it's cleaning finished, and a snow storm that is threatening to ruin Christmas. So please bear with me while I'm quiet for a little longer. I promise to be back in the new year with pictures of things I have made, as well as a precious little bundle we've been waiting for for so long. Thank you for sticking with me, even when I've been less than verbose. You are all lovely.

Our Trip to the Tree Farm

We went to the tree farm the day after Thanksgiving. It was a new farm and I don't like it as much as the one that used to be in town here. I started off grouchy, because the lack of snow just put me in a foul mood, and just got grouchier. Everyone wanted to play and I was all, "NO! Tree hunting is serious bidniss!" Luckily, they just left me to look on my own and went and had fun without me. And I found a tree, though I didn't like it much. But then we brought it home and put it up and it's wonkiness really grew on me. So, I'm sorry for being grouchy, family. Thanks for ignoring me!

Holiday Ornament Sale

I have a few extra ornaments after everything is all said and done and I'd like to make them available to you! They are $10 a piece with $3 shipping and since I don't want to go through the hassle of making 13 different listings on etsy, I've decided to sell them right here. I'm going to link to an image of each of the available ornaments on flickr, so that you can see them. If you are interested in purchasing an ornament, just list the names of the ornaments you want in the comments below. Ornaments will be available on a first come first served basis and I will try to keep this post updated as well as I can. I will email you and let you know if those ornaments are still available and where you can paypal your payment. I think this should work. If it gets too confusing, I'll bite the bullet and list them on etsy. Thanks!

Archer

Roselle

Finn

Beatrix

Liesel

Verna

Dierdra

Una

Nadine

Freya

Eben

Hadrian

Isaac

Ornament Swap

Lots of cute things are being posted in the swap pool! Make sure you check it out and don't forget to upload your own contributions! My little sister is participating too and she gave me her submissions at her party. I need to remember to photograph them at some point and stick them in the pool. In the mean time, here is a look at what I'm working on!

All my little people are lined up and ready for hair and makeup. Then, it's on to wardrobe!

My first idea was to paint on the bodies. But I quickly learned that I'm not good enough at painting for my apparently high standards. So, this little lady became prototype number 1. I do like her on the clothes pin though. I think I may cover the top with white glitter to emulate snow. I may put a bit on her hat too!

I then decided to glue fabric onto the body, which I really like, even if it is a bit fiddly. And I thought that I would pop holes in the acorn caps and then thread floss through to hang them. But it was really hard to get the hole in the cap with out breaking the whole thing and don't get me started on the mess threading the floss through became!

So, I think they will end up being a mix of the two designs. Cloth bodies and clothes pin bases. I think it sounds like a winner!

Gretchen's Baby Shower

My little sister is due with her first child sometime between December 26 and January 6. So, I threw her a party, with a lot of help from my mom. We brought way too much food that I forgot to take a picture of and people came and brought lots of fun gifts, which I did take pictures of! You can see all of the pictures right here! Enjoy!

Common Threads

I'm doing my Common Threads submissions all out of order, but I'm just going with what inspires me first, I guess. And then I got all engrossed in making Halloween costumes, so I never got around to posting this.

Rossie is making a quilt inspired by the one in this post, so we were instructed to make long block chains using the code she sent us to represent letters.

The first block I made says, "Once Upon a Time."

I used three inch blocks and I tried to put a sliver of cream between all the blocks as little spaces. It got all wonky and I didn't like it all that much, but I didn't hate it either. I hope Rossie can find somewhere to use it in her quilt.

I made another block after that, using four inch blocks and no spacers. This one turned out much better!

"Don't Panic!" This was a really fun project and I really like thinking up things to say and then spelling them out with the secret code. I can't wait to see what Rossie's finished quilt looks like!

Employee Enrichment Day

Every year on Columbus Day, we go on a tour of other libraries, since we are closed. Here are some highlights of this year's trip!

I love that proper shelving resulted in these books being color coordinated. Happy accidents for the win!

The is the Story Hour person's chair. I need a happy throne just like this. NEED!

The ceiling at the state capitol.

The Law Library. STUNNING!

A stained glass window at the State Library.

Some sculpture at the new park.

And a bit of rest after a long day!

I haven't blogged in so long, Typepad didn't even remember me!

Hi. Remember me? I won't blame you if you don't. If there was a Worst Blogger in History Award, I'd probably win. If anyone remembered that I had a blog. I'd apologize for my lack of entertainment in these parts, only I'm not exactly sorry. I just didn't have anything to say. Some days, I found it hard to twitter. If I couldn't come up with 140 characters worth reading, I did you all a favor by not blogging. Trust me. Today, because I'm feeling chatty, I'm going to log a bunch of posts a few days apart in hopes that they will last until the next time I feel chatty. We shall see.

For Halloween, Brian and I were Octopi. I saw the idea in Family Fun magazine and then I made a better costume than the one they described. I stitched the legs closed, instead of using duct tape and I made my suckers out of felt, instead of just using mailing seals. My eyeballs are felt too, instead of styrofoam balls. This hopefully means that these will last a little while, as I have at least 40 hours worth of work in them. There were A LOT of suckers! I went through a whole bottle of Fabri-Tac. But we're cute and that's what matters!