Useless bits given new life

Last week, I got a call from my friend Mariella who is an avid Freecycler like me. She had just gone to a Freecycle garage sale from one of the local members of our group and told me I just HAD to contact this woman... she had fabric!


So I email this woman about the fabric and she writes back, almost apologetically, that all she has are scraps. Bits and end pieces only, not yards or bolts... pieces that usually end up in the garbage.


I race to this woman's house! Being a crafter, a recycler, a reuser and a mommy... scraps are just what a budgeted gal like me covets. When Mariella told me she had fabric, I didn't realize she meant she had three leaf sized bags full-to-bursting with fabric. And nice fabric... I mean fabric I couldn't afford to get. Amy Butler, Japanese, Minky, Michael Miller, Heather Bailey, Moda, Heather Ross... wow!


After three days of sorting through everything, my office floor was overflowing with fabric goodness! I set aside about 10% for me, then Mariella came for 10% and I am giving away the other 80% to crafters I've met online. This "garbage" is now going to various ports in Maine, New Zealand, Arizona, Texas, California, Massachusetts and Ireland. And these crafters are just as excited as I am!


Yesterday, I finally finished the front of a blanket made from some of the scraps (using just 1% of my 10% to give you an idea of volume). This is my first real quilting experience and I was just experimenting and having fun while making a toddler-bed-sized blanket for Ro. I'll do the edges and the back with other fabric I have in my stash. The piece you see is 38 inches by 54 inches and I'll add 6 inches to the top/bottom and left/right.

I have gobs of ideas for all the other great fabric as well and will share them with you when I get to the point where I can see my floor again! A good deal of the minky fabric will go towards my 25 Things for Charity. The cotton will mostly be used on projects from different books I have on plushie-monster creation, ragworking and simple sewing.

Isn't Freecycling the greatest!!!??!!

Old photos and old memories

I was looking at Sarah of Still Life in Yarn's blog this morning and she had a funny blast-from-the-past type of blog a few days ago. Her father has been sending her wonderful nuggets of history in the form of CDs full of childhood photographs. Instantly, I thought of my own collection of photos... sitting in a box and unscanned. Sure, they are in order, but that's about it. They are not available for viewing or memory reminiscing... something I'd like to do and something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Yesterday was the eight year anniversary of my most fantastic Gema's passing. I still think of her as here spiritually, coming around now and again for a visit and to check up on things. I went through my limited supply of digital pics of her... and have virtually nothing! But my childhood memories are vivid enough to remember her in 3D in my mind. This teeny pic you see is of my mom's 50th birthday at Tony Roma's. My grandma was 71. I was 20... not really "childhood" but hey, 20 was a while ago for me!

I remember my grandma saying "We're goin' to Townee Rowwwwmaas!" and ordering ribs... eating daintily with both pinkies up and enjoying the whole meal from sit down to stand up. She's wearing a jean blazer for February "warmth", a khaki shirt with darker brown matching pants and these pretty hand-carved and stained wooden beads with gold accents. I don't know what happened to those beads...

I remember her insisting on sitting in the back seat of Rob's pink Honda Civic... lowered to the ground so anyone would grunt trying to get in or out of this thing! I made her sit in front after much protesting.

I can still hear her voice in my head saying "Love you Darling!" or calling me her "Shayna Madela" and blowing kisses every time we talked in person or on the phone.

I remember her teaching me to braid my hair. To knit. To crochet. To cook. To play gin... and she didn't let me win... I had to work at it!

My favorite stream of memories are of our Saturday nights together. From ages 9 to about 11, I would get to spend the night all by myself with my Gema. My brother in turn got my mom all to himself.

Gema would make dinner (teriyaki steak, pahtted meatbolls, or spaghetti) and then we would go to Thrifty's for ice cream. I had 25 cents to spend, so I'd get 2 scoops of ice cream for 15 cents and a little toy from the machines for 10 cents. We'd walk around the drug store looking around and then go back to her apartment.

By now it was late... 8 o'clock, and we'd change into our pajamas. Always a long nightgown for her... special silk or rayon two-piece PJ's for me. We'd play gin and watch TV... all the way up to Dallas and Falcon Crest. Do you remember Falcon Crest? We'd lay on opposite ends of the couch with our bodies meeting in the middle and I'd fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the show.

These simple memories are some of my most cherished.

Cramped playspaces

... My kids... playing in their cramped space ... the one and only cramped space in the whole backyard.

When you were a kid and told to "go outside and play", did you ever seek out the squishy places?

The hard to reach places?

The dank and quiet places that smelled deliciously of the earth?


I remember going behind the bushes... in the undergrowth...watching what (if anything) was happening, hidden, but within the scenes. In those times, I preferred to be totally alone.


I'd bring a blanket, a drink of water, some drawing or reading material. And if I wasn't called for, I'd stay for hours. Often there was nothing to watch. But, it was my special place.

13 inches of hair donated to Wigs for Kids

Yesterday was the big day! I gently shampooed and conditioned my 23 inches of hair for the last time. I combed it out and blew it completely dry with warm, not hot air (it's better for you) and gathered it into several ponytails... it's better to have more than one so you can get the most length per section of hair.

My mom must've called 5 times while I was getting ready. She even called the Daily News, a local newspaper, because she thought we should tell EVERYONE and have a reporter at the salon with us to write a story on donating your hair for children. I thought that was sooo sweet of her!

Em was very excited. He told several ladies at the salon that I was cutting off my hair to give to kids who didn't have hair. But, when my hair was actually cut, he got a little upset for a few minutes and needed a hug of assurance from me. The stylist finished of my new ultra-short haircut and we left the salon.

Oooh, my neck was cold! It was a weird feeling! It was a wonderful feeling! My ponytails are now on their way to a non-profit organization called Wigs for Kids. It will take between 6-12 hair donations for one child to be gifted with a hairpiece... can you join in?

Travel Town Museum

Not all museums are indoors... the Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park is a mostly-outdoor museum dedicated to preserving the history of trains.

On Saturday, we took the munchkins for a visit to check out the trains, freight cars, passenger cars, cabooses, and other railroad memorbilia. You can climb on board about 2/3 of the exhibits and gain a little bit of an understanding of what it meant to be a conductor and also a passenger on these wonderful trains.

I remember coming to Travel Town when I was a kid... my brother and I would spend hours imagining all sorts of situations where we would need to fill the trains with coal and water. Take tickets from passengers... "Alllll aboard!" I can still hear him yelling...