Summer of Stash

I have a lot of fabric. I have A LOT of yarn (at last tally, 48.57 miles). I also have a baby. Babies are expensive. Do you know how much this kid eats? A lot. More than you would think a 20-lb person could eat.

I don't need new fabric or yarn. I have plenty of projects half-done and tens more in the queue. I also have much less free time than I used to, so I can't blow through projects the way I would like.

It's time for a Summer of Stash. From May 1 - September 30, I'll be working soley from my stash, with the following exceptions:

1. Backing fabrics. I don't buy my backing when I buy the fabrics for my top, because I want to see the mostly-finished product before I decide on how to truly complete things.
2. The Pink Chalk Fabrics Solids of the Month club. I'm a member, and I love it. I get eight half-yards of a solid color story each month. I feel this is a good, solid investment into my sewing future. Also, it's not super expensive.
3. Gifts.

I worked at Quilt Market over the weekend, guarding escalators and making sure people didn't bring their beverages into the exhibit hall. I had a chance to purchase fabric at the end of Sample Spree (which was...insane), but I decided not to. First of all, it felt weird, because I wasn't a shop owner or anything. Second, I'm no longer interested in buying fabric without a specific project in mind (even if it's really cute puppies). Third -- SUMMER OF STASH!

The KCMQG and the St. Louis Modern Quilt Guild hosted a huge meet-up on Saturday night. I manned the prize table with Jenny, and we spent a goodly amount of time admiring all of the big door prizes. I had my eye on the Quilt Con color pack, but I knew I didn't have a chance at winning anything. There were 300 people there!

And then I saw the look on Mary Anne's face and I knew I had won something.

Image borrowed from Michael Miller Fabrics.I won all three of those Michael Miller Cotton Coture fat quarter packs, a total of about 15 yards. It was ridiculously amazing, and I jumped into the air like I was on "The A-Team." I'd never seen these before. They're so soft and luscious, and I'm going to spend some time just admiring them and dreaming of what they're going to become. Something for me, of course, but what?

Summer of Stash, indeed.

I don't know how these things happen.

I like being a member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild not only for the snacks, but also for the opportunity to try things I normally wouldn't even consider.

Take Wassily Kandinsky, for example. He was a Russian painter linked to the Bauhaus movement. I like art as much as the next girl, but my tastes don't necessarily line up with his. But when Carla announced that our next guild challenge would be a quilt inspired by one of Kandinsky's paintings, I could't resist.

I chose "From Cool Depths:"

I thought about this painting for months. I really, really liked it, and it was very different from the rest of the paintings we could select. I knew that I didn't want to make a replica of the painting, and I wasn't in love with the color story. I did, however, love the title. So I started thinking about things that come from cool depths. My first thought was a volcano, which really comes from hot depths. That made me think of an explosion, which made me think of a supernova, which made me think of the creation of the universe.

Which led to this:

It's so hard to take a good picture of this quilt because you really don't get the full effect unless you're a little distance away. It's small - about 24" x 24". I call it "In the Beginning."

For scale (and a little distance):

 I've wanted to do something pixelated for a long time. I started with 2.5" squares on my design wall, a little square of each solid in my stash, and I quickly came to two conclusions. 1. These were big and wouldn't blend the way I wanted them to. 2. I was going to need to cut more squares.

But I didn't want to cut more squares. Instead, I cut my 2.5" squares into fourths, leaving me with four 1.25" squares of each color. At our retreat, I watched Shea make anawesome tiled pillowcase, and realized when I got home that it was the perfect method for getting all of my little squares in order.

My original vision was just the colored blocks, but I quickly realized that an unfinished 1.25" square becomes just 0.75" finished, so a thick border it was. I quilted with some light blue thread to give it some more movement.

All of our challenge quilts on are display this week at the Machine Quilting Show in Overland Park, KS. If you can't make it, check out Carla's pictures. There is a ridiculous amount of talent in that room.

I'm more Mom-enough than you'll ever know.

Henry wasn't breastfed. I'd like to say that it was a hard decision, but it really wasn't. It was, however, a shame-filled one.

I never imagined myself breastfeeding my child until I was actually pregnant. I read all about it, understood the benefits (child will be perfect) and wanted to avoid formula. When Henry arrived, we had one bottle, which we got for free in the mail. (Thanks, Advent! I can't quit you!)

Because he was three weeks early and not ready for primetime, I only got to hold him for one minute - a literal minute - before he was taken to the NICU. I don't remember what he looked like, or what he felt like in my arms. I do remember thinking, "Please don't die."

He came out silent, stunned from his birth, and there were so many people in the room. Nobody would answer my question ("Is he okay?") until he was taken away. So we didn't have those first bliss-filled moments that some new moms talk about. He and Justin went down the hall and I was left alone with my mom and my midwife, who busied herself delivering my placenta.

We tried to breastfeed in the NICU, every three hours on the dot. But he was so small, and I was so big, and he would fall asleep long before he'd had the chance to latch. I pumped colostrum and we fed it to him in a cup (newborns do really well with cups, it turns out). Each subsequent attempt was even more frustrating, no matter how many lactation consultants came up to help. He was too little. I was too big. They're telling me to use a nipple shield, but don't use it because he'll get used to that, and make sure you pump every time you try to feed him even though there's nothing there to pump and you're starting to bleed.

 This is the closest you'll get to seeing my breasts, Internet.

I was on the verge of a complete breakdown 36 hours after he was born. I hadn't slept - we were feeding him every three hours (which sounds okay, until you realize that it's three hours since you STARTED feeding, not since you ended, so you get maybe an hour in between) - and I also hadn't showered because our crappy overflow room didn't have that particular luxury. I was still wearing my post-birth hospital gown and smelled like old blood. God, it was awful.

You're told so many things when you're pregnant, and most of those things are about how you're going to screw up your baby. I was completely convinced that if I didn't breastfeed, the following things would happen:

1. Henry would starve to death.

2. We wouldn't bond.

3. He would be dumb.

4. He would get sick all the time.

5. I would ruin his life forever.

My midwife came in for my follow-up visit, saw what a mess I was, and said, "I really don't think you should breastfeed." I told her all of the reasons I should (see the above list) and she's like, that's crazy. (She also pronounced me crazy for thinking that an epidural would sever the emotional connection between me and Henry. Thanks, birthing class! You taught me all kinds of crazy!)

Yeah. It was crazy. My midwife forced me to take a nap so I could get my head on straight. When the lactation consultant came in later that afternoon, I told her I wanted to breastfeed, but I didn't want to pump. Pumping was awful. I felt like a cow, and it hurt so badly. If I wasn't trying to feed him, I was pumping. There was literally no time to sleep, let alone eat or take a shower.

She said I had to pump. My milk would never come in if I didn't pump. And I'm crying, sobbing each time I try to say "breastfeed," because it hurt so badly that I couldn't do it. And I'll tell you the truth - I thought they were going to take him away from me. I thought that I couldn't be the mother he needed, the mother he deserved, and I was sure someone was going to take him away. I was scared and all of a sudden quite sure I didn't want to be someone's mom, but I also knew that I would die if he was taken away from me.

Of course, that was a completely irrational thought, but I specialize in those.

My nurse kicked out the lactation consultant. She was an angel, that nurse, and I'm not sure if I would have been able to get my act together enough to get discharged if it wasn't for her (my midwife wanted to keep me longer due to my general hysteria. I maintained that my hysteria was caused by the hospital AND LACK OF SHOWER.). She took my hand and said, "What do you want to do?"

And I said, "I don't want to breastfeed."

The lights were brighter, my thinking was clearer, and I could breathe again. No, I did not want to breastfeed. I don't think I ever really did. The nurse smiled and got the lactation consultant from the hall. She sat down on my bed and said, "I heard you made a decision." I told her I was done breastfeeding. She gave me the biggest smile and said, "I think that's a wonderful decision." We immediately gave Henry a bottle and he fell asleep in my arms.

You know what? I wasn't breastfed. I rarely get viruses. I'm smart -- the-kid-you-don't-want-the-curve-based-on smart. I'm closer to my mom than should probably be allowed. I knew those things, but I wouldn't let myself really understand them.

Henry has only been sick once, with a cold. It's because I work from home and the only time he's really with other kids in a communal setting is at the gym nursery (and trust me, he's never there for more than an hour at a time. I'm not exactly a gym rat.). I'm vigilant about his sleep schedule, and while I don't find hand-washing mentally stimulating, I've become very good about it over the past 10 months. That's why Henry is healthy.

Ten months later, and my shame for not breastfeeding has turned into pride. I'm proud that I gave my baby formula in a bottle. He loved it. I loved snuggling with him crooked in my arm, coaching him from 20 mililiters at first (such a struggle for such a little guy) to a whopping 8 oz. at a time. I knew exactly how much he was eating, and that gave me the touch of control that I so desperately needed.

Justin shared overnight feeding duties with me, which meant that I got a lot more sleep than most new moms, and Henry and Justin spent lots of time together. We were in this together, as a family, and I didn't feel so alone and inept anymore.

No one at the hospital is going to tell you that breastfeeding might not be the best decision for you. So I will tell you: the best decision for your family is the one that makes you happy. If you struggle with breastfeeding so much that just saying the word makes you cry, then it's not making you happy. What a baby - EVERY baby - needs is a mother who is happy. They don't care what they eat or how. They care that you smile when you see them and you hold them close and make them feel safe.

Let's have a little cry.

How did we get from here:

to here?

Almost nine months later and you finally have a little baby fat. You sit up by yourself, feed yourself a bottle (which takes FOREVER because you like to toss around the bottle and growl at it, then sneak up on the nipple with a big chomp), and you've said your first word. You don't crawl yet, but you hop on your butt to get where you want to go, which is most often to a vertical surface so you can press your face against it. You love baths, beef sticks, and your dog.

You've been squirrelly the past few days - it could be your two new teeth, or maybe you're growing, or maybe you're upset that we haven't gotten to watch Dinosaur Train all week. In any case, you've been a bear all week and sometimes I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm relieved when you go to bed. But then a half hour passes and I miss you. I want to scoop you up from your crib where you're sleeping with a burp rag on your head because that's how you roll and I want to hold you close and rock you like I did when you were just a few days old. But we tried that once and it didn't go so well, so now I just stare at your door and thank Elmo, our lord and savior, that you are mine.

Where I hide from the shouting.

Henry is a shouter. I wish you could hear it, but it basically sounds like an old man with his hearing aid turned too low. "Aaaaa! Aaaaaa! ... Bwa." And when the shouting gets too loud and Mommy tags out, she hides in the basement.

Oh, my wonderful basement. It was pretty much finished about nine months ago, but I haven't really gotten to spend as much time down there as I would like since somebody else was finished about nine months ago, too. He's not a huge fan of the basement even though we watch PBS Kids when we're down there and nobody makes him iron.

I never showed pictures of the room once it was finished, and while I could pretend to be embarrassed about the hurricane that blew through there, let's not kid ourselves. This is a space that is used, abused, and rarely vacuumed. Having crap everywhere does make it harder to work, but I like a challenge and I'm very good at moving piles of things around. All of my favorite things are in this room, and why would I want to put them away? So the Internet thinks I'm neat? Internet, we clearly haven't met.

The view from the bottom of the stairs.

You'll notice two main themes in this room: sewing and knitting. Actually, fabric and yarn. Those shelves don't contain all of the yarn - there are two Steralite containers on the other side of the room. One holds sock yarn, the other holds handspun (mostly mine). I do not consider them deep stash, and I dig through the sock one quite a bit.

I do most of my work on the same kitchen table I smeared with Play-Doh when I was little. She's a sturdy old thing, and she's lived in more houses than I have. Yes, I would love a taller, bigger, better cutting table, but even if I had that, my old friend would still be part of my craft room. We are soulmates, I think, bound by years of abuse and new hobbies.

I sew on a crappy sewing cabinet from Jo Ann. It works.

The view from the end of the room.The brown chair is for all manner of yarn craft, most often knitting and untangling said yarn. Sometimes Justin sits in it while I work at the table, and sometimes Gracie loses her mind and jumps onto the ottoman. Most often, it is covered in fabric, yarn, and other crafting supplies.

The little table next to it is a family heirloom. It's my tea party table from when I was little (also used for numerous lemonade stands), and it's official name is The Little Red Table. It has a bum leg that falls off when you pick it up.

I love this table. Justin doesn't understand the appeal of the table and why I'm so attached to it, and he's tried to convince me to get rid of it. I would rather lose a limb. This table is Home to me. I've crafted on it ever since I was a wee thing, and when I wanted to create a collage on top of it before I went to college, my dad stepped in and made the wooden topper you see on it now. I collaged on top of that, and my little red table is (somewhat) pristine underneath.

My quilt design wall is at the very back of that picture, close to the sewing machine. Right now, it's just holding a few squares I was auditioning for my pixelated piece, but it's become invaluable when putting together the mostly-solid quilts I love. It's just a huge piece of cheap batting tacked up with some contractor's nails. It's the reason why I was okay with giving up my old craft room (stupid baby) and why I wanted my new space to be in the basement.

My favorite part of the room is right when you come down the stairs. This room is covered with strangely-shallow and oddly-shaped built in cabinets, and this cabinet is where I keep 90% of my fabric (the other 10% is on the floor in front of the cabinet. I am lazy.) Inside, there is a glorious rainbow.

Solids, how I love thee.

So there's the room. It's not pretty, it's not neat, and it's not for the faint of heart. It's exactly what I wanted.