Mountain Musings

Projects Update

Since I last wrote about my cloth diaper project, I've gathered all my supplies - fabrics, elastic, snaps, snap pliers, and thread - and have completed two diapers so far. I'm very excited with my results! In this picture, the white and gold is a newborn size and the yellow and blue is medium. 

I got to try both sizes on Ethan last week to check the fit - the newborn was already way too small, and the medium was just about perfect. I thought it was very cute on an even cuter nephew. :) No pictures, unfortunately--we've been asked not to post any.

After some thought, I've tweaked my plans a little and am going to be making small pockets instead of more newborns, and I switched to making newborn covers instead. Out of 2 yards of fleece, I was able to cut out 23 covers! One cover is finished, but I think I'll wait to sew the rest of those up until the pocket diapers are all done. 

It's been so fun to put the snaps on what I've done so far. A couple of Saturdays ago, I received my snap pliers package all the way from China! The lady who runs the Notion Supply Yahoo group lives in Beijing, and it was really interesting to see all the Chinese characters and postmarks on the envelope.

For $20, she sent the pliers, three different sizes of cap dies, an awl, and then she threw in 25 blue complete snap sets and 10 medium size tags. They were easy to use, after the first few times when I was just figuring it out.

You apply snaps as follows. First, poke a hole in your fabric with the awl, then push the prong of the cap through from the bottom. Then put either a socket or a stud on top of the prong on the top side of the fabric. (In the below pictures, the cap prong is neon yellow, and the socket is white.) Next, slip the snap "sandwich" in between the pliers and center. Then you press everything together with the pliers. The cap prong is squished into a little circle, and that is what keeps the snap together.

Enough about diapers! On to quilting. :) I have at long last completed sewing together my entire Double Wedding Ring quilt top - yay! Now I have to pin the top, batting, and backing together and do the actual quilting part. That will take a long time, I'm afraid. I think I'm going to attempt to quilt it by hand, as my last one that I did with my machine was rather difficult to work with.

Now you are all up-to-date on my current projects!

~Sarah 

Snowbound at the Top of the Hill

Stranded with 6 inches of snow! Thankfully, we're inside a warm home today with no need to get out on the slippery unplowed country roads.

Even when the snowplow comes around, there are two hills that are still not navigatable in or out--the famous icy Teeter Hill that never gets sun and our steep driveway hill. Sometimes that presents quite a problem, and tonight might be one of those times!

Guess who is on the way to see his Granny for the very first time?! Yessss!! Micah and Elizabeth, along with our two-month old grandson Ethan, are driving from Michigan today for a visit this week with us. As you can imagine we are all very excited!!

With a very late night arrival time and no four-wheel drive to tackle the driveway, I'm thinking the entire Mountain Musings gang will need to get bundled and booted up in frigid 7-degree temperatures tonight and trek down the l-o-n-g hill to retrieve all their suitcases, baby gear, Teak and her birdcage, and of course Ethan!

I'm going to show Ethan all the deer that we have and see if he wants to stay here in Virginia with Granny all the time. :)

Well, lots of food prep today. Off to cook some of Micah's favorite meals...

~Deb