Have you ever sewn leather?  It’s always seemed a bit scary to me, but my sewing machine has a special button for sewing leather and every time  I’ve sat down at it I’ve wondered, “Could I really sew leather?  What would I make?”  It was an itch I needed to scratch, so the other weekend I ventured to Denver Fabrics.  It’s a crazy HUGE place that is completely overwhelming for me, but I knew I could find pretty leather.  That I did.  I bought a supple brown lamb skin and brought it home.  I made 2 projects with it, but today I’ll just show you one.  (The auto focus on my main camera lens is dying and I only got okay photos of one of the things I made.)

Behold the little shoes:

Aren’t they perfect?  I love them.  They are such a cute shape, with a wide toe.  Robeez are cute, but sometimes the decoration on them is a bit much for me.  I used this pattern with a few modifications.  Since I was using leather instead of fabric I didn’t make the heel or sole two layers.  I did line the toe part with some fabric, though, so I had a little channel for the elastic to go through.

I used the suede side of the leather for the sole and a decorative flower stitch to topstitch them.  The actual sewing was just like sewing regular fabric.  I made sure I had a leather needle in my machine and that was it.  Piece of cake.

And because I can’t resist it, here are some pictures of the other end of my little shoe model.

The camera clicking woke her up.

How will I survive when she’s not a baby anymore?  I need to freeze time.

Eva has taken to sucking her finger and we think it’s the cutest thing.  She holds her blanket up to her face with her right hand and sucks her left pointer finger.  None of our other kids would ever really suck on a pacifier, let alone a finger.  It’s so adorable.  (I know it might not be when she’s 5 years old, but it sure is now at 4 months.)

It’s a good thing I made her some more blankies for Christmas– one side snuggly flannel and the other side silky voile from Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks line.  If I were a better blogger you’d know that I LOVE the voile that several Free Spirit Fabric designers have prints on because I have made several things out of its silkiness (a School House Tunic, a shirt for Brenna, a shirt for me), but only about a third of the things I make ever get blogged about, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  I love that fabric and I love that my sweet little girl likes to tickle her face with it as she sucks herself to sleep.

I know it is January and Thanksgiving was way back in November, but that’s just how things work for me these days. I get to it when I get to it.

Here are some family pictures from our trip to Idaho.  I wish I had taken photos of everyone sitting at the dinner table, of the kids playing legos for hours on end, of my sister in-law pouring over the Black Friday ads.  But, alas, I was too busy actually experiencing it all to remember to pull my camera out.

It was so fun to all be together.

One of my brothers is missing, but he’ll be in the next family picture for sure.  (And I promise my Dad really does like all of us– just not the picture taking part I guess )

Look at all those cousins!  The boys definitely out number the girls.  That’s how we do it.

And look at the babies.  My brother’s wife came down with severe preeclampsia about a week after Eva was born. There were a few scary days and finally the doctors decided they had to do an emergency c-section to save her life. Her little baby was born at 32 weeks and just 2 lbs. 14 oz. There was a scary lung colapse when she was about a day old, but since then she’s been a tough little girl. Just tiny. Here they are at 3 months old– Eva is about 15 lbs. and Savanna is 7 lbs. How fun is it that we have girl cousins one week apart?! Very fun, if you ask me.

We also visited friends on our trip and had so much fun. I think a post about them is in order too. When will I get to that do you think?

(So, these pictures are completely unrelated to what I’ve written here today, but they sure make me smile.  I love that my basement is Thor’s motorcycle course.  I love that Ian has all his clothes on backwards.  I just love it so much I can hardly stand it.)

It’s the end of the first day of the year and I feel like I need to just sit and write something. 2011 was good. I grew a baby, fell deeper in love with my husband, watched my children grow into more of themselves. I feel privileged to be here to witness it all.

I’m also feeling like there is more growing I need to do, like I’ve been in a state of stagnation, like I need to push a little deeper and grow into more of myself. I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions (generally because I’m horribly inconsistent and not super good at following through on things) but I do believe there is power in putting things in writing so I’m just going to make a list of things I want for this new year.

• I want to read more– to have meaningful things to think about.
• There are three things I want to do just about every day– scripture study, yoga, and writing.
• I want to design fabric.
• I want to feel like I’m using my time just as God would have me use it– to end each day with no regrets.
• I want to stop comparing myself to others.
• I want to stop worrying about what others think of me.
• I want to feel confident that the relationship I have with each of my children is just what it should be. I want to feel confident that there is no doubt in their minds how much I love them.
• I want to organize and decorate my home with beauty and intention– filling it with things that are beautiful, meaningful, and useful.
• I want to be a source of inspiration for someone- to somehow make another’s life better by something I say or do.

I’m sure I could go on. There is always so much room for improvement. I have t his mantra I often repeat to myself

Be content and reach.

Be happy with the place you’re at, but always, always keep trying to be better.

How about you? What do you want for the new year?

Can you see what I’m looking at there on my fancy schmancy new iPad?  It’s the sleep pod pattern!  That’s what all of my computer time has gone toward this week while Barry was home for Christmas vacation.  Want a closer look?

You can read my product description over here on my pattern page and buy a copy from my shop if you’re so inclined.

The really sad thing is that Eva has outgrown hers.  Just this week it has turned into the diaper basket.  It does make a good cloth diaper basket and I’m sure it will hold all of her stuffed animals and dolls in years to come.  I can’t bare to just hide it away in the basement.

(And I must add that my iPad is super cool and a completely unexpected surprise.  It was so fun to Skype with on Christmas day so grandparents could see the kids open presents, I’ve got my current knitting pattern on it so I don’t have to keep reprinting it out because I lose it, and best of all I’ve been using it to do yoga every morning in my room first thing.  It truly is a marvel!)

I know I am way behind on posts.  Christmas came and went and I haven’t even told you about our Thanksgiving trip yet.  Oh well.  I’ll get to it soon I hope.  Today, though, I feel like making a Christmasy post.

Every year my Grumpy sends us Christmas money to get the kids something from him.  We try to use it to create fun memories or DO something we normally wouldn’t get to do instead of just adding more stuff to our home.  This year we decided to do something we could only do in Colorado.  We took a Christmas train ride up in the mountains on the historic Georgetown Railroad.

We all bundled up.  It was beautiful and snowy and very Christmasy.

Santa found our little guys even before we got on the train.

Because of the snowy tracks the train just goes back and forth on its route around the mountain so it doesn’t ever have to switch tracks.  We sat in the very back of the train in the cattle car because that’s where it would be easiest to keep our herd together.  That’s where the most windows were too, so we got a really good view of the winter wonderland.

Santa came through the train to see all the kids and he gave them each a special Christmas bell

and candy canes.

It was a fun adventure– creating just the kind of memories we had hoped.

Thanks Grumpy!

Our little princess is another month older.  Her new favorite thing to do is hang out in the jumper.  It’s so much of a favorite that she will jump for over an hour at a time.  That is a  l o n g  time when you’re just 4 months old.  We loaded her up today and Logan wanted to be the photographer.

Most of his photos turned  out like this:

which gives you an idea of the vigorous hand flapping and bouncing that was going on.   (The rest of the photos I took.)

This jumper was mine when I was a baby, then used by my 4 brothers, and now all 6 of my babies (and a nephew too).  It is THE favorite baby toy of all the babies I know who’ve tried it.  The amazing thing is that they are so quick to figure out just how it works and are jumping and flapping away in no time.

This baby of mine is such a cutie.  She’s a big rolly-polly cutie.  At 3 months she was 15 1/2 lbs, so I’m guessing now she’s probably about 17.  That’s about the same as all 4 of my boys at this age too.

I brought out the tub of size 6-9 month clothes today.   It’s fun to have new things to dress her up in– and much easier to get bigger sleepers zipped.  Just look at those rolly-polly arms.

Last year we didn’t get a Christmas letter written or a single card sent.  I was newly pregnant and oh, so tired and nauseous, with in-laws in town.  That was my excuse.  There’s always an excuse though, isn’t there?  Now I have a new baby and on top of that pink eye ravaged through our family these last couple of weeks so I couldn’t take a good Christmas picture for our card.

I faced those would-be excuses head on, went through our photos and found one of each kid that was cute, enlisted the help of my husband to make them fit right, and placed my order at Costco.  The bummer– we didn’t notice Hunter’s name was misspelled until we had 100 HunDers in our hands.  Oh well, done imperfectly is better that not done at all.  Right?

Getting them out the door was a team effort.  One big kid did address labels, another return addresses, and the third did stamps.

The little kids obviously couldn’t be left out, so they had stickers and envelopes of their own.

The littlest supervised while doing her favorite new activity– sucking her finger.

There were even a couple addressed to me

I thought I’d share some of Hunter’s new moves.  He’s figured out how to find the songs he likes on the iPod in the kitchen.

Now it’s time for the weekend.  I spent my day mopping my floors for the first time since Eva was born.  I’m trying to get ready to bring out the Christmas stuff, but I feel like we need to do some major organizing and decluttering first.

What do you have planned for the weekend?  I’m hoping to wander through the Holiday Handmade craft fair, get books put on the proper shelves, and maybe Christmasify the mantle.  Oh, and get a post or two together about our Thanksgiving trip.

In January I took my Christmas money to the yarn store and came home with 5 big soft squishy skeins of  beautiful green Madelinetosh superwash merino yarn.  (The color is Malachite, but I’m sure I bought worsted weight yarn and I’m not seeing anything that looks like it on their site.  I think Madelinetosh Vintage is the most comparable.)  I wanted a sweater with sleeves, so I cast on for my very own February Lady Sweater.

(this photo by Jonah)

It’s the biggest thing I’ve knit with a fancy lacy stitch pattern.   I made a hat for my mother in-law last Christmas which I constantly miscounted and messed up so bad I had to start over, so I was a bit nervous I would mess this up too, but none of those mistakes are noticeable and I never ripped a single row out.  About halfway through the body I realized I was twisting my yarn overs wrong which resulted in smaller holes in the lace, but I just kept on with that mistake for consistency’s sake.  I think that was a good thing actually because I think it would really stretch out of shape if it were knit any looser.

(this photo by Brenna)

I finished it the week we were getting ready for our Thanksgiving trip to Idaho.  There’s nothing like having a bunch if things I need to do (like laundry and packing) to make me feel ike I really need to knit or sew or create something.

It is itchless (hooray!) and warm.  I picked out the buttons with 3 littles in tow and have since decided I need to change them to something round that won’t be constantly skiwampis.  I’m also wishing that the buttons went all the way down, instead of just being at the top because I’m so newly un-pregnant.  Oh well.  I’m sure I’ll love how it fits next fall.

It certainly is the prettiest thing I’ve knit.  I love the magic of knitting.  I know I probably say that in every knitting post, but it is just so cool that a really long piece of string can be looped and looped into something lovely and useful.