Sew sew sew!

Food allergies and travel

There is nothing quite so nerve wracking to me than the prospect of traveling with Maymuna's food allergies. At home, we tend to buy the same, safe brands and frequent the same, safe restaurants... We have found products and places that afford us some peace of mind - and after your kid has had a few allergic reactions it is a great thing *not* to be worried for a change. So, to be completely out of our element and have a language barrier when it comes to explaining the severity of the situation has definitely been on my mind.

The other night I was reading tips online about how to travel with allergies. We really want Maymuna to do whatever she wants in life, and not to be hampered by her allergies - but still be safe. I found this brilliant website, which is so great I wanted to share it with the whole world.

"Select Wisely" makes "translation cards" which outline your allergy in the language of the country you are visiting. Seems like a small thing, but it is so smart and has afforded me a bit of peace of mind since ordering FOUR (sesame, egg, dairy, shellfish). The language is sufficiently severe to make it clear that it is not a "picky eater" we are dealing with, but a potentially serious medical situation: "If I eat this food or any food that has been cooked with it or touched by it, I will need immediate medical attention." VERY CLEAR!!!

I thought I would share this, as they do cards in a ton of different languages, and a bunch of different medical concerns as well, including celiac disease, diabetes, low-salt, asthma, latex allergy etc. I highly recommend looking at this if you are traveling anywhere exotic and have medical concerns!!!

Here is the link: http://www.selectwisely.com/

Quilts for the girls

Of course while doing all these other projects, I have been waiting and planning for quilts for each of my girls. I wanted to make something really special for them, a tribute or homage of sorts to their childhood, and this fabric by Sarah Jane is the perfect thing.

I picked the "Meadow" palette for Hafsa. It is very playful and has lots of orange and lilac (though it looks pink here):

Maymuna's fabric is aqua and red and pink:

I didn't buy all the fabrics in each line, but I got hopefully just enough to make a nice little quilt each. I love the whimsy in this collection - the pinwheels, hopscotch, balloons, flowers, plaid and polka dots! I can't wait to get started on them! You see the fabric better and bigger by clicking on those images or on the website here.

Zig Zag quilt update

Everything is soooo much easier the second time, isn't it? This quilt is moving nice and QUICK - it definitely helps that it is a much more manageable size.

Those 2.5 x 4.5 strips got paired up with other pairs...

and gradually became blocks...

and those blocks became strips again (sorta)...

Once these 4 lengths were sewn together, I had a finished quilt top! Of course I was so excited that we barged on to the next step without taking any photos. Anyway, this part was soooo much easier than last time - because of the size of this quilt I could put it together on my dining room table instead of the floor - hurray!

There's the backing, then the batting and the top! And LOTS OF PINS!

I couldn't resist putting it through the machine today and just trying out some of the quilting...

I have definitely got to keep up the pace on this - I have just over 2 weeks to complete it, and I still need to decide on binding fabric - but I have really loved working on this so far!

Around the corner

Exciting things are happening around here in our homeschooling... ie. we are finishing up our homeschooling!!!!! I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by. I am thrilled that we still managed to get all our curriculum done despite a million doctors appointments, Ozayr working like a mad thing, and a bunch of other distractions and interruptions. The first week in May we took a break from our standard rotation of subjects to blitz through the last 4 weeks worth of history and science material. It was actually a really fun week, and we managed to put retire those books for the year. Now we are just left with those daily subjects like math, languages, etc. I wanted to get a bunch of things off our plate by the time Ozayr traveled this month, and so I am grateful to have a much lighter load from now on, especially as the weather is so nice. I need to really think if this is something we could do during the regular school year to break things up a bit... Anyway, we are going to homeschool until the end of May and then call it quits for Grade Two and Kindgarten respectively. We need a nice few weeks off, but by July I can guarantee you that I will be itching to peruse curriculums again! Every new year is so exciting! I am very thankful for this year, I really enjoyed it. :-)

Gratitude

It's a Hallmark kind of holiday, but I do get choked up when I think about what being a mom means to me. It is hands-down the hardest thing I have ever done. It is the swing from the most frustrating moment to the most tender in the blink of an eye. It is mirth, and solace, and gravity all in one. It is a thousand daily drudgeries, and as many miracles. Children prove that every cliche is true - the years have already gone by too quickly. I envy parents with babies, not because I want those cute cuddly things, but because I want to be at the beginning again, with all of this ahead of me. I would do it all again. I love being a mother. I am unspeakably grateful.

Sneak Peak: next quilt

Our visit to Istanbul this summer (inshallah) is made WILDLY more possible (and affordable) by friends of Ozayr's there who offered to let us stay in their apartment for the duration of our trip. Emre is Turkish and Brit is Minnesotan, and they met there on one of Ozayr's study abroad May-term trips. They got married last year and are expecting their first baby this fall. I really wanted to make something special for them because it's such a special time in their lives, and it is very very wonderful for us to have this opportunity to hang out in Istanbul with such ease.

I saw this quilt online and fell in love with its subtle zig zag pattern.

from Red Pepper Quilts

I have been looking for an excuse to purchase this particular line of fabrics by Lotta Jansdotter - which are cute, not gender-specific and sufficiently "cool" for the teeny architectural crowd. Lucky me, I have a ton left over after cutting the pieces.

I have to move MUCH faster on this project than the one before, I have less than a month to complete it. I am a little faster now though - and I chose a much smaller size! A smart move, I think....

Here is my initial pattern mock-up (in which the pink fabrics bit the dust, they didn't fit with the look I was going for).

You can (hopefully) see that the mixed neutral pieces make a zig zag pattern along side the patterned ones, but the look is subtle. The quilting lines on the original follow the zig zag to define it a little better - I hope that I can create the same effect. The quilt is aiming to be about 32 inches square (about half the size of my first quilt).

Right now the pieces are all divided up into the different blocks, ready to be pieced!

I am very excited to get to work on this quilt! I hope it's the perfect gift. :-)

Skipping school

I think it's really fun that the first generation or so of American homeschoolers are now grown up. We have routinely run into adults here who were homeschooled. The woman who cuts the girls' hair was homeschooled. Once at a park, a man playing with his daughter overheard us talking and asked if we homeschooled, then told us stories of how he and his brother learned at home right up until they went to college. The husband of one of the moms from our girl scout troop never set foot in a traditional school. It's also nice to see that these are normal, friendly, functioning adults - indecipherable from "regular" people.

A few good blogs have started up, written by formerly homeschooled adults. I particularly like this one called Skipping School. We are not unschoolers (who use no formal curriculum etc) but a lot of what she says is still very interesting to me. This particular post *here* is about the nature of TIME for a homeschooled kid. I really think it captures the pace of our lives. Many women who send their kids to "regular school" say they don't know how I do it, but really it's me who is amazed - I don't know how THEY do it!!! Their lives seem so much busier than ours...

That might be the thing that I am most thankful for in our homeschool journey - there feels like there is time. For them to think, for us to be together, time for them to learn at their own pace. I love the gentle cadence of this life.