Moira recommends: Books about food

This pile of books is much more popular then last month's. At first she only wanted to read the two she'd seen before over and over. I guess the topic is interesting enough to her that she's willing to try books that I pull from the pile too, which is how we more then doubled the list of recommended books.
The 100th Customer by K T Hao: She found this one last month and kept pulling it off the shelf to be read. It hasn't lost it's appeal. Ben Bear & Chris Crock open a pizza restaurant and have a very poor business plan. But! It's touching and a good lesson in why you should be kind for kindness sake.
The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza: Mr Wolf is hungry, and goes to ridiculous lengths to try and fatten up one particular chicken. Sadly, all his hard work is ruined by unforeseen circumstances, and he never gets his Chicken Stew. But he does get lots of chicks.
Let's Eat! by True Kelley: Minimal text, and lots of fun pictures. A squirrel tries to steal a peanut from an elephant. A girl dumps noodles on her head. Babies and piglets nurse. Moira loves to look through this one and point to specific pictures so I can tell her what it is. Sometimes, she even manages to tell me what it is.
If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff: A harrowing depiction of what it's like to live with a toddler. But the pictures are cute.
Alvie Eats Soup by Ross Collins: This is the only one of the books we've been reading from this stack that I don't like reading too much. Fortunately, we are going to be gone for a week and a half and then it will be time for a new stack. Alvie only eats soup. His parents are overly worried about this and try everything they can to get him to eat other things. Including locking him in a padded cell with a table of food. Fun fun.

This is all new to me

A couple of people have recently referred to me as a "natural mother." I was confused by what that meant until I asked Pearl about it (who agreed with that assessment by the way). She said it has something to do with how calm and unworried I am about the process of raising a kid. Also, because I have fully formed opinions about most things.
I really have two things to say about that.
1) I am in no way calm. I'm at the end of my rope way too often, but that's the sort of thing you don't tend to see in other people because I think it's always harder when you are alone. I have yelled at the baby for not settling down and going to sleep (stupid and counterproductive!); I have tossed Moira at Walker the minute he came home, leaving her crying in his arms while I hid in the bedroom. Also I make stupid mistakes, like leaving our biggest kitchen knife lying on the counter in arms reach. Fortunately, she didn't hurt herself.
2) Whatever parenting calm and experience I have is, in no way, natural. Maybe I did have a slight edge, since I was one of those baby crazed teenagers. Which lead to the real reason for my skills. 12 years of constant babysitting and then nannying. Lori asked how many families I worked for, and I can't totally recall. The answer is around 7 or 8 who were repeat clients, or permanent positions. Then there was the volunteer daycare I ran for a sci fi convention for 10 years. And the other conventions where I worked with someone else who ran the daycare. All that child wrangling left me with the sure and certain knowledge that kids are actually pretty tough and easy to please. The only important thing in the long run seems to be that they are loved and respected.
I also had the benefit of seeing a wide variety of parenting styles. There were two mothers who I especially admired, whose kids seemed happy and fulfilled, whose kids still seem that way 10 years later. Pam and Susan, thank you for being such great role models.
There were also plenty of examples of ways not to treat kids. There was the couple who never said 'no' to their kids. They didn't really explain anything though, or give them any real choices instead. They just didn't use any negative language. Those kids were very confused, and very angry.
There was also a couple who belittled their daughter. Not, I think, on purpose, but in small ways, that made her physically shrink inside herself, whenever I witnessed it. She and I did a lot of art projects and there was a picture she was very proud of one day. We hung it on her wall, and when her parents got back, she proudly showed it to them and told them all about it. "You can't draw." her Dad said, "that's just a bunch of scribbles."
But, I also know the secret truth, which is that most of those little hurts? Are recoverable. Your kids love you and need to be loved. They will do what it takes to male you happy. And as adults, we all have secret hurts and fears from random childhood incidents. You can never tell what will be the thing that your kid has a hard time getting over, but we all, more or less, manage to get on with the living. If I could do one thing in my life it would be to worry less and laugh more.
So that's what I'm doing, one day at a time. And my guess is that most of the other mothers I know are doing that too.

Fancy

I am blogging this from my phone. Awesome, except that this little widgit doesn't have the same auto capitalize the rest of the phone uses, forcing me to think.
I watch Made Of Honor last week, because it was finally on cable (yes, I really wanted to see it in theater but did not manage it). It was awesomely bad, what with the caber off and the training montage. However! I don't think I can officially like the movie because they used the word blog wrong. Patrick Dempsey has a psycho stalker lady who writes a blog about him. Both he and said lady use the word blog to describe specific posts on said blog. Somehow, that upset me more then is healthy. Oh well.

RTT: A plague on both your houses!

For some reason (possibly related to childhood trauma I won't get into in this post) Walker has become obsessed with the level of cleanliness in out house. To the point where he might be willing to pay someone to clean our house on a regular basis. I would like to point out that our house is cleaner then it was before the baby because we have to be careful what's in her reach, so things actually get put away, and we have people over more often here, so the floor actually gets vacuumed occasionally. Still, everytime we are cleaning for guests Walker starts grumbling about how "we need to do better at keeping up with the dirt." Not that I want you to change your mind about the cleaners honey! I'm all for that plan.

We are flying to LA on Saturday, so of course I want to do a bunch of things that would be silly right before we are gone for a week and a half. Like buy another loaf of bread or make playdough.

I keep saying things like "I'm not really getting sick" or "I don't think I'm contagious" only to be proven wrong the next day. I should really just stay in the house for the rest of the winter. Moira can walk to the library by herself now right? At least I haven't said "I really don't think I have Swine Flu" which is actually what Walker said this morning. Awesome.

Because it turned out I was actually sick, I had to skip the potluck my Mommy group had last weekend, after I went shopping for supplies. I really want to make the rice crispy treats, but that's another thing I shouldn't make right before a trip. Not that I couldn't eat an entire pan in 4 days. Still. Bad idea.

Both my closest mom friends are pregnant, which makes me feel worse about the whole sick/not sick thing. Also, slightly left behind. Not that we are trying or anything. It's kind of how it would be great to win the lottery, but I never buy a ticket.

That came out wrong. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Or visit The Un Mom for more Randomness.

Oo! Ee! Aa! Oh!

Down and up
Originally uploaded by Maydela

I've been trying to teach Moira to jump, but she totally doesn't understand the concept. Instead she has decided that it's fun if I count every time she takes a step down. Well, when she remembers.
Two days ago we went for a walk in the woods (It's been too long since we did that. I don't know why. I love how the woods look right now with no leaves.) and she would stop and stand on every twig on the ground and root that she could get onto on her own and wait for me to count. If I didn't notice, she would start bouncing and sating "Oo! Ee! Aa! Oooooh!!!" until I noticed.
Yesterday we went to the Science Center with Mika and we both had to say it before she would go down the steps in the parking garage. Today she started doing it on the perfectly flat road on the way home from the mailbox.
I'm glad she likes the raincoat. She wouldn't put it on at first, and then when I finally convinced her to put it on she held her arms out like she couldn't put them down. Today she wore it on our brief trip out to the fabric store and she was complimented on it no fewer then 5 times in 15 minutes. Now it's her favorite coat ever. She had to wear it, hood up even when it wasn't raining. I had to wear my raincoat too, because you can never be too careful.

Baby. It's what's for dinner

Baby on the table
Originally uploaded by Maydela

Moira has gone through some major developmental change in the last few weeks. Her level of comprehension has shot through the roof. Today I found her sitting on the kitchen table this morning. I believe because her cup was up there out of reach, and so she went to get it instead of asking for help. Last week she suddenly started doing all the motions for The Wheels On the Bus (extended remix version), Patty Cake and Little Birdies. She kept herself mostly entertained while watching Walker and his friends play a four hour long game last night. Today, while I was getting dinner ready to go into the crockpot she took off her shoes and socks and then took them into her room and put them in the hamper. Because that's where dirty clothes go.
Sadly, the last two days, nap has only been about half an hour long, which is challenging. But I am loving this age, where she's surprising me all the time. Since she's awake, I think we will go buy supplies to do more corn syrup painting.

At the zoo

Bunny goes "hop hop"
Originally uploaded by Maydela

Adorableness. Not only was she happy to show me what bunnies do (and point sadly to the empty cage while shaking her head to tell me there were no bunnies there), but she made the right sound for every animal she could; cows, sheep, goats, owls, bears, zebras, wolves, elk, tigers, lions and a few birds.
I decided to try out the stroller after a long break from it because she was refusing to sit in it. It worked pretty well until I ran out of snacks, so about 3/4's of your visit. And most of the time she wasn't sitting in the stroller, she was happy to hold my hand. Win/win.

UFO sighting

So, I'm taking part in Tall Grass Prairie Studio's quilt finishing challenge.
I plan to finish 4 quilts:
1) Sika's Wedding Ring. I have to finish hand sewing the binding on, clean and label it. Cleaning it will be a big pain, because of an old roommate's cats and improper storage.
2) Coulton's quilt. I sent his brother's quilt last Christmas, rather then wait to finish this one and send them together, which was a good idea I guess, because I got it quilted and bound, but it has been sitting for 11 months waiting for a label. I forgot it was still here until I found it a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for something.
3) Mariah's quilt. Needs to be basted, quilted, bound, labeled and washed.
4) Taylor's quilt (photos here and here mostly. Blocks helpfully made by members of the International Stash Busting Bee on Flickr. I needed to make 6 more for the layout I wanted to use. I have 1 left to make, then I have to sash, baste, quilt, bind, label and wash.

Those last three are for Walker's niece and nephews. I've been working my way through all the younger members of his family, which is hard since people keep having kids. When these are done, I have 3 left to do and then I can come up with my next long term grand quilting scheme.

Hey, it's election day. Don't forget to vote. As long as you vote the way I want you to!

Hey guys with long hair! When you finally decide to give a short hairdo a chance, you have to fully commit and get a style that will look good on you. It doesn't count if you just get it chopped into the longest possible bob you can still claim is 'short'.

Happy Random Tuesday!

Trick or treating was a complete failure. Too much excitement and change for one weekend. Good thing I got pictures of Moira in her costume a week early. Science World was a big hit though.

I am thinking of participating in this Joy in the New Year challenge to finish quilt projects by the end of the year, but I only think I can manage 3 and one it almost done, so it kind of feels like cheating. It's probably not cheating though, it's just being realistic. Actual number of unfinished quilts I have? 11. Oh, I guess I could sign up for 4, because actually getting the label on Coulton's quilt in time to mail it Michigan for Christmas counts, right? I totally thought that had already gotten mailed out, but I found it last month while looking for fabric.

I want to make this kind of tutu for Moira for Christmas. Maybe in rainbow colors.

I pulled a new stack of books for November when we got back from Canada. It turns out we don't really have any about fall or Thanksgiving, so the theme is Food. We seem to have a ton of Christmas and Snow themed books, so I will probably split those up, Christmas for Dec and Snow for Jan.

For more randomness, visit The Un Mom!

Best $5 I ever spent

You stay in here
Originally uploaded by Maydela

I believe I've mentioned how popular this baby doll is at our house. I have been keeping my eyes peeled for a stroller for the baby, since that's the first thing Moira runs to at other people's houses. I was almost ready to buy a brand new one (they are under $20) or at least, convince someone to buy her one for Christmas, but then we found this one at Tree House.
Best. Thing. Ever. Baby has taken lots of rides in it. The bottle opener has taken rides in it. Occasionally, Moira tires to take a ride in it. I managed to convince her to take it on our walk to the mail box the other day, but there was construction going on by the street, so she got scared and abandoned poor Baby halfway there.
Moira is saying too many things for me to keep track of anymore. I'm particularly proud of her for grasping the concept and pronunciation of " Nakkie" the last time we were at the doctor's office.
Night weaning is going okay. She will now go back to sleep every time she wakes up with just Walker's help, but she's still waking up frequently. With our trip to Canada this weekend and Walker's on call shift next week, there will be some backsliding, since I will have to handle night time then, but at least I'm not super sleep deprived anymore. Getting through the day is so much easier with 7 hours of sleep.

Hooray, beans!

Since the season for Farm Tots is running down, and Moira loves the big bins of beans they have there, I decided it was time to make one of our own. I found a big bag of beans at Costco yesterday, and today, while she napped, I filled up a box and hid a bunch of toys in it.
It was a huge hit. She spent over 30 minutes digging around in there happily and making strange noises when she found something new. Eventually she came over to see what I was doing, so I went over to clean everything up.

This is what she did. It was totally worth it though. Next time, I think I'll put down a sheet first.

Itsy bitsy Spider

Itsy bitsy Spider
Originally uploaded by Maydela

Moira loves this song.

Upholstery FAIL

Years ago, Walker and I went to Arizona for the specific purpose of renting a big car and driving this chair back to Seattle. It was the first piece of furniture his grandmother bought when they finally moved into their first home, because she had read an article that a comfortable chair for your husband was the most important piece of furniture. Walker has very fond memories of it, and I think it's a nice chair too. It's also the one we've been taking pictures of Moira sitting in every month to track her growth. The original covering had been slowly disintegrating, and when Walker's grandmother took it in to get it recovered originally, she was quoted the price for leather. Since that was ridiculously expensive, she had the cushion and the ottoman recovered in fabric.
When we got our tax return, I decided to get a quote on the recovering. Leather, as expected was ridiculously expensive, but the lady giving me the quote was looking at the rip in the side to tell me if she could fix just that part, and she pointed out that it was, in fact, originally pleather. Score. Walker's plan all along was to keep as close to the original chair as possible, so for 1/4 the price of recovering the chair, we decided to get the chair and both ottomans we have in the living room recovered.
Sadly, pleather right now seems to be coming in a range of almost pastel colors. I spent a while waffling between the color you see on the chair now, which was closest to the original color, only much, much lighter, and a brown I thought Walker would like better. I picked the brown one, but then I didn't pay enough attention to the work order that was being written up and she wrote down the wrong color name.

I complained after it arrived, knowing of course, that there was no way they were going to fix this problem for me. Walker was pissed, because OMG giant pink chair in our living room. Fortunately, the internet has cosplayer forums on it, one of which had instructions on using cheap acrylic paint (the hobby kind from Michaels) to change the color of pleather. We tested it out with the ottoman that is not part of the original set first, and it works beautifully. This is one coat of black, rubbed on with a sock. It's a two person job, since someone has to paint and someone has to rub quickly before it dries, so we will only be able to work on it on weekends, but I love the results. Moira was even kind enough to test it out and make sure the color wouldn't wash off.
Thanks cosplayers!

Halloween books

It's possible that Halloween is my favorite holiday. This is a little odd, since I don't like horror or suspense. But I do love dressing up, and babies in pumpkin shirts. We always go to Canada to trick or treat with friends, and when I was packing last year, I realized that I had a Halloween outfit for the five days we would be there before Halloween. This year, Moira's Halloween wardrobe is significantly smaller but only because there was nothing in the dollar spot at Target that would fit her. I looked.
I decided to pull all the Halloween books I could find (and the books about monsters and wizards) from her vast picture book collection. They have been sitting in a little stack by the fireplace, and she has been digging through them. The favorites are:
A Job For Wittilda by Caralyn Buehner - This keeps her attention despite how long it is, probably because of all the cats. And the chance to practice meowing.
Scar Scary Halloween by Eve Bunting - Another book with cats in it, but they really only appear on the last page. Moira seems to like the fact that it rhymes more then anything. The pictures are by Jan Brett, which I like
The Whingdingdilly by Bill Peet - This one is only good to look through on your own. She actually used to bring this to me to have me read it when she was first pulling books off the shelves on her own, but each page has multiple paragraphs of text on it and it's just too long to keep her attention. The pictures captivate her, but I'm not sure why.

Bonus non Halloweeny book:
10 Little Dinosaurs by Jim Harris - With the Halloween books pulled off the shelf, she can get this one off the shelf, so it's always coming out. There is a big pair of wiggle eyes attached to the front of the book, and holes in each of the page. It's written in the 10 little monkeys style, but each page is a different kind of dinosaur and each dinosaur type is doing a different silly thing.

Road trip quilt update

I'm almost done with the states I had already cut out, so I needed to figure out what to use for each state from what I have left. Using Google Maps to remember our route, this is the list of states visited, in order. If I've finished the block, there's a link to the picture. If I have the fabric, it's named next to the state.

BC - Y2K
Washington
Oregon
California - Velvet panties
Nevada
Arizona
New Mexico
Texas
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Louisiana - Space sheet, heart panties, pink chiffon
Mississippi - Lemon scarf
Alabama - Green floral skirt
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina - Houses & trees
North Carolina
Virginia
Washington DC
Maryland - Maroon scrunchy
Delaware - Purple floral scarf
New Jersey
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts - Lighthouses
New Hampshire
Maine - Moose
New Brunswick - Autumn floral ribbon
Quebec
Ontario - Mirrored halter
Michigan
Ohio
Indiana
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota - Animals fabric
South Dakota
Montana - Cowboy fabric
Idaho - Pumpkins
Washington
BC - Sunset

42 states visited. BC and Washington are listed twice because I was living in BC and my boyfriend was living in Washington, so we did drive through them twice leaving and getting home.
16 blocks completed, one in progress, Massachusetts. I should remember to check my spelling on that one, since I keep misspelling it here.
I'm missing 9 fabrics. I distinctly remember buying fabric for Washinton while we were in Spokane. I talked to a lady who liked to go on motorcycle trips with her husband and two young daughters. She told me way more then I wanted to know about the logistics of that. I'm actually surprised I'm only missing nine, since I didn't do a good job of keeping things all together for the first 6 years after we got back. I'll have to do one last search through my bins, and then if I can't find them, I'll cheat and buy fabric now. I suppose I could try and find online vendors from each state to buy from. Hmmm....

Fashion show

Since I've been mysteriously losing sizes, but not weight, I've been doing a lot of shopping lately. I was telling Pearl that I want to get back to how I used to dress before I dated the guy who would complain if I wore more then one color at a time, or if that color was not red or black. I didn't mean to change how I dressed for him, but it's hard not to want to look nice for someone you love.

Pearl thinks I'm crazy, since according to her I have been clashing the entire time I've known her, but as I've been scanning in my childhood photos, I'm being reminded of just how quirkily I dressed. These are the best examples I could find last night.
I thought this combination was great at the time. Actually, I still really like it. Both shirt and skirt a pure silk, so I never got to wear either one very often. I had that skirt for at least 10 years and I probably wore it fewer then 10 times. I wore it to my sister's rehearsal dinner with a bright green shirt and white tights.

This isn't the best picture of this skirt, but I wore that skirt to death. With everything. It was just one of those tissue thin, cheap, elastic waist circle skirts. I think I got it at the Punjabi market in Vancouver, BC. It was constantly ripping and I would carefully whip stitch the holes closed. By the time I gave up on it, it was fully an inch shorter on one side then the other because of all the mends on that side. The lace shirt I'm wearing is a leotard. Aaaah, crotch snaps, the most comfortable thing on a piece of tight adult clothing.
I haven't found a picture of the electric blue unitard I wore a lot in high school. Sometimes I wore it with cut off jean shorts and a vest, but sadly, sometimes I just wore it by itself. Or the green velvet stirrup pants that were given to me by a guy who wanted to date me, who got them when I girl he was cleaning out his closet. Yes, he used to wear them. And then I did. Eeeew.

When I was at Goodwill yesterday looking for long sleeved shirts I found a little red velvet dress with a white pinafore. I got all excited because of this picture of me when I was 3 (I think). Hurray for recreating your childhood with your own kid's outfits. I'm glad she hasn't tried to exert any form of control over her own wardrobe yet, and I still get to pick out her Halloween outfits and party dresses. Not sure she'll be able to wear it this year. The sales tag said it was 24m size, which would be perfect, but the tag on the pinafore says 4T. We shall see.

I miss you, Oxytocin

We spent Sunday before naps doing some reorganizing. Bobbe put some sliding shelves in our pantry two weeks ago, and I hadn't finished putting the food back in there, so I emptied the last two boxes. Although, come to think of it, I think there's still another box somewhere in the basement and there are also some dry goods in canisters that haven't made it back in yet. Walker also moved our exercise bike into the big unfinished rooms so we could close the closet door in the tv room, since Moira has started climbing over it to get to the garbage can and electronics in there.
The big project was Moira's room. There have been mounting piles of outgrown clothes in there for 6 months. Also, she's figured out how to open her closet door, and was playing with the china dolls that were in the wicker chest in there. So Walker entertained her while I spent a few hours packing clothes up and reorganized her closet. The China dolls are no out of reach, and the other ones are out where she can play with them. Shanny (I used to name my dolls after nicknames I hated, so when someone called me Shanny I could say "Why are you talking to my doll?" I started doing that when I was 5) has been a big hit, but she really needs a bath so I guess I should google that. I also reorganized her drawers so that the top drawer (the one Walker always opens first) is now full of complete outfits. He has been pulling out the same three shirts over and over and then not being able to find pants to go with them. Hopefully I can keep up with this and her clothes can get more even wear. Certainly this way, she'll be less likely to be wearing her blue plaid pants and red zebra print shirt.
Ever since Becca & Andrew's wedding, Moira has been waking up three to four times at night, instead of the one to two from before. This wouldn't be so bad, except that at least one of those wake ups, she doesn't settle down for over an hour. Or rather, she's most of the way asleep, but changing position every few minutes. Nursing, sucking on my finger, rolling away from me, sitting up, flopping her head onto my chest (and frequently hitting my head instead), rolling over me and starting all over on the other side. This is really frustrating. I've been trying to stop that cycle before I get too frustrated, but it's hard to remember at 3am. I think instead we need to try some night weaning. This is guaranteed to make her more pissed off in the short term, but I'm hoping that if she can't get milk in the middle of the night, she will start sleeping for longer stretches. We are both waking up so tired in the morning, and it's getting really hard to make it through the day.
Wish me luck.

That was exciting.

Yesterday, while looking at pictures from Becca's shower (taken with a camera that frames all the photos with Hello Kitty) Moira started saying "Hi Kitty!" Unfortunately, she also said it at 1:30 this morning when she decided that she didn't want to sleep anymore, because of her stuffy nose. Unfortunately, this means whatever cute thing I was planning to say about this picture has been knocked out of my head by sleep dep. But look! She figured out how to color! Yay! Next up. Playdoough!

She's eating less in general, but still a lot at dinner. Possibly because everyone is there with her and eating and she can be just like Mommy and Daddy. Possibly because after a whole day of running around and trying to convince me to give her something different for a snack that what is being offered, she's starving. I decided after the hives joined the other two symptoms of "Hey Mom! I have a food allergy!" that we should take dairy out her diet to see if that was the problem. Fortunately, it was, because wheat or corn would have been so much more of a pain, but the removing dairy is still hard. Walker forgot and fed her some of his buttered bread. I decided pizza would be okay if we just took the cheese off the top. Not so much. Anyway, I think that's part of her problem with food right now. She wants me to find the bunny crackers, or the cheese sticks. We are going to give it a go for 6 months and then try some cheese. If that's not a long enough break, then we get to wait a couple of years, at which point I will probably investigate fake cheeses because I don't think I can go that long without mac and cheese.
Oh! I forgot to mention the fork! She loves to eat with a fork. Sometimes she wants to try out all of her forks to see which one works best with her meal. Adorable.

It's all good

This is serious business
Originally uploaded by Maydela

See that serious face? This is how she looks every time she swings. It's the only thing she wants to do from the moment she sees one, for about a half an hour. I'm pretending that pushing her on the swings is good upper body exercise.
In the last week she has:
Learned how to do the motions for The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Learned to high five
Said No, twice
Said Hi, a few more times then that, but still not regularly (The first time was to Stewie when we woke up in the morning and he was asking to get out of his crate)
Started doing the motions I do for some books, like moving her hand in circles over her belly when we read the page of "Tickle Tickle" where they scrub their bellies
Started leaning back and forth when she either wants me to sway her on my knee and sing "This is the way the Farmers ride" or I have mentioned farmers
Rubbing her belly when I ask if she's poopy and the answer is yes
Wiping her face with a cloth, or if she doesn't have one, pretending to do it
Feeding her baby while it sits on my lap
Moved from brushing only her hair with any brush she finds to also brushing mine, and trying to catch Stewie so she can brush his
Can open the door in the TV room, which has a door handle instead of a knob. She's working hard to figure out the knobs

Long term WIPs

Now that I'm done with the stuff I was doing for the wedding (well, not the quilt I'm making them, I should really finish that) and caught up on the swaps I signed up for, I've been poking again at a couple of quilts I've been working on for me for a long long time.

These little drunkard's path blocks are for a quilt I designed in 1996 or 1997. Each little block is 2.5" and the quilt is supposed to be Queen sized. When I sat down to figure out how many blocks I needed in 2000, I discovered it was something ridiculous around 2000, or possibly 3000, I haven't looked recently. So of course, I decided to hand piece it. Partly because I didn't have my sewing machine with me, and partly because I am crazy. I'm also cutting a maximum of 8 of each piece (outside arch and inside wedge) from each fabric pair.

These blcoks, (and more on my Flickr) are for a quilt I'm making to commemorate a road trip I took 2000. We went around the US and parts of southern Canada, and I tried to get fabric from every state/province we went through. Because my boyfriend at the time refused to go out of his way for anything and we didn't have the internet everywhere to easily find fabric stores, most of what I bought were premade items, like a bandana for New Jersey. I have knit shirts and a free thong thrown off a float in New Orleans, so it wouldn't work to try to piece it. I decided to make these applique houses, and embroider the state name and some scenery on each block. It's a lot of fun, but I put off starting for so long, I'm no longer sure what state each fabric is supposed to be for. Tillie, who was on the road trip with me, said that is kind of in the spirit of our whole trip, so I may as well just randomly pick fabric that seems right when I'm not sure.
I still have to put wheels on the cars on New Jersey, but I keep forgetting to grab my black floss when I'm working on it.