Today I have an oh-so-rare day at home by myself. Everyone else is off doing their thing, and I have the day off from work. I love these pre-holiday holidays because there is nothing in particular you are supposed to do. I plan on spending the day sewing and being totally irresponsible when it comes to anything else, such as upkeep of the house. So if you don't see some sewing pics up here in the next couple days, you will know that I suffered a terrible sewing FAIL.

Elie's hives are producing. We harvested three frames of honey last night. Yum, yum, but what a mess! It filled two pickle jars and three larger jam jars, so we are pretty such swimming in the stuff. Our honey extracting process is not very efficient, as we don't own a proper (expensive) extractor. Instead we squish it in a strainer, then strain it through panty hose (one of the best uses of panty hose IMO). Our kitchen floor is done and beautiful, and as we found out last night as our sticky harvest dripped all over, it is just the color of honey.

And good weather Sunday. Man, today we had the kind of weather you wish for every summer day—warm but not humid with a good cool breeze. Eva and I enjoyed the porch this morning, I with my coffee and knitting and she with her book. Then we did some good weeding of the vegetable garden, and it was such a pleasure in the clear air. Our first year with the big garden is going along pretty well. The rabbits are ravaging the peas, but everything else is putting up a good fight. Something interesting we noted: We planted several varieties of tomatoes—some heirloom and some newer hybrids. The bunnies took the new varieties to the ground, but they didn't touch the heirlooms. It seems the new ones had their natural defensive compounds (ahem, bad flavors) bred out of them. It's one thing to read about the benefits of heirlooms, but it's another, more interesting one to see them in action.

The farmers market was so much fun on Saturday. I don't go every week because it's not exactly in my neighborhood, but I do go at least once a month to pick up my meat order. I didn't buy any produce this week as we already had lots of greens from the CSA, but I did get some yummy sheep's milk cheese from Prairie Fruits (eaten up above with Finnish gooseberries from the CSA), and our favorite goat's milk soap from Queen Anne's Lace, and I got to try the highly recommended sausage and egg sandwich on a muffin. So good. But possibly best of all, I met another craft blogger. Belle Noelle was there selling her beautiful handmade clothing. I didn't know her before Saturday, but now I do. Her things are so prettily constructed with a sweet old-fashioned/modern mix. I have my eye on the Mia jacket in blue. How nice it was to meet someone, and to make that craft connection offline.

You may have seen it on the sidebar already, but I wanted to post about Quilts, Baby!, a new baby quilts book from Lark, edited by Linda Kopp. I've contributed a pattern to this book, but before I get into those details, I want to say how much I like the other patterns in the book. Lark really did a great job in putting this together. They wanted us to focus on fresh quilt ideas that a beginner can handle, and I think the book really hits that nail on the head.

I am in very good craft blog company in the book. if you have a minute, check out the sites of these other great quilt makers:

• Aimee at www.dreamfollow.com
• Laura at www.lkdDesigns.etsy.com
• Julie at www.julieknoblock.com
• Carly at neststudio.typepad.com
• Laurraine at www.patchworkpottery.com
• Glynis at www.dandelionquilts.com
• Kajsa at syko.typepad.com/syko/
• Erin at houseonhillroad.com
• Victoria at thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com
• Jude at judestuecker.com/
• Marne at www.heylucy.net/
• Malka at stitchindye.blogspot.com/
• Christina at jamtartbaby.etsy.com (not up at the moment)

For my quilt I did a traditional bricks quilt (easiest one in the book!), and then turned the "bricks" into the idea of stairs, because playing on the stairs is really fun. Then I made little redwork kitties who galavant up and down the stairs—they march, they slide, they jump... The cartoon-ish kitty shapes are easy to adjust, if you want to customize one. Or, if you hate cats, you could change the ear shape and make a dog/mouse/bear/etc. It was a lot of fun to make.

I'm doing a little bit of redwork, for a rather belated one quit project. Yesterday I needed something that required no space and very little thought, and embroidery is just the perfect thing for that.

Our house is at the moment in a total state of disarray (which is different than our continual state of minor disarray). Our dining table is in the living room, and it's laden with everything from the pantry. Our dining is half covered in drop sheet and half covered in laundry. The coffee maker is on the dining room floor, but you can bet it's full of coffee. The stove and kitchen cabinets are in the big back room (a wip in itself). This is all so that the kitchen floor could be sanded yesterday, which Elie did, in very unpleasant heat. Good Lord, that man can work. The floor will be lovely when it's done, but it's such a mess now. The fact that it bothers me is very interesting because I have a rather high tolerance for living in renovation mess. (You may recall that I didn't have a kitchen ceiling for about two years.) I guess this is somehow my limit. I think I even know why—there's no usable table. Who knew that the table was so important? I guess I want somewhere to lay out my thoughts, to make my lists, to eat peacefully, and just to serve the the logical place to put a thing down. At times like this I think you're supposed to go to the Italian pastry shop and buy an assortment of mini cannolis, cookies, and little tarts. At least, that's the way I was brought up. Of course, we don't have an Italian pastry shop. Oh, how I miss New Jersey sometimes.

Enough of that. I don't really want to whine—it's clear that at some point yesterday I was doing embroidery while my better half labored in a dust bath. More a point of interest than anything else. I'm going off to Caseys to buy donuts.

I've given the blog a face lift. It had been over a year since the last time, so it seems that I was due. I really wanted to incorporate actual sewing of the tumbling blocks quilt pattern into the header, so there we have it. There's nothing wrong with linen and gray, right? The blocks were my first go at English paper piecing, and I can see why so many people find it addictive. They're like potato chips—you can't stitch just one. Doing the 60 degree diamonds was a bit tricky, though, because there was a lot of fabric to wrap around the pointy tip. You don't have to worry about that with the hexagons though, now do you?

While I was giving the face lift, I also added a Tutorials heading and a Contributing heading to the side bar. I've just been meaning to do that forever, and now they're there for easy reference. Hope you like.

This skirt (Simplicity 2758) is so easy. I guess most skirts are, but this one really is. On Friday night, I was flipping through my patterns, looking for what might be right for some fabric I'm itching to cut, and I figured I'd give this skirt a go. I was pleased to open the package and find that the skirt consists of just three pieces. I know, it's not complicated— what was I expecting? It felt so easy, I even lined it. Actually, I lined it because the fabric, although it is a cute gray stripe and was on sale at the end of last summer, is a nubby-textured poly-blend, and I thought it would bother the back of my legs. And no, the fabric I used in the skirt isn't the one I'm itching to cut into. This skirt pattern got to audition for the part of the skirt made out of the fabric I really like. The fit is pretty good, maybe a bit tight on the waist, but maybe it's just that it has an actual waist. The actual waist and the fact that it twirls well, make it feel a bit retro, especially with the green shirt. It's more fun than some of my other things.

For taking photos of this skirt, I got out the tripod. I will do this all the time from now on. It's way better than balancing the camera on a table. (You can say Duh! at me. It's OK.) Actually, Eva and Elie usually take the pictures of me wearing something, and after all the posts, their patience is beginning to wear a bit thin (not that I blame them). The tripod lets you be a bit of a ham if you want to. In this photo, you can clearly see (clearly) that I'm listening to my dear friend Tyra and "finding my lines".

At about 2:15 this afternoon, a colleague came into my office and suggested we just go get drunk. I was more disappointed than I ought to be that she wasn't really serious. It was a bit of a ridiculous day. So on our commute home, when Elie let me know he picked up Dead Guy while he was buying Challah, I was pretty happy. We pulled into the yard and the weekend started happening. Beer was opened, steaks were put on the grill, the lonely chicken was let out, and she followed me out into the garden where I did some casual weeding. I pulled up the very first harvest—some delicious radishes.

Now I'm listening to every version of Tiny Dancer YouTube has. The song gives me the creeping willies—it's the whole having a tiny dancer in your hand part—but it's been in my head for over a week and it keeps making cameos in my life, so it has to go. I'm pretty sure learning all the lyrics is the only way to do it.

I've been thinking a lot about blogging today. Do you go through periods of doing this? I do, but I have a known reason this time. Smile Politely, Champaign-Urbana's very quality online magazine, did a post on this little blog for their Top of the Blogs column. Smile Politely keeps its reporting largely local and it's a real source of info for what's happening (that I care about) in this college town that's more complex than it looks from afar.

It was the first time I've ever really been interviewed, at least, when the interviewer wasn't asking me things like, 'What's your favorite color?' Joel was nice and I didn't get The Tough Questions, in fact he didn't really ask all that many questions—I did a lot of rambling. Seriously. I'd like to chalk it up to nerves, but I think I might actually talk that way. I brought him the simple patchwork coasters you see above. Elie thought that was weird and might make a person feel odd, and maybe it did, but I hope not too much. But, that's what I would do if I had a meet-up with you, right? I'd make you a little something?

Back to the interview. More odd than being interviewed, was being interviewed about blogging. I've been blogging for over three years now, and I really love it. But, what I love is not the blogging itself, but the incredible community of crafty people that I have gotten to know through blogging. Thinking back and talking to Smile Politely about how I started blogging made remember just what it felt like to stumble into craft blogs and be amazed by the beautiful work and comraderie that was happening here. I think about how much fun it was to wake up to my tea, open screen door, and computer that first summer and just sit and click through the craft blogs, following links from one place to another until I was just lost in it. Did you/do you do that? I feel a little sad that I take it for granted now. I have not reached the end of the internet. Maybe on the contrary, there is just so much out there that it can be a bit overwhelming to explore.

In the beginning of the article, I tell Smile Politely why I didn't start blogging, and that's all true (although Elie says it makes me sound like a wallflower, which I am not). But I think I missed a key point. Until finding craft blogs, I thought blogs were largely about being a mini-wonk of your area, about expounding on your opinions, and really enjoying confrontation and argument. I don't really enjoy these things. The few times that this blog has felt at all that way have been uncomfortable for me. So, finding a community, a craft community no less, that supports itself and encourages its members so much has been a truly lovely thing. I like you. Whether you're an old friend or a new visitor, thanks for being here.

Please do stop by the article if you're interested, and drop me a comment if you'd like—here or there. I'd like to hear from you.