Catching up, looking forward…

Part One: Catching Up…

I know it has been an incredibly long time since I have posted here; things have been hectic in all kinds of wonderful ways. Since early July we went to England, came home, got sick, and took off for Cape Cod. It would take forever to chronicle everything in detail, but I do want to play just a wee bit of catch up…

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England was amazing. Bee had an incredible time, as did K and I. What was really the most remarkable was seeing Bee grow up right before our eyes; she always make enormous linguistic and cognitive leaps when she spends all of her time with the two of us, and this trip was no exception. It feels like she really made the final change from toddler to little girl.

Unfortunately, our return home was not quite so wonderful as our three weeks in England. Bee’s beloved Flopsy Bunny was lost in the Toronto Airport. Not going to go into the details, but it was epicly tragic.

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And since Flopsy was a custom production shop for a small customer in the Netherlands, the company had no more in stock (hadn’t even when we tried to find another way back when Bee first really started to attach to Flopsy). We even offered to pay one of their prototypers to make one last bunny, but it was a no go. We had searched everywhere online, but no Flopsy Bunnys were to be found, but then Bee’s brilliant and wonderful godfather had the idea to start searching in Dutch and French and he located what was probably the last Flopsy for sale in the world. Granted this one still has arms and soft fur, but Bee has already given us the outline of a story that makes sense of that.

The thing is that Bee is okay with Flopsy being gone, for the most part, but K and I miss him. He was and is such a part of Bee’s story and the stories she makes up about the world. He is more than a ragged bit of cloth; he is a highly significant symbolic object. He means so much more than he is. In so many ways he reminds me of a quilt, but that is something to write about later.

And if that weren’t enough, the day after we arrive home Bee developed a fever that got worse and worse. Eventually she was diagnosed with pneumonia, which she passed on to K. I spiked a fever, but avoided the familial pneumonia. And then we were off to Cape Cod, Bee mostly recovered, K still in terrible shape, but that hasn’t stopped the fun too much, and has definitely not made a dent in Bee’s adorableness…

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After a trip to the ER for K and a couple of follow ups at urgent care she is now properly on the mend as well. There are daily beach trips, and Bee is even old enough to fly the kite on her own (to her great delight), even if she did let go once, forcing me to sprint across the beach in ways reminiscent of my old track and field days…

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I think we’re finally getting through it all, and are very much looking forward to returning home in a few days and settling down to some simple normalcy. Well, normalcy may be a bit of an overstatement considering what’s in front of us…

Part Two: Looking Forward…

It’s going to be an insane next few months. Scratch that, next year…

Let’s start small:

Pretty soon the fabulous Savanna Bop flannel will be hitting stores all over the place. I am so excited about the flannel; it is so insanely and incredibly soft. There are a lot of minky backed winter quilts that are going to be made, along with pyjamas and sleep sacks and all kinds of stuff…

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And before too much longer Frippery will be hitting stores as well. I feel like this is my real coming out collection, like I have really stopped designing prints for paper that I translate to fabric, and have really and truly begun to design fabric. I am already having so much fun playing with it, and can’t wait to see all of the awesome that gets made with it…

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And then I am still hoping to get sample yardage of Asbury in time for Market, because I will be doing a schoolhouse again this fall. This time I am getting a half-hour so I may get to do more than just say hello, though I would feel so much better with a two-hour session. Speaking of two-hour sessions, of course I am teaching at Sewing Summit a couple of weeks before Market.

But all of that is just the tip of the iceberg…

You see, I’m writing a book. Not going to say anything more about it (totally not allowed to), but I am freaking giddy. Remember that pic of Frippery early in this post? Well, that is a bit of in-progress action for one of the quilts for the book. You see, when I started talking about doing this book I thought I had a quiet-ish fall ahead of me, but the second the book started going forward a million other things happened. You know what they say: When it rains it really effing pisses down on you…

But wait, you may have noticed a little something else that I slipped in early in the post, a small bit of burying the lead. Did anyone catch the mention of making sleep sacks???

Well, I don’t make anything without a reason (though my mother is currently making the flannel sleep sacks). Yep, Bee is going to be a big sister. K is due in late January/early February, so get ready for some heavy-duty chaos next year. We are unbelievably excited, and you all should brace yourself for an even more ridiculous influx of photos next year.

Now to figure out how to get it all done. Where is that cloning machine when I need it???

So, I think that just about covers everything, or at least the highlights. Now that we are heading home at last I will start posting more regularly, and shall return to all of the social media venues. My visits may be a little less frequent than they used to be, but I’ll be there. I can’t wait to see how all of this goes, and to share it all with my fabric/sewing community.

Yay chaos!!!

-T

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