Such a busy summer

Life has been crazy since my last post. June hit and I had to finish making three garter belts for a pirate wedding. I was hoping to also have a pirate or monkey costume made in time for the wedding for Ethan to wear but I ran out of time. It turns out that 5 months is right about when you stop having time to do much ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif anything unless it's nap time. He was so frustrated because he wanted to move and do this and that but he couldn't sit up very well on his own and couldn't crawl so when he wanted to be moved or just wanted attention he would cry. July he could sit up more and towards the end of the month, he started scooting around pretty effectively. And then I had to learn how to sew using my machine and make some period clothes that I could actually wear to Pennsic. Thank goodness I had people who love me enough to help watch Ethan because I tried doing it on my own for a week and I got about one seam sewed the whole week. The next week I was able to crank out 3 Roman-style dresses and one t-tunic dress for me to wear. Charlie had enough thankfully and unfortunately my attempts at baby garb failed. I will try again later though. :)

So August started with our trip to Pennsic where I took a 5 day scribal class, which covered the basics in calligraphy and painting the borders on scrolls. We used the Luttrell Psalter as an example and covered all the basics including painting, white work, diapering, and gold work. I got a pretty good start on my first scroll but am having trouble making the time to finish it since coming home. I can see this will be a hobby I take up perhaps a little later in my life when Ethan has a more predictable schedule and I am at a place in my life to be able to devote a bit more time to it all. I did enjoy it though so I hope I can pick up soon.

Ethan has become an effective crawler though he's still figuring out how to crawl on his knees. He's discovering new octaves and loves "talking". My mom is visiting this week and hasn't seen him since he was just 3 months old so she's loving see all his developments. I'm loving having her around. Oh how I wish she lived closer and I know she feels the same way. But until things stop being so up in the air, we can't make a plan to try moving closer to each other.

Not a whole lot of crafting being done this summer and the little I did do was time consuming and on such a time crunch that it wasn't terribly stress-relieving (actually quite the opposite actually) but still satisfying. I hope everyone elses summers have been what they hoped to be crafting- and stress-wise.