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Month: May 2009

1st baby gift.

We received our very first baby gift yesterday!  The wonderful people of Indian Bible Study (IBS) gifted us with a basket of goodies.  The basket had a tasteful baby blanket, The Pregnancy Journal: A Day-to-Day Guide to a Healthy & Happy Pregnancy by A. Christine Harris, Ph.D., a gift card, and a card signed by everyone.

It felt sooo weird to get something for our baby.  I teared up a bit as they prayed for us and the baby.  I guess it made this whole pregnancy thing seem more real.  I still can’t believe we’re going to be parents!  I feel like we are kids ourselves.  : )

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a delightful mobile.

mobile_backI really want to make my own.  The fabrics are just too cute.  The simplicity and minimalistic styling are just darling.

“Each little birdie is made entirely by hand using high quality fabrics sourced from around the globe.  The mobiles are created using a powdercoated wire lamp shade frame with the delightful birdies hanging sweetly from the frame.”

They are from Poppies for Grace, which you can find in my Papery link section.  Too bad they are $180 Australian dollars.

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journaling bible.

One of my simple delights these days is the journaling bible Greg presented me a year ago for our 6-month anniversary.  It’s a beautiful old-leather bound bible with a tie that wraps around it in journaling style.  It has wide margins on the sides for me to write in.

I didn’t put it to use very much before the internship, but in the past 10 months, it has become a dear, dear friend. : )  I love how my sermon notes, questions, thoughts, dreams, miracles and musings about The Word can go directly into the margins of the many pages of scripture.  I love paper journals and such, but my journaling bible allows me to see my revelation scribble whenever I turn to a particular passage — which is so helpful on those days when I come across a passage and see what God revealed to me in the past.  I’ve been able to see how my relationship with Him has grown through the dying to self stories and notes I’ve written to myself in the past months.  It’s truly a beautiful thing when you see how He takes you from glory to glory.

IMGP2175IMGP1791IMGP1790IMGP1794IMGP1783“Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.  For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie.  If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” Habakkuk 2:2-3

the yohan blanket.

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Greg and I just got back from Enoch and Tina’s place.  This past Friday they had a little baby boy, and they named him Yohan.  Tina is American, and Enoch is Indian, so it was really exciting for Greg and I to see this little one — it gave us a little picture of what our little one may look like.  I can truly say that of all the pregnant people I’ve ever known, Tina’s pregnancy seemed the most real to me.  We both have similar marriage stories — we both had to wait on God for an extended period of time before we married our fabulous Jesus-loving husbands.  We both are similar in our need to organize and clean, clean, clean!  We both are instilled with the need to nest.  Our pregnancies overlapped a couple months.  And the list goes on and on.  I am so blessed that I got the opportunity to meet someone like her here in Carbondale.  I know we will be life long friends in the years to come.

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The moment I heard she went into labor on Friday, tears streamed down my face for her.  I don’t know what it was, but I know that moment felt so real for me.  In the end, we got the prayer chain going (200+ people praying for her), she had a blessed three hour delivery, and finally, what we all have been waiting for 9 months, a beautiful baby boy.

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Before Yohan was born, a group of us girls got together to crochet him a blanket.  There were 12 of us who each made 6×6 blocks for the blanket.

Now I’m not at all about babyish types of gifts like blue blankets and pink bibs.  I think you can give a classy baby gift without it being very “baby.”  I personally think they are more classy and timeless.  In light of all that, I decided we should go with an earthy green theme for Yohan’s blanket.  So everyone chose a different type and variation of green yarn.  And behold the finished blanket.

blanketblanket2blanket3blanket4[photos above] baby blanket for Yohan.

[stitch technique: double stitch crochet. twenty-five 6×6 squares with 1.5 inch border.]


the hannah nightgown.

I’ve recently been getting into garment construction.  I think it would be awesome if I eventually came to the point where I could design and construct my children’s clothes.  I love kids clothes that are fun and whimsical, and sometimes even representative of days of old.  And I don’t mean bonnets and frilly dresses and such, but more the sheer white viole cotton tops for picnics and comfy striped bloomers for racing.  : )

My little cousin, Hannah, celebrated her birthday recently and I mailed her a homemade gift that I worked on with Jan — a knee length summer cotton nightgown with fluttery cap sleeves.  It was turquoise in color with brown polka dots and antique brown metal buttons.  Perfect for those warm summer nights under the covers.

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suhan[photo above] Susan + Hannah in tea fields. Niligiri Hills, India. Summer 2005.

restoration project #1: kitchenette table & chairs.

Since temporarily migrating to Carbondale, Illinois, we’ve worked on several restoration projects.  To put it plainly, we love old things.  We love making old and random things usable while being creative in the process.  One of our first projects here was a small kitchenette table that would seat 2-4.

Now to give you a little history, before Greg quit his job last summer, he would bring boxes home from work for our big move from Baltimore.  One day he brought home a very large packaging tube made of very sturdy cardboard.  As soon as I saw it, my mind went racing with all the different things we could do with it.  In the end, we decided we would bring it with us to Carbondale and it would become our kitchen table there since we were SURE we wouldn’t be bringing our large farm house table for the short 10 month internship.  In order to make the table work, Greg would need to find a circular table top to place on top of the cardboard tube, and I needed to find random, but cool-looking eclectic chairs for the table.  All were accomplished within weeks of moving to Carbondale.

We found the table top at Lowe’s for pretty cheap ($24 at 50% off).  We also purchased 2 wobbly chairs from a local thrift store (4.99/piece), and 2 wobbly chairs from a local antique shop ($12/piece).  Our makeshift kitchen table and chairs were slowly coming together, but we still had lots to do to make them presentable and sustainable!  So we went to work.  We sanded the table top and stained it to the color we preferred.


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71011Once the table top was completed, we worked on the chairs.  Greg, being the great restorer that he is (I think he gets it from his Father above), took apart the chairs piece by piece and put them back together with stronger nails.  Once they were pieced back together, he bound them with strong twine so that they could solidify before we used them as our dining chairs.IMGP1587IMGP1601IMGP1595IMGP1602IMGP1600

Reupholstered 2 of the chairs with neat fabrics because they were falling apart.  We also put fabric on the cardboard tubing.  The overall finished product looks like this.IMGP1564IMGP1567IMGP1568

a heartbeat.

A couple weeks back we heard the baby’s sweet little heartbeat!  It was really an amazing thing to hear.  And of course Josh, the ultrasound photos went up on the fridge where they belong!

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susie mey.

Greg had a dream the other day.  In it, we had a little baby girl, and we named her Susie Mey.  Greg specifically noted that her middle name, Mey, was spelled with an “e.”  She had slightly blond hair and a quirky, childlike expression on her cute small face.

This is most definitely the beginning of something beautiful.  : )

Beautiful because Greg and I are having a baby.  Beautiful because we know we are going to be the happiest parents in the whole wide world.  Beautiful because Jesus granted us the desires of our hearts.

I want this blog to be a place where I highlight pregnancy and motherhood, family and God, and lastly, crafting and creating — all of which to forge a family and home that is godly, organic, real and simply delightful.  Oh, how I really do miss blogging!  Now is the time to get back into the “sewing” of things.

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Some words God spoke to both Greg and I:

“Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.”  Isaiah 43:5

“And this promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.”  Acts 2:39

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[photo left] woolen green winter scarf for Greg.

[stitch technique: knit & purl with each row beginning and ending with garter stitch.]

[it’s his utmost favorite during the winter season, he never leaves home without it.]