Woollybottoms... and then some :)

Finally Some Sewing For Us!

2011-12-22T15:42:00.000-08:00

Poor Caleb has been after me to make him some footies of his own for oh, at least a year (he is now 7 1/2). I had the greatest intentions of getting right on that project. After all, I make footies all the time so what was one more for my son? I even went so far as to purchase fabric just for him.... adorable Corduroy the Bear fabric. I had the perfect piece of wool to use too. I had received an ankle length fine merino wool skirt that was the perfect material for him since it was light weight, soft, and had plenty of length that I could use to get his footies. I pulled everything out and had Caleb here so I could tailor them to fit him perfectly and I was ready to go. Caleb had decided though that the oh so perfect bear fabric was no longer so perfect. My little boy had decided I think that it was a bit on the babyish side. Now he is into "cool" things like cars and pirates and he dug through my fabric stash and decided that the pirate skulls was the most awesome material ever so I obliged. I wondered how I could have allowed this planned project to go on as long as I did and kind of sniffled at the sewing machine as I realized just how fast he was growing up. I got the footies done and was rewarded with the most awesome hug and kiss as Caleb stripped down as fast as he could to put them on. That was worth more than sewing up 100 pairs. Why don't I do this more often?

More T-Shirt Recycling!

2011-11-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

It has been a VERY busy fall this year with sewing. We have had so many new retailers and we barely have time to breathe in between orders. I decided to carve out some time this weekend to tackle my laundry room. The laundry room has become the abyss of all things forgotten, unwanted or dirty. It really is a great room to throw things in. So I decided to jump in with both feet and found some cool things and some not so cool including some garlic bulbs I had intention of growing and they dried completely out into some kind of petrified hard to recognize thing. I found a big package of playsilks I had bought to dye up and a pile of old T-shirts James had put together for me to donate. Usually whatever James decides he can't wear anymore is in really sad shape and I would be ashamed to donate to anyone (OK, so the hummingbird shirt was NOT his :) ) I hated to just throw them away though. I also came across some yardage of great cotton terry toweling fabric that someone had graciously sent me along with some sweaters probably over a year ago. So, I cut rectangles out of the old shirts, cut a layer of toweling, and simply serged them together to make hand towels. Some of them I just serged together 2 layers of T-shirt. They turned out wonderfully and they work so well! We use hand towels in all of the offices and kitchen at work so these made great additions to our stash. Plus Caleb especially enjoys seeing his daddy's shirts turned into a towel and it seems like I don't have to remind him as often lately to wash his hands :) This is a great way to recycle and only takes a few minutes to do. Don't worry if you don't have toweling material! Putting 2 layers of T-shirt together makes a really absorbent and sturdy towel. Another idea is to use those flannel receiving blankets as a backing.

The End of a Season

2011-08-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

School officially starts again for Sarah and Caleb tomorrow morning. Where has the summer gone? As a working mom, it has been a real trial to balance work with helping to create a magical time with the kids. We had the BIG "planned" trip but the kids seemed to have just as much fun with a spur of the moment trip to the lake, fish hatchery, or Collin's Creek... all just minutes away. It has been fun to watch the kids grow and learn this summer. We have ended our summer with memories of our first views of the Rocky Mountains at sunrise, feeding Stumpy the mallard off the back of the boat, Caleb finding the courage to jump off of the top of a houseboat, Sarah learning to ride a dirt bike, and so much more.

One thing I have just started doing this summer is carrying my camera EVERYWHERE. For the past couple of months, it has been as important as my phone or wallet. I could have kicked myself when I forgot it yesterday. Sarah had been feeding a red ear water turtle off the back of the boat and then actually picked it up out of the water. The thing was not small and I would have loved to get that on camera as it fondly reminded me of myself at that age. I can not encourage everyone enough to keep the camera handy at all times. While it is sad to see the end of summer, I know fall will bring many more wonderful memories.

Awesomeness in Arkansas

2011-08-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

We are finally enjoying some cooler temperatures after what has seemed like endless weeks of extreme heat. Not just heat.... heat plus super high humidity. Give me a dessert out west any day compared to this weather. Everything green has pretty much died outside and swimming in the lake feels more like taking a warm bath. As we headed home from work today, we ran into some serious rain. The kind of rain where you are driving and really can't see anything. To my shock, we got several inches of rain within probably an hour. As soon as the rain and lightning show ended, I sent the kids out to play and let the chickens out to free range. I was so happy I had the camera home today because what came after the storm was sheer awesomeness. First we had a rainbow in a dark sky in the backyard. Then a few minutes later the show moved to the front yard with these mammatus clouds. God's handiwork is truly awesome.

Throw Your Sweater Shaver Away...

2011-08-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Or run over it with the car or bury it. I hate those obnoxiously loud things that can't suck up a lint ball or hair if its life depended on it. Believe me... I have threatened them and it doesn't work. Working with wool every single day I tried many things. Each Woollybottom that we ship out must look like new wool when it leaves here free of lint, fuzz, and those matted pill balls. We have received some pretty nasty wool. When we get a shipment of sweaters, we have no idea what kind of life it had previously. Everything goes into a hot wash to remove any impurities and to gently felt the wool (felting helps a diaper cover be more effective). While this cleans the wool it doesn't take off the pill balls and fuzz. In a time of desperation and sore fingers, I picked up a pumice stone in the beauty department of a local store and took it back to the shop. I found that it worked better than I could have imagined. Just lay the wool flat and "brush" it with the stone and everything collects in a ball at the bottom of the wool. The stone is gentle and even putting a lot of pressure on the wool, there has never been any damage to the wool. I have this piece of gnarly lambswool and did half of it as you can see here. It took about a minute to completely clean the left side of the wool and it looked brand new! If your woolies are looking kind of shabby (as they will from normal use) brush them with a pumice stone, gather up the fuzz and you will have a brand new looking pair of woolies again. If you have black wool, you can take a piece of packing tape and press it on the wool to remove any lint. Hopefully these tips will make life a bit easier on caring for your wool. And if you are wondering how long that pumice stone will last, well we haven't been able to wear one out yet. We have used a single stone literally on several thousand pieces of wool. If you buy a new stone, you may want to pre-rinse it in water to remove any dust or loose particles. You may see some small particles come off with the first time you clean your wool. If that happens, just shake the wool out and with further use, the stone will not do that after the initial use.

Recycled T-Shirt Market Bags Results

2011-08-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

So, I had hoped to finish these bags last week and it didn't happen until today actually. They were so time consuming and all ;) Seriously it took me less than 10 minutes to finish 4 of them. I found that the small t-shirts work the best and are actually more close to the size bag I wanted. I wasn't really thinking when I bought a couple of XL shirts and started cutting them and realized these bags were going to be BIG. Not really what I will reach for to use with groceries but I realized these will be great for hauling towels and blankets back and forth to the boat this summer. I usually load everyone's arms up with towels and blankets to try to make one trip from the car to the boat and then I hold my breath that nothing ends up into the water on the walk across the dock. These big bags will really help and we can carry back the dirty laundry easily.

So, do you want to know why I was a slacker last week and didn't finish the bags? Well, we moved.... again. Many of you that have been around since we started back in 2004 have followed my nomadic trek through the years. We started off here at the house in the kitchen and had the infamous wall of wool that actually insulated the east side of the house. Then we bought a small cabin and put it in the back yard (you can scroll down to some older posts to see that). Then my husband and I bought a building in town and shared it. It is divided into 3 spaces and I moved into one and he moved into another. We had someone come by that wanted to rent the space I was in so I packed up and scooted to another office. Not really easy with tons of wool and machines and things. This past week our tenant moved out and I really wanted that space again so we moved again. Here is where we are now. I thought I better take some pictures while it is fairly clean and I have had several people ask what my setup looks like. I am not done with it yet obviously. I am going to add some things to the walls and the kiddo section is kind of temporary. I want to put in a table and chairs so they can have a fun space to craft, do homework, or play. The long table is the packing/shipping area and the big L-shaped area is where all the constructing goes down. You can sort of see through the doorway to the room with the green walls... that is my husband's office. I often help him through the day so I can easily move from one space to the other and keep my space closed off with the door. The kids can also easily visit with both of us at any time. You can also see the doorway to a room with beige walls... that is where the cutting, wool washing, and storage happens. I am so NOT taking you in there with me right now. I have just kind of thrown everything in there until I can go through and organize and it is scary.... really scary. The space back there is about the same size as the sewing/packing/kiddo area so it is really going to be a great space with all my materials close at hand.

Have you all been making your t-shirt bags? If you haven't, get to it! This is a great summer day project to do with the kids as well.

Recycled T-Shirt Market Bags

2011-07-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

James and I have settled into a Sunday afternoon routine of going to Goodwill, heading over to Zaxby's to share a Zalad, then doing our grocery shopping for the week. We are blessed to have parents that love taking our kiddos home with them after church to spend the afternoon so Sunday afternoon has become our designated "just us" time. It is summer vacation so the kids are with us most days at work so they enjoy the time away from us as well :) It all started with this white t-shirt on the end.... a cool Maine t-shirt with this big lobster claw on it. James has lost a lot of weight over the past several months, but sometimes he thinks he is smaller than he actually is. I told him when we got home there was no way he could wear this thing to which he replied he thought it would be cool if I wore it. Um, no thanks.... cool shirt, but I am not wearing it. I have never been to Maine and I don't care to have a big claw across my chest. So there it sat on the back of a chair in the bedroom for oh, about 3 weeks now.

Rewind a couple of years.... I bought several of those recycled grocery totes (I can't even remember the brand now) and was super proud of my perfect rainbow of bags. Kind of when they first started to become "the thing". I kept them neatly in a bowl on the counter so I could grab some to take to the store when I went out. I really used them but eventually they have been lost or misplaced one by one and I have fallen back into my plastic bag ways. Then came my light bulb moment. While making bags from t-shirts is not my original idea and not the light bulb moment, deciding I would recycle that shirt so I could get some use out of it was. The whole project takes less than 5 minutes and I can sit back and smile that I have accomplished something. I went to the local thrift store last week to pick up a few more t-shirts for the project. I love fun shirts that feature places or have cool pictures in general. I think I am going to make a couple of super simple ones that don't even bother with finished edges and I may make a couple that are actually lined with another layer for a more finished bag. I need to figure out a way to have them roll up easily for better storage and I am going to plan on keeping them in a basket on the counter. You can find tutorials all over the internet for making grocery bags and you can spend days looking at Tipnut's site.

So, pull out those old cotton t-shirts from that concert back in the day (um, you don't have a New Kids on the Block shirt lurking around do you?) that you won't dare wear in public but just can't bare to part with and whip a few up. Come on, I know you have some. Every time you reach for that bag for groceries (or hauling around whatever) you can re-live the fun memories. We will share our finished bags later this week :)

(Pictured: T-shirt grocery bag by MarthaStewart.com)

Super Simple Onesie Conversion Tutorial

2011-07-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

We get asked often, "What kind of tops do you pair with your woolies?" I have found the best thing to pair with woolies is just a simple t-shirt. There is nothing extra to unsnap and getting down to business with a diaper change couldn't be faster with the combination of our pull on diaper covers and a t-shirt. If you are like me, you probably got about a billion onesies as baby shower gifts. Onesies are the best thing ever for keeping tummies covered, but they just don't work so well with cloth diapered babies. With the extra bulk of a cloth diaper, it is difficult to get the onesie over that extra bulk and often times the pressure from the onesie on the diaper area will force your wool cover to wick moisture through. They soon become the least treasured item of clothing and you end up with a big pile in the drawer and they are never reached for. So, you have onesies but need shirts like yesterday, so get your scissors out. Onesies are usually made from a great cotton interlock. Just cut straight across as you can see in the photo. Try to leave as much length as possible on the shirt. The cotton will not fray so you can actually stop here and say Voila! With washing, the hem may naturally curl which actually seems to now be "the thing" in many clothing items. If you are handy with a serger, you can set your machine to a rolled hem and run it along the bottom to give a ruffly edge (great for girly tops!). On this one, I went ahead and did a straight serged edge with navy blue thread to finish it off. If you are handy with a sewing machine and don't care for the "raw hem" look, you can always add a finished hem. As for the extra that I cut off, I am trying to decide how to recycle that piece. I may be saving that for another tutorial :).

I picked up this little onesie at a thrift store for today's tutorial. My daughter was appalled that I was looking through the baby clothes and wanted to know why with a raised eyebrow since no one is here that small. I haven't looked at baby clothes in oh.... almost 7 years now so I do admit the ovaries twitched just a little as I handled the little bitty clothes. But I am over it now.... don't get any ideas people. We are giving away this outfit to one of our readers (free shipping too!). The shirt is a Circo brand 18 month size and the shorties are a size medium. The shorties are made from a soft lambswool and have a rise of about 18 and an inseam of 3. Just post a comment here... something you like about wool, or if you haven't tried wool, just post something interesting. If you could post your first name and last initial or just some way that you can recognize yourself when I announce the random winner on Saturday.

And the winner is...... Julie S./The Dullmore Family! Congratulations! I will try to contact you but if you don't receive anything, please contact me at woollybottoms @ gmail.com.

If I Wasn't Sewing....

2011-07-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

If I wasn't sewing, I would be raising rare breed chickens full time. Seriously, I enjoy them that much. What is not to love about chickens? They are incredibly fun animals and have individual personalities. Our chickens get a lot of loving from everyone in the family. James was more than happy to build them a chicken mansion since these pets actually give something back in return.... tasty eggs (unlike Miss Kitty, the 20 pound cat that gives back the occasional hair ball). I didn't even have to whine to get him to build the space for me. The kids love to play with them and caring for them is a task that even small children can do and help instill responsibility. It is baby time around here and we had 2 newbies hatch yesterday. I am pretty sure we will have at least one more within the next day. Our hens are as tame as dogs, so they really don't mind us doting over their babies. I think they are actually proud to show them off. We kind of had an experiment this time putting one of our small eggs from RC (the black and white small bantam breed) under our setting hen. Bud, the big red rooster, is our daddy. I could not believe that the little egg hatched! What hatched was this adorable little brown fur ball. I can't wait to watch it grow and see exactly what it is going to be. It is kind of like breeding a chihuahua and a lab :) The chickens stay in a large, secure lot during the day. They have plenty of running space, shade, and sun. Nest boxes are set up inside the roost so they can go in and out as they please and have a space where they can get out of the rain. After we get home in the evenings, we let them out in the yard so they can have plenty of free range time. Free range eggs from happy chickens can not be beat!

Disguising Brussels Sprouts

2011-07-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Since we have started eating a "primal diet" back in April, we have been eating a lot of foods that we normally didn't eat. James and I had been vegetarian for about 12 years and we were just not feeling as healthy as we should. This has been the BEST lifestyle change for our family... more about that coming in a later post. So, I was all fired up to make pork chops and shredded brussel sprouts the other night. I shredded the sprouts in my food processor and then cooked them in a pan of oil to lightly brown. Boy did they look good, but the unmistakable bitter tasted was there just the same. The kiddos were troopers and cleaned their plates. We had LOTS of leftovers though and I said we will be finishing them later in the week. They smiled and nodded figuring they would end up in the back of the refrigerator and never be seen again until they were a fuzzy mass of unrecognizable green. Fast forward to this evening. After we got home, I gathered the day's fresh eggs from our pet chickens. Cracked a dozen in a bowl, added just a bit of milk and coconut oil and whisked it all together, poured it into a hot pan and then threw some of the sprouts in and cooked it all up. Then I added a touch of soy sauce and gave everyone the option of garden salsa or ketchup. It was really quite good. I warmed up some leftover steak from the night before and had a tall glass of orange juice and it was a filling meal. The poor kids skeptically eyeball everything I cook now... they know I always have some kind of a "healthy surprise" hiding but they are always willing to try out new foods. One of our favorite meal time games is "Guess What's In the Smoothie" :)

Sarah is thinking.... umm, mom WHAT is this??? What did you hide in my eggs this time???

Second Verse.... Same As The First (Only MORE!)

2010-02-10T21:17:00.001-08:00

We haven't seen snow like this here in over 20 years! Such a beautiful and wet snow that stuck to everything. Thought I would share a couple of pictures I took of the yard before it got dark. I went out and measured and we had about 8 inches. We probably got another inch of snow after that so all told, 9 inches!!! That is CRAZY for Arkansas. I played around with Photo Shop and think the sepia toned one is kind of neat. May end up using that one for Christmas cards this year.

Woohoo! Snow Day (Not!)

2010-02-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

We don't get a whole lot of snow here in Arkansas so when they forecast lots of ice and snow (even if they forecast a flurry), everyone in town runs to the store to stock up on the standard milk, bread, and of course toilet paper. I shake my head every time. People stock up like they are heading into the end times. I knew school would be out the next day so I planned ahead bringing scissors and lots of wool home to do some cutting. The snow and ice came and it was the perfect day to stay at home as a family and enjoy being lazy. That was until shortly before 5pm Friday night. The power went off and I knew it wasn't a good sign. I had flash backs to earlier in the year when we were without power for a couple of days due to ice. I first went and took a bunch of heavy quilts and covered Caleb's nameless angel fish couple to hold the heat in the water as long as possible. Then we prepared for the worst and James headed out to gather plenty of wood. No chain saw. He had forgotten he let his brother borrow it and it had not been returned. So, he gathered whatever lumber he could (and whatever he could break to fit into the fireplace). We had just enough to last through that night. We all slept around the fire. The kids loved it.... thought it was the biggest adventure ever. James was up probably 10 times taking care of the fire (since we didn't have anything big to burn, it was constant to keep the fire up) I didn't sleep at all thanks to snoring people and afraid I would fall asleep and the fire would go out. By 7am the temperature in the house was down to 57 which was pretty good considering it was below 20 out there. We were totally out of wood so we loaded up in the car and hit the roads despite the ice. Since snow and ice are kind of a rarity here, most of the roads had not been cleared at all. We ended up at the shop and just kind of sat there since we were cold and tired. I was able to check the progress of our power online which was kind of cool. I could see the power would come on, then go off, come on, then go off. I could see how many other houses around us were out. Very frustrating yet entertaining. Power was restored after lunch and we were all SO thankful for having electricity and heat. We all settled in and finished watching "Inn of the Sixth Happiness" which we were in the middle of when we lost power. Sunday we all went out and played in the snow. It was great to laugh and have so much fun. I took my pet rooster George and set him in the snow. Needless to say he was NOT a happy bird with his first snow experience. We had about 6 inches on the ground and he had been staying under our shed away from all of it. He walked a few steps with exaggerated high stepping and stopped at my feet, looked up at me, and refused to move another step until I picked him up and put him back :)

Really Awesome Site for the Wool Obsessed

2010-01-29T09:32:00.000-08:00

In my poking around, I came across this site that just made me drool. I realized that there was someone out there just as obsessed with wool like I am. Kris has a super abundance of recycled wool that she crafts with and offers wool for sale too!

I found this really awesome sweater that I HAD to have with little roosters all over it. The colors are even more vibrant in person and I imagine making a soaker and several pairs of slippers from this one. Kris is constantly posting great tutorials. You can find tutorials for making regular socks, blankets, dryer balls, and tons of other cool things. If it can be made from wool, she has probably made it. I hope you enjoy poking around this site as much as I do. So many great projects for a rainy (or icy day like we are having today).

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

I am excited to start a brand new year AND a brand new decade. I am working on my annual business plan and hope to be a little more organized this year. I am planning on cutting out a few things, and growing in other areas. My main struggle has always been to come up with oodles of great ideas and then would not have the time to cultivate those ideas. Those of you that have been with me since the beginning in 2004 have seen me make just about everything under the sun out of wool at one time or another. I realized this and really did well on working on my crafting obsession this past year. I plan to continue that trend this year. I had started up a second website (what was I thinking?!?!) that grew beyond what I could handle very quickly. I sold Artisan Baby so I could completly focus on Woollybottoms. I made another decision for 2010 that I will not be doing all interlock pieces any longer. I LOVE the fabric as do many of you, but the unpredictable milling and cost of the fabric just kind of caused me to loose all my joy in it. I have realized that I can not do everything and be scattered across the board. I will only be using the interlock in our hybrid soakers and longies. We have also kind of moved away from stocking on hyena cart last year. I will probably continue that trend into this year as well. We will still have our fun "uglies" sales and will stock through hyena cart for those but that will probably be it. We will be sticking with stocking (wow... say sticking with stocking 5 times fast lol) the main website several times a week and I am working on stocking on Etsy (one of many unfinished projects from last year LOL). I don't want to be spread all over the place.

The main theme I guess I should say for 2010 is balance. It is becoming increasingly hard. I am not a big business. It is just little old me and I do have one person helping me full time doing sewing and inspecting each and every piece we make. I still handle all of the computer work and answering phones and emails. I also package and ship each and every package along with sewing. I am so incredibly thankful for the increasing business but in order to keep up and still be able to keep this a local mom owned business (and most importantly my sanity) some changes will be made throughout the month of January.

My accomplishment for today (well besides the typical sewing and shipping) was working on the Etsy store (as you can see over on the side of the page now). One thing to cross off the list woohoo!

And the winner is.....

2009-11-16T06:40:00.000-08:00

......Randi and her little boy, David! Randi asked "How big is David?" and David raised his little hands to show that he was "sooooooo big!" We received over 100 entries for our first photo contest. We were excited over all the entries we received and really enjoyed seeing each and every one of them. Randi will receive a $100 gift certicicate to use on the website. We have really had a great time doing this and will plan to do it again. Thank you to everyone that participated!

Fall Photo Contest!

2009-10-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yep, Woollybottoms has fallen for doing a photo contest as well. The prize? A $100 gift certificate to Woollybottoms. We are going to open for submissions from today until November 15, 2009. No theme or any piece in particular.... just your baby in Woollybottoms. Have fun with grabbing some great photos. Please be sure to include with your photo your baby's first name and a few words or sentences. Submission of your photos gives Woollybottoms permission to use the photo on our website or in printed forms. Sound like fun? I think so and I look forward to seeing your photos. One winner will be chosen and will be posted here. Entries can be sent to woollybottoms @ gmail.com (no spaces) and please put Fall Photo Contest in the subject line.

This picture is a little blast from the past of Caleb from about 3 years ago. My how he has grown! I found it buried in photobucket and had to share :)

More Soap On The Way

2009-07-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

I manage to do this every single time. I wait until the last minute to re-order soap and sure enough, I did it again. That doesn't seem to matter though as I can email Katie and she ALWAYS responds within minutes and tells me it is no problem. Saying Katie is fast is an understatement. So we currently are having more Love Spell being made up and instead of the Butt Naked scent this time (which I really DO love), we are going with Yuzu which is in the same family of scents in my opinion, but something different to offer and another scent that I really love.

If you are not familiar with Katie at Ewe Need It,( http://hyenacart.com/EweNeedIt/ ) check her out if you get a chance. Excellent products for wool and baby, and of course stellar customer service.

Already Preparing for Fall.....

2009-07-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

Our busiest time of year is soon coming up. With all the sewing that goes on and wrangling of kids, sometimes the details get overlooked. I finally took a couple of hours to do a little bit of house cleaning on the website. I had a stack of 6 or 7 new footies prints that have been sitting here for weeks waiting on photos and to be listed. I think yesterday I must have listed 20 new recycled pieces and today cleaned up the footies listings and divided them neatly into "boys" and "girls" catagories. After customer requests a few months ago, we now have an option to customize footies with the addition of an interlock waistband rather than a traditional waist band. I want to further the idea of customization and will be working on adding a slot to "build your own footies" or something to that effect. We should have that activated by tomorrow if all goes as planned.

New Footies Print, Inspired by Mom & Baby

2009-03-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

We recently ran a large group order for our customers signed up on our yahoo news group. It was a lot of fun to put together custom footies for our customers where they were able to pick out the footie fabric and wool colors. This was a particularly fun print. I had this fabric sitting in my stash for quite some time and had never used it. I pulled it out for this custom order and put it with the blue wool and the result was one of my favorite combos. It is such a fun print and the name Solana (named for Solana Beach, California and the little girl who inspired these footies) fits it perfectly.

Lots of Changes in Store for 2009!

2009-03-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

Our new footie fabrics are finally in and are being sewed up as quickly as possible. The fabric is incredibly soft and fluffy. We are also moving to a new location in beautiful Heber Springs and closing on the property today. To start with, it will be a workspace/shipping area only with the potential to grow into retail space in the future as we continue to grow. We are very excited about these changes and thank our customers for helping to making this possible. New patterns are being stocked daily and we have also added an "outlet" section on the website.

Gluten & Eczema????

2008-12-23T06:03:00.001-08:00

As many of you know, my little boy who is now 4 has been plagued with eczema since he was a few months old. It has mostly settled in on his legs down around his ankles. We tried cutting out dairy for a few weeks and there was no change. Then we thought the culprit may have been eggs. We cut them out and no change. It would seemingly flare up for no reason at all. When it was at its worst, we took him to the dermatologist and I tried to find out from her what internally could be causing this???? She wanted to only give me creams filled with crap and tret the symptoms. They worked at first and then quit working. I thought, well, I guess he will grow out of it. He turned 4 last September and guess what.... he hasn't outgrown it. He has always been skinny but I felt he just has a high metabolism like me. No big deal. I was talking online with another mom and as moms do, we discussed poop. Caleb may kill me for this later talking about his poop, but the boy has always pooped 2-3 times a day and it was never "normal" stuff. I chalked this up to high metabolism again and dubbed him Sir Poopalot :) I never put the 2 together until I started researching, but the symptoms really seem to line up with a gluten sensitivity. I don't think his body is absorbing the nutrients he needs. Along with being skinny and the eczema, I have noticed his hair seems a little dry and he just overall doesn't seem healthy like he should. I am very excited to try this new theory about the gluten because for once, the symptoms seem to line up. We will be on our way to the health food store for some snacks and some bread that he can eat hopefully. If this is it, we should know in a few days.

On a more fun note, the kids put together a gingerbread house. They had so much fun. A day later they ate most of the candy off and demolished it :)

I will be back to update in a few days about the gluten prognosis. This has got to be the answer. We have struggled with this so long and it is so hard to see my baby afflicted with this mess.

The World's Worst Blogger

2008-12-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

That is me. I have come to realize I just stink at blogging. We have had soooo much going on and I barely have time to breathe. Even though Caleb is now 4 years old, he seems to be more demanding of my time than ever. Running a full time business from home and helping James with his really wears me very thin many days. I am very excited about where Woollybottoms is heading for 2009. We spent months developing a perfect fabric to start using in our footies made from a yummy blend of 80% wool, 10% cashmere, and 10% angora. It is incredibly soft and just perfect. I know at first many were like WAIT!!!! We want our recycled wool!!!! The truth is, I can not meet the demand in numbers dealing with recycled wool only. It is unpredictable to work with and does not offer the consistency in product that we want. We will continue to offer recycled wool and are NOT doing away with it. Working with recycled wool is a passion of mine that will not be done away with. This is merely going to be an expansion to help alleviate the supply issues. I would love to eliminate the whole stalking thing and that is my goal for 2009.

As for what I have been doing here around the house, we decided to paint our kitchen cabinets after living here for about 10 years. The house was built in 1962 and the cabinets were honey stained pine with ugly beaten copper hardware. I wanted to go white being the conservative that I am, but James wanted color so I went and picked up all kinds of samples. We ended up going with tomato salsa RED!!!! I was a little freaked out at first but now that it is up, I LOVE it. I would post a pic but James has the doors at his shop and they are still being painted. With the cold and rainy weather, drying time is taking MUCH longer than anticipated so the doors are still off. I feel like my whole life is exposed to everyone since everything is out in the open. For the cost of a gallon of primer and paint and a LOT of muscle power, it looks like a new kitchen.

I also wanted to share this adorable coat of Caleb's. Now that we have ours, I can share :) It is made from wool and lined in THE cutest vintage cowboy print. Priscilla of Bebops makes the most adoable coats for kids and they are each so unique and timeless. This is the Audubon coat and we love it. You can find her shop here: http://hyenacart.com/Be-Bops/

My New Best Friend

2008-10-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

Move over June Cleaver... I am tearing it up in the kitchen now. I work a LOT of hours through the week including odd hours at night, helping my husband with paperwork at his business, taking care of kids, yadda yadda. Sometimes I don't even schedule time to shop for groceries much less cook. So I end up staring blankly into the pantry and either give up immediately and go out to eat, call James and ask him to bring home something frozen, or throw together something pitiful. I hate to cook but not because I can't do it, but because I was not organized. People, I had spices that expired in 2001 in my cabinet and moldy things in my fridge. I buy healthy food with good intentions and then it goes to waste much of the time. So I came across this site, Relish http://www.relishrelish.com and was skeptical. I thought why should I pay $7 per month to have someone tell me what to eat and probably be some kind of recipes where I couldn't even find half the stuff on the list much less the time to make all this stuff. So I thought eh, I will try it for 3 months and see. I am going into week 3 now and there is no turning back. I am spending a little more at the grocery store now, but I am not eating out. I am feeding my family healthy stuff. Everyone is happy to see what I am making at night and the food is sooooo good!!! I am buying things that I would have never picked up before and my cart is filled with fresh fruits and veggies. I bought Bok Choy last week people! Never had it before or even knew what to do with it. The only down side is I am having to buy a lot of spices and things that I didn't have before which really isn't a bad thing, but I am spending more than I would like every week. I know it will get better once I get my spice "base" down. I love how you have 15 meals to choose from and you get an organized list and menu to follow. We are semi-vegetarian here (we eat fish and chicken) and have have had no problem coming up with a wonderful menu every week. Sometimes I choose something that may call for beef or pork and if it really sounds good, I substitute for chicken or turkey. We ususually have leftovers every meal so there is plenty for lunch which is really great. So, overall I give it a huge thumbs up and it is worth a try.

Our new goats!

2008-10-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy with working around here that I realized I had not taken time to update this blog lately. Well, I did something to my back so here I sit :) I occasionally have this nerve at the bottom of my spine that gets pinched or something and pain shoots down my lower back and one leg and man it hurts. We have had our goats for a little over a week now. Ashton is our lighter colored goat and she is 50% Nubian and 50% Toggenburg. She has a super sweet personality and she is loud. She hollers Maaaaaaaa every time you step outside. According to her, she never gets anything to eat. Our dark goat is a purebred French Alpine by the name of Opal. She is the boss of the 2 and she growls at Ashton when food is involved. According to her, she never eats either :) They are both very tame and love to be petted and we are already in love with them. James who really did not want goats at all has become quite attached. He was out there building them a little shelter. They are very curious animals and the kids really enjoy them. We have plans to actually fence in a large part of our property so they can have lots of roaming space. They are both pregnant so come early March, we should have some new little babies.

Our chickens are growing as well. We still have all 9 babies (most of them roosters though I am afraid). They are big enough now where I let them out in the yard during the day. They are all hand tamed and I walk through the yard and I hear a mass of running chickens at my feet. I thought this picture was kind of funny since they were all in the middle of something. I love living here. It is so much fun!

Fun with Interlock Scraps

2008-09-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

So I have this overflowing tote of interlock wool scraps. I had just run out of the one color of wool I was using and didn't have enough to create a waistband for a pair of pants last week. I have had this idea for about a year and just never DID it. So, I sat down and did it finally and I really like how it turned out and it was fun to do. So, introducing the patchwork yoga style pants.

Time to Spice Up the Blog :)

2008-09-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

I felt a little dirty taking this pic and even a little dirtier posting it here (hi mom) but it is really pretty incredible. If I had time, I would love to do some photography stuff with a "real" camera. This is a pair of praying mantiss (or however you make praying matis plural... is it manti?) I nearly stepped on them this morning going into my studio and they were not real happy. They moved (as a team LOL) to the side of the building where they decided to camp out all day. These bugs are quite scary looking and don't like humans at ALL but are really cool. I am sure they got tired of me looking at them. They actually had their heads turned towards the camera fo the pic and I would swear she looks like she is smiling if you have a bigger version of the pic. I always heard rumors that the female eats the male, but as of the end of the day, his head was still intact :)

On other life notes, I always procrastinate every year when I complete my continuing education hours required by the state for my insurance license. In my former life I worked in insurance and I have a license for life/health and property/casualty. I can't bare to let my license expire so I wait until the last day to get everything done. Talk about a load off my shoulders!!!!

So what did our moms of girls pick this week?

2008-09-09T17:24:00.001-07:00

Last week we offered 3 custom slots in our hand dyed interlock. We dyed the fabric bubblegum pink and allowed the moms to have free reign to design a pair of yoga style pants or footies. I think they turned out fabulous! I had a great time working one on one with each mom and look forward to doing it again very soon.

Yesterday was pretty exciting!

2008-08-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

I experienced something that I don't care to re-live ever. I was on my way to pick up Sarah from school but first stop off and bring James some lunch. I was about to make a tight left hand turn off the main road onto a side road. The road is 3 lanes at this point. I had to wait shortly for an oncoming car to pass so I could turn. I heard something behind me and split second looked up to see another car slam me from behind. Looking at the road, there was only about 10feet of skid marks which slowed his tank down very little. He claims he didn't even see me. I am guessing he was going 60-65 mph. Anyway, his bumper hit me and somehow I guess lifted the car from behind and rolled me over. I thought I had rolled twice but I think I was tossed up and landed down on the hood and then continued to roll. I ended up in the other lane back up on my tires and facing the wrong direction. Thank the Lord I didn't have Caleb with me. God's hand of protection was on me yesterday. I lost some hair and had scratches on my head and some bleeding, but could have walked away had I been able to open the door :) But to look at me, you would NEVER know. I am so thankful. I was wearing my seatbelt which saved my life. My gorgeous Cute2Carry purse was tossed out in the road unscathed. My cell phone was out there in pieces and was put back together and works perfectly. I have no doubt I would have broke my neck or been thrown from the vehicle without my belt. Instead I sat there with a wad of hair in my hand and one small piece of glass in my eye which came right out. All the windows except the very back ones were gone. I got the "fun" experience of riding in an ambulance and was released quickly from the ER. So, with blood in my hair and all over my shirt, I proceeded to the rental car place and have a blue Ford Taurus with zero get up and go and then proceeded to the pharmacy to get some antibiotics filled. You should have SEEN the looks I got from people. I have had days where I looked better I suppose :) Anyway, I am so thankful to be here and realized how quickly life can end. I just knew I was going to die and had enough time to just think about that. You don't have time to prepare. I thank God for everything he has done.

So here are some pictures. The big Cadillac belongs to the other guy. I am glad he wasn't hurt and hope he has learned something from all of this.

My baby is growing up!

2008-08-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

My oldest baby, Sarah, turns 8 in a few days but we decided to have her party today. It was a great party with family. It is so hard to believe that 8 years ago, she was a little bitty 5lb 2 oz thing and her little backside could fit in the palm of your hand. My first born is growing up. It is interesting watching her become the person she is and a blessing to have in our lives.

I had decided to give her my first sewing machine. I debated about it because she is young but her maturity level and the way she works with her hands I could tell she was ready. Anyway, I set it all up in my sewing building. Ignore the ugly table please. I set it all up last night and we surprised her with it. I showed her how to sew and seriously, she took to it like I couldn't believe. She went and cut up some fabric and made the little bag all by herself. Next I will teach her how to thread and troubleshoot and all that good stuff. I know this is quite a few pics, but I couldn't resist :)

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Our babies are growing!

2008-08-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well, all 9 babies are now just shy of a month old. I can already tell that we have several roosters in the bunch. I don't know what I am going to do with all of them :) They are already getting real feathers and can get up in the roost with the big ones at night. They are a ton of fun to sit and watch (if you can stand the 100 degree plus temps that is). We make sure they have plenty of water. They stay in the dirt to try and stay cool. So, do you remember the brown mama I told you about that had like zero mothering instincts? Well, I actually had to keep her separated from the babies when they were itty bitty. She would actually pick them up and throw them if they got too close to her. Well, about a week ago I notice the babies gather around her and she was actually starting to feed them and give them food. Well I guess she decided babies are not such a bad thing because my daughter ran and told me she was sitting on a nest. I didn't believe her and sure enough she was sitting on 3 eggs. She has been sitting for about 4 days and I am not real optimistic. I went out today and she was sitting on an empty nest and I noticed 1 of the 3 eggs had been broken. I took the other 2 and put them in the nest with her and she pushed them under her so we shall see. It was like she didn't want to sit in the dirty nest :) I think the eggs will be fine because it has been 100 outside and she had not been off them long. Anyhow, here are a few pics of the progress.

Fabric Addiction???

2008-07-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, I had this realization about myself yesterday as I was sitting there on ebay refreshing a listing as it counted down the final minutes. I NEEDED this fabric (well, not this one here in the photo, I haven't received the newby fabric just yet)... I would just die if I didn't get it. The lightbulb moment happened where I thought, get a grip Shannon! You are a knit fabric addict. So, I decided today to take an inventory and organize them all. Let's just say the camera battery had to be recharged and I didn't get them all done today. I am in the process of uploading them neatly in Flikr. It's not like I have yards and yards of each of these... some are just little pieces. That makes it OK doesn't it? :) I am guessing I have about 40 more to take photos of which I will tackle tomorrow. It feels good to organize a bit and now I can keep track of what I have and what I need :) I hope to offer some semi-custom-pick-your-footie-fabric slots in the future and this will make it a little easier as well. Whew, say pick-your-footie-fabrics 3 times fast :)

So, here ya go :) Fabric Addicts Unite!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28907304@N07/

We have babies!!!!

2008-07-12T15:15:00.001-07:00

Baby chicks that is. I am no chicken farmer by any means. We only had 1 lone rooster and 2 hens. We are quite attached to our pets and we enjoy yummy eggs most of the year (they take a break in the coldest months and lay eggs based on hours of daylight... that is the science lesson of the day) Our brown hen would not sit on eggs to save her life. I am not sure what kind of breed she is but if she thinks she is going to get to eat, that is where you will find her. She follows me in the yard and acts more like a dog than a chicken. Our white chicken though has tried to have babies for the last 2 years. The first year she was sitting on 1... yes 1 egg. It did hatch but something happened to the baby within about 2 weeks. Year #2 she was sitting on eggs and something managed to get them about half way through while she was setting on them. Goodness I felt sooooo sorry for her. This year she decided to set on 9 eggs and we watched her closely and checked her several times a day. Lo and behold every one of the eggs hatched and now she has 9 little babies. She was setting on eggs that she had laid and our brown chicken had laid and you can tell some of them are going to be brown and the others white. Our daughter, Sarah, gets up super early and runs outside to open the door to the roost and puts up a ramp so they can get in and out. We keep mom and babies inside the pen to try to make sure that all the babies will make it. They are soooo tiny and fluffy. They came out of the nest the very next day after they hatched. Sarah goes out and does a head count about 5 times a day to make sure none of them gets lost :)

Goodmama London Print & Woollybottoms Come Together

2008-07-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

I had such an incredibly fun time working with Suzanne creating footies to match some of the new 2008 Goodmama prints. This is the debut of the London print that is on auction today. http://http://hyenacart.com/prod_details_auction.php?id=55692&vid=844 There will be several more coming over the next few weeks.

A Busy Week!

2008-07-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

We have been running like crazy this week. Since we have had such heavy rains this year so far, going to the lake has been impossible. We invested in a $20 pool and it has been the best.thing.ever! The kids are living in it (along with tons of grass and dirt even after I told them to wipe clean before they got in it). I guess I was the only one as a kid that spent the whole time in the kiddie pool with a fish net scooping out ever single piece of debris. What can I say.... they are like their daddy. I took some time out to be Miss Domestic Super Woman yesterday and made up some cloth napkins. I found some fabric this weekend in cleaning out a closet and thought this would be great. We have not used paper towels in forever and were using dish rags which got the job done but were not too pretty. So I whipped up a dozen and they are great and the kids thought I was the coolest mom ever. Then I sewed buttons on 2 pairs of James' pants that had been popped off. I felt like I had accomplished something.

Then I had a complete website redesign. I had designed the original one myself and well.... you could tell. I can sew but don't have a clue when it comes to a professional web design so I left that up to the talented Cicily of August Afternoon(for design) and Michelle of Elemental Muse (for technical cart and hosting stuff). I am in love and should have done this from day 1.

A Little Tease.....

2008-06-11T15:28:00.001-07:00

of what is to come :) We are planning a fun set of collabs with someone special. There are a few more that did not make it into the photo that are still partying in my sewing building. But you can't see what is on the feet you say? Dang, I must have forgotten to take a pic of the really cool new prints. Oh, but wait!!! I did find JUST one here that I can share. Woohoo! I am not totally for sure when these will be available but I am guessing sometime later this month.

Garden Update

2008-06-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty busy this past weekend and week getting caught up on several orders I had going so am running a little slow getting items stocked this week. The garden has been calling my name and I have been playing in it. I need to get some more stuff planted. It has been so nice and wet this season that I don't think I will have any problems with planting late. Here is the progress. The squash are doing really well now. I had a mystery squash plant pop up. I had been composting directly in one of the beds over the winter and it came up so I let it grow. I *think* it may be a spaghetti squash. I noticed though today that there may possibly be some worm damage. They bore into the base of the plant and take up residence inside the plant potentially killing it. I doused the base with poison (yeah, I know... not real organic), but the plant already has tiny squash on it and I REALLY want to see what they will be. I am in the process of re-mulching in between the beds hence the 2 colors. I also rolled out this big cool stump. The kids love it. I sit on it, they jump off of it or use it as a table. So, enjoy the photos.

A Pile of Soakers

2008-05-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

I was busy this past weekend dying wool for our newest retailer, Terra Tots in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The owner picked the colors and they really turned out great and make a wonderful gender neutral cover without being the traditional gender neutral mint green & baby yellow. I am hoping once I can get a predictable influx of wool fabric to begin to open the interlock line to other retailers as well.

Late Night Visitors

2008-05-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

I work 5 nights a week from about 9-12. I have a porch light on my work building that attracts all sorts of strange critters ranging from oversized mosquitos, beetles, moths, and the occasional frog. The next day I always have some of the visitors that decide to hang out. I thought these moths were especially unusual and beautiful. I am constantly amazed at God's handiwork. I have never seen any quite like these and may never see them again. I had to touch the white one to see exactly how a moth with wings so small could fly. I have also had a Mocking Bird that for the last several nights decides to start singing at 11 pm. It is kind of creepy almost and I am sure the other birds were probably a tad bit annoyed.

Garden Update #2

2008-05-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

It is a really slow start this year to the garden. I have had to deal with some pests already and some poor germination and weather. We have had the threat of tornados it seems like every few days so I would keep getting put off on the updates. We have strawberries that are ripening but due to the heavy rains we have had, many of them are cracking open, but there is still a good amount that are good. Our tomatos that we planted from seed are coming up really well and starting to take off. Almost all we planted have germinated. What is up with the squash? I had all of 2 plants come up and those are the easiest thing to grow. I think the seeds may have not been viable so I re-planted and dumped a bunch in the ground.... watch the ALL come up now :) I quit on green beans. Those danged rabbits eat them as soon as they pop up so I have all of maybe 5 plants. If I can get over my anger, I MAY replant and put some kind of fencing over that bed but am tempted to dig it all up and stick in some flowers or something. I had a bed of okra and cucumbers together and NOTHING came up and you know why? Tons of birds have decided that it is the best place to take dirt baths. I could not believe my eyes. They get in there and ruffle their bodies in the dirt. Lots of them and I think they may have killed the seedlings. I have never dealt with that before.... they are as destructive as our chickens.

A pair of special footies for a sweet little guy...

2008-05-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by a momma over the weekend whose little guy had suffered some pretty severe burns on his leg and foot. So, he has some pretty good sized bandages that keep him from being able to wear shoes and play outside (since everything needs to stay covered up especially during outdoor play). My son Caleb had been a victim of a pretty good burn himself so I can relate to that mess pretty well myself. So, we put our minds together to create something that could stretch over the leg and foot yet be tough enough to handle some play time outside. I hand dyed some 97/3 heavier weight interlock in a nice darker sage color and used recycled leather for a full foot bottom and toe coverage. Our original thought was to do a full leather foot top and bottom but that would not allow for the stretch needed on the foot area. So, here is the result and I am really pleased at how it turned out. Not only is it functional, but I think he will look pretty darn cute as well :)

Oh, and yes I know I am due for a garden update... I will grab some pics later today. I haven't forgotten :)

Follow the Garden Progress!

2008-04-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Good grief! It has been 2 months since I have blogged. I didn't realize I had slacked that badly. I have been extremely busy with several new wholesale accounts and training our first employee.... Yeah! So, after last year's pitiful garden, I am making time this year to get my passion going again. I have always enjoyed gardening for as long as I can remember. When we first moved to this house, I loved the huge yard. However the dirt pretty much stinks. It is all weeds and little rocks and just sad dirt in general. I had James to work quickly and we started with 4 raised beds out in the middle of the yard. That of course wasn't enough and I had him add some more the next year and then get rid of the grass in between the beds. The little white picket fence was salvaged from my mom and makes a nice backdrop for the humongous Arapaho blackberries and raspberries. I should have taken a before picture. Everything was filled with weeds and took me a couple of weeks of hand labor. If you let neglect happen, the weeds take over in no time. Caleb has been out there pulling as well so now you see the result. I don't can vegetables so please don't ask me about that :) I don't have the time or the patience. I just pack a bunch of different things into the beds and we eat them as we pick them. Grilling veggies on the back deck is lots of fun. If it is freezable and we have extra, we "might" freeze them but pretty much it is a pick and eat fest. OK, so here is what we have planted. We have strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries that come back every year. In the middle is an herb bed with different herbs that come back as well. This year I planted a few snap peas (first time to try those) along the back fence, yellow squash, zuchinni squash, picnic watermelons (my favorite thing to grow!) green peppers, eggplants, cantaloupe (another first), okra, and cucumbers, green beans (I have failed on those the last 2 years thanks to bunnies) and tomatos. I think that is it. You really can get quite a bit into a small space and we only plant a few plants of each. There are a few things starting to pop up after a few days. My poor chickens have been banished to stay in the pen. Normally I let them stay out with me in the yard when I am out there but they tear up everything. Needless to say, they are not real happy and they pace at the door.

So, here are a few pictures and I will try and update weekly with the scoop. Our neighbors have cows next door in a field. I noticed some really great poop right across the fence. I may scoop it over and throw it in the beds. Cow poop is the best thing ever!

Blah!

2008-02-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

So about a month or so ago, I blogged about my miracle of grapefruit & Zicam. It has come through for me yet again. So Monday afternoon I started noticing that feeling you get right as you are starting to get sick. The flu has been going around horribly and I just knew that is what I was getting. All my energy was sucked out of me and I started feeling achy and nauseous. I immediately ate a grapefruit, crunched up the seeds and ate those too, sqeezed out the juice and drank that, and then Zicam up the nose and went to bed. Tuesday rolled around and I was feeling about the same, but no worse. I did the same thing in the morning and I was soooo tired. I could tell my body was actually trying to fight this thing but didn't know if it would win this time around. I pretty much rested and actually laid down and took a nap during the day. I repeated the grapefruit/Zicam thing right before bed. This morning I got up and I am still a little tired feeling, but the body aches are going away and my head is totally clear. In the past, I know I would be laid up in the bed with tissue inserted up my nose by this time. I had struggled for years with an immune system that didn't seem to fight off anything.... I was always sick. It is so nice to actually have it working doing what it is supposed to... of course watch me get it full blown by tomorrow LOL :)

A Day in the Life Continued...

2008-02-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

So of course my day didn't unfold as I had planned yesterday. You always have something come up and you have to change it all around. I feel like I am getting sick.... body aches and slugishness. Just plain blah. I have started back on my Zicam & grapefruit regimine but I don't know if I can hold this one back. I plan on taking it easy for the next few days and taking a nap today. Half of my face and head feel hot which is really weird. I am glad I cooked some chicken yesterday and saved the broth. I think I will make some warm chicken noodle soup later today.

So, if you are wondering about this critter here, this is a possum which is quite common here in Arkansas. I had come in the house at about midnight yesterday and was preparing my grapefruit (which I managed to squirt directly into my eye by the way) and I hear something outside the door. I always set the bag of trash out the door for James to do something with (which usually ends up being a few days so I don't know why I even bother sometimes). I peer out the window to see what it is. We have had a racoon in the past and a cat. I look out there and see this oversized possum that has made ever so neatly a tiny hole just big enough to dig his nose into. I open the door and bang on the glass storm door which is less than 2 feet away from this thing expecting it to run away in fear. It turns around, looks at me and actually comes right up to the door. If I opened the door, it seriously would have come in the house. So, I took the opportunity to go get the camera and snap a shot. By this time, my cat was at the door face to face with this thing and she was not a happy camper. She was hissing and growling. She was already irritated because she wanted me to go to bed since she likes to sleep in the same room as me (yes she is a cat that prefers a certain bed time at NIGHT!) The possum finished eating I think a can of tuna and then walked off ever so calmly. Now I know why I passed 2 dead ones on the way to school this morning. They are just not the smartest.

A Day in the Life...

2008-02-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

of being a work at home mom. So, in doing my morning computer routine, the idea was proposed of blogging a day in the working mom's life and I thought, what a great idea! It was spur of the moment, so I didn't have a chance to "prepare" and be super mom of the day and this would be totally unscripted. I didn't go to bed until 2am last night as I had a large rush order that I had to get done and finish washing everything. The new store is having their grand opening Saturday, so I HAD to work hard and fast. I crashed on the couch and then at 6:30, the day had began. I managed to get up (still wearing clothes from yesterday) and crawled back into bed hitting snooze every 7 minutes for the next half hour. Then I had 45 minutes to peel Sarah out of bed and tell her each step of the way to getting ready. She is 7, going on 8, yet I have to tell her to get up, get dressed, brush teeth, yadda yadda. The routine is the same every day but if I don't poke her along the way, she just stops and I find her sitting in front of the little heater in the bathroom. I brush my teeth and change into some fresh clothes and trudge along getting her ready for school. I usually let Caleb sleep until right before time to go but most of the time he gets up on his own at about 7:15 or so. Then he has to have all the lights off because they hurt his eyes when he first gets up and he may be cranky, or really happy. You just never know.... he is SO my child. We are out the door by 7:45 and we were out 2 minutes early today. How, I will never know. I pray I don't have to get out of my car as my hair was (is) scary and there is no make up on. I don't even want to drive through anywhere.... I am a mess. So we arrive back at home and I feed Caleb some breakfast. I usually skip it and drink a homemade cold frappucino that James gets up and makes every morning for both of us. I open the refrigerator and smile as it is lovingly waiting for me every morning. He is awesome.... they are better than Starbucks!

Now that we are settled in at home at about 8:30, I give in to the TV monster and let Caleb watch Noggin for about 30 minutes or so while I follow up on emails that came in over the weekend. Then I pay bills and pay for sweaters that arrived over the weekend and have to fight the urge to crawl back into bed. After that is taken care of, I will be crawling into the shower and will emerge as super mom and by this time it will be about 10am. Caleb and I will go out into the sewing building for a few hours and do a little work. I need to maintain my machines (which I do every week) by oiling and cleaning them up. Then I will sew a bit and by that time it will be lunch time. We will come in and eat then it will be time for a nap. I will snuggle up with Caleb and read a story (my favorite time of day!). Once he goes down, it is back to work for me. I will do the computer thing, package up a few orders and get them ready to ship, and straighten the house up. I have to do all this in about an hour and a half. James picks up Sarah from school and keeps her at work with him since school ends at 2.... right in the middle of nap time. By about 3:30, Caleb and I will head to town to the post office and stop by and see James. Once we come home, it is time to think about dinner. James really helps with this and makes dinner quite a bit.... he is REALLY good at it and enjoys it. The kids are bathed and in bed by 9pm and then I usually go back to sewing till midnight.

This is an average day in my crazy life. There is not much time left for anything else. Balance is such a hard thing to master. Sometimes I wonder what was I thinking... but I wouldn't have it any other way. Signing off to shower now :)

2008-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

I am taking a breather after yesterday's stocking. It was fun changing it up with a night time stocking and doing some differnt kinds of listings. I was on my way outside yesterday afternoon to take the final website pics and before I opened the back door, this little bluebird caught my eye. He was perched up on the clothesline enjoying the sun after the 2 inches of snow we got the day before. I had my camera around my neck and woolies in my hand. I took my camera and zoomed in on the little guy through my back door and was really pleased on how the picture came out. It was nice just to take a short break from busy life and enjoy the surroundings.

I am currently working on the Artisan Baby site this weekend. It is a ton of work getting products together and it is like a scavenger hunt rounding up all the wonderful products. I technically haven't opened it up yet but people have been completing sales. I am just glad it is all apprarently working like it is supposed to :) I hadn't had a chance to do a test sale.

~Shannon~

I feel like a kid!

2008-01-24T06:07:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! I am running on about 4 hours of sleep. I started sewing last night and then had this huge burst of energy (no caffeine involved LOL) and didn't go to sleep until about 2am. Despite all these weird hours I run nowadays, I am feeling great! I absolutely love what I do and feel blessed to be able to work full time at home with my kids. This year is starting off fresh and fun. I have recently come into the world of applique and it is SO fun! When I feel like bursting out of the normal and predictable pair of relaxed leg longies, I start to cutting free-handed an applique and pop it onto the wool. It is like a kid with a coloring book and really lets me relax and have fun. The kiddos are all feeling much better after several weeks of everyone being sick. I managed to avoid getting it and that was a total miracle. I have been eating 2 grapefruits a day. No, I am not on some nutty diet, but after years of my immune system letting me down, I was desparate and I have finally found something that I can actually see the results from. I eat the grapefruit and then even eat a few of the big seeds. James just cringes when he sees me chomping away on those seeds :) When a person is getting colds constantly for years, you are willing to try ANYTHING! After I am done, I squeeze the juice into a cup, add water, then add one of those Airborne tablets. Then if people are sick or I can feel I am coming down with it, I do the Zicam thing as well. I have been doing this for about a month and I notice my grocery store is having a hard time keeping their grapefruits in stock now :)

The other day I stood on my head, body propped up against a wall of course. Talk about the kids being shocked and amazed. Then finished it off with some backwards somersaults. I think James and the kids were picking their jaws up off the floor thinking that I had totally lost my mind or something. Had I been sniffing the lanolin too much or maybe ingested some wool fibers? I don't know what it is, but I feel great. Maybe it is the magic grapefruit seeds LOL :)

I suppose I better get back to work. There are several more items I need to get listed to stock today and then start tagging and packaging everything in preparation to ship out.

:) Shannon

2008-01-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

So, I have been working non-stop to get some organizing done around here. I just finished revamping the website to have a fresh new look. I hope it doesn't look as "home-made" as the one before. I had been putting it off forever and am really glad it is done. I think it turned out pretty good considering I have NO skills when it comes to html. I decided to leave web design to the pros though for my new website, artisanbaby.com. It is almost finished. It has taken longer than expected but Michelle of Elemental Muse is on the final stretch and I think the design just needs to be uploaded and then I can start plugging in items. I have been gathering some really awesome items. Basically it is going to allow me to do some non-wool related items and will be a collection of other artisan made items that I have come across and think would be a great fit. It won't be your typical big name items so I am really excited to bring everything together.

Caleb has been sick... like REALLY sick. The poor guy fell asleep last week sitting at the table waiting for his lunch. He is getting better but all around his nose and mouth is really red and chapped. He is napping right now so I hope he gets lots of rest. I had to grab the camera and take a picture of him alsleep. Then, this is what he looked like when he heard the camera and "woke up". Sarah had been sick almost the whole week before and missed school. I had to finally break down and take her to the doctor. I absolutely detest going there. It is full of a bunch of sick kids that their parents take them in for anything and everything. I am not saying this is true of everyone, but it sure is the majority. I mean why not? Most people have insurance or state assisted programs so they want to feel like they are getting something back. We are one of the in-between families that of course makes too much for any assistance, but we don't have enough to pay for health insurance. I feel like germs are jumping on me and we find a quiet kid-free corner and instruct the kids don't touch anything. You can just feel the germs. Did I mention I hate going there? :) Sarah had a fever for 5 days straight and the doctor said she had brochitis and maybe a touch of pneumonia. So, we took our predictable antibiotic prescription and he said she was not contagious. Right. Hello! she had a fever and of course Caleb now has the EXACT same thing.

I suppose I had better get some footies cut out and ready to sew. I expect footie season is still on go through this month and into Feb. I love making them and will be kind of sad when it is time to take a break for warmer weather. Although, I am really loving the creative outlet that applique work is providing and look forward to doing more of that kind of work when possible.

~Shannon~

2008-01-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

Woollybottoms is happy to now have an official blog. This blog will contain more details than our yahoo group announcements and more random thoughts and ideas right here :)