The Ballad of the Crafty Loner

Yeah, I know it's been a while. All my dreams of posting more often are thwarted by the fact that I am psychologically fragile and currently in a state of near catatonia, due to the fact that I haven't been alone for any length of time since mid-June. Now, every time I express a measure of dissatisfaction with having one or both of my kids around me 24/7, somebody pipes up and says something about how these are the most precious years of their lives and I need to appreciate them because they'll never come again and Hallmark and lollipops and LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. Seriously, y'all, I appreciate the hell out of those little monsters, but it doesn't change the fact that their mother is an introvert who thrives on being alone. I am perfectly happy to play school and dress-up and to bake cupcakes and dig for worms, and I love that I've had the time to do all that this summer, but at the same time, I have done everything - shower, pee, everything - with someone by my side. My brain is wired in such a way that prolonged exposure to other people produces anxiety and severe crabbiness, eventually leading to hopelessness and probably death. School finally starts on Monday, however, and first I plan to sleep for as many hours as possible without someone trying to pry my eyelids open with sticky fingers, and then I am going to blast the most profanity-laden music I can find while dancing in my underwear and drinking tequila straight from the bottle. Then I'll probably clean something.

Despite the fact that I have had to stop any task I might try to engage in every 5 minutes to watch someone kick her leg in a particularly amusing fashion ("Mom! Watch this. This is SO funny!") I have managed to make progress on the triangle quilt:

Then last week, my birthday present arrived a few days before the actual event: a Kindle. Before the kids came along I generally read several books a week, and our tiny apartment was always overflowing with paperbacks. I read everything from the classics to pulp, but motherhood has made it more difficult to read as much as I would like. Add to that the fact that half my bookshelves (I once had six) were given to the girls for their rapidly expanding collection, and not having a lot of extra money, AND the horrid selection at the local library, and a Kindle seemed like a good investment. AND I LOVE IT. Since it arrived last Monday I have read A Room With a View, am halfway through Howard's End, and have the first Percy Jackson book as well as some crazy comic novel from one of those misogynistic British guys and a non-fiction book about space travel. I got a subscription to my beloved New Yorker magazine for only three bucks a month, and I can keep all these things together in one spot. But of course I am terrified that someone will try to use it as a dance floor for a Polly Pocket, so it needed a cover.

I searched all over the net for a pattern, and mostly what I found were just pouches. I wanted one that would be like a cover, where the Kindle would be left in it, and finally discovered it in the January 2010 issue of Quilter's Home. This was my first one:

I thought the Moda Authentic fabric was perfect. I posted pictures of it on my personal Facebook page, and immediately all my friends started asking when I was going to start taking orders for them. It occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea, since I only found one seller on Etsy who sold anything like what I was looking for. This got Harper all in a tizzy, because her entire life lately has been devoted to complaining about the fact that we are not billionaires like London Tipton (and if you don't know who that is, you are very, very lucky and should not pursue it further). In her twisted six-year-old mind, any amount of money is enough to make you rich, so she figures I'm sitting on a cash cow here and I BETTER START SEWING. I did want to see if I could work out some of the kinks, so that I could make them consistently, so I made a second one, this time with a pocket:

The bottom right strap ended up off, so I will have to watch that if I decide to try to make them to sell, and of course I got the Kindle 2 so I will probably have to figure out how to modify it for the new, smaller version. And the whole thing is probably moot anyway because I'm sure it's illegal to sell stuff you make from a magazine pattern.* But they sure are fun to make.

Now if you all will excuse me, the CEO of MegCorp thinks I need to get back in the sweatshop and crank out some moneymakers. And get her some fruit leather. And watch her do that leg kick thing again.

*Update: Yep. Totally illegal. Oh well.