Squirrels Go Like This

Baby proofing – step 1

Yes. I’ve thrown in the b word. Babies. Two of them. Ok after having scared you, here is something I did to baby proof the house when <i>friends’ kids</i> (yes, before we had kids) came over. It was quite successful, no damage incurred on visiting babies, unsuspecting adults or furniture:
Instead of using our slate or ceramic coasters when little guests arrived, I used crocheted drink coasters. Yes, that simple! The pattern, Square Shell Coaster is free. I found it on Ravelry  (if you’re a knitter/crocheter and haven’t signed up, what are you waiting for?).

The choice of yarn color was simple: I like red wine. I had this yarn around…why not use it up?

The babies grab them, try to eat them (don’t worry, these coasters are made from machine washable yarn) and “bang” on the table with them. The older kids throw them at each other. These coasters were so successful with the kids that I made more in a fun cotton yarn that I got from my friend Jaime.

The best part of it…they were already made by the time our kids were starting to crawl. Lately they’ve been on a kick of putting their milk bottles on them….just like mom and dad!

I call that a success.

Cabo? yes please!

Of course, by the time this post goes up, the temperatures will go down to freezing (yup, we’re expecting 32F for Monday)…but it sure has been feeling quite perfect weather wise, in the Philadelphia region!

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A few summers ago I felt I needed a change wardrobe wise. I was tired of T-shirts for the summer and I wasn’t happy with what I kept on finding, I decided to make something for myself.

The answer was found at Spool, a store that opened on South Street around the time I moved OUT of that neighborhood. I know, sad, but I still try and go down there just to visit Rosie’s, Spool, Loop and Rittenhouse Needlepoint (in no specific order).

I had seen the Cabo Halter pattern on their blog, but I had said to myself “oh, it won’t look good on me!” Sometime after I found the fabric. Can’t even remember where I got it. Not too crazy, not too tame, black and white. A few days later I saw the Amy Butler pattern on the wall, realized I had plenty for one blouse and said “Why not?”. Paid, left, started cutting and sewing.

This was the result:

Cabo Halter

I LOVED it. Seriously, seriously loved it! It’s so comfy, it’s so light, specially for the humid weather that we get a lot of over here.

If you’re ever looking for something easy AND pretty for later in the summer, I highly recommend this pattern!

An updated blanket.

As I mentioned in the last post; we are finally finding some time for hobbies. This means that we are now able to follow comments, update, and *gasp* post!

When I wrote Alex’s baby blanket pattern I honestly didn’t realize that it would be downloaded by other than friends or a random reader here and there.

Time has passed, Alex is now a super adorable kid (I love it when his family visits!), and lots of people have downloaded the pattern. Some have expressed confusion with it; as I had written a minimal amount of notes. I’ve decided to update the pattern with a little bit more details and descriptions of the short hand that I use.

The pattern can be found at the end of the original post, or here.

Enjoy knitting!

Hello? Is thing still on?

I know…it’s been quite a while since we’ve been around here. We have a few reasons:
First we moved, then we had kids, then we moved again.
All this in the space of 10 months.

…

Now, that life is returning to some sort of normal (read that as snot-on-my-shirt-everyday and random-mess-on-my pants normal), we are starting to adapt the hobbies we used to have to our lives.

I’m hoping Boombadeus starts showing all the sweat and blood he’s put into the house (with record heat summers we’ve been having, there was a LOT of the first one)…and I will try to show all the crafts I’ve been documenting.

At some point the RSS was hijacked, and now it won’t go back to normal on Google Reader. We’ll try and figure it out; but we’ll be honest, might take a little while…

Weird spam coming from the blog

There seems to be some weird spam coming from the RSS feed lately. (We are trying to figure out what is going on.)

While we figure this thing out, DO NOT click on any of the links!

We haven’t been around lately, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy with projects! Hopefully soon, when things slow down a little bit in real life, we’ll post about our recent projects!

–Angie

My excuse

Every time I’m in the Boston area I have to stop by New England Mobile Book Fair…why? ’cause I can get craft books at great prices! For example; last time I was there I bought Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. The excuse: it has this cute flower washcloth pattern and I had also been itching to make the second bathroom a little more than just an extra bathroom; with niceties for the guests…so why not buy the book and make a washcloth? or two? Specially since Boombadeus’ mom was going to visit soon…

The pattern is easy; increases being the most ‘difficult’ part I think. Five petals are made separately; and then joined (which is quite easy). The not so easy part: making sure the silly yarn ends get hidden.

The cotton yarn (Sublime Cotton) was purchased at Loop (on sale!). It, being cotton, was quite easy to work with (compared to the slippery Misti alpaca that i’ve been battling on my WIP “Calm”); but it was annoying because of the separate threads…every once in a while I’d miss one.

I got three different colors of this cotton; the one I used here is Mashed Banana and I used about 0.6 to 0.75 of a ball…so not that bad huh? What do you think of the finished product?

A kid approved gift.

In this day and age, children seem to have it all: dolls that speak to them, bears that know their names, crazy cars that do back flips, robots that double as pets….amongst many other amazing toys that my generation didn’t have. You can understand why searching for a birthday gift could be a little frustrating!

Luckily for me, the adorable little lady that is about to turn 3, likes creativity just like her siblings…and her mom hinted at how much her older siblings had loved a gift that I made for them 2 years ago: Crayon rolls!

These rolls are a lot of fun: They’re not too difficult to make and are easy to personalize if you want to spend a little more time thinking of that little person.

First step:

Come on, personalize it!

You’re making something hand made! It doesn’t take that much longer to add a few finishing touches!

I chose to embroider birthday girl’s name onto it along with a teddy that would tie the front to the patterned fabric i’d use in the inside.

Notice I also used simple letters; nothing worse than confusing a 3 year old learning how to read with fancy handwriting! (Save the fancy stuff for the older kids).

Two:

You’ll need five pieces total.

2 large rectangular pieces of of the size you choose the roll to be.

2 small rectangular pieces for the holding of the crayons (these were about 1/2 the width of the large pieces).

1 large 1.5″ wide piece for the ribbon that will hold it together.

You sew the long side of the two small rectangles together and press (trust me, press, it takes a few extra minutes, but makes it so much easier for you!)

Then you put all pieces together: if you’re embroidering,  remember where you’re putting the tie!!

And here is the finished gift! Pair it with a few coloring books and it should be a good entertainment tool for  a three year old when they can’t go out because it’s cold/raining out!

Sophie’s quilt

Lately “minky fabric” has been all the rage for making baby blankets. I had seen it described as extremely soft; so I was very curious to feel this fabric. I found out just how soft when i went into a Joann’s fabric, while looking for a rotary cutter. In my personal experience, I think only alpaca wool is softer than this fluffy stuff.

Anyway, I had a great excuse to get a couple of yards of minky: K & N were having a baby!

In  a previous Joann’s trip I had found a cute Winnie the Pooh fat quarter bundle in various colors. As they decided to not find out the gender of the baby until it was born, this would be perfect for my fabric addiction and schemes…er I mean blanket! Read the rest of this entry »

Hawaii Five-O

Last year, in a trip to Joann’s fabric I was lucky enough to find a ~1 yard piece of acetate in the remnants rack. The background color was black; but it had beautiful bright happy print of hibiscus and orchids on it…I was sold.

The piece of fabric shouted to me “tropical drinks” and “afternoon sunset by the beach” while the theme of Hawaii Five-O played in my head. While I’ve never had a tropical drink while admiring the afternoon sunset by the beach, I’ll happily start go-go dancing when I listen to the theme of Hawaii Five-O.

A couple of weeks later, on a sewing kick one Saturday morning, I looked at the fabric. “What to make?” I thought to myself. Having just made a halter dress, I decided to make a halter top; a dress but shorter!

I cut three pieces, two for the back, one for the front and barely had enough fabric for the length I wanted. Since making a cord from that was not an option, I used some silk ribbon I found….and ended up with this halter (i kinda love halter tops, not sure why).

I might not love hot and humid weather, but I do love this top. Sadly for me, so do the mosquitos!

Butterflies in my bread!

Remember how I embroidered a Monarch butterfly for the Eternal Spring table runner?

That I was tempted to make another one in the same table runner?

Well, I liked it so much I had to make yet another one…this time the butterfly is going to be in a napkin that will be wrapping bread/tortillas in my table! Aren’t butterflies pretty?

Here is the finished Butterfly bread napkin…