Finishing

Today I am trying to get myself all ready to start the new year fresh. Yesterday I put away Christmas...took down the tree, put away all ornaments, decorations and lights. This morning I have begun with housework and hope to spend my afternoon finishing some long set aside crafts. I will not bore you with the housework as it probably just the same as yours (boring and hateful and never done for more than a minute). However I will share with you some of the things I have been Finishing.

First was a pair of blankets that I made and gifted to my husband's Aunt and Uncle for Christmas. I did not have the presence of mind to photograph them but they were of polar fleece and they were the cut and tie the fringe kind. Both of them were the same paisley pattern but one was white on black and the other was black on white. They both seemed happy with them.

Next was the light box I started months ago in order to get more professional looking photo's for the items I list in my Etsy shop.

I finished a stuffed dog that was made out of a pair of socks:

Thanks Alexis! you bring me a pair of socks you like the look of and I'll make you one of your own! (think dollar store...that is where I got this pair).

I am currently trying to finish up Abby's hippo,

her pair of mittens (one down, one to go)
and a pair of socks for me...started over a year ago...
I also started and finished a project a couple of days ago...I have been in desperate need of knitting needle organization. I used to have them in a bag that I would have to dump out to get to the set I needed. I have been meaning to do this for some time and when I found myself browsing on etsy for one to buy I thought, 'This is ridiculous, I can make one myself out of my stash and not spend a penny.' And so I did. All materials were scraps from my stash, including the batting and the ribbon. The part that took the longest was making the binding.
I am not sure what else I will be able to manage today but if I get more done, I'll be sure to post it!

Backyard Visitors, Crafty Things, Halloween

We have had several backyard visitors lately, only one of which I have managed to get a photo of. The guy I captured on camera is here:
A cute little common tree frog that I rescued from the children and placed on the branch of one of our backyard trees. The others have been birds. A couple of small ones and then there is the great bluebird that comes by. It's color is so vibrant and I just wish I could get a photo of it but every time I try to sneak up to get my camera it flies away. I am nearly ready to just sit with camera in hand but it only comes by about once a week.

As for the crafty things, there have been several. First I combed up some fiber I bought while at the Puyallup fair for the Sheep to Shawl...I ended up with these rolags in addition to the combed fiber:I decided to spin one up and I LOVE the color progression...however the way it looks in the hank:is so much better than when knit...
that I think I'll spin it more randomly, rather than in color order, or at least make much shorter color changes because the blocks of color remind me of 1970's appliances, but the yarn itself reminds me of fall. I'll try that and we'll see what I come up with.

I have also been doing a bit of sewing. First up was remaking some costumes for Alexis. She bought a couple from a lady on Craigslist and was sorely dissapointed...they were overalls for Super Mario Brother's but they were basically felt that was handsewn, which is fine, it just wasn't done well at all. here are a couple of shots of the originals:

Basically you have jagged edges, the button holes are just slits in the fabric, the buttons are the wrong color for the characters and the legs were simply hacked off at the bottom, they were not even cut to the same length on each leg and the straps were of variable widths.Here is what I ended up with after about 3.5 hours of my time:Buttons of the proper color, EVERY edge finished, legs the same length and hey look at that a hem:After finishing for Alexis I did some mending on the costume we bought for Abigail because she was a tad small for it but now the wings fit and the dress stays on her shoulders...here are my cutie pies in their costumes:Jacob orignally wanted him and Abby to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat, but chnaged his mind about a week before Halloween to be Buzz Lightyear, so Abby got to pick out a costume. She didn't care what it was as long as she got to wear those wings. We decided she was a fairy princess.

And last but not least I whipped out a sweater in a couple of days...I have been dying to make a project out of the new book I got while up on Orcas with the kids and I dug into my stash and found enough of the yarn from Jake's sweater left over to make an infant size for Mason. It only took a couple of days (real time it only took a few hours - around 5 or 6) and it was a ton of fun to kit...I may try to adapt it into an adult size it was so fun and easy.and it's cuter with the buttons on, but I took the picture before I had bought the buttons...oh well I'll have to try to remember to post a pic later.

TTFN.

Scraptacular Pet Monsters and A Few Felty Things

This morning my kids were running around screaming about monsters. Jacob was playing fun (a la Monster's Inc.) and Abby took him a little to seriously and spent a solid five minutes attached to my knee being afraid of the 'cary monter' that apparently lives in my closet. Sooooo I decided to make her a pet monster of her very own to keep the 'bad monsters' away. I grabbed a scrap of fabric, folded in half and free formed a shape right on the sewing machine. Then I realized I had to sew the face on and should have done that BEFORE sewing up the body. So I ripped the stitches on 3 of the sides, folded it up and added a face, button eyes and a homespun embroidered mouth. I sewed it back up most of the way, stuffed it and hand sewed the final bit. I give you Abigail's Pet Monster:

Well if Abby had one, Jake had to have one too. So after letting him pick the colors and deciding which button for the eyes (no, mommy I want ONE eye) I put him down for his nap and drafted this guy right on the fabric. I finished sewing him closed just as Jake was waking up:

Abby's monster is about 8 inches tall and Jake's is about 10 inches tall. They were fun and pretty fast too.

Yesterday Brian told me he was thinking about making a tomato basil risotto for dinner some night and it sounded so darned good that we decided to do it tonight. He just pulls this stuff out of his head and has a good idea of what flavors will go well together (yes I know tomato basil is a no brainer, but putting it in risotto was brilliant). He made us a great risotto on the fly with some shallots sweated in olive oil and butter, rice and chicken stock. At the end of the process he added some tomato paste, fresh basil and some peas for brightness and wow! It was the best risotto I have had in a really really long time. He even loves me so much he 'over cooked' it for me (I don't like any al dente in my noodles or rice).

So in the last few weeks I have gotten out my felting kit and started to play around a bit. I went online and found a fantastic felting site and love the technique. If you were ever interested in 3 dimensional needle felting go check out http://www.feltalive.com/. Before I found the site I turned out a bowl that I later added a butterfly to:

And then a girl using pipe cleaners a armatures. I did not like the pipe cleaner method and won't use it again. It seemed like a lot of extra work for no real benefit.

Following the tutorial at http://www.learnneedlefelting.com/ I made a couple of pumpkins...these guys are about 2.5 inches tall:

So yeah, the needle felting has been fun and I think I'll try a few other things...maybe some more pumpkins since they are in season right now.

Crafty Quicky

I have been getting a big of crafting done lately. Not a ton and there is still a lot that is 'in the works' but here is what I have finished in the last little while:

A skein of yarn. I made this from a Hanks in the Hood batt I bought at Paradise Fibers when I ordered a new drive band for my spinning wheel ages ago. They call it Grasshopper and I think it's an appropriate name given the colors.

I also made a pillow for my niece to match the ones I made for her sisters last summer...can you guess what her name is?

Finally I was at the craft store and saw that they carry small bags of random/reclaimed buttons and so I bought a bag...this is what I came up with using 6 of them:

I have several more ideas of things I would like to make as well as some projects that are currently in the works and I'll post those as I finish them.

Bears!

I finally got my bears up in my Etsy shop! Come and check it out at Grape Sheep!

Need a custom bear? Want one for a little one in your life, or just for fun? Let me know!

Time flies

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted. This week (and weekend) went by really fast.

Craft stuff:
I have been spinning on my Turkish some more and last I posted I had 2 completed hanks. As of this morning I have 3 complete hanks and another cop of singles almost done. Before I go to bed tonight I hope to have finished plying and setting this yarn (hopefully it will be the last hank - I am enjoying the spinning but I am really ready to start knitting with it).
I also finished the body of one of my teddy bears and now I have to stuff it and call my friend to come and pick it up.

Food stuff: We tried a new recipe this week (on Wednesday) - Brian made butter chicken wich is an indian dish made with onions, tomato sauce, diced tomato, a bit of cream, roast chicken and some spices (those are just the basics) all together in a sauce and served over basmati rice.
On Thurday Andrew and Eldon came over and Andrew cooked - he had some left over smoked Turkey and made us enchilada's it was quite good.
On Friday Brian made hollandaise sauce and we had eggs benedict with crab instead of ham - it was fabulous. Totally worth the time to make the sauce from scratch and shell the crab. The kids did not have any crab (shellfish, young kids, yada yada) but they seemed to enjoy it also.

Family stuff:
On Friday Jacob went with Julie and Ron for his weekly Grandpa Day. Normally it's on Thursdays but Julie had Friday off and wanted to spend some time with him too. They also had Eve (Jake's cousin) so the kids got to play together. Fridays are the start of Brian's weekend as well (damn economy...4 day weeks for quite a while, but he still has a job thank god and he gets to spend more time with the kids). So we puttered around the house until after Abby woke up from her nap and headed to Red Robin for lunch (gift certificate from Christmas - it only cost us like 10 bucks out of pocket). Then we thought it would be fun to take Abby to the 'baby animal playground' at the mall. So we wandered in there and let her run around. This place is really great for the smaller toddlers out there. All soft and cushy but still firm enough to climb on. Then we wandered into Victoria Secret and I ended up buying a new bra. I am so happy I did - I forgot how comfortable VS bras are (they damn well better be for 40+ bucks a pop). Then Brian went and picked up the tabs for his truck and we met at the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner.
On Saturday we woke up and were hanging around the bedroom with the kids and Brian asked what I wanted to do for the day. I said, "I don't know, it looks like a really nice day, let's do something with the kids, like NW Trek or something." After a few minutes in his office (at the computer I assume) he came in and said "ok, let's go. They open at 9:30, lets try to leave the house by 9" I am thinking 'awesome!!!' So I got the kids ready to go and then I made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese with some english muffins. 20 minutes later we were there. Now I had never been to NW Trek so I didn't really know what it was going to be like and I had a ton of fun. First we saw a golden eagle, and through the trees we saw the bald eagle on our way to the tram station. While waiting for the tram Jake kinda freaked out and decided he didn't want to go because "the moose has big eyes" (which I thought was weird because he has never seen a moose before). We told him that he would get to see a squirrel if he went on the 'bus-train' After we started seeing animals he started to get less afraid and more excited when he realized they couldn't hurt him. Let's see we saw: Moose, Bison, Elk, Mountain Goats, Big Horned Sheep, Deer, Swans, Geese and Duck. I may be missing some but I think that is most of it. We got really lucky - because these animals are basically free-roaming in a natural habitat they are not always close enough to the road to see...Brian said he has been on the tram and only seen 1 or 2 things. The tour lasts a full hour and by the time we were done Abby was asleep and Jake was starting to get a little cranky. We plopped them in the stroller and went to see the animals in 'exibits.' The first one we saw was the black bear - at wich point I dropped the camera, breaking it - so that is why no pics (the brand new one we got for Christmas).*
I was surprised that the animals were not behind glass, or even a fence. You stood in the covered viewing area and looked into the fenced habitats. I have only been that close to a bear once in my life, and last time it was NOT FUN - we were just getting out of the car at my Grandpa's house in Glacier National Park. Needless to stay we all got back in the car and waited until Grandpa fired the gun a few times (not at the bear - we were in a park) and it went away. Also a black bear now that I think about it. Anyway the ony thing between you and the bears is a ditch and a single line of electric fence on their side of the ditch. After the black bear was the grizzly bears. Large and impressive - reminds me of an old joke: "how do you know if you are being chased by a black bear or a grizzly bear? - The black bear will climb the tree - the grizzly bear will knock it over" (ba-dum-cha!)
After the bears we say gray wolf, red fox, and coyotes - they were RIGHT there only yards away. it was really neat. Then there were the bobcat, cougar and lynx. Holy crap those cougar were HUGE! there were two of them and for obvious reasons the viewing area was elevated much higher and the 'ditch' was actually a rather wide, deep moat (cougars can jumb 20 feet vertical). I am fairly certain there was no way they could jump that high from floating in the water.
From there we saw the smaller wetland animals - raccoon, rover otter, beaver, wolverine, porcupine, skunk, badger, and fisher (I had never heard of nor seen a fisher before - really cute little things). Then we saw the barn owls, horned owls and snowy owl and headed to lunch. The cafe had a lodge type setting - the booths were wood and it had high open rafters and a nice large fire place with a fire blazing. It was great - we picked the booth closest to the fire and had a darned good lunch before heading back to the van. Jake fell asleep before we were out of the park driveway. We got home and put the kids down for naps (I had one too - all that walkng made me tired).
So that was our weekend so far. It was a ton of fun...now I have to go do laundry and pack some bags because the kids and I are headed up to Orcas for the week tomorrow.

*camera fixed now...no worries

Crafty Stuff

Spent most of the weekend shopping for Christmas and we are almost done...Just 5 more people to cover...plus I need to finish the socks for someone (ok I need to start them. Yes I do know there are only 11 days until Christmas. I guess I better knit fast). On that note the mate for this sock:Is on hold until said pair are finished.

I made a really cute hat for Jake...I went sans pattern so it is a bit tight on his head but if I remember how I did it, Abby's will fit perfectly (I think I cast on 70). I may just make his Abbys since he really doesn't like to wear it (say it ain't so) and it fits her well (and it has a bit more purple than blue in it - didn't see that in the dim light of the shop).

On Saturday my friend Alexis met me at the craft shop and we bought stuff to make some handbags. They turned out really cute! Here is mine:

and you can see hers on her blog here. I actually finished mine on Sunday as we were running short on time and I am the one that keeps the sewing machine at the end of the day :)

On Thursday I finished filling the cop on my drop spindle so here is hank#3 of my Ring Around the Rosie yarn that will become some socks for me someday...Probably pair this yarn with some black and either use this pattern: or just to a simple sock with black cuff, heel and toe.

Sooo I am off to start a pair of socks...in parting I thought I'd show you the pic I was able to snap of Santa and his Reindeer:

Who needs A/C

Sooo for a while now the A/C on the van has been acting up (not blowing cold - unless your moving so red lights were unbearable during that heatwave we had a few weeks back). Anyway I finally took it in to the dealership to have them look at it (mind you this entailed both children's carseats having to be moved to the courtesy shuttle - I am really glad we didn't wait around for them to do it cuz we would have been there until 3pm and we got there around 9am). Anyway the diagnostic cost $105 after taxes...the fix would have cost another $1000 on top of that. We can't afford that so we are going to go on our annual camping trip with no A/C. Fortunately it is supposed to be a reasonable temperature this year (not in the 90's or higher thank goodness).

Last night I made another snake for Abby and also one for an almost 5yr old friend of mine.

Abby's is the smaller 18inch size and Eldon's is the larger 34inch size.

Now the task at hand is getting the house whipped into shape and getting everything packed and ready to go camping. We are leaving at the crack o dawn on Saturday so I have 4 days to do it. So I guess I'll go start a load of laundry.

What I've Been Up To.

I keep waiting to post until I have pics uploaded and I don't know why, I guess I just usually like blogs with pics (mostly - there are a couple of exceptions). Anyway so here is a quick catch me up.

First was the dryer acting up - well actually it was just taking things way too long to dry and the lint trap was not wanting to fit properly...so I get down and take a look...hard to see in there but there was obviously a lint build up stopping the trap from fitting and probably causing the drying problems too...so I get out a pair of hemostats? whatever they are called (have a friend that used to work sterilizing medical equipment and they had to throw out any with any flaws so he got to take some) anyway I got down in there but they were just pulling apart the clumps...not pulling them out.So I got out the screwdriver and pulled the guard off and then I was able to really reach down and pull that stuff out...my God there was a lot! I am not exaggerating when I figure it to be about a half a pound of lint and that doesn't count the stuff I got with the vacuum hose:No wonder the damn thing wouldn't dry...there was no where for the moisture to go...
Anyway once that problem was solved the dryer decided to behave itself a bit more (I think it just didn't like the thread of open-lint surgery again).

Ok so another little tale to go with how my next project got started...Every day I read my son a story from the Little Bear books. His favorite is "Birthday Soup." The basics of the story are this: Little Bear wakes up on his birthday with Mother Bear nowhere to be found. His friends are all coming over for his birthday but there is no cake and he needs something to serve his guests. He decides to make birthday soup with carrots, potatos, peas and tomatos. He makes the soup, everyone likes it and Mother Bear surprises him with his birthday cake. So anyway for about a week Jacob kept telling me he wanted to make birthday soup too (in his little voice it's soo cute and comes out "...with carrots, 'atatos, peas an' 'amatos.") So on Friday I finally got my fanny in gear and got everything together.I also decided to include half an onion and some diced up stew meat because we had it, it needed to be used up and I know that Brian and I probably wouldn't eat it without a few more flavors in it.
Jacob had a hard time waiting for me to dice and sautee the onions and beef so he tried to start the soup while I was doing that...I told him we needed to make sure our ingredients were good before we put them in the soup...so he checked (he's chewing a bite in that first pic):
Yes folks, that is my two year old enjoying the flavor of a raw onion...he even kept stealing bites of the diced bits too. He told me "It's good mommy."
So we got the base together and then added the diced carrots and potatoes and then just emptied a can of diced tomatoes and some frozen peas into it. Jake stirred and decided it was good and we should have lunch.
This is a little chef in the making...ensuring quality ingredients and tasting as he goes...good for him...
He really did not want to wait for it to cook. It looked done after all. Oh and then there was that whole 'its an hour past nap time' thing. So the second the potatos and carrots were soft enough to chew I let him have a bowl. He took a bite and said 'it's good mommy' then he took two more bites and informed me it was nap time. I think the poor kid was just holding out so he could try his soup (he is really good about telling me when it's nap time if he's tired).Here's the real kicker though. I had some with Jake at lunch time and it was ok. I didn't think Brian would go for it mostly because he just isn't really a soup kind of guy. He got home and Jacob and I told him we had made birthday soup for lunch. He tried to hide the 'I guess I have to taste it then' grimmace on his face and went to the kitchen to tell Jake how good it was. Instead of the expected 'wow Jake, this is really good - you did a good job helping mommy' I get the exclamation "Wow! this is really good soup - I think this is the best homemade soup you have ever made." I didn't think it was anything better than ok...so I tried it...he was right, after the flavors had a chance to mellow and blend it turned into really great soup! We even had it for dinner that night. Yay for birthday soup!
Ok so another intro story to a project...Jake and I were at WalMart and they have this little arcade in there with one of those claw machines you can get plush toys out of...so I decided to let Jake have a go at it (it's one of those play til you win ones)...the damn thing ate my money and Jake was having a fit because he wanted the damn stuffed snake...so I told him I would make him one when we got home...they seemed pretty simple I could probably come up with a pattern or something. Sooo after a couple of days of him not forgetting about it (this kid has one helluva memory, let me tell you...) and asking me repeatedly to make him a "'nake" I get my crap together and rough draw a pattern. He played with it for about an hour before walking up to me, handing me the snake and very matter-of-factly stating "My 'nake needs eyes Mommy." So I embroidered some eyes for him. This is what it turned out likeIt's about 18inches long (longer if it wasn't wavy). Not bad for a first go...he has been toting it about for several days now. Abigail likes to chew on the tail and I really need to make her one cuz Jake is rather possesive.
On Sunday I had my craft day with Alexis so she could finish up her name pillows and she brought her two cutie pie sons with her, Caden and Cole. Cole is 5 and Caden is almost 2. Cole needed something to do since the other kids were a bit to little for him to have any real fun with so I asked him if he wanted to make a snake. He said 'Yeah!' So we grabbed him some fabric from his Mom's bag and I drafted a snake right onto the fabric (made it a bit wider and longer as I had issues stuffing the first one...I had forgotten I needed to make it wider than I thought to account for the vertical height that stuffing it would take up). I thought it looked pretty darned good so I decided to trace it onto some freezer paper to preserve the pattern. I am glad I did...Here is how Cole's snake turned out...and mind you he did all of the ironing, helped with the pinning, sewing and stuffing - oh, and he picked out the green beads for eyes and named him Kevin.
Not too shabby. We finished him up and Cole thought Caden should have a snake too. Soooo we made one out of red fabric for him...I had just gotten the template ironed/pinned onto the fabric when Cole made the statement "snakes need tongues" - Right you are Cole, so I cut out a little tongue to add to Cadens...We were using flannel and I think that I need to use felt for the tongues so they don't fray...anyway...here is Caden's finished snake - Caden is little so he got embroidered eyes, just in case.Here is a close up of the tongue...
The big ones are are about 34 inches long. They seem to be a hit and I think I am going to make a bunch more...I am starting at least with another small one for Abigail to chew on. Girly colors. It should be fun.

After Alexis finished the sewing on Caden's pillow and they left Brian and I decided to have take-out Chinese for dinner since we really didn't want to cook...so I went and got some. We all sat at the table and ate, Abby in her bumbo as a centerpiece. She tried banana for the first time and liked it pretty well, she is still having a bit of a hard time getting over the tongue thrust reflex though. After dinner Brian headed for the living room and I got a rag to wipe Jake up...when I came back into the room this is what I saw:"Screw mashed banana, gimme BBQ Pork!" I can't believe she was able to stretch far enough to reach that! She was really pissed when I took it away too. Oh well. You need teeth first girl.
Last night after the Chinese food Jake informed me that it was bed time and that Mommy and Daddy and Abby ALL had to come up and put him to bed. Buuuut he wanted stories in 'Daddy's Room' (Also known as Brian's office with a computer and a futon). He got all set up with a pillow and a blanket and after the story wanted to sleep there. We decided that it was ok for one night and he did not try to get out of bed and goof-off so we let him. Might be hard to go to bed in his 'real' bed tonight, but so be it. After putting Jake down we came back downstairs and I fed Abby a bottle and needed to change her diaper again (I had literally JUST changed her when I got Jake into his jammies) before I could put her to bed. She was mostly asleep so I decided to do it on my lap to jossle her as little as possible...this is what I was rewarded with:Laughter, then the camera, then a towel. Joy. Not 10 minutes later she loaded it with the stinky stuff and had to be changed again. I should have made Brian do it.
Speaking of the stinky stuff I am off to empty the diaper pail and clean the cat box. Then I think I'll make another snake.