Oh No She Didn't!

Why yes indeed, its true! You may want to make sure you're sitting down for this one just in case you faint from shear disbelief.

It's been over a year in the making, you've seen some progress here and there.

And now for the 1st time anywhere, Loki's On A Whim Quilt!!!!

Pattern: Easy Lap Quilt from Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol

Fabric: On a Whim (Robert Kaufman),  a wee bit of Amy Butler Lotus full moon polka dot, Ohio Sky happy dots,  and AB45 blue solid (also some brown and green swirly fabric that I have no idea what it is).

Modifications: I changed the overall size to be just big enough to cover the top of a twin bed with no overhang.  

It ended up being 45 x 63 1/2.

I even managed to do mitered corners. 

For the binding I cut the quilt backing to be 2 inches wider than the overall quilt and then folded it over about a 1/2 inch then folded it again and sewed it down. I think for my next quilt (for Astas) I will make binding, ugh. I think it will just make a nicer looking reverse side.

Why now? What kicked me into high gear and got my lazy bones motivated? Well, two things: My lovely friend Rae and the fact that she linked to me and my unfinished quilt (hangs head). Thank you, thank you Rae (see hers here) And I finally found fabric to make Astas a quilt. I could in no way persuade myself to buy fabric for another quilt when I hadn't finished the first one. I guess it's a good thing I had another baby or Loki may never have seen a finished product.

It's a Futte Futte Christmas!

Since the tree toppling incident I decided I needed more unbreakable ornaments. 

Enter the Futte Futte! 

It was a total spur of the moment "Hey, Loki lets make some felt balls" kind of event. I think I spent more time trying to locate everything I needed then actually making the felt balls, well almost.

It was a bit wet and messy using the Futte Futte indoors but I think I learned a few thing on how to use it better, so it was actually faster than I thought it was going to be.

The other thing that prompted me to wanna make ornaments is that Loki has his own tree that he can decorate (or un-decorate) as he sees fit with no help from Mama.

 Felt "bulb" 

Fluffy snowman!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tis the Season: Stocking Disaster?

I'm being partly probably overly dramatic but you may know how it is when a project just dosen't turn out the way one has planned. Such is my plight. I'm going to carry on with this post as intended and then get to the "disaster" part.

It all started with the stocking my mom made me.

"Awwww"

I made my husband (at the time my boyfriend) a stocking  out of some prefab wool felt (it's the one on the left with the white top).  I made Loki's stocking out of a wool sweater I felted ( I was just getting into the whole recycled wool felt thing)

I did a bit of embrodery (badly, so no photo)

I even added a tiny snowman to my husband's 

(cute so there is a photo)

Stockings hung with care!

But wait, we need one more. I ran out to the thrift store to get a red wool sweater to felt. This is where the "disaster" begins. They didn't have any. They only acrylic blends, which will not felt. Ugh, I settled on a nice one with a cable. I traced my pattern and sewed it up. 

Looking good?

Then I went to hang it and it faces the opposite way. DISASTER! I know it's really not and in fact have found a solution. I was going to just use the plain non-cabled side, but then discovered that Loki's could face any direction (his just has a few Christmas pins in it that are easy to move).

All is well

Well? Kinda, I just don't have the energy to make another so I will just have to get used to it. I think it's going to drive me crazy but I really think it's more important that the stocking is nice looking rather than face a certain direction.

Tis the Season: Part 1

Ohhh its holiday time again and as usual  I have more ideas than time, energy or motivation. At least the tree is up. Which is actually saying a lot after a near tree disaster last Wednesday when the whole thing toppled over and crash landed on the ground. Needless to say I was reduced to a crying mess at the sight of my , just finished being decorated, tree on the ground with a pool of water around it. Luckily nothing major was broken.

I had no forethought to snap a photo of the fallen tree, just a small part of the carnage.

Moving on...

I wanted to post about my handmade holiday items. 

Frist up is my string of  felt "popcorn and cranberries" 

I made about a 3 foot string by hand pre-futte futte. This is actually what prompted my search for such a tool. After spending days, yes DAYS, making these tiny white and burgundy balls my hands were raw and sore. Worth it not to have to string the real thing every year (which I used to do).

I need to make more because I don't have enough to cover the whole tree. As it is I kinda snake it back and forth across the front of the tree to cover more "prime" viewing space.

Next Up: Stocking!

Two Steps Forward! Slippers!

YES! Loki's Slippers are done. 

They have actually been knit for several weeks, it just took me forever to get the motivation to felt them. Of course now that they are done Loki wants nothing to do with them. 

I had to bribe him to put them on  so I could take a picture:

Mmmmm yummy peppermint JoJo

These were made using a double strand of Lanaloft in the color marmalade . I still have plenty left and have already started in on a pair of mittens. Yes, I am still starting new things without finishing old things. 

As Promised, Item #1

Ahhhhhh, finally, I've finished something:

Astas' Pants 

Or Jumper/Overalls

These started out as Cargo from Knitty, but then morphed into my own pattern (I'll provide details in an upcoming post) These can be worn with or without the re-moveable straps. There are buttons on the front and back and the straps have the buttonholes.

These skull buttons on the front of the "pants" were originally going to go on a sweater I made for Loki last year. I think they found a better home here.

I'm Still Here

Sorry for the lag time between posts and this "teaser" post

It's just been one of those day/weeks/months.

On top of being a mom I work for a lovely lady named Molly Ging who owns The Little Seedling. I am able to bring both my little ones to work with me and for that I am super thankful and wanted to say thanks out loud in front of the world (well you know, those who see my tiny blog) and to make excuses for not posting.

Anyway, I actually have been doing some knitting. I just have a few teeny tiny finishing touches left

Here's one I just finished before this post.

I hope to have at least 2 ( pants and hat)of the millions of projects I'm working on totally done this weekend, including a post about them.

Getting Nothing Done

I have made almost no progress on any of my previously mentioned projects, but do not despair, I've started a new one! Yes, that's right, even though I have several things on needles (not to mention a quilt to finish) I have begun and am actually close to done with a whole new project.

I think I have some sort of aversion to finishing things because they are adding up faster and in bigger piles all over the house.

What is this new project? I am now knitting a pair of slippers for Loki using the Fiber Trends children's felt clog pattern . 

They are orange (Loki's Favorite color) of course! I tried really hard to get him to pick some Cascade 220 that was on sale at Knit A Round (no orange left) but while looking he just kept pulling out random colors until he peeked around the corner and saw some Lanaloft (not on sale) and said "Oh look! Here's orange Mama!"

I really want to finish these before next spring so I've gotten really good at knitting while holding a sleeping baby. Astas has taken to having 20 min or so of arms free napping. This is not good for getting anything done.

I'm also working on the last detail for the pant's I'm making Astas (it will make sense when they are done. Tease, tease , tease)

A Baby Sweater I Did Not Knit

I must confess that I have made absolutely no progress at all what so ever on Loki's quilt. Ugh. It's sitting in the corner waiting, waiting...

On the other hand the pants/jumper for Astas are almost done. Seam sewing and straps are all that are needed. I'm almost finished with some very cool changes to the super simple stripy baby hat. (These are teasers I know, but "I need more time!")

In the meantime please enjoy my stall tactics and this lovely sweater that our friend Joann knit for Astas. It was like she read my mind. I had just been thinking I wanted to make a cardigan for the babe but had all these other things I had to do.

 Presto! I come home from work and there is this lovely baby cardigan waiting for us!

(not the best photo, but it will have to do. Sorry)

No one has ever knit for me like this before, I love it! The yarn is a great fall/boy color without screaming "boy". It's soft, squishy and monogramed. Yeah!!

I'm now wanting to make one too. We will see if I have time.

(Sorry for the lack of baby in cardigan pictures, he just wouldn't cooperate and I was impatient to get this post up and running)

Moderne Days Gone By.

I really wanted to show off some things I've done, but must admit they were finished long ago.

I made my first Mason Dixon Moderne Log Cabin baby blanket way back in 2007 for Loki before he was born.

I used 2 strands of Koigu KPPPM held together for the body of the blanket and a single strand of Louet Gems lt. worsted weight.

 

With the leftover yarn I made matching booties

Oh, little Loki when he was a week old! Doing this post was so fun. I got to look back at picture of my Loki when he was a tiny babe. Ohhh, time passes so quickly.

Let me tell you I wanted to use every scrap of yarn I had. It took 10 skeins of Koigu and 2 of the Gems to make this blanket happen. It was not cheap, it was worth it, but not cheap. I did use the rest to make the booties and was only left with about a yard of each color.

Frankenslipper

I had a totally different name for this post when I began, but then I saw what I was ending up with, well you'll see...

This is a story about a totally harmless little slipper.

It all started when I made myself a pair of slippers from the

Fiber Trends Felt Clog Pattern about 2 years ago. I wore them all the time and when they started showing some threadbare spots at the begining of last winter, I ignored it. 

I went to put them the other day and remembered 

"Oh yeah, these have holes"

I decided instead of making a new pair (remember the lazy factor) 

I'd just repair the slippers. So far so good.

 

To make the repair I used a felted thrift store sweater. Still doing ok.

I cut out new soles to put over the old ones and I thought I was going to be brilliant and needle felt some extra patches on but it didn't work at all. Boo. This is where it all started going badly.

 I  resorted to hand whip stitching them on and then doing the same to attach the new soles to the slippers. I searched and searched for the blue yarn that I had made them out of to no avail. I did find the green yarn that I had made my husbands slippers out of. (His are fine by the way) and thats when..

... from the old slippers

Frankenslipper was born

Look away, look away. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  

Scary huh?

Fall is in the Air.

I realized I never posted a finished picture of the sweater I made for Loki. Pulling it out of storage in preparation for the crisp weather that is in the air made me want to share. It's such a wonderfully light weight but warm sweater. Taking it out makes me want to knit another, but I gotta get those pants done 1st.

Close up of the buttons.  There is a close up of the stripes here.

The pictures are from last year when it was finished. 

I just never put them up.

Two at Once

I was going to post this as kinda off topic but then it occurred to me that really it's not at all. Why not? I was figuring this blog is as much about me as it is my crafts. So many blogs are about the person behind the art not just the art. (There is a whole other blog post brewing in here regarding art and craft.)

This evening I took my 1st foray into double babywearing. Two babes at once (well one toddler and a babe).

Astas is in a Pfau Didy wrap  and Loki is in a Babyhawk.

Not the best picture as this was taken right after we got home and it turned out about 30min was all we could handle. Loki was ready to jump out, but I made him pose for a quick pic for proof that it happened at all. 

I was surprised at how "easy" it was to throw two kids in carriers and trot off into the woods. I bet if I keep it up I'll be back to my fighin' weight in no time.

I Sew Too.

You may know that I've been working on a quilt for my dear Loki for well over a year now. I have come to an "I'm almost done point". This is usually where I stall out. "I don't wanna" my mind whines.  I will push on. I have all three layers quilted. I just have to bind the thing up and voilà! I will be done and my kid will be warm when he sleeps.

See, proof, sewing does happen!

I realized after several posts about said quilt I never mention where the pattern comes from. So here goes: It's from Bend The Rules Sewing by Amy Karol ( AKA Angry Chicken) , the Easy Lap Quilt. My quilt is a tad longer too make it fit on a twin bed without hanging off at all. I'll give all the nitty gritty measurements and what not when the thing is all finished.

CHECK OUT THE FINISHED QUILT HERE!!

The Proof Is In The Knitting.

Hey, look I'm knitting! Wonder of wonders! Wonder what I'm knitting?

Can you tell yet? 

I'm sure you may recognize the yarn. Why yes, it's Swish Worsted, again ( I bought way, way to much for the moderne log cabin baby blanket). The colors are Lawn and Marine Heather. 

What about now!

I'm making a pair of wee pants for Astas. I'm using the Cargo pattern from Knitty Summer 05 issue. I'm knitting 2 legs at a time on one needle using magic loop. I'm super lazy and any way to get stuff done that even seems faster and easier, I'll take it!  Someday soon I'm going to do a blog tutorial on the old 2 at a time magic loop I just got to get all the info together in an easy to understand way. Anyway......

My plan for these pants is to, 

A: not put pockets on ( refer to aforementioned laziness) 

B: make them into a jumper of sorts (you'll see when I'm finished what I'm talking about)

I'm using the jogless stripes technique from TECHknitting™

A sort of terribly lit close up of the color change

It's working great although I think I could be pulling a bit tighter to have less of a seam due the magic loop and it kinda bulges because of the floats of yarn from the stripe changes.

One thing about working two pant legs (sleeve's, socks, ect..) at a time and in stripes is that you have kind of a yarn nightmare you really have to stay on top of or you will spend precious knitting time untangling the mess.

Note the mess on the right! 

(It's really not that bad, as I am keeping it under control)

I hope to finish them before Astas is too big to wear um!

Oh, Summer, how I never even knew you.

 I've been away again. (I know hard to tell.) This time on vacation up north here in Michigan. It started out all rainy and cold and blah. The weather perked up and by mid week it was warm enough to dip a toe into Lake Michigan.

We had a lot of firsts on our trip:

Loki's  (and Astas') 1st boat ride! 

Loki's 1st time "fishing".

Loki's 1st Kayak ride!

Loki's 1st ever taste of superman ice cream that for some reason I forgot to get a picture of. Let me tell you that flavor is gross, trust me on this, as I was the one who licked the edges to keep them from dripping. I should have just let it drip but the thought of the  crazy bright colors staining his clothes was too much to bare.

And a dry bed overnight for Loki. That was a first and so far has been an only.

We mostly just hung out and took it easy. I was super lucky to have 2 kids who napped and went to bed AT THE SAME TIME. 

Really it was amazing. I read several magazines and 

I even had time to knit! Woo Hoo! (more on this in the next post)

So I'm back and a bit saddened by the fact that I feel summer has past me by. I didn't get to the pool enough or spend enough time outside. I feel like my new little one is growing fast and that time is slipping away from me. Hopefully with falls arrival will come a sense of motivation and productivity.