The fact that these two amazing human beings call me mom is the best thing that ever happened to me. A lobster dinner is just icing on the cake.
Happy Mother's day to my mom, my sister, and all the dedicated, loving, hard-working women out there. And thanks to the men that gave us the gift of motherhood. Best gift ever.
The little one turned seven yesterday, and we celebrated at Farrell's. I remember going there for my tenth birthday with my aunt and cousins, and there was a great big drum, sirens, and a whole lot of ice cream. They closed down for a while, and recently re-opened. There's always a line outside, regardless of the day of week and time of day. We had to wait for about 20 minutes to get a table, which worried me at first, but it was totally worth it. There was loud singing of unique birthday songs, amazing balloon sculptures fashioned into headwear, lively waiters and waitresses that certainly earned their tips, and huge smiles all around.
What's she holding up? One of her birthday gifts, a pair of pillowcases.
Great fabric, I bought it online last year (sorry, can't remember where) and have been waiting and waiting to make these cases. It was so gratifying that the moment she unwrapped them, she loved them. And she doesn't care one bit that mommy didn't pay attention to the direction of the fabric when she cut it...(think about it, the words should read horizontally when you look at the pillow lying on the bed, not vertically like in the picture above)!
One pillowcase was immediately used for its intended purpose the moment we got home last night, and the other was a shawl/cape/sleeping bag and is currently housing her stuffed cat and being dragged around the house. Totally warms my heart.
Happy seven, my little one.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted! I am a terrible blogger. Life just never slows down, does it? I guess you can make these fast and easy little hearts for Mother's Day, though, or do you really need a holiday to say I love you, or pass on a little love? They would be very cute as pins and small enough to stick in the mail, too, just because.
For most of the hearts I made for the girls, I used a B hook (2.25 mm). The yarn was sport weight (DK) I think, a little thinner than worsted. They finished up about 1" across, but I used a thicker hook (a D maybe?) and worsted weight yarn to make a bigger guy, about twice the size. Of course, you can make any size you'd like by experimenting with yarn and hook sizes. This is really good for short odds and ends you might have lying around. You'll be working in the round and only have to weave in the ends when you're done. I use one of the ends to sew up the middle of the heart, which probably makes no sense to you now, but hopefully will be clear later...
Heartstrings pattern:
ch - chain
sc - single crochet
st(s) - stitch(es)
Start off with a magic circle. If you don't know what that is, click on the link (which will take you to a YouTube video) and be prepared to have your crocheting life changed. Anyway, then ch 1, and make 3 sc into the circle. Close up your circle, as tightly as possible.
Round 1: Make 2 sc in each sc around. (6)
Round 2: *Sc in next st, 2 sc in next st.* Repeat from * to * around. (9)
Round 3: *Sc in each of next 2 sts, 2 sc in next st.* Repeat from * to * around. (12)
Round 4: *Sc in each of next 3 sts, 2 sc in next st.* Repeat from * to * around. (15)
Round 5: *Sc in each of next 4 sts, 2 sc in next st.* Repeat from * to * around. (18)
Round 6: Sc in each of the next 9 sts, skip the 9 sts remaining. (9)
Round 7: Sc in each of the next 9 sts (which are ones you created in Round 6). (9)
Round 8: *Sc next 2 sts together, sc.* Repeat from * to * around. (6) Fasten off.
Weave end through the last six stitches, pulling tightly to gather. Stuff the heart and stick the yarn tail to the inside, using it as extra stuffing. You really need very little stuffing if you're making the same size I did.
Now, join your yarn to one of the unworked stitches of Row 6, and repeat Rounds 6-8. If you have a bit of a gap in the valley between the humps of the heart, just use the tail of this second hump to kind of sew them together and then hide the end back inside the finished heart. Finish up with two teeny puffy paint dots for eyes, string on some satin cord or glue on a ¾" pin back, and you're done.
You can make a whole slew of these really quickly, much more quickly than it took me to get this post written! Sorry, and thanks for waiting.
I can't believe I actually did it, I finished all 55 Valentines gifties for the girls' classmates and teachers, two days before Valentine's Day. Whoo hoo! Must be a record for us crafters, or... maybe just me.
These little hearts are about 1" across at their widest point, and most are on satin cord for necklaces, continuing the collection from Christmas and Halloween. I put pin backs on the five for the teachers. These are crocheted, though, not knitted like the previous ones, but I don't think anyone will notice. The fantabulous little cards are from the oh-so-generous Jessica of zakka life, and they were just perfect for this project. Now the necklaces won't get tangled up, turn into a jumbled mess and take forever to distribute. These will be a piece of cake.
One of the greatest things about this project is that I got to turn lemons into lemonade... I had a great skein of red wool yarn I'd been saving for years. When I was going through my stash early in January, I realized I had some unwanted visitors and sometimes it's not so good to save things.
The whole skein had been eaten through, and the yarn was broken up into random, various lengths. So I turned them into miniature hearts, and used up about half a skein that probably would have gone into the recycle bin (actually, I don't even know if you can do that!). Win, win.
If anyone ever wants a tutorial on the hearts, let me know. I can do them with my eyes closed. Really.
Here's a bowlful of Mochimochi Land's knitted candy corn, almost ready for passing out to Rebecca's classmates on Friday. I need to add jump rings and cord for necklaces, maybe sew pin backs onto a few for her teachers.
And I'm doing something entirely different for Jessie's classroom favors... not done yet, so I'll wait to share that. I'm room mom, too, so have a paper plate mummy craft planned, and a fun spiderweb yarn ball game with treats and prizes. Can't wait!
I got a great big heaping helping of spam last Friday. This one was a doozy. I'm so sorry if you got my "teary-eyed message from a hotel in London." I can assure you I wasn't there and I didn't get mugged. If I had, I would not send emails to every. single. one. of my contacts asking for money to be wired to me. Of course, I was irritated when I first heard about the spam, but I figured, oh well, that's okay, I'll just send an email to my contact list telling them sorry and to ignore the previous message. But when I got home and accessed my account, I found that I had nothing there. No saved emails that I was going to get back to later, no archived and categorized messages of things I'd been keeping for the past 15+ years, and no contacts. Not a single solitary one. Those effing spammers cleaned out my entire account. I'm trying to get the contacts restored via Yahoo!, but so far no response. Needless to say, I am through with Yahoo. I've set up a new gmail account, you can send me an email by clicking on the link in the top left sidebar. You can now contact me at greetingarts (at) gmail (dot) com. And please do, that way I'll have your email addresses again. I lost everything, even my own parents' email info! Luckily I remember my sister's...
Anyway. That was my whole Friday... and Saturday...
But on Sunday we had Easter fun.
I made a few Easter Peeps pins, one was given to Rebecca's teacher on Friday, and some were for the kiddos. I used the template found here, just reduced it way down so that it was a little less than 2" tall.
I attached a miniature one onto a hair tie, so Jessie could wear it as a bracelet.
I knit up some tiny baby bunnies (we call them mini dust bunnies) and put them in a few Easter eggs. The rest had erasers or jellybeans. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, invited a bunch of the relatives, had an egg hunt, dyed eggs (32!), decorated cookies, and ate a lot. Like a lot a lot. Very nice afternoon.
Now it's back to dealing with the spam.
I brought some treats for Jessica's classmates this afternoon, Play-Doh fancied up to look like cupcakes. I first saw the general idea here, but instead of covering the labels with scrapbooking paper (which I would have to measure and cut to length, then adhere), I simply used decorative cupcake liners (which seem to multiply in my pantry even though I haven't bought any in years).
And since I had a ton of crepe paper roses lying around from last year's teacher appreciation day, taking up valuable craft space, I just snipped the heads off, used my trusty mini glue gun and stuck them directly onto the Play-Doh lids.
Now, I can switch gears and get ready for Easter next Sunday if I can just shake this darn cold I've got, and, more importantly, keep the kiddos from catching anything from me.
Happy birthday, Jessica, my baby. I can't wait to see what every day of being six means for you.
...for my mom.
We'll keep trying to call, but you're probably out to dinner. How come the answering machine isn't working?
Love you, hope you had a great day!
With both kids in school and class sizes increasing, I thought I was going to be in a bit of trouble with handmade class gifties for parties and things this year, but we got Valentine's Day all taken care of with no problem.
Jessica will be handing out 25 origami hearts, but instead of lollipops, ours contain miniature heart crayon/pencil thingies I bought at the after-Valentine's sale at Target last year. I love how the heart looks like an oversized jacket and the smiley face pokes out of the top.
Rebecca decided on Friday after school that she wanted little crocheted heart ornaments like these, so I got out some small balls of yarn leftover from making socks and toys, used the pattern from Little Birdie Secrets (so darn easy to remember!), and made 20 in less than an hour. The tags were die cut with my good old Sizzix.
And of course a little something for the teachers, plastic wine glasses filled with Cherry Cordial M&Ms and Valentine's ribbon. I'll show you what I made for the kiddos some other time, for now I have to run off to help out with two classroom parties!
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. May there be lots of love in your life, today and always.
Santa,
Please give presents to dead people.
By Jessica
12/16/10
My girl with the sweet, kind heart wishes all people (dead or alive) and animals a very merry Christmas, with lots of presents to unwrap and good food (chocolate) to eat.
From all of us, Rebecca, Jessie, my husband and I, happy holidays.
