greetingarts

prickly pincushion

Wow.  I can't believe I finished it.  Not exactly how I pictured it, but, in all honesty, I didn't spend more than thirty or forty minutes on this.



The whole thing is about three inches tall.  The base is a bottlecap covered in felt, the cactus is basically a long green "U" shape that is stuffed, and the pink flower is just a strip of pink felt, gathered at the bottom and formed into a circle.  I like that the pins look like the spines, it saved me from having to find some sort of stiff thread or wire and make each one individually.  Anyway, I made it in for the Pincushion Challenge just in the nick of time.

Actually, I've been feeling very cactus-like lately, and I'm sure my family thinks I've been as prickly as one.  Hope this means it's out of my system, and I'll be my usual, approachable, un-irritable self again soon.
 

under 85

Lots of time has been spent with the kiddies lately, consequently, not a lot of crafting got done.  There has been a doctor's checkup with vaccinations, canine teeth and molars coming in at the same time, the wake-up-3-times-a-night-wanting-to-play phase, and whew, I tell ya, that 15 month old has one nasty temper (who the heck did she get that from?)!  It's been hotter and more humid for a longer period of time than I can remember, and our fussiness was reaching record levels.  Today, finally, is grey and around 83 degrees.  I am so thankful for that!  There's been a lot of ice cream eating around here.  Free cones are calorie-free, too, right?

I did manage to complete a pair of socks this month, though.  They were very challenging, but I learned a lot.  My first pair of toe-ups, done with size #1 double points, all in leftover 100% wool yarn from my stash. 



The cuff was unusual, done in garter stitch with a seam.  The heel gave me so much trouble, I was stuck on it for almost a week, I think.  Knitting, then ripping out, then trying again.  Finally, I got some help from someone in the Six Sox Knitalong, and she sent me a link and a super long email (Thanks, Nancy!) that helped things click.  Now I can do toe-up patterns, too!  But... I think I like my top-downs better.

I don't think I'll be getting my flower pincushion done in time, though.  I had an idea, just ran out of time, despite the two months I had to work on it!  Oh, well.  You can see the wonderful non-procrastinators' ideas here tomorrow.

35 things

1.  I lived in Buffalo, New York until the summer after first grade.

2.  The last math class I took was during my junior year of high school.

3.  I've written and published a children's book.

4.  I haven't had more than five hours of uninterrupted sleep in over four years.

5.  I used to have a poster of Rick Springfield on my bedroom wall.  C'mon, sing with me!  "Jessie was a friend, yeah I know he's been a good friend of mine..."

6.  I played the violin from the third grade all the way through senior year of high school.

7.  I love my carbohydrates.  Sourdough bread, baguettes, pretzels, pasta, yum!

8.  At one point, I had every single shade of embroidery floss that DMC produced (excluding the variegated colors), wound onto little bobbins, labeled and placed in numerical order in four stacking organizers.  Yeah.  I know.  Pre-mommy days.


 
9.  I do think Barry Manilow writes the songs that make the whole world sing.

10. I don't like cheesecake.

11. My checkbook is not balanced.  It's off by two cents, and I am not going to be spending any more time looking for those two pennies.

12. I dislike shopping for shoes.

13. I'm very squeamish about TV and movie violence... PG is about my level, PG-13 is usually pushing it.

14. I've made all my cards, thank you notes, invitations, and announcements for so long now that I don't think I'll ever be able to send store-bought ones again.

15. I almost always sing along with the car radio.

16. I would love to sell my handmade items.

17. There is a bottle of Bath and Body Works Gentle Foaming Soap at each sink I use in my house.   Never two of the same scent, and yes, I do smell them all at the store before I buy them.

18. My right ear is no longer pierced.

19. I don't wear a watch.

20. I'm lucky enough to have known all four of my grandparents.

21. There have been paint chips taped to the kitchen cabinets since the month we moved here, back in  2004.

22. I like my diet sodas with a lot of ice.

23. I miss having a birthday cake with candles.

24. I need to have a box of Kleenex at the ready before I go to sleep every night, regardless of where I am.  Okay.  That sounds absolutely insane, but I guess there are worse hangups to have.

25. My husband is a better cook than I am.

26. I must dance or move some part of my body when I hear Michael Bublé's Save the Last Dance for Me. (Can someone tell me how to put that little accent mark over the 'e'?  Driving me crazy...)  Thanks so much Amanda, you're an HTML genius!

27. I held down three jobs at the same time when I was in college.

28. I understand and speak Mandarin (with a very heavy American accent) pretty fluently, but cannot read or write Chinese beyond the level of a five year old.

29. I still haven't sent out thank you notes for Rebecca's birthday presents, or Jessie's, either! 

30. I swear (too much).

31. I like the smell of Play Doh.

32. I use coupons.

33. Dark chocolate is my favorite.

34. I cannot pass up a good sale.

35. I used to think 35 was old.  I don't feel old at all.

laser lemon

The blossom.

And the fruit.  Here's our lemon cucumber, almost ready to eat.  These plants are growing like crazy, despite the fact that all the bottom leaves are either brown and falling off, and the rest are mostly pockmarked with little squiggly tracks (?) or have tiny holes.  The whole garden (all nine pots) is just sort of sad looking, but there are at least sixty cucumbers among the six plants, probably more.  The Sugar Snack tomato plant has like only two leaves left on it, the rest having been devoured by chubby green caterpillars, but it's got like fifteen ripening fireballs of sweet cherry tomatoes that Becca is just itching to pick.

I missed Week 1 of the Year of Color, because I was going to take a picture of my wedding shoes, but then I remembered this, and thought you all would think I had some sort of weird obsession with shoes, particularly white ones.  And then I saw a white hair, followed by another, and another, and another, and as my husband pointed out, too many to count.  The white hairs didn't go over too well, since tomorrow is my 35th birthday, and I've been feeling very out of sorts in general, so I officially boycotted white, and moved on to Week 2.  Thanks, Amy.  I look forward to playing along.  Just not with white.  Hmmm, please don't pick grey next?

WIP waiting in preparation

Getting ready to make a Chibi Kitty or Bunny for a friend who is starting chemo today.  I sewed a few fabrics together for the bottom decorative part, so I can make the fronts and backs different, and the plan is to make three in one sitting.

Sorry for the wrinkly fabric, it is too darn hot to even think about an iron, even at midnight.

make a pig of yourself

Or, rather, for yourself and your friends.  It's ready, so go over to JudyKits and in return for a little bit of info, you'll be able to download her pattern.  Take a look at the other stuff, too, her toy patterns are really unique, and the kits have hand-dyed yarn.  My favorite is the clownfish.

And since I'm on the subject of piggies, Olivia is my favorite, and look what I picked up at a quilt shop I visited this past weekend!

Some closeups...

They weren't exactly cheap, so I only got half a yard of each.  Don't know what I'll do with them, but at least I can pet them once in a while.  Love 'em.  You can see the whole line here, and there are a lot of free quilt patterns there that you can download, too.  Scroll down, towards the middle of the page, to see the Olivia one.

Hmmm.  It just occurred to me that I do a lot of posts featuring piggies.  Maybe because that's the year I was born in?

Edited: Oh, yeah, I was an English major, can't you tell?  Sheesh.  That last line should read, "Maybe because that's the year in which I was born."  There.  Much better.  Alicia would be proud.

WIP with inquisitive participation

A yo-yo quilt in the making.  Although, with all the help I'm getting from my little assistants (can you see evidence of them in the very top and upper right of the photo?), this may not get finished until they both start going to school.

magic yarn ball

I was cutting back on some of my obligations a little while ago, but couldn't resist signing up for the Magic Yarn Ball swap.  And oh, I'm so glad I didn't miss it!  It was such fun to put together, I couldn't stop at just one ball, and sent Marylyn two skeins of green mohair.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture, but you can check out the one she took.  Yes, I parted with my little socks.  It was really hard to do, but I think I can recreate them, and I can't wear earrings anymore, so I figured I should let them go to a home where, hopefully, they will be appreciated and shown off a little. 

Then, last week, a fantastic paint can full of goodies arrived from Timbrely (don't you just love that name?).  She said she was mostly thinking of my daughters when she put things together, but I got no less enjoyment out of everything than they did.

Here's the yarn ball, one skein of Lion Brand Microspun, which I've used in the past, and like a lot.  What to make?  Any suggestions?  It's tempting to just rewind it and get all the goodies out now, but I'll try to be good.

And here are all the extras she sent!  Some bamboo yarn for me, which I've never seen before, and so many fun things for the girls.  Becca especially loves that "Thumb Things," a little booklet that shows you how to make doodles using your own fingerprints.  And I like it because the ink actually does come off her fingers.

But my favorite surprise quite possibly was the two lightcubes.  What is a lightcube, you might ask?

Plastic, reusable ice cubes that light up!  Each cube has a little tiny button that you press to turn it on, and switch between eight different modes, red, blue, green, red/blue, blinking, whatever, they are absolutely hysterical.  Thank you so much, Timbrely, what fun!

WIP while I'm parenting

This is what I've been working on lately while I'm waiting for Rebecca to fall asleep at night.  Jess is easy, she gets a book or two, her nighttime bottle, and then we lay her in her crib, kiss the top of her head, shut the door, and she usually doesn't make a peep again until 7:30 the next morning.  Becca, on the other hand, has always been a non-sleeper.  She hates the dark, hates the night time.  It makes her feel more comfortable knowing her father and I are in the next room,  rather than downstairs, so we've been staying up in the loft (which is also our bedroom) until she falls asleep. 

I love mindless handwork like this, and the I Spy quilt will hopefully be something the girls can play with together.  I'm addicted to collecting fabric for it, though, so it's going to be hard knowing when to stop.

fournow

Six days into being fournow, (as in, "I'm not just four, I'm fournow" exclamation point) and Rebecca wants to sleep in the big girl bed, not on the trundle anymore.



And here she is two hours later.



Doesn't that bed look gigantic for her?  Sigh.  Still my little girl, thank goodness.