greetingarts

no willpower whatsoever

Have you guys seen this?  I debated whether or not to join for about seventeen minutes, but ultimately I have no willpower, so I signed up.  For more than one event.  It's not like I don't have anything else going on, but oh well.  Even if I get killed quickly, it will be a fun way to go!

thirty-seven

1. 37 Creamy, 2. 37, 3. 37, 4. 37, 5. 37, 6. 037, 7. 037, 8. 037, 9. 037

Today is my birthday, and as I sit here with less than a couple of hours left in the night, typing and listening to the sounds of my three darlings snoring over the baby monitor (Daddy conked out trying to get the baby to sleep), I feel full.  Happy birthday to me, life is pretty dang good right now.

baby sewing steps

My husband and I bought Rebecca a Hello Kitty sewing machine for her birthday, and we pulled it out of the box last week to make a gift for her friend.  But, alas!  Something was wrong with the bobbin case (still have to figure that one out), and we were under time pressure (of course, what else is new?), so we sewed this up together on my trusty old Singer instead.

Based on the artist's organizer I saw on Martha Stewart's website, we made this with felt and a little bit of ribbon.  Becca chose the colors and ribbon, and I did all the measuring and cutting.  Then Rebecca depressed the foot pedal, stopping exactly when she was supposed to, not running over any pins.  I think she did a great job, and it was a nice introduction to the machine.  Though she's just itching to try it completely on her own.  She's always watched me now and then whenever I use the machine around her, but this is the first time she's been actively involved from start to finish. 

The hardest part was keeping Jessie from interfering.  Poor thing.  Just wants to do everything her sister does.  She was absolutely heartbroken when she found out the J didn't stand for Jessica.

portrait of the artist as a young woman

The kids are always after me to let them paint, whether it be watercolors, finger paints, or whatever.  And usually all mean old mommy can think of is the mess, the utter mess.  But the other day I relented, and I'm so glad I gave in.

Here's the subject, trying to be serious.  She was under strict orders not to eat the banana until the painting was finished.

The artist was hard at work. 

There was much repositioning and gesturing, dramatic pleas for the subject to not move.  A lot of giggling, by all of us.

Okay, is this better?  How 'bout now?  Can I eat my banana now?

Yes!  Okay, now!

And even the subject created a few masterpieces of her own.  I've got a fine art gallery in my living room now, and every piece is priceless.

crocheted flower tutorial

Okay, here goes nothing.  A very simple tutorial for my flower embellishments.

Step 1:  Make a magic circle, 5 sc into ring, pull circle closed.

Step 2:  Join with sl st into first sc.

Step 3:  In the same stitch, (sc, 3 dc, sc, sl st).  You've just completed one petal.

Step 4-7:  Sl st in the next sc, repeat Step 3.

You should end up with a total of five petals.  Leave a long tail at the end and/or at the beginning, and you can use it to sew your flower onto whatever you wanted to fancy up.

The center of your flower can be a different color than the petals if you switch your yarn after Step 2.  Just crochet over the ends, so you won't have as many tails to weave in (because that's almost as bad as having to sew up seams).

If you want a flower with more (or less) petals, just add or subtract the number of single crochets you make into the initial ring in Step 1.  Here, I made 7 sc, which resulted in 7 petals. 

Change hook sizes, experiment with different yarn, embroidery floss, perle cotton, whatever.  So many possibilities.

So there you go, hope that works out for you.  Let me know if you have any problems, or questions.  I know I'm a very careful and thorough pattern tester, but I'm not so sure about my ability to write them!

elephant

I don't know what's cuter, this video or my Jessie giggling while watching it (especially the ear part).

In the end I'd probably pick Jessie, but I'm biased, and the video is still pretty dang cute.

little bit of magic

When I first saw the Magic Slippers pattern by SockPixie, I knew I'd have to try it.

Mine look completely different because, as usual, I didn't follow the pattern exactly.  I knitted this pair with leftover fingering weight wool yarn, using double points.  They're stockinette stitch instead of garter (because, honestly, I just like knitting better than purling), edged with a round of simple single crochet, and embellished with two crocheted flowers.  If anyone is interested, I could create a little flower tutorial (because I did manage to remember what I did in case I ever need to make some more).  They're super simple, though, so maybe a pattern isn't even necessary.  I'm giving this pair away to charity, and I do think the flowers add a little something special.

But you know what the absolute best thing is about these slippers? 

"Look, Ma, no seams!"

peace and prosperity

One of my favorite blocks in the series.  Not so crazy about that plaid, though.  But in the overall quilt I'm sure it won't matter.  Now I've got one last block to make, and then all those log cabins...!

maybe I should just go live in the car

I need to get rid of that yucky image, so here's a photo of the car organizer I sewed a few months ago to help Linda test out her pattern.  Using heavy stabilizer, it's essentially a 12" wide x 10" high x 8" deep box with pockets for pens, a charging cell phone, magazines and/or coupons, and two sections so that the garbage is separated from the Kleenex and wet wipes. 

Mine looks a little floppy and wrinkled here, I have no idea why.  It's not like that in real life.  Loops of ribbon are sewn to two D-rings, and that's where you tuck in the handles of one of those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags, which becomes your trash bag, held nicely in place.  My car organizer is very hard working and keeps the minivan neat and relatively tidy, which is, sadly, much more than I can say for my home.

#634 on the list of things I do for my children...

... suck up poisonous-looking, fanged monstrosities in Hoover Wet/Dry Handvacs.  Yes, one of the things I have to do for my kiddos is to not turn into a quivering mass of jelly at the sight of a spider, which is my first instinct (but, seriously, this sucker was ginormous and crawled right up the computer monitor while my kids were watching Peep and the Big Wide World!), but to figure out how to get rid of the offending thing.

Oh, thank God for the Hoover.  And my husband, who had to let the thing loose outside after he came home from 12 hours of work and saw the hand vacuum outside the front door.  Quite far from the door, actually.

In case you haven't grasped the full horror of the situation, here's another photo with a house key for size comparison.  Now, that's a full-sized house key, not some dinky little suitcase or mailbox key, okay?  And the creature is not being magnified by the vacuum.  Can someone please tell me what the heck that terror is, anyway?  Is it poisonous?  Or maybe I don't even want to know.  Yeah, I think I don't want to know.

Okay.  Back to regularly scheduled programming now.