Friday, April 29, 2011

Peeky Peek - Work in Progress

After a wonderful Easter break with visitors and fun and great food, I'm super excited to get back into my many little projects on the go. The garden is still barren, but the windowsill is lush and flourishing so transplanting will soon be in our future.



(These are my tomatoes taking a bit of a bath in the sink after I moved them into bigger pots). Plans are in the making for some Chef-Bugaboo attire, maybe to be sewn up this weekend. And Grammy so wonderfully included a roll of quilt batting in with Bugaboo's Easter package, so I have schemes involving a lap quilt and a cheater baby quilt. Exciting stuff!


But first and most importantly, I bring you this:



Can you tell what it is? I was finally able to start on my plans for the Spring Top Sewalong put on by the amazing crafty mind behind Made by Rae! I only have a week left (having withheld the urge to dabble while our guests were here), so here I go! I don't want to say too much, but it's light grey and yellow and will hopefully fit around my big-momma belly (I've noticeably grown in the past week alone, so I'm going to be making this big).


So it's going to be work work work (also can be read as 'fun fun fun'), and so I'm off!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Baking Cookies! Yum Yum Yum

My little man is old enough now that he understands that you shouldn't touch what is hot, and that Mommy doesn't like it when he plays in the cat's dishes, the garbage or near the top of the stairs, all of which enable us to let him into the kitchen when we're cooking now. It may not seem like a big deal, but it's amazing being able to cook safely without having him yell at you through the bars of the baby-gate. And actually letting him help, well that's one of both his and my favourite things to do.



So to get my little chef in training set up, I badly needed a Bugaboo-sized apron. I tried tying on a tea towel or using an old apron of mine
(with a little creativity; those are blueberries for muffins he's eating), but they were not good enough. A friend with a little boy Bugaboo's age is just starting sewing and I've been helping her. I thought this could be a nice easy project to help her feel more comfortable with sewing, but while I wait to find a time where our men can take our boys for a few hours, I needed a quick fill-in. So here it is.

It's not overly clear, but it's just a piece of scrap from a blanket that was turned into shepherd costumes for a Christmas pageant. I simply cut it out to the shape I wanted and sewed on the ties (which were strips cut from old curtain material that doesn't fray). I'm uneasy about things tied around little ones necks, so I looped them under the arms instead. It took no time at all and I'm going to use the same design for the nicer version.

It had to be tried out as soon as he woke up from his nap and the cookies were great fun (with little kids, sugar cookies are nice to make because you mix them up with their help, and can cook them later when the kiddies are asleep, after the dough has chilled. It'seasier not having to try to keep their attention on cooking for too long). He refused to let me take it off until I told him we were going outside for a walk and he had to leave it at home. I suppose I could have let him wear it though.




Anyhow, in other news, I have a close friend who started knitting when I did. Both of us were taught by our mothers, but because they live so far away, we've been stumbling through the stitches together, learning quite a lot as we go. Well she got me a stitch-a-day Vogue knitting calendar for Christmas, and everyday it has a new pattern with instructions on it. I've been tempted by quite a few of them, but as is Vogue's reputation for patterns, I've been daunted by the complexity of the instructions. However, Thursday's pattern was too wonderful not to try. I actually had to keep myself from ripping it off a day early. However, I held strong and muddled through and ended up knowing how to do this!


It's called a Scalloped Shell and can't you just see it along the edge of a little girl's pinafore or a baby's cap! The wheels in my head are just a whirring with plans however, I have to finish this baby blanket first, so I guess I best get knitting!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Special Delivery - April

I'm finding increasingly, as the sunny weather is really starting to kick in, that I am very much influenced by it. On bright sunny days, such as today, I'm tidying, gardening, knitting and blogging with a fervor that I lacked all gloomy weekend long. However, I've suspected I'm solar powered for some time now, so this is nothing new. Have you ever had a day where you're outside, soaking in the glorious warm rays and enjoying a cool drink of water feeling like you might have been a plant in a previous life? Ok, maybe that's just me, however...



Our lovely garden is progressing. I don't say growing because it is still in the stages of being filled with dirt and other yummy treats for my future crops, so all the growing is still taking place on our window sill. I might have underestimated the amount of stuff it takes to fill a 1'x4'x6' raised garden. Oh well, it will be lovely once it's ready.

(This is my husband and son dumping another load of dirt into the garden. I'm pregnant, and so my husband offers to do any heavy shoveling for me. The trailer is still unavailable, so we've been hauling dirt down in our recycle bins and garbage can.)


As far a actually completing tasks, I've taken a brief knitting hiatus from my baby-blanket, and whipped up this for my April Special Delivery.

It's a coin purse from a pattern I got here: http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=4728. There seemed to be a bit of in issue with the pattern though, because while they do a decent job of explaining the 'Ssk' stitch which I believe is used to make the button holes, it doesn't actually appear in the pattern. I just omitted them and sewed up the sides. Either way I doubt I'd use it as a coin purse (it would be too easy to loose things that way) but a little pouch is sure to come in handy. I'm also really fond of the button, which I added just for show. It was in an antique sewing kit my grandmother found me at an auction, and I've wanted to find a good use for them. I think it's pretty!

The whole project took a little more than 2 hours to whip up, and I'd recommend it for anyone who is just starting to knit and wanting to practice their knits and purls (it's in seed stitch, which is just switching back and forth between the two).

Now that I'm back into the knitting swing, I hope to finish up that blanket, but I find big projects so daunting (short attention span I guess). Wish me luck!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

ka-blamo!


So here I am blog-world! Lets see what we can do. Luckily, I start this blog at the same time I'm starting so many other things, such as picking sewing back up again, a new knitting project and (ba-da-da-DA) a garden!


It's spring and unlike in eastern Canada, where I grew up, here out west, spring is actually a warmer sunnier time than winter, and I can actually get my garden growing. So far, we're working with a raised garden (in an attempt to dissuade the bunnies), that my marvelous husband has built for me.

I've started filling with layers of cardboard, newspaper, hay, compost, and then more hay. The dirt is a bit of a holdup, because we're borrowing the trailer to haul it in, and so we are at the kind whim of our trailer-owning-neighbor.


However, my tomatoes are planted and looking very trim, and my onions are germinating in my entertainment centre (it's just so nice and warm (and baby-proof) in there). Oh, there is also a sunflower that Bugaboo has planted and diligently waters every day. I don't really know it's future yet, but I'm excited that it is growing anyways (he stands in front of it every time he waters it and says "grow, grow, grow").


Hopefully I'll have another project or two lined up for later this week. I'm in the final stages of knitting a baby blanket for my brother-in-law's baby girl due at the end of the month (which I've been working on since November, gaaaa), and I have some mischievous plans for new cooking attire for my Bugaboo. Oh, also, I have a craft group that once a month we all draw names and make a little something to mail out to each other. I just got my name for April and the wheels are a-turning coming up with a fun gift.


Well, I best get to work then!