ribbit and also choo-chooo

For those not in the know, the process of ripping out a knitting project is called "frogging" (because, you 'rip-it'...see where I'm going). This just goes to show that knitters are really as peculiar as they seem at first glance (present company included).

My point being that while I have a new baby and am on vacation and my creations are slow by any means to begin with, I'm also finding that I am having to go back a re-do a lot.

Firstly Baby's sweater dress, on take 3 and am trucking along well (finally). It will be fabulous.

Secondly, Baby's quilt. Well, while it's not called frogging when you rip a quilt, yeah it's in the same boat. I hodge-podge mashed a wild selection of prints together...wait, I'll start further back. I ordered a bunch of fabric off of Spoonflower. You can have too much of a good thing. With so many beautiful and wild fabrics to choose between, I eventually settled for just taking whatever I wanted instead of trying to co-ordinate it. Interestingly enough, A fair amount of the fabric worked, so I went down to fabricville and found a few pieces to tie it together. I'm using the Speedy Baby-2 from Quilt Taffy (which works really well with a handful of fat quarters). However, as I placed the last panels in place, I decided they were too much (too bright and crazy and colourful), so I've ripped them off and am putting in plain grey panels that match the little elephants instead.

Lastly, I realize that I've never properly shown off our train table. We finished it this summer. Every time anyone comes to the house Bugaboo takes them over to show it to them saying "My daddy maked me that". It's fabulous. We do have plans to expand and better paint the scenery and add a big red H for a heli-pad. I also want to state that the only things we paid full price for was the train 'Emily'. All the other trains were bought second hand from value village, or on sale, or were birthday gifts. The tracks were also found at value village ($5) except for the bridge which was also on sale. It's not fine art, but it's very fun.

(nice hat eh?)

Well, my little girl is hungry, so I'm off to do some mothering. :)

snuggly warm in 2012

the Pirate scarf is done!

Huzzah, how's that for staying on top of things in the New Year (well, I actually finished a day or two ago, but shhhhhh).

I'm onto a sweater-dress for my little girlie, so back to work for me!

Happy New Years!

revolutionary resolution revelations

...well, perhaps less than 'revolutionary', but how could I pass up a dandy alliteration like that? How!


I'm currently on the cusp of the new year. It's early in the morning on the 31st (like, 12:15am, not 5am or anything; that's just crazy), and I'm feeling thoughtful. Later on today, we'll celebrate the end of 2011, and bring on in 2012, and maybe this year I'll make a resolution or two. I don't normally, but when better to take a look at life and decide if I like where I've been and where I'm going (well, 12:15am may not be the ideal time, but whatever).


I'll spare you the inner workings of my mind and simply say that I am surprised to report that I am happy with my life. Simple, but profound. To be happy isn't always an easy thing for me, not when there's something I could be worrying about, but increasingly, as I settle into my life who I've grown up to be, understanding what it is to be a wife and a mother, that's where I'm finding, that I'm happy.


So on that note, I'll pledge to better organize my time, lose weight, keep my house clean, be more productive and go to bed on time (oops), and when if I fail to achieve these goals and 2012 turns out to be pretty much a repeat of 2011, I'll be ok with that.


So thank you to my marvelous family, my amazing children and wonderful husband for filling my cozy little life with such joy.

(incidently, it's been 5 years)

God bless and have a fabulous 2012!

decemberage

as a brief update on doughnuts; yes, they turned out wonderful and yummy, but not particularly photogenic (plus they didn't last long enough to photograph). So many more attempts to follow and hopefully some will turn out pretty enough to turn up here.

The rest of the story involves and order from spoonflower (yay yay yay yay yay! I'll have more to say once it arrive), and christmas decorations. Ho Ho Ho! Well, today is Christmas Shopping Day, so I'm off.

doughnuts!

Less an update and more a promise, because sadly we have yet to attempt to make a batch in our snazzy new doughnut baking pan. We picked it up a week or so ago. Well, actually, my Dad found it and being whimsical and thinking it would be fun to do with Bugaboo (and that 'Doughnut-es' are our little boy's favourite thing ever) we went for it! I have found new motivation to give this a whirl because once again, thekitchn.com have posted parallel to my own goings on.

In other news, for our cold Canadian winter months, Bugaboo and I have moved our gardening aspirations to the indoor-type variety. We tried to sprout an avocado seed, you know, suspended in a glass of water by toothpicks. Well, attempt once was fail, so after our next grocery trip and more avocados are eaten (yum yum guacamole!) we will try again. I think we might have had it upside down.

Oh and finally, Halloweening with my two babies was a blast! I try to make their costumes, but this year (new baby and all) that was out of the question. Actually, for Bugaboo, we couldn't even find a costume to buy. However, Grammy came to the rescue suggesting that his snazzy Chef's attire (and he totally wears the hat when we cook) would fit the bill. He looked great, had a blast, knocked on every door and refused to say 'Trick-or-Treat" to any house but our own. I love Halloween; doubly so now that I have kids!

fall, fall, glorious fall! oh, and an octopus

Best Season Ever!

Even out here in the ever so slightly drab west coast, it makes me so happy! So a new baby and a new house make it a lot of fun (and a lot of work, but it's fun work, so that's great!).

Due to the craziness of life in general, I'm keeping things short (never know when a 4 week old little girl is going to wake up from her nap).

House=a long way to go before any exciting progress can be reported.

Knitting=looky what I made! (I'm referring here to the knitting, not the baby, allthough, yeah, I made that too)

This is what I'm calling my Octopus Sleep Sac. It's based on the Owlie Sleep Sac pattern found on Ravelry, but when I looked at my yarn options, I saw octopus, not owl, so that's what I did.

I had been wanting to try making a pattern, and with my mom here, she was able to guide me through how to knit it up once it was made. I think I've found a whole new element of knitting to become addicted to, and am scheming of many more intarsia patterns to come (um, once I get a bit more time on my hands though). All I did was draw the octopus I wanted, and then traced over it by blocking out which squares I wanted orange and which were to be blue. Feel free to use the x&o pattern here (if you can see it well enough), but I am planning on making a nice and proper one to post on Ravelry, so you could wait for that too.

Oh, and celebrating fall, we went to the local pumpkin patch for some fun.

And fun was had!

a baby of the fairy-princess-tea-party variety

We had a baby! A girl-type baby no less! She was three days late and clocked in at 7lbs 6oz. And she's absolutely gorgeous!

Bugaboo is already playing the role of 'World's Best Big Brother' and is adoring our new little baby along with the rest of us!

Anyhow, this is just a brief update while Grammy is entertaining Bugaboo downstairs and our new little angel is sleeping.

PS Moving day is this week, so hopefully I should have some interesting developments to share there as well, however I doubt I'll be able to post anything in a manner even remotely related to punctual. Meh.