oh so fancy

I'm extremely excited to be sporting my new logo!  Isn't it marvelous?  Many many thanks to Vanessa of Sea Salt Design!

bluebells and bucket hats

While this past Mother's Day weekend it rained (Happy Mother's Day!), for the last week or so it has been simply glorious around here.  We're talking summer weather in May!  So we have been outside as much as we can stand it.  Now, I burn to a crisp in no time at all, but the kids seem to take more after their Daddy and have more resistance.  Either way though, we're rocking the sunscreen, cover-ups, shade tents and most importantly, hats.  I have to say I'm fortunate that both my kidlets are good hat wearers.  Bugaboo is big into fedoras right now (he calls them his 'orra-fedoras', no clue why).  My little bean still lets me choose what she wears, so she's been sporting this little number.

I love it; it puts me in mind of a little bluebell.

It's simple enough, so I've started making a few of my own.

I'm tempted to add a little green stem on top, but I haven't given it a try yet.

I've had a friend mention she really likes the style and if I could find a way to tone down the girly-ness, she's love to see some for boys, but while I'm still working on that, I've stuck to good old fashioned bucket hats for the little lads.

Fun stuff!  If I do get some good results out of my schemes and alterations, I'll be sure to update!

quilt-ly cuddles

Long, long ago, I made a quilt top.  See, I had just loved the fabric and it was in a cute little layer cake for not a bad price at all and so I snatched it up and decided I'd make myself a lap quilt.  But, sewing for myself, especially when there's no specific deadline, makes for a project that quickly gets put of the very farthest back of burners.  Besides, I didn't even have anything to back it with yet.  Then, when perusing the local fabric store, I saw a baby quilt made from the same fabric line, and a little spark ignited.  My little Bean prefers to sleep with a quilt, so I thought I could make this for her.  At this point I have finally gotten around to buying some backing and a little extra to border it with, but, because it was just going to be an extra, even bringing it all on Christmas vacation with me didn't give me enough of a push to complete the project.

Recently, I started knitting a baby blanket for a friend.  The pattern was simple enough, but the yarn was delicate and the needles were small, and after about a week of diligent evening knitting I noticed I had messed up the last five or so rows, so I gave up with that.  Feeling pretty close to failure I remembered my lovely quilt, all ready to get put together and quilted.

I've tried machine quilting before.  It was a mess; I managed to have a nasty little gather at every join.  It was wretched.  I tried it anyways.  This time: success!

Voila, a lovely, classy quilt.

I bound it with satin blankie binding, which I find makes it more baby-ish and less adult; plus babies love the satiny texture.

Also, I really loved how my mitered corners turned out.

Bug decided that Dr Seus's ABCs was required in the quilt photos.

And Bee, our cat of extreme fluffiness, also wanted in on the photography.  What a cozy little scene.

I hope they have lots of fun playing on and snuggling in it.  I'm so glad it has a home.  I had even started to toy with other uses for a quilt topper, as I began to think it would never reach quilt-dom.

10 other Uses For a Quilt Top:

1) Table runner (just make sure you sew on a back).

2) Line a basket (or cover a box).

3) Cover a cork board, add a frame, and you have a pretty snazzy pin-board.

4) Cut it into chunks, which you could frame and make a pretty interesting picture arrangement (or frame in embroidery hoops).

5) Make a teddy bear.

6) Tote bag.

7) Christmas stocking.

8) Hot water bottle cover (or rice bag cover).

9) Oven gloves, or re-cover old oven gloves (depending on the material).

10) Basically, it can be used as a regular piece of material that's just a bit fancier.

However, like I said, this all started because I loved the fabric so much, so I'm glad I didn't have to resort to chopping it up for anything else.  It was meant to be a quilt and I'm really happy to have had it to give to my friend when I did.

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!