I made these: wool pants

Here are the pants (or longies) I made for S a year or more ago. They're wool so once they are properly lanolized (coated with lanolin), then they act as a great breathable, water-resistant, natural diaper cover. He's been wearing them since I made them and as you can see in the picture above, they're a bit long on him there, but since the stockinette bottoms roll up a bit, they worked on him then and they still fit him now.

They're actually really lovely to knit. The pattern is so easy I don't even have to look at my hands, which makes it a great project for my Stitch & Chat group or watching TV. And they're so cute. I modified the pattern slightly, increasing a stitch down the pant legs every 5 or 6 rows which added an extra inch or so to the leg width to make them a little wider legged. D asked how many balls of yarn it would take to make a pair big enough for him. When asked he said he didn't want a pair, but I don't believe him.

Here are the wool shorties I made for Simon. These were made before the wool pants above. They were great for summer (last summer, but I can still squeeze him into them) They're cargo shorts, a little tighter than I'd like, maybe, but I really like them anyway.

This was taken before I added the drawstring.

S modeling the shorties with the drawstring.
I think it makes them look kind of beach-y.

My handsome boy.

I made this: Olivia's Butterfly

I made this super cute and super easy and super fast crocheted butterfly hat. I'm all about free patterns and Vallieskids has them in spades. She's also got a super generous policy with her patterns, which I love. The true spirit of craft generosity. I made this in about an hour (? I don't usually look at the clock while I crochet). Her instructions are really simple to follow and the simply beautiful design is just lovely. I increased to a chunky yarn and kept the hook size the same, which increased the size enough to fit my big-headed daughter without modifying the pattern.

That's my beautiful girl up there. Wow. I still can't get over how gorgeous she is.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to tell you about Ravelry, which is all kinds of awesome. "Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." I mostly use it for searching for patterns and to keep track of the patterns that I want to make or look at again. I think you still need to request an invitation and it takes a day or two to get your invitation, but it's free and it's a great resource. I recommend it.

Daily Drop Cap

love these beautiful illustrated letters from Daily Drop Cap "for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere." They're so gorgeous. I might just start using them in all my posts. There are so many more beautiful letters over there. It's definitely worth checking out.


Here are some of my faves.

The evangelist who turned me onto this was How About Orange.

I made this: Bird appliqued camera case

I made this camera case earlier this year. It was pretty easy. I came up with the design on my own and it came together on the first try.

 
I'm most pleased with myself for using a leaf pattern that I found as a template, or rather inspiration? for this cute little bird that I came up with. I was also pleased that I was able to use up the very last bits of this brown wool to make a functional camera pouch. This came together in an evening. I'm thinking I might make more and add them to my Artfire shop. Thoughts?

Here's the other side. I was happy to find buttons we were no longer using that worked well for this project. I used to keep buttons and wondered why I did because I almost never used them for anything. Now I find uses for buttons all the time.

Pink pink party and cake

This is a modified re-post from my personal blog with cake pictures and a crafty birthday banner.

Z turned 4 yesterday. We threw a party.

With balloons

And birthday banner - heart pendant style

Z and I made this pendant. She stamped the hearts (ok, it was a Valentine's leftover), I cut them out and sewed them together... and wrote the words on it. Turned out super-cute.

The cake. It's a cherry bits cake trifled with strawberry mousse and
strawberry puree inside, covered first in strawberry buttercream, then again in
pink marshmallow fondant. It was pretty tasty.

The colour is a little off in these pictures because I took the pictures at night after the cake was finished (around midnight).

If any of you are trying your first layer cake, learn from me and do some research on layer cakes instead of just plowing ahead and stacking a smaller cake on top of a larger one. While there were no devastating effects of just stacking a cake on top of the previous layer of fondant, the cake melted the fondant below and it all came off with the top layer when we went about eating it. No one minded, but the bottom pieces didn't look very nice and didn't have much icing when we were serving. I actually preferred it because I find the marshmallow fondant too sweet. My Z, on the other hand, would gladly share cake with me; she'll eat all the icing (fondant, too) and leave the cake for me!

Birthdays are so much fun and they afford such a great opportunity to be crafty and to share that with friends and family. I love that I can share my crafty-ness with my daughter, and she loves it so. She is the sweetest kid ever. She is always so encouraging and thoughtful about her comments about the cakes I make. She loves them. She says they're beautiful and delicious with such sincerity, it is really a joy making her wondeful cakes and other things. I hope your efforts are as appreciated!

Fabric covered clips

I think I might make these.

I've had this tutoriall as an open tab in my browser for a few days now. And so I don't forget about it, or at least so I can find it again, I'm going to put it here. You might like to try it, too. My daughter wears this kind of clip in her hair almost daily, since we've just about got her bangs grown out. They still fall in front of her face a lot if she doesn't have a barrette in.

The author of mairuru, where the tutorial comes from is from Japan and English is not her first language. She does really well, but there are some little language quirks that betray her second-language-ness. I love it and I don't think it gets in the way of her instructions. She has lots of good Japanese cuteness on her blog. You should check it out.

To make list: Crocheted Racetrack Rug

I found this great pattern a little while ago for a Crocheted Race Track. It's super sweet. I think my boy is getting old enough to be interested in it and I think it will make a good Christmas gift. It's hard to find good handmade ideas for boys! And I know: I have 7 nephews (and no nieces) and trying to keep costs down by going handmade is always a challenge.

Lightning McQueen Cake

This is a re-post from my personal blog from this past March.

I make the cakes for our friends' kids' birthdays. I enjoy making cakes. I don't feel obligated to buy a gift and contribute to the many toys they already own and my friend doesn't have to stress about trying to make a cake or buying one. It works out well.

Here is the most recent cake I made. It is Lightning McQueen from the Disney Cars movie.

Swirly Cake

This was originally posted on my personal blog, but I am moving the crafty stuff over here (slowly).

I mostly have the opportunity to make cakes for kids, which I enjoy, but in April I got the chance to make a cake for a friend's 40th birthday party. It was a fun chance to take on a challenge. I made a 12 x 12 chocolate cake from scratch, thick and moist, with chocolate pudding between the layers. It was the biggest cake I've ever made, I think.

Here's the result.

This is actually a quilting design I found. Can you imagine quilting that?

Basket weave on the side

The birthday girl gave me the nicest compliment on the cake, saying it was nicer than her wedding cake. She went on to tell a wreck-tastic story, like one that would be featured on Cake Wrecks, so I suppose it could have been a better compliment, but still it was nice.

This might make me quilt

I don't quilt. Not really as a rule, I just... don't. Nothing against it really. Mostly I haven't found anything so compelling that I'd want to do that. I imagine it taking a really long time and it probably being sub-standard from what I'd be able to buy. Maybe kind of philosophically I have a little problem with it... like I think it used to be done to make use of scraps of material and make something useful out of almost nothing. Very utilitarian and thrifty, right? Now you can buy quilting cotton for like $15 a metre and then cut it up and put it back together differently... and well, I guess I just don't have a great appreciation for that. Now it's a luxury. I'm not really sure why that bothers me, I just thought of it one day and it bothered me. On top of not having much of an aesthetic appreciation for the craft, that part bugged me.

But then I saw this quilt, which I thought was so neat. Because I could see my kids loving this. So, if anything was going to get me to quilt, it would be this. Found on Ohdeedoh.

This even looks doable to me. Not a lot of piece work. Maybe even machine quilted.

There's one other quilt that really intrigued me. Since I could never afford to buy one, I'd probably make one (still the likelihood of that happening is small). But I thought this was cool. And like I said, I don't usually have an appreciation for quilts. Also featured on Ohdeedoh, though I saw it somewhere else a couple months ago.

That's a map. I could totally see doing one like that of my neighborhood. I think that would be so neat.