Sweethearts

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Bear. These two chums brought lots of smiles to our home. I used Jelly Bum's bear pattern but changed it a little bit. I found some strong magnets and glued them to the inside of the embroidered nose so they can nuzzle noses. I put them in my Etsy store as a made-to-order. I still have lots of yarn leftover and wonder how far it will go.

Speaking of how far things will go, another sweetheart, my daughter, has an obsession with wheelchairs. Yes, you read correctly, wheelchairs. She has asked Santa for the last two years to bring one. He did not. One year he did bring her crutches (which weren't needed by the way) but they were on her list. She wanted them so badly. But a wheelchair? I usually have to steer her away from those Little Rascal carts in the stores. "No, Ella, you cannot sit in that chair!" Well, this last Monday and Tuesday she didn't have school and I found her in her room drawing this picture on her easel.

Nine different designs! Do you think she may be destined for a health related career? or rather some type of engineer? This child cracks me up. This is definitely one of those memories I need to document. That's why you are reading about it here.
You should see her notebook from today. She was home recovering from a case of the stomach bug. Her entire day was spent planning, drawing, and coloring her dream room while watching HGTV. I bet she's spent nine hours on this room. I'll share later. I have to sneak the notebook and snap some pictures of it. I guess it's fun dreaming.

May your dreams be sweet tonight!

Color Play Day 4

Another glimpse of what I see at work
Red

Yuck! I do not like taking pictures under fluorescent lighting. I need to set a custom white balance.

Color Play Day 3

There's lots of color here at my world of work. Today's color is YELLOW

Books we love

Games we play

Our lovely mascot, the bee.

Color Play

I forgot to play along with Peggy over here. I have some catching up to do. For now I'll go see what I have in my archives for PINK! (I know this is kind of cheating but it's all I have) Yellow tomorrow.

A little taste of summer and beginning of school. Where does the time go?

Family Time

I added a few items to my Etsy boutique today. I cranked out a bunch of albums this last weekend and I have a custom order for four more but this one is a bit different. This special order is from a coworker who lost a son a couple years ago. She wants to give her children a photo album made from clothing that her son wore so she gave me some jeans and a few flannel shirts to use. I'm thinking denim albums with pockets from the shirts sewn onto the front and back or something along those lines. What a treasured gift to give. I admire her courage and strength.

Yesterday my kids and I hung out together since it was a day off for us. They played so well together, I wish it was like that all the time. They are five years apart which gives one the advantage of manipulation and one the advantage of naiveness due to age and sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out. But we actually had a good day together. I took them to Hotel for Dogs and we absolutely loved it. Lots of belly laughs. The Animal Humane Society was just a couple blocks away from the theater and we went there after the show. But we were greeted with a closed sign due to the holiday. Not that we would have made a purchase but we really wanted to see the dogs. I think there might be a waggly tail in our near future (after the spring thaw though). We ended the night with some sledding and Mickey D's (Subway for me ;)

This evening I'm going to watch the recorded Inaugural after I put the kids to bed and continue knitting on a Valentine's project.

Oh Pickles!

I had to. This was a gift for my coworker/friend who collects them.
I have to say that it was an interesting knit, the comments I received that is.
As I knitted this in the company of my relatives questions were asked. Quite funny.
"What is that going to be?"
"It looks like a cover for something"

The other entertaining part of knitting this was the "pickle" quotes that surfaced.

Do you know these?
"Oh pickles" (Higgly Town Heros)
"We might be in a little bit of a pickle, Dick" (Fun with Dick and Jane)
"Now that's the best tastin' pickle I've ever hoid" (Vlasic pickles)
"Pickle in the middle" (did you play this game?)
"I'm in a pickle" and "It's dillicious"



Here's the knitty gritty:
I used this pattern found here
Modifications were made. I used 10.5 needles and worsted weight yarn so I could felt it; I added an ornament cap by knitting a rib pattern, seamed it together, felted and sewed it in place. I also needle felted Felting Flash to the cap to make it shimmer (although the photo didn't capture the sparkle). I added a jump ring to the cap so it can be hung on the tree. Before felting the pickle I added french knots for the bumps. Its about 5.5 inches tall.

Maybe you crave them like I do. Whether you like them sweet or sour, sliced or whole, go knit one today because who doesn't love a pickle? Especially a dill dipped in sour cream....yum! (that was a pregnancy thing but I still on occasion do that).

An African Safari

It was quite an adventure a couple of weeks before Christmas. I was knitting away creating these fun little finger puppets for an Etsy customer frantically trying to get them to her in time for Christmas. The pattern is from Raynor at Jellybums or you can find her patterns in her store. What darling little toys she's created and she was so kind to help me out when I needed it. She actually referred the customer to me to knit them and I really didn't think they would take me as long as they did. But lesson learned, now I know.

I'm curious and want to knit up a couple other patterns of Jellybums as a stuffed toy rather than a finger puppet and I have plans to knit the puppy dog to include in a Woolie Wrap quilt I'm making.

I haven't yet talked much of my Etsy store. Since I opened it I've sold almost everything. I was quite shocked at how quickly it went which made for a crazy December. I'm looking forward to adding more goodies and I have a "boy" quilt in the works.

This is a picture of the quilt I made and have sold. I learned that it was going to be a gift to a sister who is having a baby girl. I love to learn about the receiver of the items.
I have to give credit to Betz White whose book Warm Fuzzies got me thrifting for wool sweaters and going head over heels working with this stuff. I love, love, love it. (I contacted her to make sure my ideas were original enough so I wouldn't be infringing upon her designs for those of you wondering. She was cool with it.)

When creating quilts like this you end up with a ton of scraps and I am having a hard time letting go of even the tiniest scraps. They're in a bin for the "just in case" projects. It's been fun to create the "byproducts" of the quilts; felted photo albums, coffee cozies, and right now I'm working on some coasters. I have so many ideas but not enough time to execute. You all know how that is.

Take care