Friday, February 24, 2012

Why can't I keep up.... AKA days 19-24

So yet again I'm playing catch up. But this time I have a great reason. This week has been way too long. EJ has a cold and is teething so she's not sleeping well which means that either am I. DH ended up in the hospital on Wednesday, nothing major but it took him all day just to find out he had fluid built up on his knee. So he's on light duty all the next week, so our nights have been pretty chill but I've been a bit of a mama bear and been making him sit while I get everything for him :D So here's my catch up with photos

Day 19: Supplies
This is my hope chest full of yarn, this is an old photo... the yarn doesn't fit here anymore. I have to move what's in here so that EJ's clothes can fit in it.

Day 20: Finishing
Here's four zip up hoodies, ready to sew in the zippers. The top on is for EJ and the others are all going to new babies. The scary things is I have more to make. A few babies will have to wait a little longer. After the zippers are in its just block and wait. I'm getting so excited.

Day 21: Crafting Accompaniments
Lately with EJ up so late my accompaniments are TV, the baby monitor and lots of coffee. It's french vanilla coffee with french vanilla cream. Can you tell I love the taste of french vanilla?

Day 22: Contrast
It took me forever to think of what to take a picture of for this. But then I looked over at my scrapbooking desk and saw that black mat sitting on my white desk. I love the way the lines blur towards the edge.

Day 23: Inspiration from Clothes
These are two sweaters that I'm considering recycling into another project or two. They're both low cut V-necks that I love to wear with a tank top underneath but as you can see the blue one suffered a little accident and the other one hasn't fit properly since EJ. I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull the green one out as it's a little pilled but it's gorgeous yarn with a hint of gold running through it.

Day 24: Close up

This is the inside of one of the hoods on a hoody for a little girl named Brianna. It's her first birthday present. I'm so excited to give it to her. She got one when she was born but it doesn't fit anymore. But I have to start working on the one for her little brother because he's due in the middle of May.

And of course it's not a post without a picture or two of EJ. There's about five or six blankets in her crib. One for each time I put her back to bed last night. I kept forgetting to take one with me so every time I cuddled her to sleep she got a new blankie :D
 Her newest thing, other than sitting up by herself is she swings her arms widely and clasps her hands together when excited. I've tried a million times to get a shot of it and this is the best one. That's saying something. She's also started holding her arm out to something she wants and rolling her fingers in and out. It makes knowing what she wants really easy but makes me worry we won't be able to teach her to ask politely for things which is a big deal to me. I've been raised with what I think are really good manners and that's how I want my kids to be.

Thought I'd also show you how I'm doing on the stocking. Heel done and the gusset started. I've never knitted a sock with a heel like this. So this was tricky. So excited to see it done soon.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Wow, I'm really behind.... AKA days 11-18

Wow, I've really gotten behind on the MOCP. So here's days 11-18 except day 17 wouldn't upload on Blogger for some reason but it is on Flickr, figure that one out. :D
Day 11: WIP
This is a stocking for a friends children. She wants four for next Christmas all in different colors and non-traditional Christmas colors. It's going good this time, I tried to make them once on the size of needles the pattern calls for and it took me to about this point before I realized that it wasn't working out. This time I really like it :D
Day 12: Crafty Gift
I bought myself this awesome wheel when I was on my honeymoon. I really need to get back to learning how to use it ;)
Day 13: Inspiration Indoors
I know I used this already with another day but my inspiration is absolutely my family, especially EJ. Not just in knitting but in life in general. She makes the long nights worth it. Especially little moments like this.
Day 14: Where you Craft
This is my favourite spot to knit. It's so nice when its cold out to sit beside that wood stove cranking out the heat and just go to town on a project.
Day 15: A New Skill
As I've mentioned before I've recently taught myself to crochet. I really love it but the only project I've finished is this blanket for EJ that I've shown before so I took a different shot of it.
Day 16: Texture
I love the texture you get when you look at the wrong side of an intarsia project. So cool.
Day 17: Last FO Used
Unfortunately this picture wouldn't upload but it's a cheery scrappy cap that I made for someone else but it didn't fit them. Probably for the best as the pom pom doesn't really sit right.
Day 18:  Craft Books
My craft books live with all my other books. I really like this unfocused picture. The white binder is absolutely full of patterns I've gotten online :D

Hope this gives you some to look at and thanks to all of those either commenting on here or flickr and to my lone follower :D Thanks!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Day 10: Your Craft Bag

So today's photo is of your craft bag. Mine is actually a scrapbooking bag that I picked up a few years ago when I was selling supplies. It has tons of little pockets perfect for needles and notions. There's even a divider in the back that's supposed to be for paper but works perfect for keeping your patterns and straight needles from getting in the way. The flap is a square that zips up all around and actually has a pocket in it that I keep my needle sizer in. The back has another pocket good for a pad of paper and there are huge pockets on the sides that are the perfect size for DPN's
But I also have to show you the picture I took yesterday for today's photo
I had a little bit of an issue reading yesterday. I read the MOCP list five times and instead of seeing bag I seen blog. So here I am with my blog :D I really need to start wearing my glasses again or something. So there's a little bonus of behind the scenes of me planning what to write today.

And then because it's Friday here's my entry for FO Friday.....
EJ's car seat blanket (yes it's crochet) my first time doing it. I'm very proud of this blankie. It works great but I couldn't get a picture of her in it because we haven't left the house since it was done. I know that sounds horrible but that's the life of a farm wife :D

Check out the other entries in Tami's Amis & Other Creations FO Friday by clicking the link below

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Days 1-9 of the Craft Photos

So at the beginning of the month I decided to taking Untangling Knots challenge to do 30 days of craft photos for my blog so here goes days 1 to 9 sorry I should be doing this every day but it's been a little hectic so some of these I just took.

Day 1-you in action
Here I am knitting on what will be EJ's zipper up the back hoodie, they're super cute and convenient when you have little ones.

Day 2-Craft Tools
Here's my rainbow of pencil crayons in the craft room. I used to do allot of drawing and am hoping with the re-organization of the craft room I can get back to it. Before this they were tucked away in a box in the bottom of another box.

Day 3-An old FO
There's actually two in this picture, I made EJ's toque and the blanket she's got on top of her. She loved her sleigh ride even if it doesn't look it in this picture :D

Day 4-Inspiration Outdoors
My inspiration has always been my family so here they are outdoors :D I love this picture it didn't look like this at all when I took it. There's a really pretty sun dog in it and the spot by DH's head is actually smoke from some buildings we knocked in and were burning. Gotta love those pictures that just turn out with no effort :D

Day 5-Notions
This is my box filled with random buttons. It's hard to tell but the ones in the little baggy will be part of a sweater that's coming soon hopefully.

Day 6-Color
This is a box full of zippers that I got from this amazing store on Etsy called Zipit and they are so colorful. I use these for the baby sweaters I knit for people. I just love looking into this box and seeing all the bright colors, its pretty inspiring.

Day 7-Materials
This is yarn that I got from Gina Brown's in Calgary when we went on a road trip there. I love both of them. The red is a little more muted then it looks, its going to become a sweater with those buttons I mentioned earlier. The pinky-purple stuff will become something for EJ. If you get a chance to stop at Gina Brown's I swear you'll be in there for hours, its an amazing yarn store.

Day 8-Challenging
This is my challenge at the moment. The front box is FO and the back one is WIP that just need the ends woven in or buttons added or things like that. Everything in the back must move forward and find a home. I have to admit I have a bit of startitis lately.

Day 9-Your Hands
Here's my hands resting on EJ's hoodie. AS you can tell I chew my nails, I know its horrible. But there they are, not much else to say :D

Now just gotta get these up on the flickr group
Hope you all enjoyed it ;)

Friday, February 3, 2012

A Month of Craft Photos?

So I found this amazing little photo challenge on this blog.... The Bored Knitter, which is actually a month of craft photos as created by Untangling Knots
I have some catching up to do so tomorrow's post will actually be numbers 1 through 4 :D

I thought this would force me to blog every day, and hopefully get you reading everyday :D

Check out both of these blogs they're pretty awesome and please come back and check out my post tomorrow for the catch up!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

So normally at this time of the year people are posting what all they've finished this year. Well unfortunately I've had a horrible case of startitis this year and haven't finished a dang thing. So here's a couple things I've started....
Crochetting, yes you read that right, I taught myself to crochet on a long road trip and started this car seat blanket for EJ, it even has a hole for the buckle. It's from the crochet stitch n' bitch book.
I also started making EJ a zip up the back hoodie, and my Grandma started one after me, guess which one she wears now. So sad that mine's not done but she looks adorable in the one from Grandma, for some reason I can't find a single picture of her wearing it though. hmmm..... anyways here's where the one I started is at
It has like 21 rows left on the body then onto the sleeves and the finishing up. I swear I'll get it done soon....

I also started rearranging and reorganizing the craft room/spare bedroom/junk room. Here's what it looks like now
Believe it or not this is better than it was a few weeks ago. Notice the lovely pile of containers waiting to be filled. I got all of those for less then $40.00 CAD at my local discount store on sale. I love when you can save money on things like this. If you can't see it there's a pile of knitting supplies in the corner, just a small portion of all of my stuff. Here's a closer look.
Definitely need to organize that as I'm going to start knitting more after these two projects are done. I still have a few items people have pre ordered for next Christmas to finish so I'm not strapped for time when it comes closer. But something else that came of this clean out was this.
My spinning wheel that has not been touched since before I got pregnant :( really must order some new fibre and start learning to spin again. I had to throw out my old stuff because the box wasn't 100% sealed and a mouse got into it :( had to throw it all away. I actually cried when I did it :( Anyone know of any good fibre to learn to spin on?

Thought I'd share some new EJ pictures as well
This is four out of the five generations of my family, the only one missing would be my dad. So that's my Grandma standing and my Great-Grandma holding EJ
And here's EJ with her hungry face on. She's started doing this to let you know she's hungry but I haven't yet been able to catch that on camera.
And here's todays dose of EJ trying to roll over, she's getting pretty good at it and I bet in no time she'll be crawling. She's just over 5 months old now :D

I hope you enjoyed it and as always drop me a comment if you want :D
Heather