Friday, March 30, 2012

FO Friday or Finally and FO!

So I finally have a FO! Yay! I just finished weaving in the ends last night, well actually this morning, at about 12:30. EJ was not feeling up to sleeping last night. Sorry this picture is a little blurry. But it still looks cute and will be perfect over her Easter dress.

 Pattern: Confection Baby Shrug from the Shizknit
Yarn: Sirdar Snuggly Tiny Tots DK(No color Name attached) 50 g
I love this pattern, I have to make a bigger one for when she grows out of this but I'll wait until I get some other projects done. The only problem I have with this yard is how hard it is to weave the ends in. But I finally figured out that the slubs are attached to a white thread that is easy to cut out of the end. This was half way through weaving them in though.

And yesterday I was absolutely surprised to find a parcel card in my mail box. And this is what was waiting for me at the post office. I had entered a giveaway at Crafts from the Cwtch. I was so excited to open it that I couldn't even wait 'til I got home. So I went to my Grandma's and opened it up.
 After taking off the blue packaging to find this. The most adorable owl wrapping paper. I didn't want to tear it even.
And the inside was even more exciting. A hand sewn project bag from the cutest fabric. A 7 mini skein set of hand dyed sock yarn from The Knitting Goddess. A set of DPN's for the pattern. And a free copy of the BeeKeepers Quilt. I'm so excited to start working on this pattern. I will post pictures as soon as I do.
 On a funny note: I was telling Grandma that the package came from the UK. She was looking at the yarn. And I said, "Yeah see it's 10 pounds". She put the yarn in her hand and moved it up and down thinking. "There's no way this weighs 10 pounds" and I had to not laugh at her because she didn't even get what she had said. So I told her "No Grandma as in it cost 10 pounds they don't use dollars there." She immediately went red and then laughed at herself. At least she can still laugh at herself in moments like this.

And for your EJ picture (even though there's two of them at the top of the post). This is EJ hanging out with my brother and chewing on an orange. I tried to get the faces she was making as this was her first experience with an orange slice but my phone camera wasn't so great.
 As always check out the FO's on Tami's Amis

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

WIP Wednesday... or Is It Spring Yet?

Well its Wednesday again. There's still many projects on the go. But there's progress which is always good. One sweater just needs the ends wove in which is turning into a nightmare because the yarn has little slubs on it. They don't seem to wanna cooperate. But there's progress on the other sweater too. I have completed the first row of the lace pattern. Just have to finish the lace and engineer the strap to button up the top. There's directions for it but it'll be my first time doing a button this way. I haven't even touch the hats this week so no progress there. It's this weather that's making me not wanna work on the hats. Last week we got two huge dumps of snow. And now this week it's been about 10 degrees above zero celsius but its still not melting much. But it still doesn't feel like hat weather :D
 Something else around here has been making progress. This is going to be my very own chicken house. I'm so excited. I've wanted some chickens since we moved out here about 4 years ago. We finally have the time (no pregnancy or wedding to plan) and the energy to do it. I'm still trying to decide how many I want. I'm just looking forward to being able to have farm fresh eggs every day :D
 And I thought I would post my other painting as many people like the one last Friday. This is the one I like the best. It was alot of work. I think it was 5 1/2 hours or something. But definitely worth it :D
 I'm not sure if I shared this picture yet or not. I love it! I don't have a new EJ picture because she's currently sleeping. She got a needle yesterday and has been in a terrible mood ever since. I'm hoping she wakes up today in a better mood. I feel so bad for her, she's very achy from it. But they said it will pass :(
 As always go check out the other WIPs at Tami's Amis

Friday, March 23, 2012

FO Friday.... well sort of....

So I do have a FO but its not one of the 5 WIP's I have.... I went to an oil painting course a friend was doing last night. This is what I came home with after about 3 1/2 hours. It's still wet that's why its sighting on a garbage bag. This is the second one I took and there's parts of my painting I really love (the waves and my reflection of the moon) and parts I'm not so sure about (the shore line and the buildings). This is done in the Bob Ross style. If you've never seen him paint I recommend youtubing it. It's pretty amazing watching him do it. My friend is pretty amazing herself, I forgot to take a picture of hers which is what ours is supposed to look like and mine doesn't at all.
 On the knitting/crochet front I have one sleeve almost done one the second sweater of EJ's. I'm going on a road trip this weekend so hopefully I'll come home with at least a few FO's.
 Head over and check out the other FO's

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

WIP Wednesday or Chaos on Needles

So another week is back to Wednesday which can mean only one thing. Time to show off the WIP. Only problem with that is there's more than one. In fact in this picture alone there is 5! I know its horrible. I was just telling someone last week that I was having a problem starting anything new because of other things going on and then right after that I did this. Two of them are hats that all they need are little tassles put on top. There's two sweaters for EJ for spring time and a hat I started for myself and have half done. Hopefully I'll have a few finished items to show you on FO Friday.
 I took this picture the other night of the icicles hanging down on our deck. I love the way our yard light makes them look. And another closer shot below

 And of course my post wouldn't be complete without an EJ picture. Here she is watching a movie with Daddy. I know that sounds horrible because she's so young but they were both out about 15 minutes after this was taken :D I didn't get a chance to get a picture of that though. So cute, she always has her soother in sideways now. I had to limit the soother time now, she's becoming way too dependant on it. So she only gets it when going to sleep now, but she's also started sucking her thumb. I'm hoping she's going to grow out of it. I was told I had mine 'til I was four and they had to pretend to lose it.
 So enough of my ranting about soothers lol. Check out the other WIP Wednesdays over at Tami's Amis

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Slight Road Trip

So we took a little road trip a few hours from us, I got a little crocheting done but didn't get any pictures of that. People commenting on here made me realize I should write a little bit about where I live. We are roughly 300 km/185 miles (roughly) North of the 55th Parallel which is the line for the arctic circle. I'm lucky enough to live in a small town and on a farm. We do get daylight 365 days a year and we do have two season at least; winter and farming :D

So here is the cool way we got to travel on our road trip. It's hard to tell what it is but that is an ice road. Nothing like whats in Ice Road Truckers if you've ever seen it. This is across a small river and makes the trip to where we went about an hour shorter. It's tough enough for trucks hauling logs and grain to go across.

This is us just about to pull onto the road.
 This is a view of the river as we are going across
 Coming to the other side, its hard to tell what's on the bank but its the ferry you take across in the Summer
 Another better, closer shot of the ferry. It's very cool.
 And true to our rustic roots this is what the Subway looked like up there. It's not an actual log cabin but it's meant to look like one. This is what we might do to our house this Summer :D
 And to show you just how small our town is. This is a shot of part of our Hockey Rink supporting our local boys. There's about 4 times this many people in the arena and it's most of the town. We are very supportive of our local sports talent.
And not sure why this picture ended up at the end of this post but this is us pulling up to the ice road. It shows you just how neat it is.
I really love where I live and am very proud of our small community. Hope this sheds some light on where I live.

I will have some knitting/crocheting pictures up soon.........

Editted***

I forgot to tell you all, I won an amazing prize on another blog. I won a blogiversary prize from Crafts from the Cwtch, I'm very excited for it to come in and while blog about it when it does :D

Thursday, March 8, 2012

It's Friday Somewhere

It's been a little while since I had a chance to post. And not allot to show for it either. I finally got the zipper sewn into one of the zip up the back hoodies. They even look cute hanging in the closet and they look even better on the cute baby. So this is just to show it off. It was the first time I've sewn the zipper in from start to finish by myself and also the first time I've used my new sewing machine that I've had for like two years :D
 Here's our latest visitor to our farm. He's been keeping the mouse population in control. He's just little. We researched him and he's a Northern Hawk Owl, not supposed to be in our region this time of year. But he doesn't seem to mind.
 Check out the rest of the FO Fridays posts from other's over at Tami's Amis

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Days 24-29 and bonus....

So here's the end of the MOCP pics, but not necessarily the end of MOCP. We are hoping to keep it going with the flickr group having the prompts. Check back often to see when it starts back up :D So here's the photos for days 24-29 plus the bonus day.

Day 24: Close up
 Here's a close up of a neutral zipper on the bright background of my blocking mat. I love the texture on the blocking mat.

Day 25: When you craft
 Like many other SAHMs I craft when the baby is asleep or when my husband is home in the evening to take care of her. Especially right now as she's getting very busy and is going to be crawling soon.

Day 26: Organization
 I bought a new shelving unit to fit all of my yarn in. So excited to put all of my yarn in.

Day 27: Wrong side
 This is the wrong side of the gusset of my stocking. I love the look of it. Especially when you pull the next color over.

Day 28: Simplicity
 I love the simplicity of the patterns variegated yarns when it's even a single crochet. Plus the simplicity of a simple crocheted circle.

Day 29: Latest FO
 So here's stocking 1 of 4 done and ready for the lining to be sewn in after blocking of course. I think it turned out pretty good for my largest interasia project to date. I'm going to make EJ one of these after Rae's are done.

Day 30 (bonus): My crafting companion
 My crafting companion isn't alive but he's always there lately. This is a little table that my Grandpa built for me for Christmas. It's supposed to be for your remotes and what not. But the remote pocket on the back is full of crochet hooks and DPNs. And that mess in the bottom is a mix of knitting patterns, yarn catalogues, the ipad and EJ's storybooks.

 Here is the current WIP, it's arms for a monster amigurumi. I'm taking Stacey Trock's Design Your Own Monster course on Craftsy. It's awesome and I'm so excited to finish this monster for EJ

And here's an EJ picture for you all. It's my new favourite picture, she finally discovered the mirror at the bottom of her frying pan. So cute.