Stripes and Dots

After well over a year, this is finally finished!

I started this quilt for Sydney with the intention of just making a fun blanket for her out of my stash. It quickly grew to twin size before I knew it! I chose all the striped and polka dot fabric I had and cut it into strips of various lengths. The white stripes were an after thought. The patterened fabrics right next to each other was just too much!

The backing is a thrifted sheet. It couldn't have been more perfect if I had planned it! The binding is leftover strips so it's a bit wider than it needed to be, but I was not about to cut it down.

The quilting is kind of a cursive "l" pattern that was fun to do. A little tricky to shove all the through my sewing machine, but fun all the same.

Hopefully the next one won't take so long! (Not that it actually took me that long to make it...procrastination you know!)

Purple Cap Sleeved Top

A finished project! Hurray! I finished this top for Sydney over the weekend and she immediately put it on. It kept her nice and toasty on Saturday, despite the cold weather. It fits snugly around her, but wasn't too tight around the neck which I was worried about. We will be saving this for fall and winter (with a long-sleeved T underneath.) It's a great (free!) pattern, knit entirely in the round so no seaming. You bind off and put it on!

Warming up

We spent the weekend trying to stay warm. We met both sets of parents at a state park to camp and fish. It rained most of the weekend and never broke 60 degrees. Brrr! I spent the time huddled around a fire knitting, so I guess I can't complain about that too much! I do have a finished knit to show you, but I have to bribe Sydney to model it - hopefully I can share that tomorrow. Today you just get to see the new babies we are growing around here. Robins! The color of those eggs is amazing. We are anxious for them to hatch, mostly so mama robin can stop making such a mess on the side of our house.

Preteen Girl About Town

This afternoon my niece is graduating from elementary school. How she got this old is beyond me. I was a freshman in college when she was born, how can she be a "preteen" now?

At this age freedom during the summer = your bike. I think it's always difficult to find just the right bag that can go with on your bike - not too big, doesn't get caught on your wheels, not too hot, etc. So I made her this little pouch that fits on her belt. It's just big enough to hold her house keys, a couple dollars for ice cream and maybe some lip balm or small sunscreen. I thought the fun print would go well with her summer wardrobe (which I am most certain contains absolutely zero pink.) Hopefully it helps her have a great summer, full of preteen fun and keeps her out of trouble. Boy if it did all that I think I would have quite the marketable product on my hands!!

P.S. Can I just tell you how good it felt to actually make something! :)

Yep, still alive

Sorry for the unannounced, extra long blog break around here. While I don't really have a good reason, I have lots of excuses...

• We had a garage sale this past weekend.
  
• I've spent more hours than I want to recall scrubbing, scraping, sanding, and painting our deck. Next time we are getting a new deck.


• Spring yard and garden projects that are never ending.


• A sick kid, which has resulted in a month of dairy free cooking, which is trickier than I expected. I am so hungry for cheese!


• Several weekends spent at various lakes.


• Spending lots of time with my grandma while my grandpa was in the hospital for knee surgery.


• Not having time to craft or make anything. I feel like I don't have anything interesting to talk about here, but now I realize how quickly you can get out of the habit of posting. I'll try harder to keep it up.
  

The pictures are from a weekend at the lake several weeks ago.

Out with the old...

In with the new...

Sorry, this is as exciting as it gets around here these days. (Must get out of this boring funk.) Today I got rid of this horrid beast:

And got this glass top, convection oven beauty. I've never been so excited to bake!

(Please try to ignore the crap on my counters and toys on my floor. If I have to clean my house just to take a lousy picture you guys will never get to see anything!! :)

Have a great weekend & Happy Mother's Day to all of the fabulous moms that read this.

Recycling at it's best!

I've been at a strange impass with knitting lately. I'm at a point where I'm spending a lot of time on my projects and don't want to use cheap yarn and have bad results. But, I'm also too cheap to really spend a lot of money on good yarn. So I did a little recycling! I found this sweater at a thrift store for $3.

I used this tutorial to take it apart. Not a quick process by any means, but I ended up with this!

I wound the yarn on a board with two nails, three feet apart to measure the yardage, then twisted my skeins up all fancy like the yarn store. For $3 I ended up with about 650 yards of yarn. The yarn is a really soft acrylic, wool, angora blend. Now I just have to decide what to knit!!