crafts

What I really owe you is a confessional about why I abandoned my blog this winter. It can be summarized in one word. Knitting. This winter I finally succumbed to the lure of gorgeous wool. It started simply with a little orange hat for Marlowe, and before i knew it, I had hats for the whole family and then some, and a few other small projects. But that's for another post.

We're in purge mode around here, and hubby tossed a pile of Tshirts on the bed that he wanted to get rid of. He knew I probably wanted to do something with them besides trash; good man. I have a bunch of towels waiting for their transformation into rags, so I didn't need to cut the Tshirts up into rags. So I did what I've been wanting to try for a long time, make Tshirt yarn. (I'm not going to go into a tutorial. Here's a good one.) The short of it is, you take an old T, cut it into a long strip, and give a good tug so that it curls up.

Here's the first shirt transformed. The strips were too big (1 1/2" to 2" wide--I was very unscientific), and the largest sized needles I had were size 13. I need at least 15 for this yarn. Probably 17. I couldn't go very many rows, because it was just too cumbersome.

The next shirt, I turned into thinner strips (probably around 1" to 1 1/4" wide upon cutting). And size 13 worked fine.

it helps if you have a Tshirt without side seams. Because the seams will show through. If you're fine with a kind of fraying, funky look, I suppose that's fine. It didn't stop me.

I can't wait to dig into my stash of Tshirts! This is going to be fun knitting for warmer weather.

Wow, if I don't blog today, the month of February will pass by without a single blog entry! The horrors! I don't think that's ever happened to me in the eight and a half years of blogging.

January was a month of snow. Enough to keep our world magical and white, but not too much to overwhelm us and make us cry. In January we got rid of TV. We have plenty of other screens, but we watch a lot less. A LOT less. The TV corner is now a reading corner. Ellis sounded out his first words: "I am Sam. Sam, I am." And I became obsessed with knitting. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Look for me on Ravelry.

February was a month of friends. Friends visiting, visiting friends. Went down to DC to say goodbye to TulipGirl before their next international adventure. And my college buddy Joanna came for a week with twins and hubby. We played and her hubby conferenced. So much fun.

February was a month of waiting. I finished the last of my grad school applications in January. In February, I got my one accept and the reject that broke my heart. In March, I will move on and see what the next door holds for me, for all of us.

Yes, I knit their hats.

I'm cheating a little since I took this pic over a week ago. But I had to share the snowflake project of 2010. It's not Christmas without snowflakes. Lots of them. Creating a magical wonderland. I crossed ribbon over the dining room table around the hanging lamp. So walking through the dining room is walking under a canopy of snowflakes.

It warmed this mama's heart to have Ellis really join in for the first time in snowflake making this year.

I know I've already shared on Facebook the magnum opus that is the Halloween costumes that I made, but I need to plunk it down here for blog posterity.

when it came time to deciding on costumes, I wasn't sure how I was going to top the utter cuteness of last year's Man with the Yellow Hat and Curious George. Then one day Ellis decided that he wanted to dress up as the Cat in the Hat, so that was the decider, I would make a costume for him for Halloween. The obvious accompaniment to a Cat in the Hat costume is Thing 1/Thing 2. So Marlowe was going to be that. To be honest, though. I wasn't feeling it. Too obvious, too uninspired. So then, I thought, well, what about The Goldfish in the Cat in the Hat? Could I do a Goldfish costume?

Thus began the great quest to figure how to make a convincing fish. I scoured the internet for some design inspiration and came across this simple octopus costume idea on Martha Stewart. So that was my springboard.

The fish costume is in two parts: the body suit and the hood/cape thingy.
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The bodysuit was pretty straightforward. I used his jammies as a guideline. And velcro up the back. I incorporated fins onto the sleeve. The hood/cape has a lining so that i could stuff it a little and make casings in the fins for some pipe cleaner. The gave the fins some stiffness and bending capabilities for a fun Suess-y flip. I made a couple of pockets on the neckline of the bodysuit to thread the ties of the hood cape through to make it more comfy and secure for wearing.

The whole thing is made out of nice, comfy soft fleece.

The Cat in the Hat costume was much simpler. Again using fleece, i made a black body suit with velcro up the back for ease. Using his jammies as a template. then the white belly and sewed on red, felt bow. I made a casing and put some elastic at the neckline so that it would fit snugly, but comfortably. The tail is from a set of stripey tights from Target, stuffed with polyfil and a pipe cleaners. I added some strips of wide elastic at the foot, so that the leg would cover his shoes. Got some white gloves at Target, and made some whiskers from pipe cleaner. The Hat was donated by a friend who just had happened to find one at the thrift store. This made my job a LOT easier. I was not looking forward to that millinary foray.

Today we celebrate the great habit of those with more power triumphing over those with less power. Not to mix philosophy and history or anything... So why is it that we have Columbus Day? Did the powers that be miss having Fall Break or something?

Anyway, so no mail today. Or banks. Or school.

Nice for E to have a quieter day, because it's been a crazy weekend.

No soccer this weekend, due to tournaments, so we took the opportunity for the Great Upstairs Switcheroo. Something needed to be done about the Home Office aka Pigsty. The poor room that never really got moved into properly when we moved into this house a year ago. The room that had a table with my sewing stuff somewhere buried under all that crap. It was seriously scary. Hubby and I considered abandoning ship as one of the options. Closing the door and pretending it is a two-bedroom house. Or scooping it all out the window with a snowshovel.

But we took the upper road and tackled it head-on like responsible adults. After pondering the situation extensively, we decided to switch the boys' room and the home office. And to move the sewing into our large bedroom with wasted spaced. The middle bedroom is a bit longer and more narrow than the back one, and has a sliver of a window, so the boys are in a much nicer room for them now. Lots of natural light and a better floor plan. I'm excited to really settle them into it and decorate a little.

The front two bedrooms have an internal door, which makes for a fun sort of Suite for Adult Affairs. And after a couple of trips to IKEA for about 500gagillion KASSET boxes, I am well on my way to craft/sewing organizational zen. I'm really moving to another level here, and it's profoundly life-altering.

So that was Saturday. Sunday we went to church, driving down a very tidy street, since President Obama came to our neighborhood that evening. But we scooted out right after church to Lancaster, so now chance of seeing him. We went with pumpkin pies in hand to celebrate my Grandma's 80th bday. It was a beautiful, fall day. Albeit a very long day.

Today, I continued to master zen, and then took the kids to the park. Did a quick pop in to IKEA in the evening for my second installment of KASSET. And got up on Project Runway. And that's the news.

Ellis needs a scarf. I'm happy to oblige. Especially when there's this yummy wool to be had.

Three days down. Two to go. I'm Craft Master, and we're having a blast at VBS. Can't wait to show you pics of the week's creativity. These kids are great!!

The Art Star Craft Bazaar is big ol' annual craft show here in Philly. I don't really know how or where to find craft shows, but this one is pretty huge, and I love going. The first year I went it was sprawled through some parking lots in east Philly somewhere. Now it's on Penns Landing, with live music and a festive waterfront. Actually, the live music sounds like a great idea, but after awhile, I found it loud and annoying. I couldn't hear myself think or the people around me. It was just constant noise.

The funny thing is, I kept running into random people I know. First, there was a whole group of people I know from Covenant. They were more friends of friends while I was there, but I knew them well enough to spot them in a crowd eight years later and give hugs and "so what have you been doing"'s. And what's more, none of them live in Philly, but had converged for the weekend. So that was kind of fun. Then we ran into a couple that we actually met in New Orleans, though we're both from here. They live in center city, and we really need to keep in better touch. Sam and Sarah joined us for a little bit, too, which is always fun. (Sarah took some fun pics.)

It's so much fun and so inspiring to see people's work in real life. I wish I could do a whole report on my favorites. I did buy a cute zipper pouch from this seller, who made really awesome bags with bird designs, and who was sharing a booth with this seller, who did really cool Tshirt repurposing work. Both were really inspiring.

I'm so excited to have Heather Ross's new book arrive in the mail today: Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching. I think it's one of my favorite books yet. I've been a huge fan of Heather Ross fabrics, and this book is going to be so fun to combine with them. There are four sections: stuff for home, etc, clothing i can sew for ME, and clothing I can sew for kids, as well as a section on sewing basics, which is really helpful and informative, even for someone like me, who has a bit of experience under her belt. Today I learned, for instance, to finish off a buttonhole with a lockstitch. Didn't know that. I'm most excited about the section on things to sew for ME! Couple shirts, dresses, pants, skirts. Love it! And they're versatile (check out the Weekend Design Challenge on Heather's website). And I love that the kids stuff is beyond just elastic waist pants and aprons. Shirts and little dresses, too. I'm very excited!!

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The other book I got today (so that I would get free super saver shipping), was MaryAnn Kohl's First Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos. We'll be having a lot of fun with that pretty soon.

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ETA: Heather Ross is going to be in town for a book signing. I'm so excited!!! I really hope I can make it!!!

Today is February 10. The day in which the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act comes into orbit. If you recall, this is the hastily written law that didn't take into considerations the thousands of small business, crafters, and artists when it created steep lead-testing standards.

But our country is great, and voices can be heard. The fight to Save Handmade is still going strongly. There's a one-year stay on enforcement of the law, while they sort out the details.

The law is a good idea. The presence of lead and phthalates in toys in concerning, and I'm glad Congress is finally doing something about. I've been concerned about letting my kids play with too much plastic/certain kinds of plastic. I'm not insane-o about toys when we're out and about, but I try to minimize them at home, not that we don't have our Legos or anything. Bad plastics are scary, though. Eeew. So buying toys and children's products from small companies and handmade sellers is a great alternative!

So, please, folks, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.