Knit One, Purrrrrrl One

Look at this guy!

This is what happens when you hide your wool bag in the spare bedroom, but the cat slips in unnoticed when you go in there to get something from the closet, and you end up leaving and closing the door behind you and LEAVING HIM IN THERE ALONE! This is Jean-Paul, playful attacker of ankles, thief of Christmas bulbs (see my previous post), and lover of balls of wool! Ever since he was a tiny, tiny kitten, J.P.'s been able to SMELL wool... seriously, there's no place I can hide it. This cat can UNZIP DUFFLE BAGS with his TEETH to get at balls of wool. There's been many a morning that we've woken up to find wool that we had hidden on the top shelf of a closet strewn from upstairs to downstairs to the basement. Argh.

When he's this cute, though, I can't stay mad at him. Anyone any good at untangling?

Power Outages and Dancin' Shoes

Last night I had a blog post just about done, photos uploaded, when the power went out! There was apparently a pole fire somewhere nearby (that's what the recording said when we called to find out the approximate time it would be back), and 6,000 people in the city lost power for three hours. It was late, so we just went to bed, no worries... except the blog post didn't save! Oh, well.
I've been tagged by the lovely Andreae in a blog photo game. The challenge is to find seven red things in your house and post them, then tag other bloggers to do the same. Here goes...

Butterflies on our kitchen windows

Vintage red train bag I got for a steal last year! I use it instead of a briefcase for work

Favourite red shoes... Olivia calls these "the most beautiful shoes I've ever seen in my entire life!"

Pretty scarf brought back to me from Paris by my lovely mother-in-law

Ribbon on Baby M.'s teddy bear (Franklin- he used to be mine when I was young)

Christmas bulb that was stolen and hidden by our imp of a cat, J.P., so it didn't make it back in the boxes with the rest of the Christmas decorations

And something that's not actually in my house, but just because it's a rainy day in January...

 

Flower in our next-door-neighbour's garden. This photo was taken in July... imagine an 8 months pregnant lady kneeling down in a flower bed with a camera- that's how I got it. The neighbours weren't actually home at the time.

It's your turn,

Still I Am Learning

and

Readily A Parent

Tag, you're it!

Sparkly Snowflake Dreams

We had a little houseguest this weekend-- my 10-year-old cousin, Olivia. She's a good girl, sweet and smart and the best hair-braider there is, and Baby M. loves her, so we were happy she came to visit. I had to run out to Fabricville for thread, and Olivia came with me. We were looking through some of the material when Olivia's eye was caught by a bolt of flannel, which happened to be lime green (her favourite colour) with pink stars (bonus) and silver-sparkly snowflakes (glitter = double bonus, especially when you're 10), that was on sale for $2.99 a metre. We bought a metre and a half, and turned it into this:

Jammies (not the cat, LOL)! Pajama pants are one of the easiest things ever to make- cutting out the fabric is seriously the longest part. I've made Ian a pair of the same type of pants, and used a similar pattern to make little fleece pants for Baby M. (fleece, by the way, wicks away wetness, so if your child is wearing fleece pants and has a diaper leak, the pants are almost waterproof- the leak won't reach the outside. Use fabric softener and/or a Bounce sheet when you do laundry, and this will work even better).Olivia and I put a cuff at the bottom of the leg, and made a drawstring waist.

With the scraps of material we had left over, I cut out a heart, ironed it on some interfacing, and stitched it onto one of my old (but not too old) white t-shirts to make a matching pajama top. Once she tried the outfit on, she ended up wearing it home. :)

The cupcake projects are coming along slowly, but I'm getting there... the Get Baked show is a week from Friday coming, so I've got to get my arse in gear! I'm also in the process of organizing a project with a Haitian friend to benefit children in Haiti affected by the earthquake... if you're crafty and are willing to help out, please check back for details, by the end of this week! In the meantime, please click on the CraftHope for Haiti button on the right to check out CraftHope's shop on Etsy. Crafty people all over the world have donated items for sale, and the proceeds are going to Doctors Without Borders for their work in Haiti. $20,000 raised so far, and there are some really gorgeous things (including a super sweet toddler dress made by Andreae- see my previous blog post!).

Baking Birthday Cakes and Cupcake Art

It's freezing here today. Freezing! And I just made the mistake of going downstairs to the kitchen to turn up the heat in my bare feet... gah. Baby M. and I are cozying up in bed, and when he wakes up from his nap, we're going to bake a birthday cake for his nanny (I'll bake; he'll supervise from his musical swing). Been busy these past few days with the work for the Get Baked! show... today I've been working on the sketches for the embroidery wall-art pieces, and I think I've finally got it all under control! I was planning to do one large piece, but I'm going to break it down into three semi-large pieces instead. Now I've got to turn the sketches into heat transfers, iron them onto the cotton I'm using, and then do the stitching... and then they go washed, ironed, stretched and framed. Not a quick process, but hopefully the finished product will raise at least a bit of money for a great cause!

Speaking of baking, if you're into crafty things and like baking, too, please check out my good friend Andreae's blog, With the Crickets. I've known Dreae since junior high school and she's now the domestic goddess of St. John's. Seriously- she's even the go-to girl for media outlets that want to do stories on truffle-making (she's also my go-to girl for all things gluten-free). She writes a food column for a local arts paper, is married to a lovely poet, and has two supermodel kids, with another on the way. AND she can turn things like this:

2 packages of fabric dye and a jersey bedsheet

into this:

A pretty dress! Amazing, wha'?

(I love this picture, not only for the dress, but for her little boy and what he's doing!)

Oops!

My "The Gruffalo" link was wrong in my last post.... it's been corrected now. Sorry!

"A mouse took a stroll through the deep, dark wood... A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good..."

Baby M. and I have been home with colds for the past few days, so instead of having gone baby-sledding, we now know our favourite book, "The Gruffalo," off by heart, beginning to end (never read it? Look it up when you get the chance- it's great)! I think Baby M.'s got the whole object-permanence idea now, because he laughs when I play peek-a-boo with him... before, when he didn't realize I was hiding and not gone forever, he'd look surprised when I popped out from behind the blanket. I live for this little boy's giggles (although he doesn't look too interested in this pic... I think he's getting sick of posing for the camera; he sees it often enough)!!

The local fabric specialty store has a huge sale on right now, and I managed to get out there for a few minutes, anyway. Baby M. is soon going to be too tall for his infant carseat and into a bigger seat, which means he won't be able to use the little cuddle bag he's got now, so I went looking for something soft but a bit heavy to sew on the outside of the fleece one I'm making him. I was thinking corduroy at first, but then saw something different which was on sale for a much better price. As a result, I now have this:

Three metres of I'm-not-sure-what-to-do-with-it

light blue velveteen!

"If you see a material that you love and it's on sale, buy it, because you'll always find something to do with it," my mom told me tonight when I showed it to her (and my mom is the best seamstress/cook/painter/crafty lady I know... that's not just fluffy daughter talk, either). Well, I love this material - the colour is really pretty and it's super soft - but I have no idea how to use it. I'm thinking maybe a little pair of pants for Baby M., or overalls? A little dress for my baby niece?  Maybe another stuffed toy? Help! Suggestions would be appreciated! :)

I also bought some fleece (on sale for $5 a metre- woo hoo) - blue with Peter Rabbit-style bunnies - to make a blanket for my adorable, just-born nephew (and, sadly, I only know he's adorable from pictures, because I can't go visit until my cold is gone)! Five babies in two years in our family, and only one of them a

girl.

Bedtime for me, and finishing Russell Brand's autobiography. I have a big crush on him, but the book is a little... jarring. What should I have expected, though, really? Night night! :)

Art for your Sweet Tooth!

Now that they're officially out, I can give details on the art exhibit I was asked to take part in. Called "Get Baked: Art for Your Sweet Tooth," the show is taking place at the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre next month, and is a fundraiser for Marguerite's Place. If you're not in St. John's or aren't aware of it, Marguerite's Place, when finished, will include supportive housing units for single women over 30, as well other programs run by the St. John's Status of Women Council and Women's Centre. The facility is named in honour of Marguerite Dyson, a Women's Centre volunteer, who was murdered in her St. John's boarding house in 1996, at the age of 51.

Not only is the show for a great cause, it has a great theme: Cupcakes! The whole project was the idea of Alicia E., curator and tattoo artist/graphic artist/art glass designer, who happens to love cupcakes more than anyone I know (she's even got cupcake tattoos). Alicia is also one of the most hard-working people I know, and has organized  all kinds of artistic events as fundraisers for various charities around the city.

It's a mixed media exhibit, and I'm doing three pieces: one is a photography piece (for which I'll need a kitchen that has more natural light than mine- anyone got one they'd like to volunteer? There'll be cupcakes in it for you!), one is a fairly sizeable embroidery piece (wall art), and the other involves one of my favourite mediums... recycled sweaters.Will post some pics as they get nearer to being finished. :)

There are going to be some pretty interesting pieces on display and for sale (including Jared Reid's, which involves 750 plaster cupcakes sculptures!), so if you're around, please come and check it out!

Hellooooo There...

Monsters!

These are the little toys I made for my niece, nephew and Baby M. for Old Christmas Day (and finally finished). Ian drew the pattern for me, and they're sewn with normal quilting cotton and felt (made from recycled pop bottles), stuffed with polyester batting and hand-embroidered. The flowered one has my niece's name on the heart (Kylie); the one with dots has "Roarr!" on it. Let me know if you like 'em, and I might make them a regular thing. ;)

For my other nephew, two-year-old Little E., I made a blanket... but by "made" I mean just sewing a hem on a big piece of fleece and blanket-stitching around the edges with wool. His latest obsession is hockey (and he's very inventive- he can make his own stick and puck out of anything; when he was at our house last weekend, he found the pitchfork from Ian's Halloween costume and a plastic Christmas tree bulb, and said, "Look, Tara! Hockey game!" as he hit the bulb down the hallway), and it just happened that the local fabric store has a huge sale on fleece, including a hockey player print. He calls blankets "ballies," so this is now his hockey bally. I think my sister's got some 5 a.m. rides to the rink in her future!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, so we're staying in tonight to watch movies. I'm actually glad to have a bit of snow now... we bought Baby M. a little infant sleigh about a month ago, and as soon as we did, the weather turned warm and we haven't been able to take him out in it. This is enough snow, though, mind you. Did you hear me up there?!

Merry Old Christmas Day...

... and happy new year! Thanks so much for the e-mails... I'll be starting on new orders this weekend, and hopefully restocking Gingersnap with Munkeh, Cuddly Bunny and others in the next couple of weeks.

This is officially the last day of Christmas- how quickly did that go by?! In our house growing up (and in a lot of houses in Newfoundland, apparently) we celebrated the end of Christmas... we had another big dinner, and we even hung our stockings up again on Old Christmas Eve. We'd get a few little things this time; Mom would tell us Santa Claus was on his way back to the North Pole and if he had anything left in his sack, he'd give it to boys and girls who hung up their stocking. She later told us it was for things she had forgotten/put away and couldn't find on Christmas Eve. I'm making little Old Christmas gifts for Baby M. and for my little niece and nephews, but they're still not quite finished (will hopefully be done by tonight). I'll post pics when they are!

This was our first Christmas with Baby M. :) Of course, he's not old enough yet to understand what's going on (and loved the wrapping paper as much as any gift) but it was SO NICE. We did a lot of visiting and he was so pleasant the whole time. He's a happy little boy... hardly ever cries and is almost always smiling, and really is a joy.

I did a homemade Christmas for a lot of my family members and friends this year. My sister did, too- she made all the kids beautiful onesies with felt-applique designs on them (her own patterns) and fleece pants (and she has a newborn and an always-busy two-year-old, so I'm doubly amazed at her). I got out the felted wool sweaters again and made mittens!






The mitten part was pretty easy to do- the pattern wasn't hard, and felted wool is really forgiving, so if the seams aren't all quite the same, it's not noticeable. The toughest part was the design. I needle-felted it on the back of the mittens and it took ages! It's done with wool roving (dyed but unspun wool) and a special barbed felting needle... instead of, say, drawing a design, you use the needle to poke, poke, poke the different colours of roving where you want them. The barbs on the needle cause the roving to mesh together with the felted wool, and that's how it stays together. I made a pair for myself, too, and they're pretty cozy.

I've just started three pieces of artwork for an upcoming show I was asked to take part in... I don't know if the details have been released or not yet, so I'll wait to talk about it, but it's a fundraiser for a fabulous cause!