Baby Life Quilt

Over the past year, there have been quite a few babies born to friends and family.  At last count, there were 4 new babies born within the year.  One of these sweet babes is little Lily.  Lily’s mom, Becky, and I are cousins and we grew up together.  I probably spent just as many holidays with Becky and her sisters, as I did at my own house.  Actually, this is still true, since we head over to Aunt Aida’s (Becky’s mom) every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. 

Even Piper has a special connection with Becky and has told both of us that if something were to happen to hubby and me, she wants to live with Becky.  The pool in the yard might have a *little* something to do with it, methinks.  I was a little concerned (teeeeeeny bit) to learn that my 12 year old already has a contingency plan in case of our early demise.

Tangent, sorry. 

When Becky announced she was pregnant, I knew I wanted to do something special.  I searched through a lot of patterns, but when I came across the Baby Life quilt, I knew THAT was the one! 

Making the quilt was a collaborative effort.  Piper wanted to help trace and cut out all the letters.   As much as I have come to love appliqué, I am not a fan of tracing and cutting, so I wasn’t about to turn down the extra help.   The only thing she asked was that I tell Becky that Piper helped make the quilt too, which I was happy to do. 

Pi and I decided to use a bunch of purples for this quilt.  As much as we both love pink, something just screamed purple.  Now this is where it gets ESP freaky.  I hadn’t asked Becky what color her nursery was going to be.  One day, while over for a BBQ, she showed me the nursery that had just been painted… purple!  Uh-huh…that is some freaky cousin connection there. 

Loved making this quilt and I love love love the way it turned out. 

 

For the back, I pieced together the leftover purple fabric. 

As pretty as it is alone, a sweet baby always makes a quilt look better.

Seriously, who couldn’t love that face?

It's been awhile...

Wowzers, has it really been 16 months since I last posted?  Talk about being a major slacker! 

A lot has happened in that time, so I’ll just give you the 3 second version.  After months of searching and interviewing for an internship, I finally landed one last November at a facility that treats offenders.  This is a PG blog, so I’m not going to say what kind of offenders.  After the mandatory background/fingerprint stuff, I was finally able to start in January and interned there until July.  I got hands on experience doing group therapy, assessment, and psychoeducational classes.  I officially graduated in May, but stuck around the internship a few extra months because I enjoyed the work so much.     

Fast forward to now.  I’m currently looking for a position in my field, so I can get the experience hours needed to get licensed.  The economy is making this a bit of a slow process, but I’m being patient and hoping that something great will pop up soon.  In the meantime, I’m still at my regular job and enjoying life without research papers or late night classes. 

Seems like Pi is on fast forward mode too.  She started 7^th grade yesterday!  Insane how time flies. 

I didn’t craft much while in school, but I managed to finish a few small things and even though I wasn’t blogging, I took pics of everything.  I was hoping to be back eventually.  Since school has ended, I have been on a roll.  I can’t craft enough, it seems.  Let’s see how many Christmas gifts I can squeeze in before I slow down again.  :)

I’m obsessed with sewing right now and have even gotten Pi into it.  She went to sewing camp for a week and has become the queen of patchwork squares.  My scrap stash was raided and I helped her cut 3 inch squares, which are slowly becoming 16 patch squares.  She plans on making enough to make herself a quilt.  No small goals for that one, but  gotta give her credit for confidence.

 

And because no post is complete without a picture, here is a little Owl Coin Purse from Michelle Patterns (formerly known as KeykaLou).  It was made with the teeniest of scraps and was such a quick project.  Perfect for an instant gratification fix. 

So, I can’t promise I’ll post as regularly as I once did, but I’m around.  Hope the last 16 months have been good to you too!   

Ahhh Spring.

Spring is finally here! On one hand, I feel like it took forever to get here, but on the other hand, I can't believe it's already May.

I've been on Spring break for a few weeks. Not having to go to class has been nice, but I'm still up to my neck in papers. I'm finishing up the last one that's due and then it will just be finals. I'll be a free woman in 4 weeks.

Not having to go to class has meant a little extra time crafting time. One of my co-workers asked me to make her granddaughter a hat. She didn't care what kind, so long as it was pink and brown and had a flower.

Piper's bear Teddy was willing to model a pink hat, since Piper was asleep and unable to protest.

I found the pattern on Ravelry and of course, forgot to que it and now I can't find it to share. I'll have to dig up the paper copy to figure out which one it is and I'll post it when I find it. I used THIS pattern for the flower, but left off the picots.

No sooner did I start knitting when I realized that I needed new stitch markers. I asked Andrea over at Knits and Knots if she made any, because she'd sent me a great set a few years ago. She pointed me to Endless Forms, which is run by her sister. Crafty talent clearly runs in the family.

Look how cute the stitch markers were packaged! The stamping on the paper is such a nice touch.

Aren't they pretty? They work like a dream and I love them. She sells really cute jewelry too.

I'm uber late on posting our class project for Easter, but here it is anyway. I saw this idea HERE and fell in love. Cheap, easy, and cute. Plus Piper said it wasn't too "babyish" which is a requirement for 5th grade crafts now. I wish you could see me rolling my eyes now. Ha!

We made over 40 of them with a bunch of different peep colors. Piper said they were a hit. I hope the teacher will forgive me for all the little sugar bits that were probably all over her floor.

What's Easter without dyeing eggs? My neighbor had a party and we were told to BYOE (bring your own eggs). She covered the table in newspaper and let a bunch of rugrats go nuts. She's a braver woman than I! The kids had a blast and we ended up with dozens of cool eggs.

Hope everyone is doing well! Hoping to be around more in a month or so, when school lets out. In the meantime, what have you guys been up to?

A Plethora of FOs

So, another month goes by and I have the same excuse: school! Although it's busy (and hard), it's going really well. I'm in the process of interviewing for internships, so please keep your fingers crossed I land one!

I've been sporadically crafting over the last few months. I started a lot of these projects in December and worked on them slowly until they were all done.

My good friend Ellen planned a trip to Mexico to celebrate her 40th birthday and she invited me and a bunch of her friends to go. Unfortunately, I couldn't go, but I was happy to help when she said she wanted to give the girls personalized travel bags for the trip.

She bought all of this wild fabric and picked the Weekend Travel Bag from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. I made them assembly line style which helped to make them go pretty quickly.

I embroidered everyones name on their bag, which took some time, but was totally worth the effort. The only regret I have is not using a stronger interfacing. The fabric was a little soft and even with interfacing, they weren't as stiff as I would have liked. No worries, though because Ellen loved them!

Of course, as I was making of all these bags, a certain (not so) little person decided she HAD to have one with a flower. She drew what the flower should look like and it was simple enough, so I obliged.

She picked out this great home dec weight polka dot fabric in the clearance section for the outer bag. The pink lining is from my stash... it was a clearance buy when I visited Philly a few years ago.

With a home dec weight fabric and interfacing, this bag turned out much stiffer and with better corners than the first set. Love it!

Piper mentioned that she wanted to use the bag when she went bike riding (she claims she's too big for a basket now), so I added some cotton webbing to the side seam. Now, she can fling it right onto her bike handles.

Last, but not least, one of my sweetest co-worker had a baby shower in late February. Since I've been pressed for time, I went with simple squares and white sashing.

Do you recognize the pink fabric? It's the same stash fabric I used for the lining of Piper's bag. Piper also found this great turtle print in the clearance section and it matched the pink flowers perfectly! Meant to be, wouldn't you say?

My favorite part is the green Minky on the back. It was my first time sewing with Minky, but with a few tips, I didn't have any problems. First, I pinned, pinned, and pinned some more. Then, I used my walking foot and voila, no puckers!

The teeniest of scraps were left over and I didn't want to throw them out. So they got pieced together and became a matching bib. Swoon! I love sewing for babies.

Well, that's the end of show and tell for today. Hope all is well with you guys!

Happy Valentine's Day!

*Pi's Valentine Mailbox from a shoebox project.

*Butterfly template found HERE

Hope your day is full of sugar!!

Go away winter!

A whole month since I've been to the blog! Craziness! January has been a crazy busy month and I just haven't had the chance to sit down and write down an entire post. I'm guilty of being more active on FB lately, which probably doesn't help with getting to the blog as often as I should.

So January in a nutshell... Happy New Year! Wishing you all a year full of happiness! Happy Birthday to Mom and my twin sisters Jennifer and Tiffani (they're 18...holy cow!). Piper and I got sick, got better, went ice-skating, fell on our butts and read James and the Giant Peach (so cute). School started again for me and it's going to be quite the semester. I'm looking forward to it though, because the classes seem really great.

Anyhoo, if you're anywhere except California, then you know all about the snow and ice we've been getting. This pic is from last week when we got another 18 inches of snow in our 4th snowstorm since Christmas.

But that's old news compared to today's ice storm! I tried to go to work this morning and turned right back around when I realized that walking down my driveway would take some major ice skating skills. The entire area is a full sheet of ice. Not long after I went back inside, I heard a nice big CRACK
and looked to see that the tree above our garage cracked right off. We're lucky that none of the falling branches have hit power lines yet.

Not a whole lot of crafting going on, but I did manage to make this mitten. Yes, only one, haha! My co-worker and I decided to make our boss a pair of mittens for Christmas. Our boss is awesome and loves handmade things, so we try to throw something handmade into her gift every year.

We figured we could both tackle one each. After a bunch of re-dos to try to match gauge, we were finally able to start them (a month late, ha!).

Being my first knit mitten, I was confused by the thumb, but thanks to some patient knitting buddies (thanks ladies!), I figured it out. Can I get a woot woot? ;)

The pattern is called the Agatha mitten and can be found HERE. I used a half skein of Bernat Alpaca for this one. My co-worker has the other half skein and is cranking her mitten out now. With luck, my boss will have both mittens by springtime. ;)

My family also started a new "snow day" tradition. If it's a snow day, we bake a chocolate chip coffee cake! Yum!

THIS recipe never gets old!!

Hopefully I'll be back before another month is over.

30+

We received over 30 inches of snow the day after Christmas! Poor Pip was stuck in Bklyn, so I trekked out there on Monday to bring her home.

I'm not a big fan of snow, but seeing Pi having so much fun makes it hard for me to a hold a grudge against the snow.

I'll admit that snow is good for a few things, like igloos...

And tubing!

What are your favorite snow activities?

Merry Christmas!

From the "K" family to yours, we wish you all have a wonderful Christmas! May we remember the true reason for the season.

Lots of love!!!

Is it really almost Christmas?

Whoa, what a few weeks its been. Work has been nuts, I took finals, doctor appointments, and have just been generally crazy! So you get a week's worth of re-cap in one quicky, drive-by post.

We went ice skating with Girl Scouts at a local rink. Piper hugged the wall the entire time, but she was definitely getting better by the end of the visit.

I can ice skate and was supposed to help Pi on the ice, but.... I managed to fall down the stairs and sprain my ankle even before we got there! I didn't want her to miss the skating, so I threw a brace on (left over from my 2007 tumble down the stairs). I'm all better now... no worries!

We bought our tree about two weeks ago. I love getting a real tree. It's a PITA, but it smells so good and looks so pretty, that it's so worth it in the end. To tell you the truth, we love decorating the tree so much not to mention it fell over, we did it twice! I'd like to take a moment to grieve my poor Mets ornament that lost it's life this year when my mets hating hubby broke it the tree fell.

But I digress... it's pretty, isn't it?

I also had grand plans of making EVERYONE handmade gifts this year. I made lists, cut fabric, picked out yarn... and yeah, nothing! Amazon and I spent some quality time together instead.

Other than the hats from a few posts ago, I only managed to finish one gift. It's a biggie though, so I'm still pretty proud.

It's a disappearing 9 patch pattern made with leftover fabric from my Oh, Fransson! Advent Calendar and some scraps a friend sent to me. I didn't have to buy one little bit of new fabric for this quilt, which makes it that much more awesome.

The back is lined with red solid fabric left over from the Principal's quilt. My non-dirty Grandma is getting this one. I hope she loves it as much as I do!

So, did you guys make a lot of gifts this year? Or was it Amazon to the rescue?

Help a knitter out!

Anyone have the Molly's Headband pattern? It was an Interweave freebie. I've had it bookmarked for ages but when I went to print it yesterday, discovered the pattern isn't up anymore. Was anyone else smart enough to actually save it as a PDF? Anyone? Bueller?





Here's a link...


http://www.knittingdaily.com/media/p/36941.aspx

Crystal's Baby Shower

A few weeks ago (yes, I'm really behind!), my mom and I went to a baby shower for my cousin's g/f, Crystal. She's due to have a little girl, named Leila, any day now.

I started early and managed to get a few handmade things done in time. The little quilted bib and the pj pants are made out of fleece. I love how soft they turned out! The hat is made from Wool Ease Chunky left over from the set I made for my SIL for Christmas.

This is called a whole quilt, if I'm not mistaken because both sides are made from a whole piece of fabric, rather than patchwork. I found this fabric at Walmart when they were getting rid of their craft section and fell in love with it on the spot. If you look carefully, it is all nursery rhyme characters... the 3 Bears, the 3 little pigs, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood! I couldn't bear to cut it up, so that's why it became a whole quilt. I wish I could tell you how big it is, but I forgot to measure it.

I backed it with red cotton that was left over from the Principal's quilt and finished with a pre-made solid red binding. I did free motion quilting all over, but I'm not particularly thrilled with it. I did a lot of ripping out and definitely need more practice.

I was afraid that I would have to tell my dad that my mom found a new man at the shower. This little guy loved her!

Here's me, Crystal, my cousin Steven, and my mom. Can't wait to meet the new addition to the family!

Bib pattern - HERE
Pants pattern - HERE
Hat pattern - HERE

Oh, hats!

What a week! My poor Pipster has been home sick all week. The doc said she is contagious and he wasn't kidding. Within a few days, hubby was just as sick as she was. I felt sniffly all week, but managed not to get as sick as they have been (yay vitamin C!). But this morning, I woke up feeling yucky. I hope a weekend in bed will take care of that quickly. Let's hope so anyway, because finals start on Tuesday.

I realized over the last few weeks that my posts have been lacking in anything craft related. Before you think I forgot what yarn looks like, I wanted to show you the fruit of my commuting labors.

I wasn't kidding when I said that my yarn stash and I are getting re-acquainted on the bus. Over the last few weeks or so, things have been flying off the needles. Why can't I be this prolific all the time?

This hat will be going to my 16 y/o cousin Kara. I used 1 ball of Vanna's choice yarn and it was more than enough for the hat, with a little left over. This yarn makes a nice, soft squishy hat. You know I love me some squishy! The pattern, which you can find HERE, is an easy one for beginning cabelers.

Because I loved how squishy the blue hat turned out, I dived into my stash to find more Vanna's yarn. I found this lonely variegated ball and used the same pattern. It's definitely just as soft and squishy, but the yarn hides the cabling in the pattern. Oh well... live and learn! This hat will be going to my cousin Zach. He's Kara's brother. Not sure how much she'll appreciate having matching hats with her brother, haha.

This purple set is for my SIL, MaryJane. I found the scarf pattern HERE. I modified it by using only one strand of Wool Ease Chunky. I used about a skein and a half, so there was enough left over for a hat.

Small problem...my SIL doesn't wear hats because she has this super pretty, long hair that she wears in a ponytail when she works. She works outside, so I still wanted to give her something to keep her warm. So, I used the same scarf pattern and made it long enough to fit around my head. I bound off and sewed the ends together. Viola, instant headband! She can keep warm and not have to worry about her ponytail.

This black hat was made for hubby. He's been eyeing the hats flying off the needles and not-so-subtly let me know he needed a new hat. He picked THIS pattern and a lone skein of regular Wool Ease from my stash. Easy peasy!

A few weeks ago, I commented on Bezzie's blog, that I hadn't learned how to change colors in knitting yet. Have you noticed all my knitting has suspiciously been one skein or one color projects? Yeah, I'm a big baby and scared to try changing colors.

After I typed out my comment, I realized how stupid that sounded. It's just a color change! I headed over to knittinghelp.com (love this place, because she answers every knitting question I could ever have) and watched a video on changing colors.

From that, this hat was born. It'll be going to my cousin Ian for Christmas. When I saw him a few months ago, he was still shorter than me. Come Thanksgiving, the kid had sprouted and I had to crane my neck to look up at him.

The gray yarn is Bernat Satin (no ball band, so I think but am not 100% sure) and the black is scraps from a Caron pounder. I didn't use a pattern, just winged it from measurements I took from the other hats. An experienced knitter can figure it out by looking at it, but if any newbs (like me!) want me to write out how much I cast on and when I changed colors, let me know and I'll type it up this week. It was super simple and I should have never been afraid to change colors. What a wuss I've been, haha!

I'm happy to say that all of the yarn I used was in my stash. I didn't have to buy a single ball! Not that my stash looks any smaller...

Weekend Wrap Up

What a four day weekend it was! I didn't get anything craft related done at all, but the weekend was jam packed with family goodness.

Thursday, the fam went to my aunt Aida's house for Thanksgiving. Literally, everyone showed up this year. It was packed, it was loud, and it was a ton of fun. Of course, no Thanksgiving would be complete without Dirty Grandma. This year, she had us cracking up because she was singing a Rhianna song. She's always got something up her sleeve.

On Saturday, I turned the big 3-0! Let's just say it's the 5th anniversary of my 25th birthday, mmkay? My family surprised me by driving to the dirty Jerz and meeting us at a restaurant. I had no idea they were coming, especially since my mom called to apologize that they couldn't see me. Sneaky sneaky!

Mmmm, cake.

Hubs got me an awesome gift,,, a kindle! He knows what a book nerd I am, haha. Lord help anyone who tries to talk to me on the bus now. ;)

My friends at work also went into super sneaky mode this year. They threw me a surprise party at work and made a scrapbook for me. It's the awesomest book ever. I can't show you every page, but here are a few of my favs.

This is the "Moving to Jersey" page.

This is the "Back to School" page. Tell me that crop job doesn't make you laugh? Haha!

And this is the "Cougar" page. Sheesh, I'm old enough to be labeled a cougar now? I thought 30 was the new 20?

Those crazy kids didn't stop there. As if the scrapbook wasn't enough, look what they gave me. Do they know me or what? I have no idea what to use it on. Any ideas? I want to use it wisely!

Thanks to my friends and family for making my 30th birthday traumatic awesome and memorable!

P.S. - They're lucky I didn't try karate chopping anyone when they jumped out at me in the restaurant! Who am I kidding? ;)