Three on Thursday: Considering monogamy

What a week it’s been! It’s been full of surprises, and not really in a great way for me. But… we’re chugging along.

Joining with Carole today for Three on Thursday – so here is my list of three things from this week:

One
I ordered a beautiful bright green dress for my daughter from Primary this week, with the intention of it being a St. Patrick’s Day dress that will have a longer life than one with shamrocks on it. I ordered short sleeves so it can transition into spring, and I had the somewhat crazy idea that I could finish her Chains cardigan in time for her to wear it over her new dress at a St. Patrick’s themed piano lesson event she is going to on March 15. I initially dismissed this idea immediately – no way would I finish it by then – the rows are so long! And then I thought, if I stopped working on all my other projects, it just might be feasible. But…

Two
I already have two active projects in other crafts, the Halloween SAL cross stitch and a Girl Scouts quilt. I’m enjoying both of them, but splitting my time between these and knitting is not leaving much time for me to finish either of them.

Three
For my birthday, I asked my mom to buy me the supplies to make the St. Patrick’s Day Countdown and Easter Countdown from The Sugar House Shop. (You may remember I’ve already made an advent calendar and a Valentine’s countdown from her shop. I’ve also made a birthday countdown of hers… but I just realized I never blogged it!) They arrived this week… and I’m also itching to try to start and finish the St. Patrick’s Day countdown before the beginning of March. Which again, I could do, if I quit working on everything else!

Ah… if I was good at being project monogamous, things would get done! I’m willing to give it a go, I just can’t decide which one I should go for. What do you think?

FO: Valentine’s Countdown

Yesterday, I promised a full post on the Valentine’s Countdown, and thanks to some lovely comments on it, I decided to do the full post today!

The Sugar House Shop, where I purchased the pattern for BK’s advent calendar, posted some new countdowns earlier this month, and I found I was helpless to resist. When I purchased materials for the Christmas calendar, I had also purchased the materials for the birthday countdown to get free shipping (I know I’m not the only one who commits to multiple projects just for free shipping, right?). And it just so happened that the ice cream colors I chose for the birthday countdown were almost an exact match for the Valentine’s Countdown.

I decided to see how much I could squeeze out of the 9×12″ felt sheets I had purchased for the birthday countdown, and it easily handled an ice cream scoop, two hearts and I still have half of it left over (yes, this means I will probably make even more of these projects :-)).

I swear, this project just flew by. I enjoyed it so much!

I only made one small change, which is that the pattern called for some printable Stick ‘N Stitch, which I could not find locally. I did some research, and found out that the new printer Mr Snips recently bought for us allowed you to print a mirror image of your file. So I did that, and used the iron-on transfer pen instead. It worked out great!

I only have one regret on this project, and it is that I only used the white floss on the dark pink hearts. I think I should have also used it on the purple. BUT – BK loves dark pink so much and she really likes the purple/pink combo, so I’m trying not to feel too bad about it. It’s difficult to read the purple ones from far away, but just fine if you’re near.

In fact, she loved the combo so much, she requested it for my one addition to this project. I recently found out that she can write her name backwards flawlessly, so I had her write her name backwards in iron-on transfer pen, and then I transferred it to a purple heart. I stitched over it with some pink, and now we will have a permanent memento of how sweetly her little 4-year-old hands write her name in 2018. It is, in fact, my favorite heart. And she will really like it because it means she will get a 15th chocolate out of it. I plan to fill the little hearts with a combination of Hershey’s Kisses and Andes Mints, both of which are the perfect size for these sweet little pockets. 

Here’s the big ta-da!

I’ll leave you with just one pro tip on this one. When threading the floss through the top to string them all together, using a safety pin was making me crazy. I pulled out a long plastic tapestry needle from my knitting bag, and it sailed through the tops like a breeze!

Now bring on January 31st, so we can fill this up! 🙂

Three things I’ve finished recently

Hi everyone! It has been a couple of weeks full of changes. I made the decision recently that I would become a full-time stay-at-home mom to my 4-year-old daughter, and left my job in mid-January. I’m very lucky to be in a place where I can make this decision. So far, it’s been great. I think we’ve yet to find the exact rhythm of our weeks just yet, as BK was sick most of the first week I was home, and we are also doing some work in our kitchen, both of which have affected how we spend our days. But I’m sure that we will fall into a gentle routine soon, and our days will be even fuller than they already are. 🙂

This also means that I’ve wrapped up a few projects that have been lingering for a long time! Which brings me to my three things…

1. A Quillow. I’ve made 3, but I just finished the last one yesterday! Quillows are fast and fun sewing projects. Can’t wait to show you the full details of all of the ones I’ve made.
2. TMNT flip-top mittens: My friend Heather of BaH Yarns made the coolest self-striping colorway, Cowabunga, inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT happens to be BK’s favorite thing ever, and I used some of the DK yarn to knit her a hat around Halloween time, and finally finished up some flip-top mittens with the leftovers just this weekend.
3. A Valentine’s countdown (close-up above): I LOVE this and I finished this within about 2 days of being home. Super cute! I hung it up on our bannister just to see how it looked, but have never taken it down! Technically, I shouldn’t have it up until Feb. 1, but it’s bringing so much joy right now I can’t. It’s very cold and grey almost every day, and the bright pops of color from this project are making me happy.

Full posts to follow on all of these projects, because they are so fun! Hope you’re all having a terrific Thursday. What did you finish this week?

Challenge complete

Hello and happy holidays to you all! I meant to get back here before Christmas to give you an update on the advent calendar, but I was so consumed with that, and then with a wee sweater for my friend’s little boy, and the Christmas preparations that it just didn’t happen. But what I will tell you is that I completed the advent calendar very late on December 18. I’m very pleased with it.

First of all, a few close-ups.

The bunny is the first animal I completed, because I was trying to dip my toe in gradually, and he didn’t require any embroidery for his face. He just has this adorable (magnetic!) fluffy felt ball tail.

Then, I made the fox. I did have to have a couple of goes on the eyes, but I got there OK in the end.

The owl is perhaps what I am most pleased with it. I finished him according to the pattern. My daughter named him “Harold MacCaw.”

But I just kept looking at him, and felt he needed a little more sparkle. And because after I had finished handsewing the border of the snow globe with white, my daughter asked for more gold, I decided more gold was what he needed. So I decided to try to layer them a bit like feathers to make him both more bling-tastic, and to add some feathery texture.

I then moved no to the deer, which gave me no troubles. I was getting into the swing of it.

And the sweet little hedgehog.

And then the skunk last, because he was BK’s least favorite. Though I love his little face.

But the piece-de-resistance is the star – outlined in gold sequins. I *love* this one.

So here it is, all together — the grand ta-da!!!

This was a fantastic project and I loved making it! There were a few minutes of stress, mostly due to my compressed timeline, but overall it was really great. So great that I’ve already purchased the materials to make the birthday countdown (though thankfully I have a few months to finish that one!).

I only had the one little hiccup with the instructions, but Jennifer was fantastic, and made it right for me immediately. The instructions were very clear, and good enough for a sewing novice for me. I also found the sewing of tiny things to be more enjoyable than the knitting of tiny things.

I hope all of you have had time to spend time with your family and friends, and that you’ve found a little craft time for yourself in amongst the festivities. The new year is rapidly approaching and I hope to see you here to talk crafting some more in 2018!

I just couldn’t resist

Well, my friends, the siren song of the snow globe advent calendar was just tooooooo strong. And 2 weeks before December 1, I found myself teaching myself how to hand embroider numbers and how to add seed beads and sequins to my hand sewing. I definitely had to do some practice runs, because the extent of my hand stitching repertoire is sewing on buttons… but I think it turned out all right.

I spent one whole week of evenings embroidering all of the numbers. I really struggled with this step. I had never used an iron-on transfer pen, so I practiced. It turned out OK. I did it for real, doing all of the numbers at once as the instructions said, and I thought it worked really well. For about 15 minutes. But I felt that even though I bought a “permanent” pen, the outlines started fading almost immediately! I would be upset with how it looked and have to walk away and give myself some space to see if I was going to tear it out or be OK with it. I cringed to even take a picture of the numbers for you, because every area I considered taking a close-up photo of had something in it that bothered me. I’ve instead decided to approach this from the “galloping horse” theory – if it looks good from a galloping horse, it’s fine! And I think, even though I don’t have a horse, that from a distance the overall impression of the embroidery is acceptable.

Over the next weekend, I cut out all of the pieces. Then I spent a few nights after BK’s bedtime doing the handsewing and beading. The beading took FOREVER the first day, as I was trying to get the hang of it. I really struggled holding onto those little seed beads, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be finding them in the folds of my couch forever! After the first night, however, I really got into the swing of it.

I finished it just in time! It wasn’t yet on the dowel rod or hung, but the sewing was done on December 1, and I had two snowballs completed.

I’ve now completed all of the days that require the felt balls – snow and ornaments. However, I realized as I was triumphantly testing the magnets, that I am missing a magnet behind the tree and I was one short! I had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night while thinking over how best to do this rework. After talking to my mom and Mr Snips, I decided on a small incision in the back, glueing the magnet on, and then sewing the small slit. It worked out very well.

I now have 19 days worth of the pieces done, and am working along on the animals. We’ll see how long it takes to do these final pieces with so many little details! But really, it’s all about completing a personal challenge. Especially since after I started working on this frantically, BK told me she didn’t need it for this year, because she already had an advent calendar, and what she really wanted was a pink and red striped stocking. Never mind that she has this beautiful one. Sigh.