Owl Be Thinking About You, Baby

I had a lot of fun creating some cute owl things for a friend's baby shower recently. I found a cute owl bib pattern at the LionBrand site that I thought was super cute. I decided to make it into a stuffed animal. One thing led to another and pretty soon I had changed my little owl into a marsupial by giving it a pouch and an owlet. I made both into baby rattles, too. It just so happened that I had begun a granny square baby blanket from a Christmas gift Jason and the kids had gotten me, Vanna's Choice: Color it Beautiful Afghans.. (yes....Vanna White...from Wheel of Fortune) :)

I had stopped working on it in January and packed it away because I had run out of gold colored yarn to continue the pattern. It turned out to match the little owl so I decided to add a few rows of colors in the afghan to make it a little bigger. It turned out very well, even without the gold yarn. Here are some pics:


























Owl also be making some more baby gifts very soon....lots and lots of friends and family are expecting babies. What fun!!! Hopefully, owl not be up all night crocheting and sewing :)

To Make a Long Story Long....

Well, I started out wanting to post some pics of things I have been making lately. Naturally, I started looking through my pics to make sure I had some good ones of everything I wanted to post. Then I came across this pic, which brought a big smile to my face:







Oh, yes. I know very well that that is a VERY SILLY hat.


It was a special request from Talon (in a way). He wanted a yellow kitty cat hat (thus the ears).

Earlier in the day (yes, the very same day...it was a Tuesday), Natasha spotted a flyer in the library.

She said, "Mom, you should do this!" It was a flyer for a NEW YARN STORE. In my town. And....they were having a January Hat Challenge to raise money for the American Cancer Society. How exciting! So what did I do? Cleared the afternoon schedule (because of course we were just a couple of days away from the contest deadline) to make a hat. Then comes the "looking through patterns" stage. Online patterns, patterns in my books. I settled on one that looked fairly easy. It was a hat made out of 5 granny squares sewed together.

Well, of course mine ended up looking nothing like the pattern in the book. The original didn't have cat ears, for one thing. Well, wouldn't you know it...Talon absolutely loved it...this thing I created that could be ranked in the top 5 of the ugliest things I have ever made.

So, I have to say I was really, really surprised when I saw this:
an article in the local paper with a pic from the new yarn store, with a pic of my hat (well in a big group of hats, but hey!). See the kitty ears sticking up over there on the right in the back?



I am so excited! (I will have to make another post with all the other exciting things I have been up to). Yay!!

Love is in the Air...

or is it snow?

















some Lovely bookmarks I made lately














Green Bunny, Amber the Yellow Striped Kitty, and Sneaky the Leopard were kind of chilly with all this snow, so I made them some sweaters.

Sunrise

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name [is] to be praised. Psalm 113:3

thank You God for new days and beautiful mornings

thank You God for loving family and friends

thank You God for snuggly children

thank You God for fingernail clippers

(just seeing if you were paying attention)

God make me a mender of hearts today, a sower of love in all that I do. Help me sprinkle mercy and grace and love in every word and action today.

Sowing love
Sewing love
same thing

Happy New Year January 2011

The kids went out to play on this chilly first day of January. I love my children. They sparkle and bring me much joy!

The Hard Life of Kitties at My House

Here is Snowball in the beautiful cradle my dad built for my baby dolls and stuffed animals when I was a little girl



Talon loves his kitty

Finished Crochet Projects

Here are several things I have made or finished lately. Talon's sweater was one I made last year, and it was huge on him. I finally put buttons on it. Not bad for one of my first tries at sweaters, and he is happy with it, but I see lots of imperfections. My mom gave me all the yarn for the sweater. Talon's favorite color is yellow.

The granny square afghan in blues/greens/yellow was for a friend's baby shower this week. It was so soft and warm. She loved it. Yay!! This was yarn from my Aunt Sandy :)

The baby afghan variegated pink yarn is available/for sale in my new Etsy store (see sidebar) Yay!!! I just wanted to try a new pattern and love how it came out. This is more yarn from my Aunt Sandy :) (Aunt Sandy, I am working really hard to use up that yarn, but I think it will take a while)

The stocking and the two white scarves were orders I got after the Holiday Bazaar. I think they both came out wonderfully.

I love the holiday season, and love giving gifts....praying you are all safe and warm and full of God's peace.

Bazaar Happenings

Just a glimpse of the fun I had setting up a booth at a local Christmas Bazaar. I do have a few things left, so if you see something you are interested in, let me know. My friend Jennifer made the awesome aprons, and she does custom orders. Please go to her Etsy site and support her, too. 100% of your purchase at her Etsy shop goes to support Ichthyosis research and education. Ichthyosis is a rare skin disorder that her daughter has.
Not shown on there are 3 gorgeous full size aprons that sold on Saturday. She also made the beautiful aprons the girls and I got for Christmas last year :). Also, did you catch a glimpse of my pretty girl wearing a hat that I thought was a dud. After adding 8 pom-poms and 2 tassels, Natasha loves this hat :)






who knows? Maybe I will open an online store to sell my extra items...what do you think? I have snowflakes, the baby quilt, potholders, and a scarf left. (though I am making more scarves)

edited 2.20.11: etsy shop is now open. Click here to go to my KittenYarn shop or click any of the pics on the sidebar from my shop. Slideshow was not working on this post so I took it off and put pictures instead. The silly hat I made that Natasha loved so well ended up being perfect for her as she was the Jack-in-the-Box for a Christmas play. You can see a pic here on Facebook hopefully.

Bits & Pieces

What do you do with your bits and pieces?






Here is what I decided to do....




Ta-Dah!!

Wet soap not being crumbled down the drain by small hands, in a little pretty washable pouch :)

The soap pouch is actually from a pattern set called Heirloom Sachets from the book 101 Fun-to-Crochet Projects. Also from this book I am working on these Enchanted Snowflakes

Every little bit and piece you do and say can count for something or it can be wasted. Too many times I find myself wasting words, things, and time. May we all be mindful of the opportunities around us, not to be wasters, but rescuers. Let us rescue even things that seem small and unimportant. It may be a person you end up rescuing. Small things can become eternal things.

What will you do with the bits and pieces in your life?

12.14.10 update: the children discovered for me that it is still possible to violently squeeze wet, gooey little chunks of soap out of this (aren't they sweet product testers?), so this has been washed and put away for the moment, and will probably be used as a sachet (as the original pattern prescribed). As a side note, I will probably still save bits and pieces of soap so I can try cooking up a batch of liquid soap (recently read a recipe online somewhere)....or at least I will scoop them up out of the soap dish before they get lovingly jammed down my drain :)

p.s. curiouser and curiouser... here is the quote of the day that was posted at the bottom of my blog

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and,

as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

Girly Afghan

very happy with this newest baby afghan I made....very soft and pretty

A while

It's been a while. I have missed you. We are busy with school right now. Contemplating field trips. Eliana is doing gymnastics. Tasha is doing tap and jazz. Talon gets to go to story hour at the library. Add in the fun of jury duty for me a couple of days a week. Oh, wait, I almost forgot art classes for the girls. It's going to be a wild, yet strangely relaxing semester. I really, really love the start of school. I love buying new school supplies. Ask my mom. I have always loved school. In fact, I am kind of surprised I am not still in school. Ok. Kidding on that one. I am mulling over and toying with the idea of taking some sewing classes again. At least I have fun reading through the descriptions every semester.

Instilling a love of learning in children is one of the most valuable things you can do for a child, I think. I have always loved to learn. Not sure how my parents did that, but thank you Mom and Dad. Mom, how did you guys do that, anyway?

Oh, here's something funny. I have to stop Tasha from reading books to do things like go to bed, eat, finish her schoolwork. Ha ha ha ha ha ha...I have created a little me. She is sooo like me in that. I just need to surround her with good books, and away she'll go. :)

It seems that there was something else I was going to say. Hmmmm..... yeah. nothing. I guess I can always come back later and fill you in, when I remember.

as for now, woke up with this song running through my head:
My heart sings a brand new song
The debt is paid, these chains are gone
Emmanuel, God with us...........
Like hinges straining from the weight, my heart no longer can keep from singing

if you want to hear the entire song on youtube, click here:

MercyMe/God With Us/All That Is Within Me

Dirt Guy

This is Talon's Dirt Guy. He got him at Vacation Bible School. Talon gave him a nice haircut right after this pic. Dirt Guy's head, which is made from pantyhose, was filled with seeds and dirt. We soaked his head in water for about 10-20 minutes, then set him in the sun. We saw happy sprouts within a few days, and a full grown head of "hair" not long after that. Lots of fun. I think we will be recreating this fun activity with the girls, and maybe try different seeds for different kinds of hair :)

Pretty in Pink

Here are some pictures of one of the two matching baby afghans I made for a friend who is having twin baby girls. Thank you to my Aunt Sandy for all the beautiful yarn!!!! I will be busy for a long time :)

Good. Great. Wonderful

Recently, during family night, we sat down to watch What About Bob? Funny movie. Every morning Bob says, "I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful" over and over to himself. What a great way to start the day! I am already a morning person, and this would be a great addition to my morning routine. Ok, ok, so I don't really have a routine per se, but it sounds really good when you say it together. Try it. Morning routine. See, don't you feel better? Anyway, something weird and miraculous has been happening in the world of me lately. I have been managing to get my bed made every day. And...I have been having this weird urge to get all my dishes washed and sinks cleared before I leave the house. Pretty cool. I like it.

Recent highlights:
Talon is now 3 and is a repeater. Catch him at the right time and he will say everything you say. At least if you are Eliana. So, watch what you say :). Wiggles, cars, trucks, Spiderman, Transformers, some of his current favorites

Eliana is 6 and can't decide whether she is not growing up fast enough or is growing up too fast. She mourns the fact that her teeth are just barely wiggly, and is not encouraged by the fact that she might be able to sing, All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, by December. Energetic and extremely athletic, this strong beautiful child will either lovingly pick you up or climb your walls (literally)

Natasha is 8 and wow, she is a reader. No, wait, she is a book devourer. Give her a book that she likes, and you'll have a friend for life....or you could just invite her to play Scrabble :)

We recently started family movie night up again, and I love it. What About Bob? was a diversion. We are currently working our way through all the Star Wars movies (nevermind that we've only seen the first one...here is where I will not go on a diversion and discuss whether we watched the first chronologically made Star Wars or otherwise). :) Your only clue is that all the girls want to dress up like Princess Leia, including me, hahahaha

Oh, wait, I have more good news. The guy who mowed my lawn last week didn't mow over all my hibiscus plants or black eyed susans. Triple Yay!!!! Daylilies are blooming. One yucca bloomed early, the other one is indecisive. My hostas are getting ready to bloom, too. Did I say, Yay! Yay!!!! Well, gotta get this show on the road.

I feel good.
I feel great.
I feel wonderful.

I feel good.
I feel great.
I feel wonderful.

you try it :)