Crafty Pancakes

I did it

Two Mondays in a row obviously means that the bad blogger spell has been broken. Such an occasion calls for some sort of celebration like pizza for dinner. That's how we used to celebrate in grade school. If you were good for half the year you got pizza for lunch. Not hot lunch cafeteria pizza but real pizza. It was like winning the lunch lottery. Well a room full of grade-schoolers acting appropriately for half of a school year is about as impressive as me blogging two Mondays in a row. So yeah, pizza for dinner is definitely in order...or wait, maybe an ice cream party!

It was a busy week but I did manage to crank out a couple of projects. Actually I cranked out a couple of the same thing one evening. One will be for me and the other will be or my snowbird dad who lives in an RV all winter in Arizona and probably "cooks" all his meals in the microwave. That sounds either mysterious or ominous. I give you the baked potato bag...

(You are not underwhelmed... you are not underwhelmed.)

We had company here for a few days so I really didn't have much time to get crafty. But hey, my dad is going to use the heck out of this thing and he'll think I'm a total genius for making it. I picked up the fabric when I was kicking ass and taking names in my hometown of Salem, OR during a visit in August. The quilt shop had a free pattern for it but there is a pattern exactly like in this post from CraftSanity. It makes a fun and easy gift for the carboholic in your life. What I'd really be impressed with is a potato bag that turned the potato into tots! 

A couple of those bags obviously didn't put much of a dent in my fabric stash so I decided to join the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge. The site has free patterns and ideas for places to donate your pillowcases. This week I'm hoping to make at least 10. The "roll it up" method that is linked on their site is the way I'll be making them. Such a great stash buster. Check it out and join me. Giving back rocks.

Speaking of giving. I received a surprise package from my friend, Sharon, today. It included a sweet note and an awesome homesewn snack bag. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Another thing I wanted to do in 2012 was to be more environmentally conscious and stop using so much plastic. I pack my son's lunch every day and I'm truly horrified to think about the amount of plastic bags I've used in those over the years. Check this out...

First of all, the kitchen fabric made my heart sing. So cute! The lining is a ripstop nylon fabric and it has a velcro closure. You can just wipe the resuable bag out or pop it into the washer and dryer. I see many of these in my future. There's really no reason to use plastic sandwich bags for anything anymore. If you are interested in being a little greener this year you can find the pattern on Etsy or you can Google a bunch of free tutorials. Now I get to see what kind of fabric I'll be using for my son's sandwich bag replacements. He's a senior in high school and doesn't embarrass easily. I find that to be a fun challenge. I think Care Bears might work nicely.

So until next Monday... craft on and let me know if you whip up a potato bag, pillowcase or snack bag. You know you want something fancy to nuke potatoes in. Anything that's a precursor to mounds of sour cream, cheese and crumbled bacon is a pretty cool project.

 

 

New Year and new goals

2012, a new year with new goals. 2011 was my year of excuses. 2012 will be the year of DOING! Who's with me?

I spent the holiday weekend organizing my crafting/sewing area and craft closet. I'm motivated and ready to make the most out of this new and exciting year. On the agenda... more sewing. Over the years I've collected hundreds and hundreds of yards of fabric and while it looks so pretty on the shelves, I'm feeling wasteful. I keep acquiring but not using. No more! Instead of loving a fabric so much that I can't bear to use it I'm going find a fab pattern, grab a treasured fabric and go for it. I'm excited just writing about that.

Along with all of the sewing I have other craft supplies practically spilling out of my craft closet. You'll have to stay tuned to see what those projects will be. Creativity FTW!

What this year won't bring is a lot of knitting. I've had to face the sad reality that the only place I can wear wool is on my feet... and how many pairs of handknit socks does one person in SoCal really need? I will knit the occasional gift but for the most part knitting is going to be taking a hiatus. That also means I won't be buying yarn. In fact, I plan to destash 200 skeins. Yes, I know there are wool alternatives. No, I don't really like them. Less knitting just means more time for other fun things!

Here's where I really set a lofty goal. A blog post every Monday. Not only that... but have a completed project to show in that Monday blog post. I.WILL.DO.IT.

As soon as I wrote that I heard a clock start ticking and my craft supplies whisper my name. I love it!

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and great start to the New Year. Let's get crafting!

It's that time of year again

I should stop kidding myself and just make this an annually updated blog. Every birthday I'll just pop on and let you know that I've survived another year. Since the upcoming day of being another year awesome is approaching on Sunday I figured I'd jump the gun and let you know how I feel about it.

This is the year where I see the number and scream, "whiskey tango foxtrot?!" It's officially the age where I feel much younger than I am. There are days where it seems like I might be three decades older though. Something went down at the mall recently with my 17yo son, Ky, that pretty much made it seem like I should be cruising around endangering the mall going public on a motorized scooter. You decide for yourself...

Me: OMG, why is the music so loud in this store??

Ky: Cheese-n-rice you've gotten old!

Me: I'm only 36.

Ky: Exactly.

I'm going to stick to feeling like I'm 27, not 67.

This birthday is going to have to be pretty fab to beat last year's though. I know I already gave you a small look but there is more to it. Things around here are generally pretty funny. Life is too short not to enjoy the little things that make you laugh. Some of you know what my life has been like since Ky invited a certain someone to my party. For those of you who don't, I will show you with one terrifying picture...

 

I walked in the door, saw that across the room and screamed. At first glance I really thought there was some intruder trying to steal my surprise birthday decorations. In hindsight I'm pretty sure that decorations aren't exactly what someone would break in to steal. Silly me. Anyway, Ky burst into laughter. He was laughing not only because I screamed but because I have a huge amount of dislike for Miss Bella Swan. I'm certain this cardboard version of her has more talent than the real thing. It certainly elicited more emotion from me than the real one. Ok, I'm getting off track. So anyway, what I didn't realize is that Bella was going to become a large part of our lives during the coming year. See, we decided it would be great fun to hide her around the house and scare the crap out of each other. Fun, right? The first time wasn't so funny because it happened to me without my prior knowledge of this little scare game. After the initial little scream (followed by a large amount of words I'd rather not write on this blog) it did turn into a ridiculous amount of fun. Nothing like hearing your teenage son let out a scream at 6am when he pulls back the shower curtain and sees Bella standing there. She has been known to hide in the pantry, just around the bend in the stairs, closets, behind doors, outside peering in windows, pretty much anywhere. We are obviously easily amused over here. That gift keeps on giving and giving and scaring.

Of course I returned the favor on Ky's birthday. Bella brought a date to his party...

Seeing The Bieb hiding around your house is less scary and more creepy. He was quickly relegated to only scaring people in the garage. (I should add that yes, I did decorate Kyler's 17th birthday party with ponies and balloons that said Kyle with a sharpie'd 'R' at the end. I had to keep it classy!)

So what will this birthday bring...? Maybe a guy jumping out of a cake wearing just a bit of frosting and a bow? What I do know is that it will kick off another fabulous year of awesome. Another year to live with passion, adventure, laughter and excitment. Bring it, 37! I have many more years before I'm a little rascal on my Little Rascal.

Fabric on the brain

Goodbye yarn, heeellllooooo fabric! Ok, I haven't really started actually sewing anything for myself yet but I've been having fun buying the makings of a dozen or so projects. First on my to-do list are aprons and covers for pretty much everything in my kitchen. I heart kitchen prints!...

Aside from covering everything in my kitchen in mismatched retro goodness my biggest reason for wanting to learn how to sew is so (that's confusing) that I can have the perfect skirt at all times. At 5'5" they are either too short or too long. They are suitable for a teenager or someone with a very mature taste. I'm neither. A couple of books came to the rescue...

I can't recommend the book Sew Everything Workshop enough. It really starts with the basics, expands from there, includes 10 patterns and gives you the confidence to start sewing without fear! Sew What! SKiRTS, is another "can't live without" book if you want to be sewing up skirts where the fabric does the work. I'm sure we all have a few yards of this or that lying around. It's super fab but you have no clue what to make with it. This book solves your problem. I really like it because it teaches you how to sew a skirt for YOU. You learn how to take your measurements and create your skirt from them. No more trying to fit into a generic pattern. I'm going to go skirt crazy! Now if I could only figure out how to sew up a car washing fairy that could come to life and make me less embarrassed to drive my black car around town. It's almost time for its bi-annual wash. Wait, I'll sew a car cozy. Problem solved!

 

 

A little sweater and a side of Ikea

Why haven't I been knitting baby sweaters for every little chubby cheeked cutie in the land? Well honestly, I don't want to knit boy sweaters. I want to knit oodles of baby girl Boheme sweaters...

OMG, I'm so serious. I made this one for my hair stylist's new baby girl, Lily. I knit the 12mo size because that "little" sweetheart was 11 lbs at birth. It is knit with Spud & Chloe Sweater in the Waterslide colorway. What dreamy yarn. It's 55% wool and 45% organic cotton. Perfect for a little one. After finishing this one I immediately cast one on for a friend's preschool-er. It's that fun.

In other knitting news. I'm pretty sure Jared Flood is evil. Ok, he's not evil. In fact, I've heard amazing things about him BUT his Rock Island shawl is going to be the death of me. I kid you not, I have started that frickin' frackin' edging eleventy billion times. I'm blaming the pattern and my inability to deal with so many yarn overs. The pattern is blaming the ultra splitty Wollmeise lace yarn. It's a vicious circle. Now you see why I'm goo-goo for easy baby sweaters.

Knitting is going to start taking a backseat to my latest resurrected craft though. I used to do quite a bit of sewing back in the day. Ok, let me tell it like it really is. I used to whip up stacks of charity quilts for kids. 'Sewing' made me sound fancier and better at it than I really am. Sewing quilts for kids doesn't exactly take a lot of finesse but I'm ready to take that next step. I'm ready to sew my own clothes. GASP! I'm pretty sure I'll end up looking like some sort of garage sale reject... but I'm going to be the proudest garage sale reject in Orange County! I even braved Ikea so that I could make my fashion dreams come true. Feast your eyes upon my new sewing area...

That's actually in my bedroom. Yep, my bedroom is ginormous. I live in a townhouse and that bedroom must take up a quarter of the square footage. While I'd rather have a dedicated sewing room, I'm thrilled to have room to set it up where I did and I can't wait to dive into all the fabric cubbies. Now here is where it gets tricky. I have crazy amounts of kid prints and not so many geared towards North of age 9. Don't be surprised if you hear about a crazy lady running the streets in a Care Bears wrap skirt in the near future. Take notice Moe sitting in the chair just trying to see what I might drop in that general area. I'm sure he's thinking that eating thread would be just as fun as eating yarn. If he eats it he's going to have to join the kitty circus in order to pay his own vet bills this time.

 

 

Never again

It's the kiss of blog death, me promising to write on a consistent basis. It's as if saying it automatically sends my blogging mojo straight to where my knitting mojo sometimes hides. Obviously the blogging mojo finds a really good spot to hide though unlike the knitting mojo which is usually just behind the curtains with its feet sticking out underneath.

Here's proof that I wasn't curled up in the fetal position eating cookies the entire time.

Pattern: top down 3x1 rib with heel flap and gusset

Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan

Colorway: In The Clover

Pattern: top down and just an easy slip stitch

Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan

Colorway: Rick's Cognac

Pattern: as vanilla as it gets

Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan

Colorway: Loosey Juicy

These were my favorite project I knit. They are amazing awesome.

Pattern: Red Velvet Cupcakes by Star Athena

Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan (shocking, I know)

Colorway: Coleus (Hazel Knits Sock Club color)

And just to prove that I do occasionally knit with something other than awesome Hazel Knits yarn...

These socks were a labor of love and I'm not even referring to the fact that I had vanilla sock boredom oozing out of my ears. I refer to these socks as my $1370 socks. Why? Because my cat, Moe, decided to eat the 18" tail my second sock while it was a wip. Wanna know how much vet bill are when that happens? $1370.

Yarn: Perfect Day Yarns Dead Poet's Society Sock Club

Colorway: Sara Teasdale.

So see, it hasn't been wasted time. In fact, I've done soooo many things since I last popped in here but I'm writing a blog post and not a novel. Such a shame. I have to tell ya though, for as good as the past months have been, it's going to get better! I have some super exciting stuff on the horizon!

Who's ready for Sock Summit 2011???... this girl!!!

Where did the month go?

October always seems to fly right by. It's my favorite month of the year so I imagine the old saying, time flies when you are having fun, holds true. I even witnessed a rare OC thunderstorm. Any time there is "real" weather here you have to enjoy every second of it because you never know when it'll return. So, back to the fun that I've had this month.

I had a special day...

36 is going to be my best year yet! Wait, aren't I starting my 37th year since I celebrated having already surviving through 36 of them? Anyway, best year ever! I will make it that way.

I got to see my very favorite thing at Disneyland on my special day...

Seriously, there is nothing better than when The Haunted Mansion is transformed into Haunted Mansion Holiday. I could go on that ride for hours. There is just something about it that makes me happy. If you haven't seen it then your life just isn't complete. On with the show.

I learned that I can bake awesome bread...

I used to think that bread baking was for overachievers. That was until I bought the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I'd love to just stand outside and hand this book out to everyone who walks by. It's that good. So now even people too lazy to bake bread can knock out some crazy awesome home baked bread every night of the week and enjoy sinking into a carb coma.

I also tried my hand at decorating Halloween cupcakes...

Monster eyeballs, anyone? Too bad that I can't hand out cupcakes for Halloween. It's sad that we are all so worried about people poisoning our kids these days. But I suppose that kids would get frosting all over their costumes and it would snowball from there. Fine, I've changed my mind about wishing I could hand out cupcakes to Batman and the princess. I am prepared for the alternative. My stomach told me that I needed 20 bags of candy. My brain told me that 10 kids will ring the doorbell. Ya know, I don't run out ;)

What's wonderful is that October isn't over yet. There is still all the other Halloween goodness that needs to get done. Like watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (again). And it's not Halloween until I've watched the movie, Halloween. I'll also make sure to get a viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas in there too. I sense lots of good knitting time coming on. I'm so glad I have until Monday to live it up and enjoy my favorite month of the year!

 

 

 

Guess what...?

I still knit!

And no, those are not my hairy legs! Those legs belong to a very special someone who the socks were knit for. It was my first time knitting with Sanguine Gryphon Bugga and I really loved it. It definitely lived up to all the hype. At first I was totally bored knitting them because it was sooo not my colorway (Tarantula Hawk) but it eventually grew on me. I'm just proud to have something to show off. It's about darn time.

In other news, Moe is getting huge and smells like coconuts.

You are now caught up on my very exciting normal life. 

My next venture... trying to make October 9th a national holiday.

 

There's more

I thought I should share another wonderful part of our trip to Covered Wagon Ranch. The ranch happened to be situated just a few miles away from the West entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is a place I've always wanted to visit. I became interested in the park when I was in elementary school and the desire grew with every Discovery Channel show I watched. This post is just a little glimpse of one of my favorite days during our awesome vacation. The beauty and sheer power of the geothermal activity there was humbling.

From the beautiful hot springs that steam in the 90 degree heat...

To the powerful geysers that command your attention...

Nature is an amazing and awesome thing...

I could hardly believe my eyes...

So much beauty yet so much danger...

Seeing things that made me feel like a kid again...

And coming away with a better understanding of how incredible our planet is!

Life has a way of getting in the way

...Of my blogging consistency that is. I really do have a few darn fine excuses reasons for why I dropped the blogging ball.

I think the largest time suck that killed my will to blog for a bit is that I moved. Not moved from the couch to the kitchen. I mean packed up my ridiculous amount of stuff into boxes and now call a new place home. Apparently the grass is greener just 4 miles from where I used to live. But as all of you know, the moving process sucks. My posts would have been about my hatred of packing tape and the seemingly endless amount of pet hair under every piece of furniture. Seriously, I must have 100 imaginary animals that produce real hair.

Then there was the trip to Montana. No cell phone service, no TV, spotty wi-fi and downright dreamy. When I told my son to pick where he wanted to go on vacation I was imagining he'd picked somewhere like Hawaii. Imagine my surprise when he picked a dude ranch in Montana. I had been mentally preparing myself for the moment when he said "Maui"... and my life would flash before my eyes because the thought of wearing a bathing suit was more than I could take. If you want to have an amazing experience then plan your next vacation at The Covered Wagon Ranch. There are not enough words to describe just how awesome this place is.

Our cabin was one of the original ones built in 1926. It was historic, rustic and totally cool.

 

We had an amazing view of the full moon that evening from those porch rocking chairs. I called them knitting chairs.

The horseback rides took us to places and gave us views we'd normally never experience...

I literally took this while riding my horse up the mountain. That's pretty impressive considering that my horse, Joseph, thought we were there for the flower buffet. Joseph thought that stopping suddenly and learning down to eat flowers was a hell of a good time. We did not see eye to eye on this behavior. Mostly because it ended up in me trying not to go flying forward onto the ground. Or off the side of a mountain in this case.

And is it wrong that I really wanted to see a bear when we were riding through the forest here?

That's our riding guide up in front and my son behind her. I figured that if we saw a bear it would get them first. That's not being a bad mom, right?

And let me tell ya, they don't call it big sky country for nothing!

The last day we were there the horses were going up the mountain to their holding pasture so they could take Sunday off. There is nothing like watching 40 horses galloping through the creek and just "being horses".

And we ended our trip with as amazing of an evening view from our cabin porch as we started with.

I have to mention that those knitting chairs possessed some serious mojo! I almost felt bad for making these socks leave the ranch.

Yarn: String Theory Hand Dyed Yarn, Caper Sock (I'm in love with this yarn) and loosely based on the Prism pattern.

Just when you thought that moving and Montana were enough reason to be too busy to blog.........

Here's Moe!!

I've only had him a week but it hurts my heart to not be holding him. I'll just make sure that it doesn't get in the way of my blogging from now on. But if I did decide to just cuddle with him and never blog again I think I'd be justified. He's. just. that. cute.