Sorry as usual for the lack of posts, but life has gotten in the way of crafting. I recently found out that our beloved dog has renal failure, so I've been too busy worrying and tending to her to be very productive. Here's a pic of my sweet girl in her prime, back when we lived in Chicago.
I have, however, still managed to finish a few items in the last couple weeks, mostly commissions for friends.Black and white pompom hat for a toddler. I don't usually make hats with the squared-off top like that, but I think I may start. With the pompoms, it's super cute!And this one is one of my new favorites - owl hat!My friend's son is obsessed with owls and she asked if I could make an owl hat for him with some extra soft yarn since he's been having issues with hats being scratchy. I was really excited to find some yummy wool/cashmere yarn (Debbie Bliss Como) at my LYS in what I think are perfectly owl-y colors. I came up with the pattern on my own, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. His eyes and beak are 100% wool felt, and stitched on by hand.E was also very excited about the owl hat, so I of course now I'm making her one too. But being the cheapskate I am, hers is made from Lion Brand's Wool-ease Thick & Chunky, which I got on sale not too long ago.Currently, I'm working on another commission (a football themed hat in yummy wool/bamboo yarn), and I'm also making slow but sure progress on the Christmas quilt. I'm determined to have that thing done by Christmas, come hell or high water! However, in a bout of insanity, I decided I wanted to hand-quilt it. Let's just say it's not going so well right now. There may be a total about-face in the near future.Here's some pics of the finished quilt-top and the back.
Most of my crafting these last few weeks has revolved around stuff for E's 2nd birthday party. I decided on a farm/barnyard theme, partly because she loves farm animals, but also because it was relatively generic and easy to find/make stuff to go with it. I've already posted the cardboard animals in various states, but here are the finished products. Forgive the crappy quality of the pictures. I was a bit frazzled this morning trying to snap them before everyone arrived.
Sheep (that wouldn't stay stuck to the wall)
Cow (I actually made two, the other is the same, just mirror-imaged)
Pig (whose tail I forgot to put on, poor guy)
Chicken
And duck (see below). Oh, I only made the bigger duck though. The little ones were pre-made wood cutouts from Michael's.
I also got a roll of red paper from a teacher-supply store and made a very generic barn to go on the wall. Black construction paper for the roof "shingles" and long strips of white paper for the barn doors and windows. I used the rest of the red paper to cover my coffee table and pushed it up against the barn to make a coloring station for the kids.
I attempted to make a 3-dimensional barn cake to go along with the paper barn. Of course, I procrastinated on starting it until last night, so it's not quite as nice and polished-looking as I would have liked. Still, I think it's pretty cute. And luckily, 2-year-olds don't really know the difference.
Here's a rather crappy picture from an odd angle:
And a better picture with T holding up E while she blows out her candle:
I have to say, even though I was dead tired while icing this at 1am last night, I realized how much I've missed working on cakes and pastries. I think I'm definitely going to have to get back in practice, even if only for fun. I had actually also wanted to make a silo out of stacked cookies to go with the barn, as well as animal cupcakes, but I simply ran out of time. I ended up ordering the cupcakes from a local place instead, which I was not super juiced about, especially after I got them and they were sort of crappy. I think I could have made better ones myself, but oh well, what's done is done. The kids ate the cupcakes and were happy, so that's all that matters.
Last, but not least, were the little goody bags I made out of bandannas. Nothing super special or complicated, just bandanas that I cut in half, folded and stitched up two sides. Throw in a bunch of favors from Oriental Trading Company, tie with ribbon and voila! Homemade goody bag! (Although I do have to give some credit to my cousin to stuffed and tied all the bags. Gotta love slave labor!)
Just so you all don't think I'm still slacking....I did start a new knitting project on Saturday night. It's actually this exact hat kit, which my sister-in-law gave me several years ago as a Christmas gift. Yes, I know that I still suck for admitting that I've had it sitting around untouched for that long. In any case, I didn't get nearly as far as I would have liked (too much chatting, not enough knitting), and it's actually a far more complicated pattern than I initially realized, so I think it's going to take me a while to finish.However, I did also work on some stuff on Sunday. T actually joined me for a rare joint "crafternoon," helping me out with prep for E's birthday party in a couple weeks. We're doing a farm/barnyard theme and since we had all these large cardboard boxes in the garage, I had the idea to make some large cutouts of farm animals. Figuring out how to cut the cardboard into recognizable shapes took some thought since there was no way scissors would work on something so thick, and a box cutter would have made it hard to get clean curves. I toyed with the idea of using my electric carving knife (which is almost like a mini-saw), but then T solved the problem by finding a jigsaw attachment for his dremel tool. It worked like a charm! I also got a base coat of white paint on everything, so now I mostly just need to fill in details. Lucky for me, I picked mainly white animals, haha!Sorry, still no pics just yet, but I plan on working on them more tomorrow, so soon...
