Keep Calm . . . Craft On

Joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams today.


There is always a good bit of crafting going on around here.  Mostly knitting, though.  Recently, however, I was asked to coordinate the children's creation for our Waldorf preschool school auction.  (Our preschool is just that, a preschool and kindergarten.  This school does not offer a grades program.)  A painting.  Huh?  Me?  I don't paint.  And I had no idea how to help the children accomplish this even though I would have the resources of our teachers.  Then I came across this post from Passengers on a Little Spaceship and an idea was born . . .  perhaps stolen is more accurate of a description!


But then, what scene to create?  I decided on a rainbow bridge as an illustration of the birthday story told in Waldorf kindergartens the world round.  So, I came up with this little prototype:



And added an angel in the upper left hand side.  Of course, she is leading a child to the rainbow bridge!


So, how to turn that idea into something our 19 kindergarteners could create?  (Because I had decided I wasn't up for creating 3 projects with 60 or so children ages 2.5-6.  Plus, I thought the finished piece would have more appeal as a keepsake if created by the members of the kindergarten class.)


Last Wednesday morning, I carted my supplies to school.  My years of crafty hoarding were finally paying off.  I didn't buy a single thing for this project!  I'd had this Peace Fleece roving in my stash since Coco was 2 or 3!  This is how it went . . . .

And this is how the craptastic thing ended up . . .

I tried rotating this before uploading, but, apparently it didn't take. . . much like the felting!

Yes, indeed, folks, I learned something with this project.  The roving needs to be laid much more sparingly if it is to felt properly.  But, no worries!  Also among my stash of crafting goodies are felting needles.  I've already broken one finishing this up.  Next week I'll share a picture of the item post op.  I am happy to report that the prognosis is good!


On a happier note, here is the Rainbow Sweater I created for the auction.  Our auction is called the Rainbow Bridge Auction.  Can you see, now, from whence my inspiration came?

This is my own pattern.  I also made one last year.  But it came out slightly different.  Still trying to perfect the fit.  The yarn comes form a former Waldorf handwork teacher and can be found in her Etsy shop, Mama Jude's Plant Dyed Stuff.  And, of course, this project had it roots in my enormous stash.  I'd had visions of some rainbowy project several years ago and bought these lovelies from Judy. Two years later, I finally made something out of it.  Here is the first one: 

What are  you working on?

Easter 2012

It was great fun trying to pry that sticker off of his face before Mass . . . especially since it had already been there for two days!  

A lovely bracelet with guardian angel charm from Mimi.  Brought back from her recent trip to Australia!

I felt the need to replace the knitting doll that came in this kit she received for Christmas.  The one in the kit is almost useless since the prongs are incredibly short.


We made it to church!  Together!  All of us!  Early even!  But, of course, there is no photographic evidence of that feat.  But, first, there was the matter of the Easter baskets.

I do not purchase new baskets every year.  Especially after having found these lovelies last year.  I don't even recall where I found them.  With Gian's birthday falling so close to Easter this year, which necessitates a visit from my mother. . . and her birthday is the day before. . . and mine is 8 days later . . . and Spring Break was then tossed in there . . . I felt a little lacking in the Easter basket department.  I had found some activity books for Coco (word search, mazes) and a few crafty things.  But Gian did not have much.  And I didn't want a repeat of last year.  I created an Easter egg hunt before church complete with chocolate filled eggs.  Fiasco.  They were so hyped on sugar during Mass, it was challenging to say the least.  This year I got the bright idea of putting the candy-filled plastic eggs in their baskets instead and signing up for the church's egg hunt.  And since those little eggs hold, well, very little, it worked out very well.

And since we had not done the church Easter egg hunt previously, I did not know it was not a dash and scramble, but rather, just go pick up 5 eggs laying on the lawn and then report to the prize table for a prize.  So, we got to church at 9 or 9:45 for that . . . and were done 15 minutes later.  So, we had an hour to wait for Mass.  So, we were able to take a picture with the Easter bunny . . . but not realize Mr. Man's goal of finding said bunny again for a "high five".

I think this is my favorite picture of them together!  Can't you just feel the love?

What was that?  The dress?  Did I knit it?  I'm so happy you asked!  Why yes, I did!  It's Bloom, and yes, I forgot to put a ribbon in the darn thing in the eyelet row.  I'm just so happy I finished it!  The shrug is an upsized version of the Confection Baby Shrug.  I think I had a whole yard of yarn left when all was said and done!  Last year, I knit a vest and longies for Gian.  Perhaps if I start now, I can manage to have outfits knit for both of them for next Easter!

I hope your family had a wonderful Easter, too.

Keep Calm; Craft On!

Joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams again.

Keep calm, indeed.  I'm starting to feel a little bit of panic around Gian's birthday preparations.  But I have made some progress!  That little bit on the right was already done, I must confess.  Simply pinning the scales to the dragon might not seem like much, but it is more than I had previously done and it is movement in the right direction!  Plus, I did manage to actually sew it on last night.  Next step is to sew the other side of the body.  I may actually get this done by Sunday.  I have a board meeting Thursday night, so, no sewing will get done then and I'm hoping to take the kids to Legoland on Saturday, so, that day will be a bust.  Putting this fiddly thing together made me think about how appropriate the charges are for handmade softies like this!

Last week I forgot to mention that I also really want to make a doll for Gian.  I'll get let that thought lie here and marinate in the universe for a bit!

With respect to my Lenten knitting (trying to take a departure from all of the selfish knitting I do), may I present to you this little guy:

There is definitely room for improvement.  And I hope I can do justice to his face.  This bear is for the Mother Bear Project.  Initially, I saw it as a small way to use up my copious (and by that I do mean a most ridiculous amount) amounts of yarn, and hadn't really given a lot of thought to how the bear would look.  Then I looked at some of the FO's on ravelry and some of the pictures on the website of children with their bear.  Imparting a sense of beauty to children is important.  And immediately saw that I wasn't doing that. So, I tried to jazz this guy up a bit with some stripes.  I can see where I apparently had ladders in the knitting because we can see his stuffing.  Hopefully, those will come out with a lot of hugs.  He's knit with Patons and Wool of the Andes (which appears to be a slight bit thinner than Patons) and stuffed with wool.  I came home from work to discover Gian had tried his hand at helping out.  The eye was pulled waaayyyyy too snug and my darning needle was missing.  Fortunately, I could fix the eye and I found the needle!

And, last but not least, my progress on Bloom:

I tried this on Coco Friday night, and as a result, had to put the project on time-out for the weekend.  I had just finished the eyelet row and knit two more.  It was just too short.  I was going to need to tink back those three rows and add 10 more.  Even before that, I had a not so pleasant realization Friday afternoon.  What they say about reading a pattern all the way through is really true.  I had bought 3 skeins of yarn to knit this, based on the yardage requirements stated at the beginning of the pattern.  Then, I get to the part after the bodice which instructs that extra yardage is needed to knit a fuller skirt.  Then I took a look at pictures of the larges done on ravelry and they look kinda short to me.  Clearly, I was going to need another skein of yarn.

Did I mention I'm knitting this with Madelinetosh Vintage?  And the dye lots are not dye lots and not easy to match?  And it's way too expensive here in Chicago and I'd bought it with a 20% discount?  And I'd just been back to the freakin' store on Leap Day at 7 am to get 29% off and hadn't read this bit of information before then?  Yeah, not happy with that discovery.  My friends at work who went to the sale after I did told me there was no more pink.  I called anyway, and fortunately there was!  And some that had come in the shipment that was from what I'd previously purchased!  And I was able to get 10% off because of my affiliation with our Waldorf elementary school! Thank goodness for the small things!

Can't wait to see what the rest of you are working on . . . happy crafting!

Yarn Along

Joining Ginny again this week from Small Things

Knitter's crack.  I've touched it.  And yes, I totally get it now.  If you've had it, you probably know what I'm talking about without my having to name it.  Gorgeous colors.  But the hand - springy, squooshy, unbelievable stitch definition.  It makes my ribbing look store bought.  You know what it is.  Madelinetosh.  In this case, it's Tosh Vintage.  Oh.my.goodness!

I allowed myself to buy some of this last month because of the intention that this will be made into an Easter (baptism maybe . . . why my 6 year old is still not baptized is a discussion for another post) dress for Coco.  My LYS has a promotion where, if you bring in an FO and either the ball band from the yarn you used or your receipt showing that they yarn you used came from this store, you'll receive 20% off of your next purchase.  So, I used that promo to snag some of this yarn.  And since I have cast on well outside of two weeks before Easter, I'd say I'm doing quite well on my intention!  I am very happy with my purchase.  I don't think I'll go overboard . . . Although I will report later whether I made it to the Leap Year sale at my LYS this morning between 7-9 to grab the steepest discount they are offering today in order to apply that 29% off to more Tosh Vintage.  This is really very, very lovely yarn.  I might check out Quince & Co's Chickadee next, though, because it looks like it is spun similarly to Vintage and the colors are beautiful.  I'd like to knit Paper Dolls for Coco for the fall and I want to explore whether using this yarn is a good idea.

And I finished last week's knitting.  A Mini Cobblestone for my Mr. Manny Man.  I am really happy with how it came out.  I was really unhappy when I realized that I only had one skein of that yellow . . . and really happy again when I discovered I had a mini skein, which I needed when I saw I was here and not yet done with the sleeves and not quite ready for the contrasting cuffs:

And without further ado . . . may I present you the handsome model!

Please disregard the door with no trim and Mr. Man's artistic expressions on the wall behind him.  I still have to block this number.  All in all, though, I am very happy with it.

Still reading A Mother's Heart.  I am really enjoying this book, and do feel like what I am taking in from it is beginning to show in my mothering.  And that's a good thing.

Birthday Crafting . . . I hope

Mr. Manny Man has his 3rd birthday coming up at the end of next month. Never mind that I discovered this weekend that his size 3 pants are starting to look short.  Sigh.  In any event, see that wanna be crown above?  I started it for his first birthday.  I'm feeling pretty good about being able to pull it together for this year, though!  Hold a good thought for me, if you would, please.  I can use all the extra motivation.

And that dragon up there . . . while his story is not as sad as that of the crown (he was cut for the most part Thanksgiving weekend - this past Thanksgiving thankyouverymuch), he only has a wee bit of sewing done on him.  And my little guy would like a dinosaur.

But, he loves, loves, loves, horses.  As you can see here:

This hobby horse traveled with us last summer to Hilton Head Island.  And he has co-opted his sister's Christmas gift - a horse for an 18" doll.  And he has named him (and his other horse friends) Barney.

So, you see, I have to consider this.  I should be able to whip up at least 2 of these, I'd think.

If I didn't have Easter knitting to do.  There is a lovely bunny pattern I found on ravelry that is just begging to be knit and I cast on for Coco's dress tonight.  And then there is the sweater I have to knit for the school auction (but that's not until the end of April).  And did I mention I want to do some charity knitting for Lent?

Oy.  I need more hours in the day.  But then who doesn't?

One more thing.  Miss Coco made her first needle felted project on Saturday.  I am so proud of her!

What are you working on?  This is my first time joining Nicole over at Frontier Dreams for her Craft Along.  Happy crafting!

This Moment

Joining Soulemama in her weekly post (my first time!) . . . .

Yarn Along

I have been woefully neglectful of this little blog.  How ironic, the name that is.  There is so much I have already forgotten because I have not written it down.  About 2 weeks ago, Coco asked me what her favorite foods were as a baby.  Sadly, I couldn't remember.  Fortunately, I had written it down somewhere!

Hopefully, by participating in this Yarn Along from Small Things, I can get to this space a little more regularly and record a bit much more.  You can see Ginny's Yarn Along page here

I impulsively cast on for this little number this past Friday night.  I need to knit a dress for Coco and had an entirely different sweater planned for Gian's birthday sweater (and had purchased new yarn to boot!).  I had also been wanting to knit him a mini Cobblestone in some wonderful, dark green Peace Fleece I have.  But, spring is coming, and dark green won't due.  And after his reaction to his last knit sweater (finished last week),  I just had to get another one going for him.  I remembered this yellow I had and knew it would be perfect.  Perfect lasted until Saturday when I was finishing the yoke and frantically looking for that apparently non-existent second skein of yellow Peace Fleece.  I went to my ravelry page and confirmed the awful truth.  I only had one skein of it.  I was not happy.  So, I had to figure out how to salvage this number.  And this is why I had to come up with something:

When I finished knitting said previous sweater, I tried it on Mr. Manny Man after having kitchenered one  arm pit and still having the other to go, and with ends hanging off of the sleeves and body.  You know what he said?  "I wuv it!"  With all the appropriate emphasis on "wuv".  Then when I went to take it off of him, do you know what he said?  "Not yet."  Not yet!!  He is truly my most knitworthy recipient.  And he's not quite 3 yet.  My dad and younger brother probably tie for second.

So, here it is:

The book is what I am currently reading and using in my prayer time in the mornings I manage to have prayer time.  A Mother's Heart A look at values, vision, and character for the Christian mother by Jean Fleming.  I bought this book almost 6 years ago.  Pitiful, I know.  It is a very good read, and it is enhancing my prayer time.  I am enjoying it very much.

Spending time with this book this morning helped me pull of the nearly impossible - making it to church tonight by myself with the kids.  I have been awful, just awful about getting them to church regularly and I am ashamed of my failure in this department.  But, I was happy, so very happy tonight.  The devil tried to discourage me when there was an accident on the way to church that slowed us down quite a bit.  I almost turned around.  But, I wanted my ashes.  I wanted the children to know this is an important day to recognize and acknowledge.  Blessedly, we made it.  What's more, they were good.  They were very, very good!  I didn't have to leave mass once.  Thank you, God!