Knitting Needle Roll

I can finally post this since this was a gift for my sister and she got it yesterday.

I got the idea as I was browsing tutorials online. This is the one I followed at madebyloulabelle, though there are lots of different ones out there. They all follow the same basic concept.

Anyway, I thought this was the perfect thing to make my sister because if she's anything like me (and she is) she's got a million knitting needles sittin' around and nothing cool to put them in. Except for me, it's crochet hooks. Seriously, I've got, like, 30 or 40 of them. That's on my project list - a crochet hook roll for me!

So I saw this gorgeous fabric on Joann's website and fell in love. They have several Asian inspired prints that are lovely. However, after shipping it would have been $12 a yard or so. The cheapskate in me just couldn't do it!

Lucky for me that there are several Joann's within reasonable driving distance and one of them had this fabric on the shelf.

I had to be really careful with the dimensions here. Making a rectangle is not as easy as you would think. Me and straight lines don't get along. I have problems people!

Here's what the pockets look like on the inside (that blur on the right is my daughter flailing her hand - what can you do?):


I thought it turned out really well. Go me!

Perhaps Tammy can post a picture with actual needles in it since I had none to put in as an example....

Birthday Cupcakes

I wanted to do something a little different for my birthday this year. I didn't feel like making a big cake with lots and lots of butter-cream. We've been trying to be healthier in our house afterall.

So I went with cupcakes. I like to only make 18 (as opposed to 24) so that they have a more uniform shape and they're aren't any 'duds'. You know what I mean.

And I filled them with amaretto flavored whipped cream and put chocolate ganache over the tops.

Now, there's a million ways to make whipped cream (exactly a million, I counted ;) ). I wanted my cream to be a little heavier than the whipped cream we usually make so I used white sugar instead of confectioner's sugar.

Stacy's Amaretto Whipped Cream

1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 tablespoon White Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Almond Extract

Put everything in your mixer and have at it until it's the consistency you want.

To inject them into your cupcakes just put them in a pastry bag with a round tip and poke it into the top of the cupcake.

They turned out really yummy and we put the extras in the freezer for a rainy day.

Nursing Pillow Cover

This project has been in my backlog for quite some time. I mean, I didn't NEED a new cover but I had bought all the stuff to make it several months ago because I thought it would be nice to have a new cover. I guess my reason for putting it off was because zippers are a little intimidating.

(the old cover and my first child)


Anyway, over the weekend the zipper on my nearly four year old cover gave up the ghost. And even though I'm going to be giving up nursing here in like, three weeks (seriously), I knew that having the broken zipper edges flapping in the breeze would drive me nut-so.

So, using the tutorial over at Grosgrain I made this beauty:



I think I could have made a better fabric choice - if you look at it for too long you might start seeing dinosaurs in 3D or somethin'. And I totally messed up on the whole sewing aspect, of course, but hey, that's me.

Stacy Hates Quilting

Yes, yes. It's been a long time. I was out of town for awhile. And then I was lazy. And Tammy was birthin' a baby, so I guess that's her excuse. ;)

Anyway, I finally decided to get off my duff and set out to finish a blanket I had started for Madeline long ago. You'd think that making a blanket would be easy right?

I started this thing shortly after finding out for sure that I was having a girl. And I JUST NOW finished. In case you're keeping score, my oldest daughter is almost 3 1/2. That means I've been workin' on this thing for four YEARS. My how time flies when you're not having any fun. Like, no fun at all. Seriously. Give me a dress to make any day. Please. I beg you, make the blankets stop.

I think I was just too ambitious with this one. I mean, I did embroidery.









And ruffles.











I made a lot of mistakes, too. I really hate making mistakes. They will haunt me forever. But it did pass the washing test, so there's that (i.e. it didn't fall apart when I put it in the washing machine).

Alas, digging through my fabric box the other day I found another quilt I started ages ago. I think I'll save that one for later. You know, when I'm not so jaded (HA!).

Little dresses Part 2

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas. I'm currently in Utah enjoying (not really) the fresh snow fall.

I'm finally getting around to posting about the second dress I made - for my oldest daughter. I have to say that I've never been more excited to put the sewing machine away than I was when I finished this dress.

McCall's Pattern #5742

I chose the patterns I chose because I thought from my very inexperienced perspective that the two were similar....but the only similarity I found is that they're both dresses.

Square neck versus round neck. Petticoat versus no petticoat. Ruffled hem band versus straight hem band. This second one is more of a spanish style versus, I don't know, an American style. There were a lot of ruffles on this one...

I thought the sleeves were a bit easier to do, though. It took me less time but I think this one was harder. It did help that I kind of knew what I was doing on this second go around.

I left off some of the details that the pattern called for because I didn't want them to look too different - and I didn't want to do any more hand sewing. Yes, I'm lazy. I admit it.

Something I didn't like is that the bodice turned out of bit wide. On the next dress I make I'm going to make sure the bodice fits a bit better.




















All in all, I thought this was a respectable second effort.



(Jazz Hands)

Stay tuned for posts in late January. I've got some fun projects lined up for when I return from my trip to the Homeland (Oregon).

Crocheted Ornaments (continued)

As requested, finished ornaments by Stacy (on my tiny fake Christmas tree):

Crocheted Wreath Ornaments

I believe I mentioned before that I was searching for an ornament pattern to crochet as Christmas gifts and after trying to come up with something on my own for about a week, I broke down and bought a book from JoAnn's. I'm a quitter like that.

Anyway, one thing about making Christmas ornaments that you have to worry about/deal with is starching your project so that it's stiff and hang-able.

What I do is take a plastic sandwich bag, spray some starch inside and put in the crocheted piece. Then you work in the starch so every part is wet, take it out and squeeze it between pieces of paper towel to remove excess starch.

For the next part, you'll need a surface that takes pins well. I used to have some cork boards that I used for this but they got lost in our many, many moves and so here I just used a piece of cardboard with plastic wrap taped over it (so the piece doesn't stick). Also, you can see that I drew lines on it to guide me but they didn't really help because the symmetry was a little weird (i.e. I had the lines in the wrong place!) - I hate wasted effort. And then I pinned the thing down in the proper shape - if you don't know what that looks like, here you go:



It'll only take a few hours to dry and then you can remove the pins.

And here's the final product (my apologies for the less than stellar pictures here - I am lazy, that's all I can say - Maybe Tammy can post a better picture of the finished product since she has one!):



I just used gold embroidery floss for the hanger and voila! A do-it-yourself Christmas present!