WIP Wednesday - barely ;)

I know I promised photos of other finished things - but , but alas - they are still not finished :(

I've started going to a knitting group every WEdnesday, so you get to see my Work in progress for that :)

I present to you......for the first time ever .......

toes :)

These are goign to be made in a stash busting array of O-wool balance - single skeins bought early on when I was still learning - and didn't realize what a pain in the butt- and how guilt inducing - single skeins can be ;)

Stay tuned - the rest of the foot will follow ;)

potholders

S's gift for Andrew

We were given a pot holder loom recently - S loved it :) I'm guessing that he'll be making many more ;) He's very proud of his work and papa is very pleased.

It just happened that I was already making pot holders ;)

Not my first choice for a gift, but money was tight and what the heck else would I sew for him?

Anyone else find their husbands difficult to sew/knit for?

The shape inspired much creativity ;)

I'm told they make an excellent frisbee.

The first day I couldn't find them all day. Apparently A liked them alot and hid them in her kitchen set ;)

I suppose she'll need a set just for her - in pink of course. Everything must be pink, tho purple is gaining popularity as well ;)

I love the expression on K's face ;)

Boring gift or no - it's nice to have new pot holders. They are one of those items that I just don't think to buy - and the ones we had were both old and poorly designed.

I got the pattern for these from Amanda Soule - aka - Soulemama's latest book

"The Handmade Home"

They were one of the first things I marked as *must make*

I wasn't disappointed. The instructions are clear, the pattern a good one.

They are just right.

I used scraps of Amy Butler fabric mostly. Attempting to choose colors that would please my man :) Truth be told he's extremely easy going, so I could probably used pink polka dots and he wouldn't have cared. He's not quite so easy to please with regards to clothing tho - which is why he still hasn't gotten any knits from me ;) Or other sewn items for that matter.

Tomorrow if I can get the darned snaps installed you'll get to see 2 things I've made for Miss A and her doll Sophie :) Expect extreme matchy matchy cuteness ;)

Just a little chicken roasting advice ;)

OK - so I *was* planning to show you the gift I sewed for Andrew for his birthday today, buuuut.....

I forgot to take pics ;)

So since we had chicken tonite I thought I'd share my most favorite chicken roasting discovery....

I know I know it's terribly exciting ;) And maybe everyone has thought of this.... hmmm.

Here it is.....

Roast that chicken upside down! Breast down. I've never understood why people roast chickens breast up - the breast is the part that gets dry right? Right. So breast down - the white meat is juicy, and the dark meat doesn't know the difference - it really doesn't mind being up on top ;)

End result is juicy juicy juicy white meat :)

So there you go - my oh so exciting post for the day ;)

I promise - cross my heart - tomorrow there will be sewing to see! In fact I will have more sewing the next day too!

And since I don't have a photo of a roasted chicken for you - here's a picture of sweetness :)

Happy Birthday to my Love :)

Happy Birthday Andrew - you are everything I ever dreamed of, and more.

I love you more with every passing day.

Sibling Love

OK - maybe I should title it occasional blurps of sibling love in between long moments of fighting lol! But love is love and I'm just going to celebrate any moments I get ;)

A ball for Little A

This ball was so fun to make!

I got the pattern from Anna Maria Horner's book, "It Seams to Me"

And of course I had to use her fabric ;) Well mostly anyway :)

I love her fabrics so much - as anyone who knows me already knows - I'm a bit of a dork that way ;) Her fabric makes my eyes very happy :)

The pattern looked tricky on first glance, but when push came to shove it wasn't bad at all. I found her directions and diagrams very clear and helpful.

I think that about wraps up the Birthday pictures :) Until next week when it's my husband's birthday that is ;)...........

a two year old needs a tutu right?

Ok - so that two year old hasn't figured that out yet ;)

And so this is her big sister modeling said tutu ;)

It had to be purple because - well Little A is just a purple girl - you'd have to know her to understand I suppose - you'll just have to take my word for it ;)

I used the Tie-on method which is ridiculously easy and requires no sewing other than sewing together the two ends of the elastic. You can find a tutorial easily - just google tutu tutorial. I used 4 colors - 2 yards each of pale purple and magenta and then some random pieces - maybe a yard to a yard and a 1/2 each of white and gold. I alternated mostly between magenta and gold together, and pale purple and white together. I love how it turned out :) Big A wants one too - her birthday is next up, so there'll be a pink one to follow - and after that I've been informed that my 15 year old wants one too ;) Photos to come of course ;)

I have just one more gift that I made to show you tomorrow :)

The Sock Fairy and other birthday fun :)

I think it's going to take a few posts to show off all the things I made for little Miss A for her Birthday ;)

I made her crown this year, last year I figured she was too young to notice and wouldn't likely be willing to wear it anyway. It's a good thing Andrew snapped a bunch of pics of her right away when we donned the Birthday crown - she tossed it within about a minute and never let anyone put it back on again - many of us tired, all to no avail. She doesn't like anything to touch her hair that girl - not brushes, hair clips, shampoo - nada ;) Some hats are ok - but only some and generally only when we are going outside ;) She also ditched the tutu and unfortunately there aren't any decent shots of her wearing it - there's some great ones of Big Miss A, but I think I'll save that for another post.

Quite literally surrounded - this girl is certainly not lacking in love and affection with 4 older siblings who all adore her.

And here we have the Sock Fairy :)

My mother bought this book for the girls for Christmas , and it was *such* a hit!

I noticed pretty quickly that Sascha's old doll was a good match and my mind started spinning with ideas for a Sock Fairy. S liked the idea and announced - oh about 3 days before her birthday that that was what his gift was going to be. Right. So We got started - what else am I going to do when my little boy wants to sew with me?

It was actually quite easy when it came down to it - especially because the boys had a surplus of holey socks - lots of them striped. I used a beloved pair of tights that S lived in when he was 3 and he was *Super S* He never left the house in anything other than tights with a girls bikini bottom over top and his Barbie T-shirt that was definitely an important part of the costume - tho I'm still not sure why. He found it in a free box and my oldest daughter was kind enough to tell him it was a Barbie shirt - It just had the word Barbie on it, but that didn't matter. SO the tights - he actually got a little sad initially at the idea of cutting them up, but he came around when I pointed out that we had no hope of finishing in time without them ;) SO the Shirt is made from those tights - and I actually sewed it to the doll, partly because I didn't want to be continuously redressing this particular doll, but also because it was just way easier that way. It's just 2 tubes for the arms and a bigger tube for the body and then I hand-sewed the shoulder seams to the doll.

The Hat, scarf, and socks are all made out of the boys' old socks. The vest is wool felt. The pants which I will likely redo at some point didn't turn out well (I was sewing them around midnight the night before knowing I still had to make the wings ;) ) I cut up a denim skirt for those.

The wings are made from some satin I had kicking around and 2 layers of batting inside - then machine quilted. There are 2 loops of elastic sewn to the top of the wings that goes around the top of the arms to hold them in place without the elastic showing.

I swear I tried to get her dressed for the cake time ;) She was all dressed, but then I took too long getting the cake ready - and well she doesn't care for clothes much more than she cares for hair stuff ;) So while I was lighting the candles - she was taking it all off ;)

Thankfully she ended up covered enough with the cake that I can actually still post the picture - I think it's beautiful :)

And yes she's sitting on the table lol! I decided to let that one go for the sake of harmony and not having the candles melt all over the cake while we tried to get her off the table ;)

The cake was pure heaven - a vanilla almond layer cake with lemon cream filling, and a "marshmallow" icing (no marshmallows involved I swear ;) ) All gluten and casein free as our whole family can't have either. Yum :) The sprinkles on the top of the cake are naturally based dye too - The brand is India Tree if I remember correctly :)

I'll be back tomorrow with some more pics of the other things I made....

My Baby is Two Today

Little Miss A is 2 years old today!

It's hard to believe that she went from this wee babe to my big strong girl in just a blink of an eye!

And here she is now. My girl who loves to do puzzles and have a million baths a day. My girl who is learning to talk and smiles soooooo big that you can see her tonsils! Who loves to giggle and run around on the tips of her toes. She loves to help - her very most favorite job is to put the eggs into the cartons after we wash them ever so carefully. She loves her baby dolls and even nurses them. What a sweet heart.

As hard as it is to believe that she's already 2 - I also find myself unable to imagine a time without her being here with us - she's that sweet girl who insisted on being the youngest member to complete our family. She is loved by all.

Someone is turning two soon.....

And I'm busy busy busy making her gifts....

Just a teaser for now ;)

mittens for my little kitten

I haven't been posting much lately - I'd really like to post more, but I've been spending every spare second sewing and knitting ;) And I realize that I really ought to have posts to go with all this sewing and knitting, but you see I haven't quite finished any of the projects! I'm close, but not quite there on oh - 4 projects ;) Now that Christmas is over you'd think I'd not be so busy, but at our house Christmas is closely followed by 3 birthdays one after another - my husband and my 2 youngest girls. I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm just as keen on making gifts for birthdays as I am for Christmas - and this year we're just plain broke, so I'm making *all* of the gifts ;). It's fun tho and a great stash buster for sure. I'll have more things to photograph really soon, but in the mean time.......mittens.

I never expected to get excited about mittens, but apparently I can get quite excited about anything ;) I'm going to call that a good thing ;)

So mittens - thumbless to be exact - for my littlest girl who is turning 2 years old this week. Mittens are such a pain in the you know what for little ones! They can't get them on themselves - I can't even get them on properly because none of them fit right! (Can you see where I am going with this?) Now you'd think that it wouldn't be so hard to find a pattern for such a thing, but for some reason I just couldn't - for ages. I finally did tho, so little Miss A will have nice warm hands. The pattern is easy - which I like since my first priorities with knitting are:

1. To relax.

2. To finish things *fast* I like the finishing part best ;)

The pattern is on ravelry.com and it's called "My First Toddler Mittens" by Anna Wukich

and no I'm not going to link it ;) - partly because I'm feeling lazy and partly because I also can't recall how to link, and the book that would show me is hiding ;) Seriously - didn't you know that books hide?

The yarn is Crystal Palace Fjord - the colorway on the purple was something like violet fields and I can't recall what the yellow/green was called - I actually bought the yarn ages ago - as in the purple was left over from one of my very first knitting projects way back when this toddler was still in my tummy ;)

See? She likes them ;)

And who really needs clothes when they have such lovely warm hands?

She takes this posing for the camera stuff *very* seriously ;)

Ok - so it's blurry - that's because she's demonstrating how well they work ;)

Dairy-Free Mushroom Soup

Dairy-Free Mushroom Soup

( this was my husband's inspiration - we made it together :) )

1 whole paper bag of mushrooms chopped fine

(be sure to enlist some small children to help chop these - you'll make their day and it'll go alot faster - or maybe it'll take longer, but they'll have fun :) Butter knives work fine for those too little for sharp knives. )

2 large onions diced
2 heads of garlic minced
1 stick of celery finely diced

saute these

heat:

2 cups almond milk ( original unsweetened)
1 can coconut milk (full fat!)
1 cup leftover gravy ( can add extra boullion cubes if you don't have any)
2 cubes mushroom boulion (we used Harvest Sun organic)

You don't want this to boil hard - the almond milk objects to that sort of treatment - and everything sort of separates.

I thickened this with rice flour - only had sweet rice flour, but white rice would work fine as well - I'm guessing around half a cup - mixed with a little water and poured in - stir stir :)
Combine everything and simmer for a while - maybe 30 minutes
Toss in a good sized handful of finely chopped parsley at the end.

This is sooooooo good! It doesn't have any coconut flavour at all - just the rich creaminess :) Both my little girls loved it - Big Miss A ate 3 bowls! And anyone who knows Big Miss A knows that she doesn't eat much. So that means that the soup is *really* good. Really it is :) Try it - you'll see what I mean!

And the best part? We ate half for lunch and are saving half to bake our porkchops for our dinner :) Yum!

Life Through S's Eyes

My kids have been really into taking photos lately - which I fully support even tho I'm always trying to hide the fact that I'm worrying they'll wreck my camera ;) They love it tho - and I'm always quite fascinated to see what they come up with. Big Miss A in particular has been taking literally hundreds of photos of herself in front of the computer with the computer camera. I suspect there will be another post with some of her photos - they are stunning.

Today tho - I was all set to post about the snow fort we've been working on ..... but then I discovered these photos that I hadn't taken. At first I wasn't sure which of my kids had taken them - but then I spotted the boots ;)

Saschee. My sweet boy who is now 7 years old and just getting sweeter every day. So these are his photos. I love them. Couldn't think of anything else I'd rather share today.

volcano action again.......

My little scientist - he told me today that is what he plans to be when he's all grown up :) He does love the vinegar and baking soda reaction. We buy a lot of vinegar and baking soda for this boy ;) He got some more science experiment books for Christmas (his fave) and there was a bit of a twist on the volcano eruption experiment, so we had to try it out. Nothing fancy, just adding a tablespoon of dish soap to the vinegar. It makes it foam quite nicely :)

There really is something quite overpowering about that koolaid scent - makes little tongues try it out even tho they know it will taste horrid ;)

We still haven't made a paper mache volcano - for my boy it's all about the eruption, so simple paper works just fine. He really doesn't seem to tire of the baking soda and vinegar thing either - again and again - changing things around of course - he likes to make things explode ;)