Category: Crafts

This past Sunday, I took a break from knitting to work on craft bags for my daughters classmates.

After church, my daughter and I headed to Micheals to purchase card stock, a few clear acrylic stamps, and fun little gadgets/snacks to add to the bags. When we were back home, my daughter picked out a cute turkey digital stamp, she colored most of the turkeys while I cut, printed out names.

 

She added glitter to the names…

While I embossed the brown paper bags with my Cuttlebug, glued and added the turkeys to the bags. It took us about five hours to complete everything.

My daughter colored and added designs to each turkey based on the classmates preferences. She’s pays attention to others, such a remarkable trait. It’s something I’ve taught her since she was born. Often times I put her needs above my own. Not only am I the parent, she’s also a great friend. I enjoy spending time with her.

 

But yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but think I could add something more to the turkey. The poor thing didn’t have any feathers after all… and then it hit me! I could use leaves! While part of me was thrilled that I found a solution, the other part really didn’t want to cut the turkeys/names off the old bags, and reapply them (with ‘feathers’) to brand new bags! That was more work, and I didn’t have a lot of time. But that’s exactly what we did.

 

My daughter and I completed the changes before school. Hooray for teamwork!

My daughter thought the boys in her class would think the bags were lame. But they didn’t, they really liked them. Quite a few asked how they were made, and we told them. Of course, I made extras bags just in case… but I didn’t need them. I know all the children in her class, and so the leftovers were given to her teacher who liked our crafty idea too.

Spending the time together, was a great chance to bond with my daughter. It was also a great opportunity to talk about a variety of topics.  She’s told me often, that she appreciates that I like spending time with her. listen to some of her frustrations.

Sometimes parents need to keep their mouths shut, and listen to what their children have to say. You really need to make time, since if you don’t they might not have time for you as they get older.

 

While browsing Ravelry, I saw that KnitPicks has an amazing deal on Biggo Yarn. If your KnitPicks purchase is over $5.00, you’ll be able to get a free skein of Biggo yarn. I thought, with a name like ‘biggo’ it has to be bulky!

I was right…

Biggo Yarn

Content: 50% Superwash Merino Wool, 50% Nylon
Weight: Bulky Weight
Knitting Gauge: 3 – 3.75 sts = 1″ on #10 – 11 needles (6.0mm-8.0mm)
Crochet Gauge: 8–11 sc = 4” on K-M hooks (6.5mm – 9mm)
Amount: 110 yards/100 gram Hank
Care: Machine Wash, Tumble dry low

This super soft blend of superwash merino and nylon is plyed together into a light and lofty 2-ply yarn, making Biggo the perfect choice for easy care garments and accessories. The bulky gauge will have your projects flying off your needles and hooks in no time at all! Biggo is also well suited for cozy, oversized sweaters without the time commitment of finer weight yarns. Bulky, comfy and versatile – Biggo will have you longing for chunky knits all year long.

 

Although Knit Picks doesn’t  have a super huge selection of Biggo yarn (about 15 total)  I’ve chosen asphalt heather. It’s currently hanging out in my online shopping cart as I decide if I should purchase or should I just wait to see what deals they have on Cyber Monday.

Oh by the way, the promotion code you’ll need too take advantage of this awesome deal is trybiggo.

My daughter and I are both counting down the days; we share one countdown, soapmaking which we’ll be doing during the Thanksgiving holidays. She also has two more countdowns; Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She’s excited seeing me pull out my soapmaking equipment….

 

I’ve already set aside my stock pots, immersion blender, and my dependable Kitchen Aid mixer which I purchased about six years ago. If I remember correctly, I spent a little over $300, for that, it was a great investment. All the items I’ve listed are used exclusively for making skin care products..

The above mentioned items, along with essential oils, herbs, and my carrier oils; jojoba, coconut, olive oil, and palm oil, are in the basement. Jojoba oil, finds it way into many of my soaps, and skin care recipes since with soapmaking it adds lather, and conditioning properties to the soap. Also, jojoba oil mimics the sebum, which is naturally found in human skin, and can make a great ingredient to add to skin products. If used correctly.

 

My sodium hydroxide (NaOH) aka Lye should be arriving toward the end of this week. I have lye in my garage, but I don’t think it’s good since I’m thinking it’s been exposed to moisture. My ‘soap molds’ are actually bread loaf pans, which I purchase at the local department store. I also have my goggles, mask, and rubber apron that I’ll be wearing while making the soap. I don’t play when handling caustic chemicals.

Since cold process soap normally takes three – six weeks to cure the process won’t be instant gratification, but I still have enough homemade soap to tide us over until my new batch cures.

I’ll be sure to take pictures of the process. I imagine you’ll see photos from my daughter and myself. This will be her first year, that she gets to play an active role making the cold processed soap, and she’s excited.

Today, my daughter and I attended an even at out Lutheran Church, one of the ladies (M) and I spent a lot of time talking about the various crafts she does, naturally crochet, knitting, and sewing came up from myself. It turns out she’s a sewer too, and we spent a bit of time swapping sewing stories, and talking about the various projects we’ve done.

 

It turns out she’s a hand quilter! Now that had me interested, since I’ve expressed an interst in it before, and I’ve slowly started acquiring tools needed for creating hand-sewn quilts. Even better, is that she designs her own quilts, now that I think about it I vaguely remember her bringing one of her hand sewn quilts to the quilters group, it was gorgeous.

Naturally I asked her a ton of questions, which she seemed more than happy to ask. I left the event so fired up, that I promptly purchased quilters thread. Now, I’m not the type that gets fired up, and lets a project languish. I’ll eagerly awaiting my thread. Tomorrow after church, or sometime early next week, I’ll stop by Jo An Fabrics and take a look at their fat quarters. According to M, they have a nice selection there.

This morning, I finished knitting a slouch beanie hat for one of my daughter’s Monster High dolls. I used some of the scrumptious yarn that arrived from Knit Picks. I’ll be sure to post a picture of the hat, and the lovely yarn soon.

 

Ever since I purchased my set of Knit Picks Options nickel plated needles, I’ve been wanting to place a yarn order…

But I dragged my feet since I usually don’t order yarn online. When it comes to my fiber crafts, I’m a visual person, who loves touch what I’m going to purchase. Don’t worry yarn store owners, my hands are clean!  Naturally, I can’t do that when making an online purchase. However I determined that I’d stop making excuses and purchase KnitPicks yarn during the month of October, sort of a 42nd birthday gift for myself.

I drug my feet a little longer, but only missed that by two days, since I finally got around to placing my order this past Friday, November 2. I’m really pleased with my restraint, many of the items I wanted to order I put into my wishlist. If I like the quality of the yarn, you know I’ll be adding items from my wish list into a future purchase.

The lovely Nicole, gifted me with a (birthday) gift certificate, and so I used part of that for Felici Tiki which will be used to make socks for my daughter! Oh by the way, Nicole has a yarnie giveaway, so check out the post!  As you can see from the above screenshot, I also purchased more cables for my interchangeable needles. And I purchased a few knitting needles that will be seeing a lot of sock time, and eight skeins of yarn. Trust me, I wanted to purchase more, but I thought it would be wise to purchase a few, see how I like it before I go yarn crazy!

I might be getting this order tomorrow! Checking online tracking, I noticed my shipment is already at my local post office in Maryland.  Of course, I just want to squeeze the pretties, since I won’t be working on anything until my current pattern test is complete.

I saw this on Ravelry, and just had to share…

I think my favorite is How our LYS (local yarn stores) sees us.

This week, will be my first full week working out of the home, for several years. I still have the same clients I did when I worked from home full-time, but I must say it’s nice to venture out of the home and interact with others even if it’s on a part-time basis. I stay busy with my working out of the home job, and that makes me happy. The icing on the yummy cake is working for an organization that I love. It also helps that I know a lot of people there.

This past weekend was busy for my daughter. She had a Father/daughter dance on Friday – I volunteered to serve food. She had a soccer game on Saturday — I cheered from the sidelines. My daughters choir performed in two services on Sunday– when she looked at me in the large audience, I reminded her to smile. By making my smile bigger of course. My sweet daughter is tired today, and to be honest so am I. Most likely, will both be turning in early this evening.

You know something? I still haven’t ordered my birthday yarn from Knit Picks, but I decided to hold off until the end of this month. Who knows, I might order everything on my Knit Picks wish list, which is about $200.