craft-orginization

A few months ago our good friends came for a visit with their 10 1/2 month old, Hunter. He had just started crawling and getting into everything. Before their visit I found myself awake at night with fears of the baby death trap that was my craft corner- and so I spent a solid two weeks moving everything up and out and creating a safe but completely unorganized craft space.
I have been living with the consequences for the past two months. The short of it has been that whenever I want to get something that used to be right at my hand I had to climb on a chair, curse like a sailor and rummage around until I came up with something close to what I was looking for- needless to say nothing ever really went back to where it had come from. I was left with a giant tangle of crafting materials and glue and who knows what else falling off the top of our bookshelves. As you may have guessed this put a serious damper on my crafting.
So this weekend I took the plunge. I took everything down- I organize, prioritized and even sterilized my craft zone. My guy is now thinking he should have bought stock in clear plastic bins. But it did the trick and it is lovely. I even managed to sit down and sew a bag last night!

Babies, babies everywhere

On Thursday two new little ones came into my life. My dear friends in California had the lovely Amelia and my sister-in-law had James.
I am very behind on my welcome to the world baby things. I still haven't finished Miss Chloe's quilt and she is now 2 months old, but i think that you have at least the first 6 months on quilts because babies just spit up a lot in those first few months so it is better to wait (that is what I am telling myself so hold your tongue if you think they need one at birth!)
I did want to make James a little something quick. He has a very excited first time grandma that has filled the house with quilts and clothing so it was a bit of a challenge to think of something but she pointed out that she doesn't know how to make sweaters and so the baby surprise jacket came to the rescue. I sewed up those two seams 3 time; once because I had one selves going on way from the other, once because it looked bad and once because it turns out I am a perfectionist.
I found some buttons in my stash so this is ready to go when I meet James, with a little luck that will be tomorrow.
Here is the finished product:

All Hail Elizabeth Zimmerman

This is by far one of the strangest things I have ever knit, yes stranger than even the hyperbolic baby pants of the hammock. The baby surprise jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman looks like a bad experiment in knitting and then presto it folds into the cutest jacket. And just in time too because my nephew James was born yesterday!
I am on my way to get buttons this afternoon to finish it up

Home Stretch

I have 8 hours and 40 minutes left at my very crappy job, I will then take a lovely week off to sew and have dental work done and then go to my new and improved job. In the mean time I have been determined to make a sweater in my last 3 weeks here. I have a lot of down time in between patients and have found knitting to be an ideal past time. This here is the Whisper Cardigan from interweave knits. I have had to make some changes because apparently I have overly long arms- I had to add about 40 rows so that it hit me below the elbow and I am adding a few inches to the back too- but I am two inches away from being done. And At least I can say I got something other then a paycheck out of my crappy job.

Thanks to the Great Molly

Many years ago my mother gave me this very cool William Sonoma Daisy cake pan. It has these lovely cut outs that are suppose to leave the impressions of a daisy in your cake.



It comes with a yummy recipe for a lemon cake and recommends that you grease the pan well...unfortunately I have never managed to make it work without completely. Although the cake is always yummy it is extremely hard to get it out of the pan no matter how much shortening and flour you use, it is also a real pain to clean afterwords.

I recently decided to give it one more try, I even bought a new tub of shortening and spent a sold 30 minutes getting it into ever crease, only to have the same problem. I was very discouraged and really ready to chuck the whole idea when my friend Molly recommended that I try making bread in it instead of cake. Her reasoning was that the bread would rise and basically just use the pan as a base.
So I pulled out my favorite biscuit recipe with the feeling that they have enough butter that sticking should be a big issue (mind you I still sprayed it with baking spay) and it worked! even though I am never quite sure what I think about the craft/baking blog merge in general I am so excited that this pan has found new life I had to share it. I am going to try a whole loaf next.

My Flock

It should really be no surprise to anyone that I have a love of sheep somewhere along the way I seemed to start collecting my own flock at various sheep and wools and fairs. Here they are

Sheep and Wool

here is my bounty from sheep and wool this year:


Now I know what you all are thinking does that girl really need more yarn? The answer is clearly no followed by a big old yes!
My guy and I spent a lovely weekend upstate with friends and sheep and wool. I am feeling proud I didn't bring a border collie home.
Yes that is a swift you see in the middle. I have one, of course, but it is not New York apartment size friendly and I fear concussion every time I take it out. This one is compact and cute and folds up quite nicely.
I also bought some of my favorite wool in the world (left/center) from mostly merino in Vermont. It has a lovely loft and is simply a joy to knit with.
The big mass of wool on the right side is from a lovely woman in Maine that does sea dyeing and will become my new hubby's sweater. He is very excited because until now I have refused to make him a sweater because of the sweater curse.
Never heard of the sweater curse before? Well this is told to all young girls learning to knit, and hopefully now young boys too. The curse said in hushed tones is simple: never make a sweater for a man unless you are married to him, otherwise you will break up with him before it is finished and never meet another man with the same measurements again. This has been repeated to me so often that I have to take it as true. And so one month after the wedding I had a very excited guy heading to sheep and wool with me knowing that a sweater could finally be made.