Ooops!!!

I can't believe I forgot to give credit for the House shirt idea in my last post! I never do that. Anyhoo, I saw the shirt originally on Craftster.org right here. Also, the craftster who made that shirt gave the website that has the stencil, which is here. I changed my lettering to a different font because I don't care for that typical stencil type lettering, but otherwise, I used the stencil exactly as is. So, that's all! I just wanted to give credit where credit is due:)

Creative Block?

No sir, not me. I started thinking about this after reading a post on Tameka's blog. Not that I've never had a creative block, but it's pretty rare. I usually have the opposite problem-too many ideas and not enough time/money/materials/required skills to pull them off. At the moment, I'm knitting the second of Justin's pair of socks, a hat for Bethany, and some random washcloths. In the past couple weeks, I made the Purplicious shirt for Sophia, as well as the Muno shirt for Dorian. On Thursday, I stenciled a shirt for Justin.

As you can see, creating generally has two speeds for me. Frenzied and even more frenzied. It's kind of the way I keep from going mad, I guess. I don't have much interaction with adults outside of Justin and various phone conversations with my family members and long distance friends. I'm usually stuck at home for days on end because we only have the one working car right now and Justin always has to take it to work. I don't smoke. I drink very infrequently. In other words, crafting is my only vice. And I'd almost always rather make stuff for other people rather than myself. For me, it's a lot more fun to give somebody something that they genuinely love and appreciate than it is to make something for myself. Especially if that something you're giving them is something that you made with your own two hands. I think that imparts a sense of love and caring and permanence that just isn't there with something you could buy. Not that I'm averse to receiving store bought gifts, haha!!! Heck no!!! I love getting the gift of a new pair of shoes. But, there's always the other side of that coin. I absolutely hate making something for someone only to discover upon giving it to them that they fail to understand or value the huge investment of time and love that went into that handmade gift. It's soul-crushing and deflating and disappointing and infuriating and bewildering and, well, I could go on, but I'm sure you all have things to do today, haha:) Luckily, I learned about that pretty early on in my crafty ventures and now I'm very selective about who receives my handmade goodness. For instance, when Bethany was in 3rd grade, she got invited to a birthday party. I stenciled a very difficult design on a shirt for the little girl whose party it was. What the hell was I thinking? I have no idea. That little twerp undoubtedly didn't appreciate the work that went into that shirt and anyway, about two months later, she and Bethany hated each other in the way that fickle little girls are inclined to do.

So I was pondering how weird it is that there are creative types and then non-creative types, both with individuals at all points along that spectrum. For myself, as I mentioned above, I'm at the extreme end of the creative types spectrum. Of course, I'm at the extreme end of the spectrum for most things I like or love. There is nothing on Earth that could make me understand how somebody could not be creative. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think I'm an AR-TEEST or anything like that. I can't paint or draw or sculpt. If I knit, I have to use a pattern written by someone else. If I stencil, it's usually based on some pre-existing character or idea, even if I make some revisions or modifications. I just mean that I am always driven to make something, anything...whatever it is. Conversely, I'm sure that non-creative types won't ever understand that thing that drives me and other creative types to make something. They probably think stuff like "but why would you knit socks? why wouldn't you just buy some?". But, those are also the people that can look at something I've made and be utterly fascinated that I was able to make it and that's cool too. I'm not really going anywhere with this. Just stuff that I was mulling over after reading Tameka's blog yesterday. I'm just rambling. It's what I do.

So, anyway, here are some pictures of the shirt I made Justin!



Haha!!! So, yeah, we're big House M.D. fans. Justin especially loves House's antisocial and mean-just-for-the-hell-of-it nature. Shocking, I know. Anyway, if you watch House, you'll get this shirt. If you don't, I'll try and explain as briefly as possible. Basically, House is an obsessive bastard. A diagnosis is pretty much just a solution to a puzzle for him. And he wants the puzzle to be as supremely challenging as possible. Therefore, every time someone shows up at the hospital with some strangely captivating yet horrific symptom(s), House wants the diagnosis to be something completely off the wall. Like, Dengue fever or the Bubonic plague or Sleeping sickness aka human African trypanosomiasis. He never wants it to be something as common as "tame" as lupus. So, every time he and his team meet to do their differential diagnosis thing, lupus usually comes up and House usually says "It's not lupus". So, there ya go. Justin liked the shirt and thought it was funny. Here's a view from a little farther away:



And here's what Justin thinks of having his picture taken:



Alright, so that's all for now. Happy Sunday and I'll talk to you all soon:)

Herding Cats aka Photo Shoot with Dorian

So, Dorian hasn't been feeling well for the last few days. He had a dr visit on Tuesday and it turned out that he has croup and bronchitis. Awwww. In case you guys didn't know, Dorian's favorite show is Yo Gabba Gabba. I'm trying to sum up the show to give you guys a description, but it's really hard. Basically, there are 6 characters. They're little toys that live in a boombox and DJ Lance (the main human character) comes along and makes them come alive. In the theme song, they name each character and follow it with a brief description. It goes like this:

Muno (he's tall and friendly)
Foofa (she's pink and happy)
Brobee (the little green one)
Toodee (she likes to have fun)
Plex (a magic robot)

Anyhoo, on the show there are all kinds of random kids dancing and they all wear shirts with the different characters on them. Here's one of the kids with a Muno shirt on:



I decided to make Dorian a Muno shirt to cheer him up. I picked Muno because I had that color in scrap fabric (read: old shirts) and he was the easiest. He totally loves it!! He's worn it every day since Tuesday (yes, I've washed it every day) and he'll look down occasionally and say "yo ga ga ga". That's how he says Yo Gabba Gabba. And he calls Muno "Nuno". It's pretty cute.

So, trying to catch a good picture of an almost 2 year old is really difficult. Even though he's been sick and not eating enough to keep a grasshopper alive (I think the antibiotics are upsetting his tummy), he's still got more energy than I could ever dream of having. Here are my efforts to take a picture of him in his new shirt.

First, I sit him on our couch and he's all "yeah, look at this shirt-you wish you could have it, don't you?".



But, he kept getting down so I decided to try and sit him on his Spiderman mini couch. He's thinking "you know I'm not going to give you a good picture, right?".



Now he's getting to the "geez hurry up, woman!" stage.



Here, you can see the moment that he started plotting his escape. It totally looks like he's about to say "Oh no you didn't!". Haha! P.S. All that stuff on the front of his shirt is drool.



Aaaaaand, he's OFF!!!!



I clothesline him and try to force him back onto the little couch.



He gets past me so I pretend to be asleep in the hopes that he'll come close enough for me to snap a picture. Instead, he decides to pretend that he's sleeping too. I started laughing which made him laugh.



He quickly "wakes up" and tries to take off while I'm still laying on the floor.



I tackle him again and he cracks up.



I manhandle him back onto the couch, which he's obviously not thrilled about. As a matter of fact, you can tell that he's gearing up to take off again.



He gets up, turns around really fast, and slams his head into the door frame.



I believe his exact words were "Owwwww, haid" (that's how he says head). Photo shoot over. But, hopefully you enjoyed the show and can see his shirt at least a little. Since he likes it so much, I have plans to make him a few more as soon as I get a chance. Probably one with Brobee and one with Plex. Till next time!

Blah.

So, I've been kind of struggling with my healthy eating since Thanksgiving. Instead of just eating badly on Thanksgiving day, I decided I should have a 4 day spree. Then there were several weeks in a row that I had at least one screw-up outside of my regular cheat day. Then for about 2 weeks (while I was in MS and the couple days before), I decided to just take a complete break. Well, it's been about a week since I've been back on the wagon. 6 days to be exact. I checked my weight this morning and I've gained 4 lbs. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I tried to tell myself not to expect to have lost anything and to expect to have gained some weight over the last couple weeks. But, it still sucked to see it on the scale. Anyway, I've decided I'm gonna put an end to the weekly cheat day. Since I've been doing that every week, it's gotten harder and harder to wait that week in between. My weight loss slowed down too. I need to get back to my original mentality of just cheating if something came up and not setting up an entire day where I ate like it was going out of style and probably consumed enough calories to undo my work for the whole week. It's going to be really hard to give up that little slice of freedom. But, I have to do what I think is gonna work for me. And so far, this isn't. Here's hoping that it helps. I'm feeling pretty discouraged right now.

More stuff I made.

So, this is a shawl that I made my mother-in-law for Christmas. She's a shawl person. She also likes pretty much every variation of the color brown. So, this seemed like a natural. My objective when I planned it was to use a luxurious yarn, but a practical shape. This type of shawl is called a Faroese Shawl. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Faroese Shawls:

The most distinguishing characteristic of Faroese lace shawls is the center back gusset shaping. Each shawl consists of two triangular side panels, a trapezoid-shaped back gusset, an edge treatment, and usually shoulder shaping. The shoulder shaping allows these shawls to drape over the shoulders and remain in place as the wearer moves, even if the shawl is not pinned in place.

Instead of a more familiar triangular, rectangular or circular shape, Faroese shawls are shaped like butterfly wings. Some have very long ends so they can be tied around the wearer's waist for extra warmth.

So, you see how practical it is. It'll stay put while moving, working, etc. Now, for the luxurious yarn part. I chose Malabrigo Silky Merino in the colorway Acorn. It's pretty much the best yarn ever. The Malabrigo Yarn Company is legendary among knitters. They're a small family owned company in Uruguay that works with a cooperative of local women to produce some of the most gorgeous yarn you've ever seen or felt. Regular 100% wool Malabrigo feels like a cloud. But the Silky Merino is unbelievable. It's 50% silk and 50% baby merino. It feels kind of like a cloud wrapped in a cocoon slathered in butter. Or something. Anyway, here's a close up of the yarn I used:



Beautiful, right? It's got a really nice sheen and it drapes like nobody's business. Here's the finished product from the back:




and from the front:


I assure you that she was delighted! I didn't put her face in the pictures because I don't like being all on the internet and I assume other grown folks don't either so I usually don't post face shots unless I have express permission. This is by far the biggest and most complicated thing I've knitted. I love how it turned out and I already bought some more of that yarn in a different shade to make myself a hat. Anyway, Dorian's not feeling so hot today so I'm gonna wrap this up now and cuddle him. Till next time:)

A Purplicious Post

So, as I mentioned, I was in MS visiting my family over the holidays. I decided that I needed to make shirts for my nieces and nephews, so I'll be steadily doing that over the next several weeks. Of course I'll also be knitting and making stuff for my own brood of children, so there'll be a little of everything on here. First up is a shirt for my niece Sophia. She's just about the cutest thing ever. She's 3 (she'll be 4 in April) and she's VERY small. Let's put it this way. Dorian is not quite 2 and he's on the small side for his age. Sophia put on a pair of Dorian's pajama pants this past week and they totally fit!!! Lengthwise and everything! Haha, it was funny:D Here's a cute picture of Sophia and Sebastian at the drive in here in TN. This was when my sister and the kids and my mom came to visit this past summer.



Anyway, Sophia's favorite book is Purplicious. I've never read it because my only girl is 10 and it's way below her age range. Apparently it's about a girl whose favorite color is pink. The girl gets teased by all her classmates because they think pink is for babies and black is the new cool color. The little girl gets all sad and stuff and starts wearing blue all the time until she meets a new friend who's nice and who encourages her to mix pink with blue to make purple. Then the little girl is happy again, I guess. The moral to the story is that kids are sometimes assholes and you have to do what makes you happy and find friends who will support you in that rather than make you feel like crap. But kid books can't use words like asshole, so you get a book like Purplicious that deals with a real issue in a cute way that kids can understand. So, I decided to make Sophia a Purplicious shirt. I took a look at the cover:



Rather than creating something loosely based on the cover, I decided (like an idiot) to just copy the cover exactly. So I did. Here's the result:



This is mostly machine applique, with a few bits of hand-sewn applique. There are also some parts that I stenciled. The stenciled parts are: the big paintbrush, the palette, the little girl's facial details, the name of the book, and the line underneath that. The machine appliqued parts are: the big purple rectangle, the dress, the individual pockets, the little bow, individual sleeve cuffs, the collar, the face and neck, the arms, the hair, and the beret. If you're thinking that's a lot of pieces, you're freaking right. The hand-sewn appliqued parts are: the two very VERY small paintbrushes, the little wand, the thumb (on the palette), and the fingers (on the big paintbrush). All of the fabrics I used were scraps from old clothes belonging to me and the kids. The light pink portion of the dress is from an old shirt of mine, as is the fabric used for the arms, hands, face, and neck. The magenta portions of the dress, also used in the beret and the small paintbrushes, are from an old shirt of Bethany's. The purple is also from an old shirt of Bethany's. The brown used for the hair and the small paintbrushes came from an old shirt of Sebastian's, as did the yellow used in the star. I think it turned out pretty freaking good. And it was really hard. Luckily, Sophia tends to love everything I make for her. Plus she hardly grows at all, so she'll be able to wear it for a looooong time. Here are a few close ups (remember that you can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them).

The little girl's face and the lettering:



The big paintbrush that I stenciled on, plus her fingers that I hand-sewed (that piece was reallllly small):



The palette that was stenciled on and her hand-sewn thumb (even smaller than the fingers):



Her tiny paintbrushes and her little wand, all of which reside in her very small pockets:



Here's hoping that Sophia loves it!!!!

Happy New Year!!!

What'd you do? Here's what we did!



Yummy. S'mores fondue. That cute little fondue pot was one of our Christmas gifts from Justin's parents.



The kids definitely enjoyed our snack, as you can see:



They both have some serious orange soda mustaches. I photoshopped Bethany's out in the picture below, cause she was embarrassed (heehee):



We also had sparkling grape juice. We were going to play Clue (another Christmas gift), but Sebastian spilled orange juice on the directions on the trip back from MS and the pages got all stuck together and ripped and we couldn't read them. We couldn't find the directions online either, so we had to skip that for the time being.

Speaking of MS, we had an amazing trip. We had so much fun seeing everybody. It was really hectic, but worth it. The kids had such a great time seeing all their little cousins again. It's been too long since we last saw everyone. Hopefully there won't be so much time between now and our next visit. It was really hard to leave. Me and Bethany cried, while Justin and Sebastian looked uncomfortable and Dorian flipped out because of my Aunt Lynn's dogs for the umpteenth time. I don't know why, but he was very inconsistent with his fear of them. Sometimes he was scared and sometimes he wasn't. When he was scared, he screamed bloody murder. When he wasn't, he just ignored them. Sometimes he was in between and he'd just wave both hands really fast and go "hey, hey, heyyy" as if to tell them to back off in a very nervous fashion. It was pretty funny. Anyway, as of tomorrow, I'll be back on the weight loss track and hopefully I'll have some exciting news in that arena sometime soon. I should also have some crafty stuff to show pretty soon. Till next time:)