Celebrity Sighting, Canuck Style...

I am useless today. Completely wiped out. And I'm a little baffled, cuz while I was out and about yesterday, I really didn't do anything.

I had to go for an ultrasound at the IWK in Halifax yesterday afternoon. No biggie, just my stubborn little bean of a baby wouldn't co-operate for the first 2 ultrasounds that I had down here at South Shore Regional and so the powers that be couldn't see all the views of the heart that they wanted to see. Which lead me to taking the entire day to get to, wait for, go through and come home from a one hour ultrasound in the city. Honestly, it took all day. Not that I am really begrudging the event. I mean, I did get to see the little weirdo once again, this time being able to sync up movement I saw with movement I could feel. And seeing as it was my third ultrasound, I could definitely see a difference in size of all the essential parts. Although I still mistook the belly for the head, so ya know, there's a learning curve with this stuff. And I don't know why, but seeing those itty-bitty hands and feet just delight me like nothing else. I've giggled every time.

Anyhow, after an hour of trying to coax this willful, still in-utero child to, I dunno, flip over I guess by getting me to walk around the room, empty my full bladder, jiggling the camera-wand thingy half a dozen times over my belly, having me lay on my side and yes, even going so far as to tip the bed backwards so that my feet were above my head, the tech gave up and called in the radiologist, who, in about two minutes or so, got the view she wanted and we were away to the races. It's nice when a doctor calls your baby's heart 'gorgeous' and all of the measurements 'perfect'. Leaves a warm fuzzy feeling. So that was good.

But I think the coolest part of the day was actually lunch before the exam. We stopped in Bayers Lake, the big box store shopping area just before the city, hoping to hit a few stores. It was lunch time by then and I was desperate to hit a Burger King, since there isn't one in our area. I was like that guy on the BK commercial where they fool people into thinking that they don't serve the Whoppers anymore and he gets rather agitated and yells, "I WANNA WHOPPER." So that's where we went.

Immediately upon entering the fine establishment we see the guy who plays Julian on the Trailer Park Boys. I mean, you couldn't mistake him for anyone else. Though he wasn't holding his signature drink in his hand at the time, he was holding his cellphone, just like he would his rye on the rocks and it was at that very moment that the secret, silent communication that only married people possess kicked in without missing a beat. I was ahead of the constable and I immediately turned around, to which he responded with a slight smile and a nod. Without saying a word, it was as though I turned and said, 'Is that...?' and he replied, 'Uh-huh'. So that was cool. And while I've never spotted a celebrity in the States, I have spotted my fair share of Canadian ones here on home soil, and I have to believe that there is something uniquely Canadian about how we treat our celebs. Though the BK wasn't full of people, there were definitely a few others who recognized him as well, though no one approached him at all. Could be cuz it's common to see him around these parts, I don't know. But everyone just whispered and made head motions in his general direction and let him alone to have lunch with his kids in relative obscurity.

Onto the craft content. Seeing as I'm pretty much stuck on the chaise today, figuratively and quite literally (with this growing belly, it's getting increasingly more difficult to get up from the chaise), I'll share some recent FO's for you, the first of which I like to call The Gift That Just Wasn't Meant to Be.



I bought some Patons SWS in Natural Denim to make my sister something for Christmas. At first I was thinking hat, but was having a hard time coming up with just the right hat. It had to be 'just the right hat' cuz even by her own admission, my sis would say that she and hats don't always see eye to eye. I cast on for a couple of different patterns, all of which just didn't seem to want to work (one of which was Le Slouch, which was absolutely the wrong hat altogether...I think I had more me in mind at that point) so I sought the knowledge of my Knit Nite compatriots and the consensus was a resounding 'felted slippers.' NovaKnitter sung the praises of the felted clog and had me pretty much convinced by the time I got home. I checked the yardage of the pattern, 500 yrds, with what I had, which was just a little over 300, so I went with the felted ballet slippers instead. Yadda yadda yadda, everything was sailing along smoothly until I got to the part where you pick up around the sole of the foot. I had knit the ladies large sole, so I thought, but only managed to pick up around for the ladies small. Hmmm. Something fishy. Ah well, I'm sure it will all come out in the wash. Literally. So I went ahead and finished the first slipper. When I got around to the same point in the second, I realized where I had made the mistake. For the ladies large sole, I was supposed to knit 29 garter stitch ridges, decrease, knit another eleven ridges, decrease, then knit another eleven. It was the second eleven that I had omitted. What this all really means is I am now the proud owner of a lovely pair of felted slippers and still have no gift for my sister for Christmas.



Numero Deux; I finally finished my Flying Arrows (not a link to the pattern, but these are lovely in red) socks out of the buttery and obsession creating Tanis yarn in the Lagoon colourway. Love. More than love. Adore. I did the garter stitch short row heel on these as well, and they are quickly becoming my favourite heel of all time. Perfect fit.



C) Sock one of the pair to match the orange onesie I made. Kertzer something or other. I'd forgotten that there were other colours in the yarn than just orange and yellow. Ah well. I'm not going to try and make them match anyway, and still very cute.



Quattro and Five: A sleep sack sewn by yours truly and a little cotton hat knit out of Cloud Cotton Eco Cotton in what I'm going to call a natural colourway. Very soft. The sleep sack, size three months according to the pattern, looks huge to me. But it turned out well and I like it (I managed to haul my carcass off the chaise to get this photo...quite a mistake...not doing that again.)



Currently on the needles; Skull Isle Hat (Ravelry link, sorry for those of you not on Rav...couldn't find it online elsewhere) from Son of Stitch n' Bitch in pink and red Wool Gatto. I've been wanting to make this for a long while, and figured as it was winter already, now is as good a time as any. It's going quickly, which I like. Just gotta do some simple colour work every once in a while. This is supposed to be a stash busting project, but I've got this sneaky suspicion that I won't be content until I have the mittens to match. I'm also a little worried that it's going to be too small. But we'll see.

And that's all I've got left in me. I'm now actually tired from blogging. This is sad. Guess I'll go attempt a nap. Sleeping at night is proving to be somewhat of a challenge. Not that I'm waking up, just not sleeping comfortably or soundly. And that's no fun.

Until later...

At It Again...

Pumpkin spice muffins are yummy.

So the whole refashion/recycling sweatshirt project was so much fun that I thought I would see what else I could do. I don't recall whether I mentioned it in the sweatshirt post, but I thought that I could crank out a few onesies out of some old t-shirts that I had lying around. Just so happens I have a pattern for onesies.



This isn't really a tutorial, but if you happen to have a pattern lying around for onesies or want to try this yourself, you'll want t-shirts that are a) big enough (these are men's large and extra large) and b) t-shirts that don't have seams on the sides. The front and back pattern pieces are meant to be cut on the fold of the fabric, so as you can see here, I've placed them on the sides of the t-shirt where the 'fold' is. I know the photos are a little dull, but I've just not been all that enamoured with my flash lately. Weird lighting this time of year. I'm also doing the small size in the pattern. It goes down as far as xxs, which would also be fine, and I may have been able to eek out a medium, but small was fine for my purposes. (In my amateur estimation, the resulting size is about a 3-6/6-9 month size, compared with some other store bought onesies I have already).



So yadda yadda yadda, I get a little into what I'm doing and forget to take some 'in progress' photos. But here is the the onesies all sewn, or rather, serged, together. If it wasn't for my serger, I don't think I would bother with these projects, since sewing with t-shirt or jersey material on just a sewing machine is a fast track to insanity. For the crotch area, I made sure that my pattern piece went as far down as the bottom hem of the t-shirt. The pattern called for cutting out pieces for the neck bands and for bands around the leg. Again, since I wanted fast and easy and not so much on the insane part, I opted just to serge around these areas. It gives a less finished look, but whatever. These are clothes that are likely to be barfed on. I'm not that fussy.



The t-shirt I used for this onesie was a little worn and thin, so while likely pretty comfy, would only be good for very warm weather or perhaps at night for sleeping, in a sleep sack. Anyway, I remembered that in purging a lot of his t-shirts, the constable was a little bummed out that some of his favourite logo's would also be lost to the rag pile. So I cut out one of the smaller ones, went and got some stuff called Wonder Under (or Heat n' Bond as I knew it), which through the magical process of ironing, creates a nice iron-on logo or patch. Ta-da! Funkified.



That is until I went to finish the process, which requires that you put a damp cloth on top of the logo for the final ironing which bonds the logo to the project and used a red cloth that bled all over my white onesie. DAR! Ruination. So I'm gonna wash it and if it doesn't come out, try and peel it off and do it again on another onesie or take the cursed cloth and do the same thing all over the rest of the outfit to get a mottled/tie-dye effect.



Not satisfied to stop at one, I did it again, this time with one of my own old t-shirts. I got this for volunteering for the conservation authority in my last county of residence. Does anyone ever wear these things after the fact, other than for painting houses or doing yard work? Neon orange just isn't my colour. Needless to say, it's never been worn. This time I flipped the shirt over and cut out the pieces on the back, so that I could avoid getting any writing in my cutting.



And this is how I did the sleeves; cut the sleeves off the t-shirt and through the underarm seam so that they would lie flat. Placed them wrong sides together, centered the pattern piece and cut away. The hem of the t-shirt sleeve becomes the hem of the onesie sleeve. Easy peesy, lemon squeezy.



This time around I wanted a more finished/less homemade look, so I cut the neck band off the shirt and used it for the neck band of the onesies, topstitching on the right side to secure the seam. Same with the leg bands, although this time I had to salvage some neckbands from two other white t-shirts, but I think it looks rather cute! I also added a Simple Knot Newborn Cap like the ones Carrie made, which are too cute for words (link to pattern via her website if you're interested). I thought about adding the logo from the front of the shirt to the onesie, but it was too heavy to bond well and I didn't care for it anyway. So in the garbage it went along with the scraps of the shirt and I am quite pleased to see the end of it, knowing I've at least given it a second life. The only thing left to do on both onesies is sew or hammer on some snaps in the crotch and at either side of the neck. El finito.

Isn't this orange onesie now just screaming for some matching socks? And I have just the yarn in my stash too. Stay tuned...

If Only He Could Colour in a Colouring Book...

Rain, rain,
Go away,
Come again some other day,
So that mom can take me out to play.

Definitely Not a Monkey...

The aforementioned sheep from yesterdays post arrived about an hour after I hit the publish button. Is this not the most hilarious sheep you've ever seen? The tag identifies him as a Pudgie and I think I want one of each. I was really hoping they made hippo's too, but not yet. I can't wait to sit the baby next to this gigantic blob of a sheep once the wee bean is able to sit up.

So I had a bit of a brain storm today that I thought would be blog worthy. A while back I bought a baby pattern that was on for half price at the fabric shop. It was for a couple of little hoodies with matching bottoms. I browsed the sweat shirt fabric that they had last time I was there and there didn't appear to be much in the way of selection. Then I remembered the last clothing purge we did that resulted in a large pile of old t-shirts etc. being deposited in my craft room for dust rags et al.



Why not re purpose the hubby's big sweatshirt into a little hoodie? Why not indeed.



I cut the sleeves off, saved them for the sleeves of the hoodie, and also cut off the wrist and bottom bands of the sweatshirt. Just for ease of cutting, and they were pretty worn out anyway. The pieces of the hoodie, fronts, back, hood and bottom band I cut out of the body of the sweatshirt.



Yadda yadda yadda, sew sew sew, and now I've got a little hoodie where once there was just a sad sorry old sweatshirt. The shirt itself kinda had that distressed look to it, as I think the constable wore it working one of his previous jobs. Anyhow, imagine what you might pay at the Gap for something of a similar nature. Hehehe...

I could only go so far as to serge around the hood and fronts for now as I didn't have a separating zipper on hand. I think I'll pick one up tomorrow.

Anyhow, from start to finish I think this took about two hours. I made the largest size in the pattern, which looks to me to be about twelve to twenty-four months. I think the colour works for either gender as well. If my husband could wear it from high school on, that's good enough for me. I'll be happy to know what we're having though, once we finally find out. It'll make crafting and shopping so much easier.

So that's today's FO.

Meanwhile, in Sewing...

I'm starting to waddle now. This can't be good. By the way, this is a picture heavy post.

Anyhow, in addition to some furious knitting, I've also been doing some sewing. All baby related, of course. This past weekend was particularly productive, which was kind of a fluke. I happened upon this link via WhipUp which I like to check in with on occasion just to see what is up in the crafting world.

So here was an idea for a nice easy quilt. I like easy. Especially when it comes to quilts. I think, even though I enjoy the process just as much, I am overall a product crafter, and quilts are not the right kinds of projects for cranking out product. Unless you don't mind year or two lags between FO's. The fluke part about this is a long while ago, when I first discovered the whole pregnancy thing, I started rummaging through my fabric stash to see what potential might lie there. I had lots of flannel remnants. Lots. I love flannel. I've made flannel stuff for me, the hubby, babies in my life...can't get enough flannel. So as a brain dead project, I started cutting up these flannel remnants, all shades of blue, into different sized squares. I had no particular project in mind. I just figured that having lots of squares instead of lots of oddments of fabric was a step in the direction of fabric destash.

Then I happened upon the ragged squares link and a light bulb went off. Up to the craft room I went and after some futzing and finagling, I had this...



Insta-quilt top. Never one to follow a pattern or direction to the letter, I took the small middle square and made it a diamond. Funky. The squares are also not the exact size given in the tutorial, but whatever...I knew it was going to be a baby blanket anyway.



Here we have the binding attached. Here's the calm before the storm as well. I usually do pretty well with the piecing of quilts and then inevitably arse up the actually quilting part. I'm partial to hand quilting, but I was looking to have this done and over with last evening (re: addicted to finished objects at the moment) so I heaved a large sigh of submission and gave into the machine quilting part of the direction. I knew it wouldn't go well.



Not that it went horribly. Just that because of the diamonds, I couldn't do the quilting as directed in the tutorial, so I just did a big kinda swirly thing with the sewing machine and called it quilted. My free thinking nature has inevitable consequences.



The ragged part comes in after you wash the quilt, so that all of those raw seams get all fuzzed up. It's quite cute. And very soft and squishy.



I also have some of the crib bedding finished. I love the letters in the crib sheet...I'm hoping to inspire a lifelong love of reading through osmosis. And those are all my toys from childhood. We recently unearthed them from the mountain of stuff still as yet unpacked in the garage. I went through them all, washed them up and there are now two full big totes of stuffed animals in the baby's room. No baby yet, just a boatload of toys. I guess I'm more of a pack rat than I'm willing to admit. Anyhow, at some point I'll post a bit about them as well...there's some real blasts from the past in there.



Extra crib sheets, cuz I hear those come in handy. All flannel, but of course. These are way easy. I could make dozens.



Some receiving blankets, one with a nice finished hem, the other a lazy serged edge. I love my serger. Very nice of ma to hand that down to me.



And of course, sheep. More receiving blankets here. I don't know if you can see it on the light blue/grey one, but it says 'Sheepy Time'. I've tried very hard to resist the pull of a sheep-themed nursery, which would've been oh so easy to do, and yet they've found their way in anyway. I should've taken a picture, but on the baby's dresser, there is already a corner of sheep toys. Stuffed animals, puppets. Now blankets. When I was home last, I saw this gigantic sheep pillow/stuffed animal thing that I fell in love with and have been mooning over ever since. My mother has been itching to buy things, so I sent her on a mission to retrieve the sheep. Her first trip was a miss, but did result in a sheep, just not the one I wanted. So back she went and now there is a box on it's way here from Ontario that will hopefully contain said sheep (though for some reason, she keeps saying it looks like a monkey. I would not be the least bit surprised if when I open the box, it's actually a monkey. There is much that gets lost in translation when in conversation with my mother).

So what now? I've got nothing on the needles at this precise moment, and no projects piled up on the cutting table and I'm feeling a little woozy. Time to start something new.

Until later...

Did you watch last night? Did you see the crowds? I'm kind of a cynical, skeptical person, so witnessing a quarter million people gather in a park after dark not to see a rock star, not to be entertained, but to hear one man speak, to be inspired...well, wow...it was really something to see. It was inspirational. I can say it was truly like nothing I've ever seen before.

I stayed up till 1:30 am to watch it all and I'm glad I did. History in the making. A real and sincere feeling that change is afoot. Very very cool.

That being said, thank whatever powers there be in both heaven and earth that the freakin' election campaign is finally OVER!! BAH! May we please return to our regularly scheduled programming? And if I hear the words Jean Shaheen or John Sunnunu one more time I might lose it (candidates running for...senate?...in the great state of Mass.)



Right, knitting. Much less complicated by comparison. This here's a Ribbed Baby Jacket, Debbie Bliss pattern (found online for free...I'll link if I can find it again) with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn, dark brown. Only took 1.75 skeins. Which is brilliant cuz I only had three. Great great stashbuster project, and one that I've been dying to make for years now. It's a great little pattern, super easy, only took me two evenings to complete (though I must admit I knit so much the second evening my wrists paid for it in spades the following day). Love. Might make more.



Next up, a little rolled brim hat of my own devising knit out of some leftover Noro Kuryeon that I had kicking around. Not sure the colourway, but you can clearly see that it is blue. For some reason, the little i-cord decorations at the top of hats (re: Umbilical Cord Hat) amuse me greatly, so I got a little (very little) creative and went my own way with it. Kinda Celtic-y. Anyhow, another one evening project that also busted some stash which I must tell you, is highly addictive. I've been hunting for other projects with the same MO as cranking out an FO in a day or two is making me feel rather euphoric.



I'd love to say that I knit this in a day also, but I'm not that insane. I did finish it last night though, as I was watching the election results roll in. I had it half completed with a heel flap, and decided to rip back to do a garter stitch short row heel, the way I learned it in the Lucy Neatby workshop I took in Mahone Bay on Oct. 31 & Nov. 1. My Knitterpudlian compatriots blogged about it some, so I'll just hit the highlights. Friday; socks. Saturday; Lace. She's a great teacher, super knowledgeable, very colourful and I had a good time. I would so go back to school if I could just sit there and learn about knitting for six-eight hours a day.

The pattern; Flying Arrows. The yarn; Tanis and I can't find the tag otherwise I'd tell you the colourway as it totally deserves full disclosure. I'm having such a love affair with this yarn at the moment. It's damn near perfect. The colour is so layered and intense, the fibre itself is squishy and bouncy and well spun, the resulting item is totally warm and it's an absolute dream to knit up. What more could you ask for? Well, just plain more, that's what!! No second sock syndrome here, I'm dying to cast on and finish so that I can get to the pink skein that I have sitting waiting patiently for me to give it some love too. I want a skein in every colour that this comes in. So if you're looking to buy me something for Christmas, well, you know what to do.

Now if you'll excuse me, this is taking away from some precious knitting time. Must finish something!!!