Cocoon

Happy Friday! I hope you have had a fantastic week! This week marks the last week of my second trimester so I'm in the home stretch now. That is a little scary, but also pretty exciting. We're halfway through our childbirth classes. I think we've both really enjoyed going to them and meeting some new people. Baby G has been moving A LOT. I think I experienced his first hiccups yesterday morning :)


Down to crafty business! Back when I found out I was pregnant, I found a pattern for a baby cocoon on Etsy here. I actually made the cocoon a while ago, but kept putting off crocheting up the hat. I can't believe I procrastinated for so long because the hat pattern has 10 rows. That's it! I finished it in about 45 minutes. Here's the set:

I used Lion Brand Homespun yarn in pesto. I have some blue/green yarn too so I might crochet up another one. The big wooden button is from Joann's. I have another pattern for a sleep sack/hat set from Bernat's website. It's a knitting pattern and is striped. I love me some stripes. So that's next in the knitting/crocheting queue.


Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!


Leaf out.

Spring Green

Alright people, the sweater is finished!!! I worked on the finishing touches last night and blocked it overnight. 

I love the color and the buttons :) I think it turned out quite nicely. I might start on another one in a larger size so I don't forget how to knit it up.


I can't wait to get the dresser finished so we can figure out where we are putting all the furniture in Baby G's room. Then, we can hang everything and sit back to wait for his arrival. Well, I guess we need to do a couple of other things like set up the monitor and get the car seat and bases installed.


Have a great weekend everyone! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful one :)


Leaf out.

Tower of Animals

I had another 11 x 14 canvas from the pack of 2 I bought to make the tree canvas. The Gnome likes animals stacked on top of animals so I figured I could do something along those lines. I started by painting the canvas with tan acrylic paint. Then, I searched my Cricut Give a Hoot cartridge for animals I could use. I cut some shapes out of patterned cardstock, but it looked too busy. So I decided to stick with solid, textured cardstock for our forest friends. I used some dimensional adhesives to pop the animals up off the canvas a bit. After adding some coordinating buttons from my grandmother's collection, I called it done!

Yes, that is Mr. Prickles again :)


I'm still working on the baby hoodie. I'm on the second sleeve though so I should be finishing it pretty soon. I just have to knit up the front bands for the buttons and buttonholes, and then I'll be finished with my very first sweater. Hooray!


Leaf out.

Mobile-ing

The mobile is complete! Let's meet the characters...


This is Gnomar:

Meet Owliver's mini me:

This is Mr. Prickles:

Hello Toadd Stool:

And finally, Tweet:

We found a relatively straight branch in the backyard so I cut it down and attached the two 14 inch pieces with some green yarn.

Then, I used embroidery thread to string up the woodland critters so they would be facing slightly downwards. They hang about 7-8 inches from the mobile "arms." I added some coordinating felt circles and some stitched felt leaves to tie the whole thing together.

That is the Gnome's hand holding the mobile as still as possible for the picture. I don't know how long the thread to hang the mobile needs to be to hang it from the ceiling so I don't have anything attached to the top yet. And to be quite honest, I'm not really sure how I'm going to do that. Oops. I'm sure the Gnome will help me figure out some method of hanging. 


I'm still working on the baby sweater. Hood's done so now I'm working on one of the sleeves.


The nursery is painted. The changing table and crib are assembled. We have a mattress. And childbirth classes start on Monday. We're gettin' ready!


In related baby news, we had an u/s today, and Baby G was not cooperating for pictures. Probably some foreshadowing there. Whenever the u/s techs would try to get me to roll over to get the shot they wanted, Baby G would roll right along with me. Synchronized rolling! And the u/s techs exclaimed at one point and pointed at the screen to show us that Baby G was sucking on the umbilical cord. My response: "stop that!"


Leaf out.

Baby Hoodie

I've mentioned before that I am taking a knitting class to make a baby hoodie (pattern: here). I'm halfway through the class. 2 more classes to go! I've finished the body, and the hood is done; I just have to do a three-needle bind-off (whatever that means). The class instructor is going to show me how to do that on Saturday. Then, it's on to the sleeves! The only thing left to do after that is knit a strip for the buttons and button holes on the front. It's a great first sweater pattern since there is no sewing. So here's what it looks like so far:

Front

Back 

(that spot is just the button I placed there)

Buttons!

I have been working on the mobile. I have made some woodland creatures, but now I need to put it all together. Maybe I'll have it done by next week!

Leaf out.

Finally! Anniversary Party Pics

I know I have taken a looooong time to post pictures from my parents' anniversary party last July. It took a while to get the photos from the photographer. Then, it took a while to get the cd from my parents. Then, I procrastinated. So I will get on with the pics!


Here is the best photo I could find that shows most (2/3) of the room:

If you look at the top of the photo, you can see the tissue paper pomander balls I made. Yeah, the room was bigger than I expected so they look very, very wee. Oh well, even though they were a bit small, I like 'em. And I kept them, simply because I spent hours and hours of my life making them :)


We had balloon trees placed throughout the room. My bro, SIB, and sister-in-law J, rented a helium tank, and we inflated a zillion balloons. J read online about how to make a balloon arch so she whipped one up, and we placed it behind the head table.

For the centerpieces, I bought different sizes of jars and candleholders from Goodwill and filled them with royal blue and clear glass pebbles. We scattered confetti and blue gems around the trios placed on each table.

Why hello ?L and Pops! That's a mighty fine cake you have there.

(note the water in the background; the water comes up to just outside the banquet room)

SIB and J did an awesome job putting together pictures both for a slideshow and for a table at the front of the room.

Dancing!

Everyone had a great time. We danced the night away. It was a memorable night for two fantastic people celebrating their 45 years together.

The day it all began...

Leaf out.

Spring Break

Howdy! I don't have any crafts to post this week as I am in the middle of a couple of projects. So I will be taking a (spring) break from craft sharing to show you some of the blooming things in our yard.


We planted some forsythia bushes last year on the side of our garage. They didn't grow very much over the past year, but we got a variety that's not supposed to grow super fast. Here they are sporting their lovely yellow blooms:

We also planted six green-flowered Hellebores. I love green flowers...they're my favorite :) One of them has kicked the bucket, but we were able to return it to Lowe's and get our money back. Yes, it was only one day before the 1 year warranty was up, but that was because we kept putting off digging it up. Here is a pic of some flowers on one of the 5 remaining plants:

I planted some bulbs in a couple places in our yard last October. Let's see...there were daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, crocus, and grape hyacinths. Here's what the bed looked like a week ago:

Not a whole lot going on, but there's some green poking through the mulch. Here's what the bed looks like today:

Last year, a groundhog decided to take up residence under our cement front steps. He (or she) prepared a tunnel with a hole on each side of the steps. Several people recommended we just shoot the digger, but living adjacent to an elementary school really doesn't make that an acceptable practice. Plus, I wouldn't really be comfortable doing that anyway even though I really don't like Mr. (or Miss) Groundhog at this point. I called a wildlife removal service, and they wanted lots of money and would exterminate him/her after trapping. The Gnome called a couple of wildlife agencies and found out that we could treat the area with fox urine (which is bottled for some application in hunting) to scare him/her off. We obtained said fox urine, sprayed a couple of treatments, and filled in the holes about 24 hours after so the bugger had time to vacate. Then, we rejoiced when there was no more evidence of digging, in or out. After we came home from dinner yesterday, we saw this next to our steps:

The groundhog has returned and has both holes all nice and dug out. Curses. This had to have just happened yesterday because I've been checking out the area every day to look at the pretty flowers. So I'm off to buy more fox urine (and some sort of wire to keep this from happening yet again). Wish me luck.


Leaf out.


P.S. Next week, I think I'll finally post pics from my parents' 45th anniversary from last July. Yes, it's almost July again.