Blankets Warm Your Heart

My co-worker is having a little boy in August of this year. Several of us from work are throwing a baby shower for her on May 27th (this coming Sunday). I have been collecting clothes from the ARC stores, so much so that I have two large bags full to the top with clothes. I have outfits for several different periods of time, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, 12 months, 18th month and even one for 24 months. I have another bag full of blankets, baby medicine, diaper rash cream, and several other things. There is yet another box full of books, ranging from super easy to more detail and classic.

Once I found out she was pregnant and what she was having I started a baby blanket. She told me the colors of they want are blue, green, and light brown. I found the perfect yarn for just those colors.

I started it about a month and a half ago. Very easy pattern too.

You cast on 3 stitches and then every time after that you increase by one stitch, which you do as a yarn over as the second stitch. You keep increasing until you feel its wide enough. I used 10 1/2 inch needles with this project because the Homespun yarn is rather chunky and it would show the pattern better with bigger needles. I used stick needles until it got too wide and then I switched to circular needles. I continued to increase the stitches for several more inches.

Once you feel that the blanket is wide enough you can start decreasing. You decrease by stitching the first two stitches together, then do the yard over like when you were increasing, and then stitch two more stitches together. Took me about a month of actually working on the blanket to finish it. Its square, but it can be used to wrap the baby up diagonal. It does fold up nicely though.

The nice by-product of using the ombre Homespun yarn is that it creates stripes. Its just a random extra bonus.

Turned out pretty nice though. I do good work. Don't you think? =)

Snow is a falling!

Not sure if any of you are, or do, follow the weather in other places. If you do then you most likely know that Colorado is getting more than its fair share  of snow right now. As of right now I have close to 15 inches. (and its still falling!) Now this is not out of the question for Colorado. Granted we don't normally get record breaking snow fall in February.... it normally comes in March and April. (Yes we get snow for a long time... sometimes even into June.) I thought I would share with you my moments of snow.

This was about 10am and measured about 7 inches at the time.

This was around 3pm and measured a foot.

Tree got a bit buried.

We have a stone path that leads from the deck to the gate and also to the bottom deck. We shovel it because Lucy won't go down off the deck to pee unless she can do so without freezing. Other wise we get pee spots on the deck.

That's Lucy, our British Cocker Spaniel.

Ironically that is pointing in the direction of the wind, but the directions are wrong. The wind is so strong that moved the directional points. Its actually blowing east, as west is towards the Mountains.

The snow is about 2 inches above my calfs at this point... and yes I am in "Naugthy/Nice" pj pants.

The truck is my brothers' and its parked at the bottom of our rather steep drive way. My car is parked at the top of the street because it was snowing already when I got home from work last night at 8pm. I didn't want to park behind my brother, like I normally do, because my car is very bad in snow and likes to slide around. I wanted to avoid sliding into his truck.

Lucy licking snow, which she loves to do. This is the top of the drive way. Its at an incline already, but it can be hard to tell from pictures. I shoveled this drive way twice before I took this picture.

That is the snow pile that was made from around 10am. It gets piled up at the end of our street.

Tree got a little buried by the snow pile.

Those are the trees in our front yard, which is about a quarter acre. 

That's the decal wood design over the garage doors.

View from under the three cluster trees in the middle of the front yard.

Lucy running around like she is a puppy. Ears a flying.

She has this thing about shoving her head in the snow... not sure why, but she loves it. 

The bench sits close to the cluster of pine trees in the front yard. Its a lovely spot to sit and relax, just not right at this moment.

Time to go inside and sit by the fireplace with the cats and cozy up with my knitting.

Keep warm!

Protect the Knit!

I made this lovely bag to hold my current knitting project. (and all future project thereafter)

Supplies:
-Quarter yard of chosen material (mine is 'painted' canvas)
-Scissors
-Pins
-Thread
-Sewing machine
-Measuring Tape
-Marking pencil

*Tip 1 - Wash Material* You should always wash your material ahead of time. This removes any risk of shrinking later and allows for any color bleeding. You may need to iron the material after drying if its very wrinkled.

*Tip 2 - Patterns Matter* Always look at the direction of the pattern on your material. If the direction of the pattern is specific you MUST sew pieces together with the pattern in the right direction.

*Suggestion 1 - Details* Your sewing machine may have more interesting sewing patterns you can choose to use like mine, but I like find its easier to do fixes on simpler stitches if the need arises.

- Lay the material out flat and cut the desired width for the handles. I did about 6 inches wide and the full length of the material. Set aside this material for later.

- Flip the material so that the wrong side is facing outward.

- If you wish you may cut along the fold and sew the bottom together. Or you may leave it alone and use that as the bottom. The pattern will dictate if this is required. See *Tip 2*.

- Pin the two wrong sides together on one side of the material and sew together.  Do not sew all the way to the top. This creates one side of the bag.

- Pin the other side together and sew together. Do not sew all the way to the top. This creates the other side of the bag.

- Making sure to not sew all the way to the top of the bag allows for you to fold the top half down half an inch and pin into place. The right side of the bag will show in the half inch fold, which is correct. This can now be sewn. This creates a smooth edge for the top of the bag. This will be the edge you sew the handles onto. Do this for both sides, making sure to NOT sew them together.

 - Set aside the bag for right now.

- Grab one the strips of material you cut for handles. Lay the wrong side upright and fold half an inch  (or small depending on how wide you made the strips) and pin in place. Sew this in place.  Do this for the other side of the strip. The right side of the material will now be visible on both sides.

- Repeat last step for the other strip of handle material.

- Grab the bag material you set aside and measure the top of the bag. This will help determine the proper spot to sew on the handles. My bag was about 12 inches long, so I chose to sew the straps 3 inches from one side and 3 inches from the other. Use a marking pencil to mark the spot. Then pin the handles to those spots. Do this one side at a time, makes it easier.

- Sew on the handle one at a time. I like to sew a little before and little after the handle to make it more secure. I also try to sew along the first stitches you made when you did the top of the bag.

-  Repeat last two steps for the other handle. This time will be easier to pin the handles in place, as you have a guide in place on the other side. Be sure to make the handle loop the same size. (i.e. don't make one handle stick up higher or lower than the other.)

- You may iron down the edges were you sewed the sides together to make then lie flat.

Now you have a completed bag for your knitting projects that need storing till they are completed. Your projects will be safe from mishaps... like say kitty claws making snags, or kitties chewing your yarn in half.

Go Green!... or pink, or striped!

Like so many people I like to use the reusable canvas bags instead of plastic when possible. I tend to forget a lot, but been making more of an effort to always use them. Its easier now that I have a few more (I tend to buy one most times I'm at a store that sells them.) I got a little sick of paying for them. Ironically instead of being cheaper they actually seem to be going UP in price. That was rather annoying to me.

I decided to keep a mental note to look for material that I thought would be a good fit to make some bags. I started looking at just anything I thought would be thick enough, then finally realized that canvas would be best. However this realization did not occur until after I had made my first bag.
This first bag attempt was from flannel and it was actually something I had already. I was going to sew the edges and make it into a baby blanket, but given I was knitting one I decided to just keep it for something else. This was more or less a trial run. I wanted to make the easiest bag possible. This basically meant I sewed the two sides together, leaving the bottom fold alone, and sewing the top edge back and doing handles. However with this particular fabric I should have paid attention a little more....

The pattern ended up side ways by doing it the super easy way. OOPS. OTHERWISE the bag came out fine. I learned a few things both good and bad. Plus its still a perfectly usable bag. Right now its what I am using to hold my chunky yarns.

I have since been waited for sales on canvas material. Whenever I find a coupon for like 50% or 40% I have started using that to buy the material, because it always seemed to me to never be on sale! I only buy like half a yard or a quarter yard depending on the original price. I was having a hard time finding just the plain canvas material, but found lots of the "painted" canvas. That's when I decided I would use that for bags, but not the type I had originally intended.

I found a few really nice looking canvas material. I was able to find some plain canvas (finally), so I will be getting more of that soon for the original planned project idea.

I wanted these bags for use in holding my yarn and other supplies. I made the 'painted' canvas bags the same way I made the flannel bag, but this time the material's pattern didn't matter. (hence why I sewed them that way) I now have several bags. I made 3  big plain canvas bags and used the design of the ones that Hobby Lobby sells because I liked the pockets. (easy and cheaper!)

The pockets were a bit of a pain, but Mom helped me. She gave me the material for the handles. I can't think of what its called all of a sudden...ugh I hate when I can't recall things. I wanted the plain canvas ones to be flat on the bottom, so Mom showed me how to do it, but I did it on the outside and she said its easier if I do it on the inside.

So now I have bags to hold my yarn, my needles, my current knitting projects, my cross stitch supplies, and my fabric for my flowers... which seems to have multiplied over night!

I best be getting on top of them! I think if I made one flower from every type of fabric I had I would have a flower to wear everyday for about 5 or 6 months! That's not even including the material that is a yard or more. (I only buy a quarter yard for the flowers)