Bibs for Thadeus!

It's been a whole month and a half since I've seen these people. :o(

But soon, very soon I'll be seeing them again.

And of course I can't come without gifts. What kind of auntie would I be? :oP

So I made some bibs.

Thadeus drools....alot! (See the picture of him with the monkey)

So I'm sure these cute bibs will come in handy.

See you soon Thadeus!

I had to move some of these photos around because they didn't upload in the right order. I apologize if you can't enlarge them.

Don't worry kiddos, spring's coming...eventually!

I just had to show this picture I took in early February. SB and GH are looking longingly in the side of the summer toy bin. They haven't played with those toys since Oct/Nov.

Sadly there's just as much snow on the bin now as there was in Feb. *sigh* I know spring is coming any day now but it sure is taking its time! I guess there's not too much I can do about it is there?

Oh well!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

My Knitting donations

I've finally taken pictures of all my knitting so that I can show everyone! I stumbled across a blog that was taking donations of knitted items to give to orphans in Botswana. Apparently it gets a little chilly there in the winter. Who knew!

I managed to get six hats, one scarf, and two pairs of booties finished. I didn't realize how long it would take to get them to the collection place in the states though and now I'm not sure they'll get there in time to go with the rest of the items to Botswana. I'm sure they'll be put to go use somewhere though.

These three are chunky beanies. The white one is new born size.

This scarf and hat set are teenager/adult size. I did it scarf with my own made up pattern. About 12 rows of garter stitch and then 3 and a half inches of seed stitch. It's four feet long.

This is a pixie hat with booties. About 4-6 mths size although the hat nearly fit my 22 mth old daycare girl.

And lastly another hat and bootie set. The pom pom turned out a bit bigger than I would have liked. lol

So next I'd like to knit a couple hats for myself. I just have to order the yarn and then wait for it to come.....I'm still waiting for my double pointed needles that I ordered nearly two weeks ago. Can't wait until they come!

The sewing machine got turned on!

I finished Thadeus' bumper pads in time to take them with me on my visit to the Big City a few weeks ago. They'll fit better once the mattress is lowered I think. Over all I was pretty pleased with my first attempt at bumper pads. :o)
Yesterday I whipped these up at nap time. My cousin Charlene, her husband, and their two children were coming through town for a quick visit. I'd never met their youngest, who's one and a half, and I kinda missed the boat on a baby gift for her when she was born.

So using some seersucker fabric I got for a dollar or two at a garage sale I made a sundress and a pair of shorts. I dressed up a shirt to go with the set and Voila! a couple lovely summer outfits.
I've had those buttons for years and finally found the perfect use for them!

Then I decided to make something for their oldest. I had this extra shirt left over from the daycare Christmas gifts so I made him a tie shirt. Nice and simple. :o) Too bad the picture is so bad. The tie is made out of a dark green plaid.

To top it all off I threw a couple books in the bag to keep them busy on the long drive back home. I love being able to throw together a gift like that from things I have around the house. I didn't have to go out and buy a single thing - not even the books because I have a whole rubbermaid container of books to give away as gifts. :o)

Nope, Nope, Nope...

I haven't forgotten about this blog. :o) I just haven't been up to too much on the creativity front that's all.

I've been knitting and have 4 hats made and half a scarf but no pictures of them yet.

So instead here's a four generation picture of my family taken at Christmas.

Dad, Grandpa holding Thadeus, and my brother.

How to dress for a Canadian winter

This is how we dress for the outdoors here. You need a winter jacket, ski pants and winter boots. Mittens, wristwarmers, two scarves, a toque, and a "neck warmer" (which I had to put on her head because her toque didn't cover her forehead lol)
As a result of all that you get a one year old who has a blast outside even in the -15C weather (that's pretty warm for us) and she did NOT want to quit when her mom came to pick her up. :o)

Today it got above freezing even! Very warm! I could get used to that but I'm sure it'll be back to -40 again at least once before spring.

Ya mean you're supposed to update a blog? :oP Sorry it's been so long!

Well I haven't been up to too much the last 10 days it seems.
I did make some bean bags for a friends 3 yr old son's birthday though.
These are so cute! I've had a few people ask if I'd sell them. I'm not sure if I want to get into that or not.

This time I made a bag for him to hold them in.

Last saturday (Jan 31) I got together with the quilting club ladies to make quilts for our local Crisis Centre. The Crisis Centre is a temporary home for women and their children who are escaping abusive situations. They often come with nothing but the clothes on their backs so a nice cosy comfort quilt brings a little happiness to the children.

We've done this for three years in a row now. This year we're using fabric that I found at a garage sale. A lady was selling 4 boxes (BIG boxes!) of flannel squares. It was nearing the end of her sale so as I was paying for the other stuff I'd bought I mentioned that if she wanted to get rid of the squares she could donate them to the quilting club and we'd use them to make comfort quilts. The nice lady thought that was a great idea and let me have the boxes on the spot! Very generous!

Here's all the squares all layed out on the tables.

No pictures of the finished quilts yet. We'll get together in a couple weeks and take a picture or two I'm sure. We still have a whole box left so we're talking about doing another saturday in March. Should be fun!

Other than all that, I've been knitting. I've moved on from dishclothes to hats! Imagine that - progress! lol No pictures of them yet but I do have to say they're pretty darn cute. :o)

A knittin' fool!

I thought I'd show everyone the knitting I've been doing. Just dishcloths but I think they're pretty nice. :o)

This nice purple woven looking one is for mom.

The following pictures are the ones I made for mom's co-worker. When she heard I was knitting dishcloths she offered to pay me to make her some.

This one's huge. 10"x10"

And a sun! Just what we need to see on these cold winter days. :o)

So.....now what should I knit????

Update on the sewing or lack thereof

Okay so since I started knitting my sewing/quilting time hasn't been happening.

I have finished a couple projects in the last couple weeks though.

A friend gave me a bunch of fabric that her boss was giving away. It's mostly garment fabric but there was a large piece of quilted material. So I used that to make a carrying bag for my cutting board and rulers to take to quilting club nights. It's not the prettiest thing but it'll do the job!

There was some left so I made a pillow for the cats to lay on.

PJ's giving me a dirty look for disturbing her while she's on her new favorite sleeping spot. lol

To stuff it I used all the bits and scraps that were too small to do anything else with. Most of it fit in the pillow.

And that's all folks! Nothing too exciting. I really need to get Thadeus' bumper pads done. I hope I find my sewing mojo soon!

Whirl Into Winter Giveaway Winners!

The winners have been picked and they are:
1.) Janice
2.) Peggy

Congratulations ladies! I'm sorry that not everyone could win but I don't think I'm up to making 120 crayon rolls! lol
I wonder if Debi has a giveaway for the spring up her sleeve? hmmmm

This is for you Myra!

Myra was showing pictures of her in ringlets as a child. She was wondering if anyone else ever had ringlets.

Yeah, I had ringlets. Ringlets that facinated the other girls. They all wondered how it was done.

Here I am at about 3 or 4....probably 3. Yep, sportin' the ringlets.

Here I am in Kindergarten. Ringlets are getting longer. I was sick this day so mom took me in to school to get my picture taken and then we went back home. Hence the green tinge and the lack of smile. Oh and mom made that dress for me. Probably while she was pregnant with #3.

And here I am in grade two. Look at those ringlets!!! Wow are they ever long. lol I think this might have been the last year I let mom do the ringlets for picture day.

Ahh the memories...of going to bed with the hair up in the foam rollers and trying to sleep with a lumpy head. And then mom taking them out the next morning, trying not to pull my hair. Good times, good times. :o)

Oh and the other 364 days a year? I wore braids, braids and more braids. I didn't start wearing my hair down until grade 6 or 7.

Ahh, that's better!

Lookie, lookie! Eyelets all the way around! The nice ladies on the Knit and Chat forum suggested a different pattern with the decreases on the beginning of each row, not at the beginning and end like the other pattern. And the results are much better! This one is about three inches square - for the kids to "wash" their dishes in the playroom. It's already been put to good use. :o) Thanks for the help everyone!

Something's not right here.

See how the holes aren't showing up properly on the bottom and right side of my dishcloth? Yeah, no idea what I'm doing wrong. I'm following the instructions right...I think. Maybe the ladies at the Knit & Chat forum can help me. I hope, I hope!

Oh I could just cry! Whhhaaaaa!!!

In preparing what to put in this post I realized that I'd deleted ALL of my Christmas '08 pictures on New Years Eve. *sob* I hadn't taken many but there was a great one of Grandpa, my brother Jody, and Thadeus. And another one of my sister holding Thadeus. And they're GONE! I thought I'd put them on the computer but I guess I didn't cause they ain't here no more!
We needed more room on the camera to take pictures of this....

and this.....

I had 9 yr old Logan (former daycare boy) and 8 yr old (current daycare girl) Shaylin over for a New Years party. Ohhh what fun we had! We baked bread, ate large amounts of junk food, watched the new Narnia movie, and exploded pepsi.....alllll over the wall and the ceiling. I didn't realize that semi frozen pepsi turns into a rocket when you try to open it! The kids and I were covered in Pepsi as well. We all had a good laugh over that as we cleaned it up. :o) No harm done except the calender was ruined - good thing it was the last day of the year!

Logan's older brother Tyler (12) joined us at a bit before 2 am (he had his own teenager party to go to first) and then we stayed up a little longer before finally falling asleep. I took them back home at noon New Years day. We had alot of fun that night and I'm sure the kids won't forget about the exploding Pepsi for a long time to come!

I also want to show some of what I've been up to lately in the crafty department.
I got some knitting needles that I'd asked for for Christmas and I started knitting these. I did the pink one first, then the orange and then the blue/green one. It was nice to see progress being made as each one got a bit better.

I haven't knitted since the summer I was 13 and I was amazed at how quickly I picked it back up. I still have sooo much to learn yet though.

I also finished my matryoshka dolls. I clipped and clipped and clipped those darn seams before I turned them and the edges still look lumpy! But they're cute anyways. I actually made a smaller one that was about two inches high but it seems to be MIA. I'm blaming the cats on that one. It may show up one day. I sure hope so. It was the cutest one. :o)

They're just the right size to stick in a little girls pocket. Awwww.

Free pattern can be found on this blog HERE.

And that's all folks! Maybe I'll get more done this weekend - you never know!

Whirl into Winter Giveaway

I think winter whirled in here quite a while ago but now it's time for the Whirl into Winter giveaway hosted by Debi!
My giveaway is going to be a crayon roll...which is yet to be made. It will hold a dozen crayons and will be trimmed with ric rac. I may make two and give them both away - we'll see!
So leave a comment here, telling me what your favorite winter sport is, sometime by the 15th of January and I'll do the drawing sometime that day.
Oh and don't forget to click on the snowflake on the right of the blog to enter in all the other 60+ giveaways!
As soon as I get the prize made I'll be posting pictures. :o)

ETA: They're finished! I even found some cute coloring books to go with them.
1st place winner will get first pick and 2nd place winner will get the other one. Good luck!



And the winners are.....(drumroll).....Janice and Peggy! Congratulations ladies!