Tired but happy!

I've been busy lately, some with crafting, some not. Today I just finished constructing a raised bed to be used for a vegetable garden. We'll need to install it yet. When we order mulch, we'll also order some top soil and compost to fill it with. Then I just need to figure out what vegetables I want to grow!

I've also been in a quilting kick. A co-worker of Brad's is having twins (a boy and a girl) after a long time trying. In celebration, I'm making matching quilts for them. This yellow one is for the girl, I'm almost finished with the green one for the boy. The only difference between them is the backing color. It's hard to tell from the pciture, but the blue fabric has ducks and frogs in funny clothes, and there's green and yellow in there that the other colors pick up on.

....And another one for a friend in England whose wife is pregnant, also after much trying. This time I added in two more fabrics (blue/green and orange) and made 1/3 of the squares "log cabin" style. I had to try a few combinations before it didn't just look like a jumble of mismatched squares. There are a few squares missing, but you'll get the idea. Once again, it looks so much better in real life!

Finished Albums

I was able to finish the 2 albums I started. They turned out great, and Dina really likes it. Now we just have to fill it with pictures. We also ended up making 2 smaller albums for Dina's parents, since they are eager to have more pictures of her. We made them with only 1 larger signature instead of 4 smaller ones sewn together.

4 signatures done

The memory book is coming along well. I pickedup some fabrics for the cover last night at Joann fabrics. I got both the pages and the tracing-paper pages cut. Today I cut the spines for each signature, made a hole template and have started making all the holes for the sewing. Once I have all the signatures done, I'll have to figure out how to sew them together.

Memory Book...shhhh, don't tell Dina

I subscribe to "Craft:" magazine. While most of their stuff is a bit amateurish, this memory book really caught my eye:

http://www.craftzine-digital.com/craft/vol10/?pg=80

I thought I'd try making one to give to Dina filled with pictures of her time with us. I hit up Pat Catans today and got a bunch of paper. I'm going to be adding in the feature of a sheet of vellum (in this case, tracing paper) between each page so the photos don't scratch each other.

I'm using drawing paper and tracing paper. The paper comes 14 x 16.5, so each page will be 8.25" wide by 7" high. It's just enough to have one picture per page with a few inches for writing.

Here's my start:

It's been way too long, sorry! With the holidays, fighting a sinus infection and a cold, and putting in as much time as possible to finish the office, I've just had so many other things to do.

Without further ado, the new office!

My corner...

Brad's side...

Notice the big pail of beer doing it's primary fermenting on the floor! Also, you can kinda see Brad's computer hanging underneath the counter. I hope to keep as much up off the floor as possible! We don't have curtains up yet, we need to finish filling the nail holes around the window and touch up. Probably shouldn't have moved in before doing that because now there's no incentive, but we were just too excited to have our office space back.

This is a credenza I bought for Brad for the basement last year. It never really worked for us down there, so I repainted it and repurposed it for the office. Eventually it will hold our printers, papers and files. I bought it second hand from an industrial surplus warehouse, so the outside was a bit banged up (even though the inside was immaculately brand-new clean). I did a distress finish on it so that it didn't matter what the outside looked like and I didn't have to try to get it smooth. The doors haven't been polyurethaned yet, so I didn't put them back up yet.

A closeup view of the distressing.

Here's the aftermath of the junk from the old office still in the dining room/living room. I had it all spread out to sort and now it looks like a hurricane blew threw! Add this to my list of things to do...

Cabinets

Dugan's getting ready for the holidays! No, not really, just further evidence of torture by Dina.

Stanley's enjoying some time with me all on his own, since the big, bad dog is in the other room and things are quiet in our temporary office.

Today was a productive, yet expensive day. Brad and I bought each other our Christmas presents (PAB - if you're reading this, don't give me a hard time, 'k? I know your position on Christmas gift giving time-frames).

I got office cabinets for Christmas! They're very nice, and I can't wait to get them installed. They're oak with a whitewash on them, so I think they'll go well with the floor and grey walls. Brad got an air compressor that we can use to put in the wood work and install the cabinets.

The casing are all painted and ready to be installed around the windows and doors. We were going to do that today, but by the time we were done cabinet shopping and tool shopping, I was just too tired to do anything.

I just realized I hadn't posted pictures of the floor. It turned out extremely well, especially considering that it was the cheapest flooring we could find. It's supposed to be floating, but we glued it down so that any future water issues would not find water trapped underneath the floor...

My Boys

My house doesn't stink anymore!

We've ripped up the carpet in the office, torn off the baseboards and moldings, pried up the carpet tacks and scraped the glue off the concrete. I've patched, primed, and painted the walls. Tonight I put up some shelves on either side of the window (need to get two more sets of brackets for two more shelves, I think that would look better). The wall color is grayish/silver with just the slightest hint of lavender. It's slight enough to suit brad, and just enough to suit me. Tomorrow I start on the flooring.

This week I also was able to start on some Christmas soap. I'm trying to emulate starlights mints. I think I did an *okay* job of it. If I had to do it again I would make them a little more intricate, but I'm still happy with how they turned out. It was a multi-stage process. First I had to pour the white soap and let it harden just enough so that it was solid, but warm enough so that I could cut and mold it easily. I cut each mold into 8 pieces and then shaped them so that they had a little swirl to them and let them harden completely. Then, I filled just the bottom of the mold with clear soap and arranged half of the white pieces and let that harden. Then I came back and filled the mold the rest of the way with red soap, scented peppermint, of course.

Sewage stinks

Due to a blockage in our main house drain, I'm getting a "new" office. new floors + new woodwork + new paint = lots of renovating fun for me! Those of you who know me well enough know that I really do mean FUN FOR ME! I've been dying to do some renovating around the house and now the house has presented me with an opportunity to do so. Not that now is the best time to be forced to have to do home renovations, but there's never really a good time...

Christmas crafts

Gotta start early, to try to figure out what to make for Christmas presents. These are my attempt at jelly roll soaps. They're red & white and peppermint scented!

My favorite season

My favorite time is upon us. I like the fall. I like the leaves, the cider, making fires in the fireplace, snuggling up to watch tv... This is also the time of the year that I seem to get back into making things as we're not so busy doing other things. Something about lower temperatures just make my fingers itch to knit!

Dugan ate all our slippers last winter, so I had to make more. I made a pair for me, Brad and Dina. We'll have to do our best to keep them out of Dugan reach. He's not very destructive usually, but if he comes accross dirty socks or underwear (yes, eeew, dirty underwear) then he just chews it to oblivion. Clean socks he could care less about.

So here's this year's crop of slippers (with Dugan looking on - it's really not possible to do anything without him on top of you):

Meanwhile, Brad & Dina have found a good joint hobby:

long time, no blog

Yikes, it's been awhile.

I've been busy with the typical summer stuff... yard work, enjoying the sunshine, visiting family. And signing up to host a foreign exchange student for the 2008-2009 calendar year. I'm not quite sure what we were smoking at the time, but we have a big house with rooms just begging to be used, so we thought we'd give it a try. Our student will be coming from Germany and will arrive on August 15th, just in time for the Hanson family reunion, the poor thing. I really don't know what to do with a 17 year old teenager, but I guess we'll find out. Everybody keeps saying - just treat them like any other member of the family. But, besides me and Brad, our only family members are the dog and two cats. I don't think she would appreciate being crated while we're out of the house. But, on the other hand, I think she does come house-trained, so that's a bonus.

In the meantime, I decided to tackle the upstairs bathroom. The wallpaper was a HIDEOUS metallic gold & pink pattern. Upon removing the wallpaper, I discovered that they had applied it directly to the drywall without any paint or primer. So I spent a day stripping wallpaper, pulling off bits of drywall and sanding, then another day priming the walls, then another day filling the holes and getting the walls smoothed out. Hopefully tonight I can sand the mud and apply another coat of primer. From there I hope to be able to just fill the small stuff missed the first time and be ready to paint. We'll see. I had taken pictures to post, but now I can't find them. Sorry. They weren't very attractive pictures - just ugly wallpaper and scarred walls.

Jacob, my oldest nephew and godson, turns 4 on Sunday! Time goes so fast. I'm trying to finish up the quilt I've been making for his "big boy bed" for two years. I'm not sure it'll be done in time for his party on Saturday, but I'll give it a try. For now, Jacob's very happy with his "Cars" comforter, so I can't imaging that he'll want to switch that out for a stinky home-made quilt for a little while. But, when he grows up a little more, it will be ready for him.

These are the blocks that i'll put together into the facing of the quilt. The red in the upper left-hand corner of the picture is the cordurroy that i'll use for the border and backing (here's to hoping there's enough of it to go around!)

A very brave/stupid momma rabbit gave birth to 4 little bunnies in our back yard. Unfortunately, only 2 have survived this far. I think Dugan gives the little ones a heart attack. He is obsessed with them and always wants to watch them. I didn't get a very clear picture, but they're very very cute!

The stash comes, the stash goes

I've been stuck in the house this last week due to being on call for work. While at first it seemed limiting, it now is kinda nice. It's a treat to not have lots of stuff scheduled for the weekend. Since I can't really go far, I've taken the time to relax a little and just knit. Last night I sat on the back patio, enjoyed the wonderful weather, watched the pets frolick, listened to A Prairie Home Companion and knit for a couple hours. The only thing that would have made it better was if I could have had a glass - or three - of wine. But since I'm on call and could get paged into issues at any time, it's better if I don't.



I've been adding to my yarn stash lately, there have been some great sales on yarn (which doesn't usually go on sale). I'm going to have to knit from the stash now for awhile as I've definitely blown my yarn budget. But I think I might be good for at least a little bit now! (Ruth - I got you some cotton yarn. You have your choice of the hand painted 100% cotton yarn or the slate grey 75 cotton/25 silk yarn. I have 5-6 skeins of each, let me know what you might want)

I picked up 4 new sock yarns, my two favorite are these: The blue-ish/purple-ish yarn is for a pair of socks I'm making for a coworker who has been particularly helpful lately (see completed socks below). The yellow/green/blue/purple is for a pair of socks for Brad that I still need to make.

Here's the purple yarn knit up into a pair of socks, and a pair of mittens that I recently finished. It's amazing how nicely the machine works with higher quality yarn. It makes such a difference.

There was some beautiful hand-painted yarn at just a rediculously good price. Here's a sample skein,it's already almost done being made into a swirl hat. It's so beautiful that I practically had to rip it out of the hands of the yarn store owner who had a really hard time letting it go. It knits like buttah.

This is the sweater I started a few weeks ago using Brown Sheep's cotton tweed. It's 60 cotton/40 wool. It's a common pattern that I've knit up lots of times, but this time I'm trying something different. I didn't put in a neckline opening because I'm going to cut up the middle front and put in a zipper. Yes, I know, cutting knitting sounds kinda counter-intuitive. But I've been reading up on it and think I can do it. I will, of course, be making a test swatch first and cutting that first. A little nerve-wracking, but it's time to try something new! Plus, knitting in the round and then cutting it into a cardigan or cutting in a neckline is a good way to be able to knit in the round as long as possible. I really don't like to purl.




The next project is one for the hope chest. Eventually, it will be a christening gown. I'm just working on the skirt for now since I don't really have a pattern for this. Once I get the length right, I'll decrease a bunch for the bodice and then put some arms on. Shouldn't be too difficult. I'll be trimming it in a silver/grey yarn at the bottom, a band between the bodice and skirt, and maybe even the neckline. Just something to take away from all the white. This one may take me awhile to finish - not because the pattern is difficult (which it isn't) but because I have to figure out what I want it to look like. I looked EVERYWHERE for a christening gown pattern with no luck, so I'll have to see what I can come up with on my own. It's my first attempt at knitting without a published pattern.





Here's also a closeup of the pattern, it's quite nice. Perhaps I should have used some finer yarn, but I'm pretty happy with it.



And, lastly, seriously - how handsome is this puppy? He's been full of energy lately and has been very well behaved considering that I've been a little busy lately and he hasn't gotten as much playtime as he might like.

Coming soon...

I've been tied to the house this week due to being on call for work, so I have lots of new stuff to post, but it's too late to do it tonight and my brain just hurts from work. So watch for lots of projects here soon.

(mittens, socks, sweater, swirl hat, lace project)

No Mittens

Oh, yeah, I was going to make a set of mittens...except it didn't quite work out. I bent a few of the ribbing needles (and they're not cheap!) and broke the yarn at least once. I'll have to go back to square one on that project.

Diapers!

Happy Mother's Day! Brad and I had a very nice day with Mom. She came over and we had Cheesecake Factory for dinner (yummie!) and then she helped me make a diaper prototype. I can't believe how unbelievably SWEET it is. I'll do some testing to see how much water it holds and how well it stays dry on the outside, and then pass it along to my friend Janel to have her use it on her newborn, Wolfi, and give me feedback. It took me most of the day to cut out a bunch and make one, but I think it will get quicker as I go. The worst of it was trying to figure out what the directions were talking about....

Ribbing!

I finally figured out the ribber on my sock machine. There are three dials on the tappet plate to make adjustments. I had made adjustments to 2 of the 3, the third didn't seem like anything that would affect anything. But, I turned the screw and, lo and behold, I had RIBBING! So tonight's project is a pair of mittens with some leftover yarn I have. Hopefully I'll have something that looks somewhat like a mitten to show you in a few days...

Tired, tired, tired

Brad and I were not very productive yesterday at all. We had planned all sorts of yard work and cleaning, but ditched all our plans due to rain and exhaustion. We've been on the run for WEEKS now, so it was nice to have a day to just chill out. We went to see IRON MAN in the morning, hung around the house some, took a 2-4 hour nap (Rachel - 2, Brad - 4). Got up, watched some TV, and went back to bed. We really needed it.

Today I spent at church, visiting the adorable new WOLFI, and taking down half of the garage shelving from the old house. I also loaded up the Element with all kinds of random crap still there. At home I helped do some weeding so that Brad could put down mulch. Turns out 2 yards wasn't enough. Oops. We'll get more later.

After chilling for awhile, I'm off to try to figure out the ribbing attachment on my knitting machine. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cute set

I finished the hexagon sweater, it looks much better with the smaller edging. The set together is just too cute! But now time to find a new project.

Rippin' out the edges

I ended up ripping out all the ribbing I had done around the edges of the hexagon sweater. Once I started casting off I realized that there was just too much yarn for that area. But hopefully this time it will go faster since there are 33% fewer stitches :-) I've found that with this pattern, it's not so much about following the pattern as understanding what it should look like when it's done.

In looking for more patterns for my sock machine, I somehow came accross this entire weird cloth diaper (disposable diapers are evil) sub-culture society. And I bought into it. So I'm thinking that I'll start making some cloth diapers for when Brad and I eventually have kids. Just so I'm prepared. If for some reason we don't have kids, I can always sell them. He'll think I'm crazy, but maybe I won't tell him. After all, he claims I promised 2 crazy-free years counting from the date of our wedding. All I remember is that I told him I was saving the crazy for until after we were married. But I digress.

Here's a free one that seems to be the most recommended: http://www.ottobredesign.com/en/print/pdf/vaippa_en.pdf

And here's the one that looks the most technically sound (using some interesting fabrics for the outer shell):
http://www.sewshoppe.com/hbptn.shtml

And this one looks interesting since the same size should fit newborns as toddlers:
http://www.sewshoppe.com/ppptn.shtml

Please, really, don't ask me how I choose my obsessions.

Now I just gotta get my hands on a surger.