Coming Soon...

... something new to look at here, I promise! Even I am tired of seeing this same post every time I visit to check on other blogs. We've been "away" for a couple of weeks but once I resettle and get my hands on some pictures I'll have something new to write. Stay tuned!

Hooked

I've been using my time sans-sewing machine to focus on some crocheting projects, since I have, um, just a little bit of yarn on my hands. Of course the first project of the season required a trip out to buy more, but what better excuse than making baby blankets for newborn twin girls? Friends of mine from college adopted two darlings in January, and out of sheer awe of them for taking on such a task I felt I needed to whip up two special somethings. VERY pleased with how they turned out, and both took me a grand total of three weeks. Two strands of Bernat Baby Sport held together and done up in a simple V-stitch with a K hook. Baby blankets are so satisfying because they are small, and soon done.

After completing those I revisited my stash. One day when Amy was 2 or 3 months old I was browsing through Michaels and fell in love with Caron's Simply Soft "Brights" line. I bought all the colors, and two years and a couple of false starts later I'm finally making progress on an afghan for Amy (not the first one I've made for her, but I'm thinking of this as more of a "little girl" afghan instead of a "baby" afghan. In any case, these cheery colors are great to work with on snowy days.



Speaking of snow... we've had a lot of that lately! This Saturday's blizzard delivered another 12-18", and yesterday it stormed again, but with less accumulation - only about 6" this time. Both storms came with high winds so there was lots of drifting, resulting in this thigh-high display outside the front door.



Thankfully today was bright and sunny and the mid-February sun made it pleasant to be get out and do a little shoveling. Amy has limited patience for all the proper snow-garb, so we are never out for long, but I did get her to stand by that drift in the front late this afternoon - just in case there's any doubt about how much snow is piled up around here!

My Space

Welcome to my studio! Sewing room? Craft room? Personal getaway? Any of the above, but nonetheless, this is our upstairs hall closet. This is a 6.5 ft by 8 ft storage room that has housed all my sewing and craft supplies on one side, and bins and boxes of extra stuff (off-season clothes, linens, luggage, etc) on the other side. This closet is ALMOST big enough to be a bedroom, except that it lacks an air vent and a window (but it does have cable and phone hook up - go figure). A few weeks ago I got the notion that perhaps I really could make this into a true workspace and not just a storage space, so I am giving it a try. Most (but sadly, not all) of the storage stuff has been moved out, either to the garage or given away (have I also mentioned that we've been on a big purge around here?). I bought an adjustable-height folding table at BJ's, and then promptly moved in my current project:



Roofing, painting, and otherwise sprucing up the dollhouse which my mom and I made many moons ago and Amy now plays with. We never added shingles, so those are going on now. I also removed some of the railing on the upper porch which was damaged by a) Amy pulling on it trying to get her dolls through the doors and b) two kitty-types that insisted on gnawing it into little splinters. I plan to paint the roof and repaint all the white trim and paint the interior, as the inside was never more than just primed.



Once I finish with that and some of the miscellaneous non-sewing projects I have in mind, and perhaps find some spare cash laying around for a new sewing machine I'll put the machine on the table and have a nice big surface to support quilts, etc. The best part of this whole space is the ability to CLOSE THE DOOR and keep everyone, especially the cats, away from my projects when I'm not working on them (and when I am working, come to think of it).



This is my corner of fabric, yarn, books, and projects awaiting their turn. Oh, to actually make a dent in it all! Now I have no excuses.

Winter

Yes, that's another foot of snow (give or take) logged for Southern Maryland, and we're only at the end of January! It is COLD here and the entire day's snow was of the perfectly dry and fluffy variety. Winds last night made some 2-foot-plus drifts. I'm impressed!

I've been short on blog material lately because my main projects are gifts - completed as of today and about to be sent off. I'll debrief on those in a week or so. But in unloading the snow pictures from the camera I found a couple of other activities worth documenting:

Amy has been requesting "giants" so on Monday I successfully put together a whole giant family and she was quite pleased. Then she knocked them over. Oh, and did I mention the extreme lack of free time resulting from a certain someone trying to convince me that naptime is for babies? I had been reluctantly accepting the change, but as the week went on our sweet cooperative daughter was transformed into the Abominable NO Monster and life got a little ugly. Yesterday we forced a nap on her, and she has been a changed child since. She's napping again today, after only minor protest, and I think we stand convinced that getting her down mid-day is still worth the work, even if it means twirling her around her bedroom to a spirited singing of "Winter Wonderland" to get her to fall asleep. Really.

Oh, and Don and I finally finished a jigsaw puzzle! He bought this for me for our FIRST Christmas (we weren't even engaged yet). We made a half-hearted attempt at it when we were first married, then it languished for a good three years or so. Last summer we rigged up a box to fit the finished puzzle, allowing for transport away from cats and small fingers. This was the breakthrough we needed, and after many evenings of work spanning many months, we finally completed it. The picture reminds us of a real-life place where we used to canoe in our dating days.

So that accounts for some of our time in what has been a fairly calm and relaxing month of January. Happy Winter!

Bed!

We made the switch! Amy is now sleeping in her big-girl, twin-size bed. We've been talking about this for quite awhile and Amy has been tremendously excited about the idea. With the travel and busyness of the holidays behind us and plenty of time before baby #2 arrives, this seemed like a good time to give it a whirl.

So far, so good!

We did buy a frame, but it made the bed just a tad too high, so for now the mattress set is on the floor and that seems to be working out very well.

Making the switch involved some minor room reorganization - moved around the dresser and bookcase, put the bed where the crib was, and crib on the opposite wall (in case it was still called for - it hasn't been). The wicker rocker is more toward the middle of the room now, under the window, making for an even better bedtime reading area. I'm totally in love with the blue coverlet - from the Christmas Tree Shop, no less, and the Winnie the Pooh fleece throw I whipped together (from a kit). Amy's room is now so snug and cozy - she absolutely loves it.

Of course the furry ones are also quite fond of the new bed. Feline company is very cute until it's 5 am and I hear "Ollie is chewing my toes!" from down the hall.

Waiter, There's a Monkey in My Tea!

Amy invited me to a tea party and this is what I was served:

That would be a whole barrel full of little green monkeys in the teapot. Oh, the mind of a two-year-old!

In other news, finished the doll hat project. The purple one from my previous post didn't make the cut - too dark. This falls under the category of totally inconsequential projects that I am going to be looking back on in 20 years saying "how did I have that kind of time on my hands?" But really, these were so quick, and somehow so satisfying.

And finally, just for fun, kitties caught in the act of napping on the same surface:

With all the Christmas stuffed animals, and all the potato heads, and the rumpled pillows... Clutter, what clutter?

Small Projects

I really do enjoy January quite a bit. I always think of the month as clear and cold and sunny, and I feel as though I can see everything with fresh eyes. Don and I have already done some serious purging of books and clothes this week, and the kitchen cabinet contents are scheduled for the chopping block next. All this clearing out (and the peaceful feeling of having the Christmas rush behind me) leads toward much inspiration for whipping off some small projects and general improvements.

First up, since I became an expert at the crocheted hat before Christmas I decided to make a hat for each of Amy's baby dolls. This is the second one in progress. Each doll has a slightly different sized head so some fitting is necessary, but that aside each takes no more than 30 minutes. My kind of project.

Today Amy and I went to Michaels and I found just the basket to cure the case of hives I was getting each time I walked past the heaped-up-tumbling-over pile of hats and mittens on top of the icebox near our front door. It is a constant battle to keep this surface free for use for those in-transit things like bills to mail or library books to return. Winter schtuff had completely taken over and it was making me crazy. Happily, baskets were 50% off today, so for a mere $1o I seem to have solved this problem.

The top of this book shelf is currently pleasing me so much I had to take a picture. Pre-Christmas it was getting totally overrun with very uninteresting knick-knacks. Cleared them all for Christmas decorations and opted to just put a few back. Much better. New addition: Very finely crafted wooden pencil holder from my very talented brother. Desk space is at a premium, so instead of pencils I found some pretty little (fake) flowers for it and it is a display piece for now. I think it's just right.

This rug is not terribly interesting but I had to include it because it was my first reasonably successful attempt at crocheting in the round without it turning into a hat. I increased rather randomly but it seemed to work out. This was made with all the leftover yarn from aforementioned Christmas hat projects - it's all Lion Brand "Wool-Ease Thick-and-Quick." Really liked working with it! I put this rug over the seat of the rocking chair that Ollie sleeps on to mitigate the fuzz-to-butt transfer that was becoming a problem for any humans who wished to sit in the chair.

And last but certainly not least, the most important small project of them all...

... the baby that is being miraculously constructed inside of me while I sit here eating Christmas cookies. I had my 20-week ultrasound yesterday and got a good long look at the little one, and even a few 3D (or do they call it 4D?) views. The tech couldn't get me a clear face picture because someone kept putting his or her hands in the way. Oh, and yes, we are taking the old-fashioned option on this one - resisted temptation and decided not to find out the baby's gender. We did find out with Amy, and were glad we did, but thought we'd try it the other way for this one.

While I still have to wait a week or two for my doctor's visit to go over the particulars and make sure everything really does look okay (those ultrasound techs are annoyingly tight-lipped), we were thrilled to really watch this little baby and know that everything is progressing smoothly. How marvelous!