Monthly Archives: February 2018

Hello!

Hello from soggy northern Illinois! How are you? I hope your week is moving along nicely. I am keeping busy with a few different projects.

Over the weekend I finished my cozy and snuggly Bobble Cowl. The pattern is by Joji Locatelli and can be purchased on Ravelry. It uses one skein on sock yarn. I used Knit Picks Preciosa which I hand dyed.

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I added three extra pattern repeats to get my cowl as long as possible. That tiny ball of yarn is all that’s remaining. I used a scale to make it easier to predict how many more repeats I could add—I added three. Still, I was wondering if I’d have enough to finish the last one.

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Previously, I’ve shown you the shoeboxes (2016 and 2017) I put together for Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child program. Last year, I stumbled upon this video of Eva whom I haven’t been able to forget. She is 100 (now 101) and sews dresses for the little girls who receive her shoeboxes. I think she is amazing! Eva has inspired me to make some dresses of my own for my shoeboxes for 2018.

I found some patterns and measurements on Pinterest and set to work on Saturday to make my first dress. It took awhile—I hadn’t sewn any human clothing since my daughter was quite small, but everything slowly came back to me. I used to make practically all my own clothes, so I guess it’s like riding a bike.

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This dress was made with lots of love for the little girl who will wear it. I hope she likes it and can find lots of little treasures to put in the pocket.

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This morning I made a pattern so that the future dresses I make can be cut out without measuring each one; that was quite time consuming.

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My Little Darlings, Lucy and Alice couldn’t let me write a blog post without saying hello. They’re hanging out in the studio and having a fun day playing together. Alice is waiting for me to finish her ensemble so she can put on her shoes and be ready for a proper photo shoot.

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This morning, I made some time for puppy cuddles and making granola.

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Right now I have a load of laundry in the washing machine and I’m going to slip out between the rain clouds for a walk. I think I can do it; for now it’s 51° (11°)—springtime temps!

Enjoy your day, my friends! ❤

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Happy Valentine’s Day to you, my love-ly friends! Do you have any special plans for today? I’m afraid it’s work as usual over here, but that is fine with me as the sun is shining. Yay!

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The collage above is from 2014. Thought you might like to see it again, or for the first time. I was sure busy making Valentine’s Day dresses back then, wasn’t I?

What have I been working on lately? Well, my cowl is nearly complete. It would be complete right now if I wanted to make it per the pattern, but I’d like it a little longer, so am going to use up as much of the 100 grams of yarn I can.

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I finished my second pair of socks. They’ve been soaked in lavender wash and blocked, and awaiting for their recipient to come home for spring break.

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I’ve also been working on a new knitting pattern on and off for a couple of weeks. To say that the math was blowing my mind is putting it lightly, and really, I realize it shouldn’t have been that hard. Notice all the graph paper; things got a lot easier when I started using that. (Thank goodness I found some in the house.)

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I completed a Little Darling ensemble yesterday! Lucy is wearing it and oh, so happy. I just got finished with the photo shoot and still have to edit the photos. Here’s a sneak peek of Lucy while she was waiting (patiently) for me to set things up for the photo shoot.

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Wishing you all a very beautiful Valentine’s Day!

❤ ❤ ❤

A New Friend and Other Stuff

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Yesterday someone new arrived at my studio. Her name is Claudette and she’s a giraffe—that is, a handmade mohair giraffe made by Carolyn at Warm Heart Bears. I couldn’t resist her sweet face. I tried, I really did, but couldn’t do it, so I adopted her. Now she lives here with me… and my other girls and animal friends.

I think I fell for Claudette because she reminded me of a character from a game my daughter and I used to play when she was young, and so, she represented nostalgia for me. This character was named Gracie and she lived in our Animal Crossing towns that we played on our Nintendo DS. (Yes, I know I was a bit old for this game, but the graphics and game interactions were so different from anything I had ever seen before.) Gracie was the fashionista in this game and she happened to be a long and lanky giraffe (like a fashion model).

Amelia Thimble, being the ~~pushy~~ extroverted one around here, often gets to introduce you to the new arrivals, so here she is to welcome Claudette.

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Amelia Thimble has never seen a giraffe and is quite amazed at Claudette’s size.

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Oh, but Claudette is so soft and so nice; Amelia adores her.

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Carolyn sold out of all but one of her babies from her Winter Stars 2018 collection in the teddy bear show over the weekend. Actually, most were gone within the first hour. It’s a good thing otherwise, I would have ~~maybe~~ probably picked up another one… or two. The last remaining cutie is a kitty named Rochelle. You can see her here. The little teddy bear to the left of Amelia Thimble is Ivy and she was a gift from Carolyn in September. If you’d like to seem my post announcing Ivy’s arrival click here. I’m a fan! Her work is perfection!

Now that it’s February snow production has finally kicked in. It snowed on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night, and more is coming tomorrow. (While writing this post it started snowing a little again!)

Monday we had a beautifully sunny morning and I wanted to capture a little of the beauty. The snow glistened like glitter and was mesmerizing.

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The snow on these tree branches remind me of snowflake patterns.

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The birds have eaten almost all of the berries of of the burning bush shrubs but a few remained.

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On Sunday, I dyed a skein of fingering weight merino for another cowl and started knitting it first thing on Monday morning. It’s so much fun seeing how the color changes knit up that I usually can’t wait to get started.

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The Bobble Cowl pattern is by Joji Locatelli and can be purchased on Ravelry.

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I love the pattern but I’m not sure I’ll love the overall color tone of the cowl; the yarn is knitting up yellower than I’d like. I thought I was using the grayish blue (don’t even see grayish blue!), peachy pink, and golden yellow dye equally while putting the yarn in the dye pot. Hmm… so much to learn.

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