here we go again

it's that time of year again!  time for the Summer Sweater Knit Along hosted by the one and only Shannon of luvinthemommyhood.

 

and this year i'm gonna do it! that's right i'm gonna do it!  i saved the yarn that i ordered last year just for this KAL, and i am determined to turn this beautiful yarn into a sweater that i can wear.  ahh the softness of malabrigio rios...  i'm loving every stitch i knit with this beautiful yarn.  even my sweet little lady couldn't put it down.

the sweater i've chosen to knit up is Harvest Moon a simple top down cardigan. this is the first adult sized sweater that i will have made.  and if all things go well with this sweater the hubs may get his wish and have a sweater knit up in time for his birthday next year.

i am not the fastest knitter, probably because i spend much too much time reading the posts on the KAL Ravelry group and roaming Pinterest (and let's face it Pinning is not just a hobby anymore :) ).

i did mange to swatch and get gauge! i never swatch...  seriously.  because i usually make things for the kids i just figure if it's too big they'll grow into it, so why bother swatching.  but i'm concerned about fit, drape and all that jazz and, will definitely follow the rules when it comes to knitting sweaters on a large scale.

so if you need a new sweater for the coming fall and enjoy a good KAL be sure to sign at luvinthemommyhood to join in all the fun.  Shannon has a great line up of guest posts, sponsors and prizes and you gotta check out the discussion group on Ravelry, the girls there are a great bunch. 

hop along

this year i am trying to make it my mission to give handmade gifts at least 75% of the time. and so far so good :) the kids each got a handmade item for their birthdays hers and his. my mums birthday was a of couple weeks ago and i gave her a photo-book filled with pics of the kids from last year. i also have plans to make her a Colour Affection shawl for mothers day. I have pics of other gifts that i'll share later but right now i want to show you my latest... a nest of bunnies!

 

i made 8 bunnies one each for my 2 kidlets and, the nieces and nephews for Easter-obviously :) it was quite an undertaking especially when i realized that easter was a week earlier than i thought it was.  i really had to kick my butt into gear. needless to say there were quite a few nights that turned into mornings with me still at the machine. i had to take a couple afternoon naps to get myself through but,  the kids were happy to let me because they got to watch their favourite show.

i'm so proud of those little bunny noses.  aren't they cute!  originally i was going to skip their noses because my embroidery skills suck but, what's a bunny without a cute pink twitchy nose.  somehow they turned out one thousand times better than i had expected, not perfect but almost there.  perhaps it was, as my mother would say - divine intervention?

of course i couldn't make such cute bunnies without the pattern from Pauline of Funky Friends Factory.  the finished pattern size i think is about 10 inches,  i enlarged the pattern to 145%  at the local Staples and my bunnies came out to about 20 inches (not including the ears).

if you've ever considered making a little plush animal for your favourite little person hop on over and give Pauline a visit.  her patterns are easy enough for even a beginner sewer to follow.

though nobody would be able to tell, each bunny was made separately and specifically for each child. there are little things about each bunny that when making them i thought of one of the kids and marked them that way.

 

 i know that all the kids loved their new bunnies and i hoep they cherish them for years to come.  mine went to bed hugging them with big smiles.  lucas said his favourite part about easter was his two bunnies, the one mama made and of course the chocolate one he got.

monsters go marching

the kids had their birthday party on the weekend. oh they had a ball at the local play place with all their friends.  18 kids wow! who would have known that at 2 and 4 they would have so many friends!!  it was wonderful to watch them have so much fun, running around red cheeked and glowing :)   though come present and cake time my little 4year old monkey shrunk :(  break my heart,  he just gets so overwhelmed with the spotlight.  he decided to open his gifts at home and, actually turned his head away from the cake when everyone was singing.  i hope with all my might that this shall pass.  but i won't dwell there and give it life.

the most exciting part for me was the thank you gift.  i decided to make them each a monster to take away.  not just any monster a Rebecca Danger Max the Monster monster!  super cute!  if you  knit you may know Rebecca Danger for her cute creature patterns.  but to make 18 of these knit purl beauties would take me longer than forever.  lucky me she has a sewing pattern for one of her monsters.  i really do hope she comes out with more.   the insturctions were super easy to follow and the finished product was ah-mazing!

the hubs thought i was nuts but, it really worked out well.  i ordered my fabrics from FabricWorm and asked them if they could mail it out the next day, which they did :) i ordered the monster pattern  it came via pdf .  printed it, cut it and waited for the fabric to arrive. when it finally came i set to work right away assembly line style. 

everything went perfectly till i miscounted the girls and realized that i didn't have one for my little birthday girl.  who would ask me every day "my monster mama, my monster?" opps....  no worries though it's on the machine as we speak :)

 
each monster was then finished with a little thank you tag i wrote up and, was then tied to a beautiful tied dyed balloon.  I'm pretty sure i saw lots of surprised smiling faces.

 
 lucas was just as excited as i was to give them to the kids.  now he's trying to design one for next year :) it has two faces - one on each side with more, more teeth :)

so, you likey?  i've been seriously thinking about opening an etsy shop.  if anyone is interested in buying any of the creatures i've made, the ones above or, the ones you will find under "Softies", i'd LOVE to hear from you.



LINKING UP

sneak peak

marching in soon.....

 

wisdom wednesday

source

let's make the world a wiser place.  share your wisdom.  if you have something wise to share or, would like to address toady's piece of wisdom, leave your thoughts or link to it in the comments section.

wisdom wednesday

source

let's make the world a wiser place.  share your wisdom.  if you have something wise to share or, would like to address toady's piece of wisdom, leave your thoughts or link to it in the comments section.

mr. snow & his mitts

well we finally got some good snow.  and by good snow i mean the kind that you can pack into a tight ball and roll across the lawn, thrilled to see the once tiny little snowball get big, BIGger BIGGER!! i really think i had more fun today than the kids did making the snowman. :)  and i needed some fun after the kafuffle to get the kids dressed.  boots,  mitts, and hats OH MY! sometimes things go well and other times, well you know it can be disastrous, today it was borderline.  i had someone running amok, someone in tears, whining, hats and mitts being thrown from the upstairs landing - craziness!  but they settled down while mummy was getting dressed and waited patiently and quietly by the front door - surprise surprise. 

i'm not usually into the whole snow thing and tend to leave that kind of play to dad and grammie but, i had a ball! totally brought me back to when i was a little kid when we used to have super snowfalls. so much snow you'd get lost walking out your front door - or at least that's what my impression was.  building forts, tobogganing, snow angels and snowman is how we passed the time away.  life is simple during your kid years and i am completely grateful that i get to relive little bits of simple pleasures with my kids.  it's a wonderful gift.
 

the snow play was made even better with the new mitts i knit up.   i used every colour i have in Patons Classic Merino.  i call them Missy Mis-Matched Mitts, super cute dontcha think?  they ended up this way cause i couldn't decide if i liked the thin stripes or the thick :) 

i guess i never really believed in the attributes of wool mitts but, i tell ya they are fantastic! i always envisioned them dripping wet, not true at all!  i played with the kids for an hour in the snow;  making snowballs, trying to dig a fort, rolling out the snowman and my hands stayed perfectly warm and dry! i was truly surprised how warm and dry ...  truthfully they are better than my fleecy thermolite mitts.  i'll be making these again and again.