Knit You Some

Moving!!

2011-07-25T07:20:00.003-05:00

Hey Blog,

I know I have totally rejected you but to top it all off....I've decided to move to another location. You can now find me here - http://mymamasaidsew.blogspot.com/

Come see me!!

I love Halloween

2009-10-20T15:44:00.004-05:00

Dressing up has always been my thing. Ask anyone. I'm so good at costumes and can create a costume out of any household item. So of course my child is going to have a great costume for her first one. BUT due to one of my best friend's destination wedding Halloween weekend, I'm going to miss baby E's first Halloween!! She's staying with my mom so I've convinced mom to dress her up and take her trick or treating. I haven't quite gotten all of E's costume yet...but here are some pics of her trying on the best part...the hairy dress. HA! She's going to be Toto, mom's going to be Dorothy, Tweedy is the Tin man, my brother is the Scarecrow, Jayber is of course the Cowardly Lion and my dad is the Emerald City King or maybe the witch. HA! This idea stemmed from my mom's fierce desire since she was a child to be Dorothy. She loves that movie!

I knew I wanted to make E's costume...but didn't really want to find a pattern for a dog outfit. Instead, I used a simple A-line dress pattern. I think the hairy material is perfect and I laughed out loud when I found it at Hancocks. Any suggestions on how to do the ears? I'm not sure I can get a 9 month old to wear a headband. What if I knitted a brown hat and sewed the ears to it? Eureka!

Tweedy said she looked like a cavewoman. Once she gets the rest of her costume though: brown tights, brown shirt, ears and of course a painted nose...she'll look just like Toto! Pics of the finished product to come!

Our Porch Is Famous

2009-10-20T15:27:00.006-05:00

I had to share this! We have a great screened-in porch on the back of our house that we spend a lot of time on watching football games, cooking out and just enjoying the Southern weather. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who works at Southern Living asked if they could come do a photo shoot using our porch as the background for one of their upcoming issues. We of course agreed and Tweedy and I spent a whole day getting ready. We cleaned, dusted, old englished the old church pew that's the focal point of the room and of course Tweedy put plants everywhere. The day finally came!! They got here with a moving crew and moved out every bit of our furniture. HA! Then they spent two days taking pictures and cooking tons of recipes all with these ingredients: corn, okra and tomatoes. (it comes out July 2010) Most of the shots are pretty tight on the food, but if you know what our porch looks like...you'd know it was shot on our porch....maybe. :)

I was just glad they let us have the leftovers!!

$2000 Parking Pass

2009-08-21T08:29:00.006-05:00

I have a little brother who's a senior in college. He's always been a pretty bright and intelligent guy, studying all the time, getting his degree in civil engineering. So doing something like this is.....ugh, I don't know what it is. It's just plain dumb. So at this very very large university he attends, each year the students purchase parking passes to reserve their places while they're in class. Freshman of course have the worst spots but you get closer and closer to the buildings as you go up each year. Being a senior this year, he would have had prime parking. I mean right in the front, step out of your car and you're there. We called it "princess parking." I'm not sure what boys call it. Anyway...brother of mine forgot to order his $25 parking pass this year, and since the school is overcrowded, he couldn't get one once it was too late. He was told he'd have to park in the freshman lot about 3 miles from his classes. And he said...nope! "I think I'll go and buy a motorcycle off the internet and park right outside the building door." Ugh...I hate motorcycles and think they're so dangerous. But that's what he did and he's pretty pumped about it. It's a Harley...you can hear him coming from a mile away. He's the one in front, the one in the back is his best friend.

Yard Bandit

2009-08-20T14:44:00.003-05:00

We have a new little friend in our backyard....Backstory - I've been noticing over the past couple of weeks that our little cat, Mia, has really been eating her food quickly! I'll fill her bowl at night and then the next morning it's gone! I also started noticing that she refuses to go into our screened in porch and backyard lately choosing to instead lounge around in our carport, by the back door or on our cars. Hmmmm this tipped me off b/c she loves the backyard. Second thing that tipped me off was when the cat food bag had been clawed to shreds and the bag emptied!! A dog, I thought?? Or a neighborhood cat maybe? No no no....a trip outside one day revealed a RACOON on our porch! Tweedy and I tried several different things to get rid of it:

1. Set up the baby video monitor outside in front of a bowl of catfood. After waiting and waiting we finally saw the little booger on the screen chowing down. So Tweedy grabs his pellet gun and sneaks out the front door to shoot him, but he ran away right as the door opened. Not gonna be that easy.

2. Called Animal Control. Where I was told that in order for them to come rid us of the racoon, they would put a trap in our yard for a week, come check it and take away the animal once they caught it. This would cost us $200. No thank you!

3. Bought my own *#&% racoon trap for $50. The first couple of nights it didn't work. One night something even ate all the food, took a poop in the trap and somehow escaped with the door down. But then...BINGO! We caught not one, but TWO stinkers! The original plan was for Tweedy to shoot them once we caught them, but since he was unable to do that, he decided to let them go on his way to work in the "woods," which since we live in the city, consisted of a pack of trees somewhere downtown. But Problem Solved!!

Note To Self:

2009-08-18T17:08:00.004-05:00

Anybody remember the basket weave baby hat?? AKA...my favorite baby shower present...well it doesn't fit 6 month olds...baaahahahaha

Anybody remember the pope hat?? The one that definitely would not have fit my 25 year old friend it was made for...it does fit 6 month olds. Lesson learned - The GAUGE is there for a REASON. USE IT!!!

Disclaimer: Don't judge her outfits (lack of). My child spits up a lot. You would think that moving up to solid foods would help, but it just makes it color coated and stains all of her cute outfits. Oxy clean is my new best friend. I've learned not to put anything cute on her unless we're going out.

Redneck Tank Top

2009-06-02T19:54:00.003-05:00

Now as you all know I'm pretty thrifty and take pride in my roadside treasures. Just last week we found a porch umbrella, a wooden trellis, wicker chair with nice cushion and a round black iron side table to match our outside chairs and table that people were going to throw away! I also enjoy finding good deals,using coupons and sewing usable things out of old clothes/tee shirts. But I ask you... Who stands and looks at a pair of men's briefs and says hmmmm...I can make me a nice summer top from these!! On the other hand...$6 for a three pack is a good price!! But what if they weren't bought new? That's redneck recycling at its best. Ladies...Don't throw out yer feller's drawers when they don't fit no more... Just cut the crotch out and wear 'em!! Hahaha!

Summer is for sewing

2009-05-20T13:00:00.005-05:00

Ugh I'm the worst blogger I know! Lately my updates have been few and far between due to my little 3 month old priss. I have finally gotten her on a schedule with about a 2 hour nap in the morning, a 3 hour one in the afternoon and to bed by 6:30 with lots of play time and eating in between. Which leaves me plenty of time for work...I mean sewing! I've been working from home lately which I love but it's so hard to choose work over sewing!! You just can't knit in the summer in Alabama...I need instant wearing gratification so baby sewing it is. Usually I remember that I get paid to work and not to sew and end up choosing work but here's what happens when I choose the other:

Bubbles are so great for babies this age. And they're quick and easy to make. The one shown is the "Taylor bubble." Looks great with an applique. Lately I've been obsessed with smocked dresses with angel sleeves like the pink one. They're just so stinking cute! Another obsession (no picture of it yet) are the really short dresses and matching bloomers underneath that show a little. So cute. I'm making two of them right now and then the worst thing happened...my sewing machine broke!! ERRRRRRR. Cuss word! Tweedy tried to take a look at it but he kept slamming down the presser foot, wasting tons of thread and was starting to unscrew the face when I was like ughhhh hold up. I'll take it to the shop. So I took it today but the service fee is $99.95. Cuss word again! Why not just say $100? Why $99.95? Just to bust my chops even more?!? It's going to take a week and a half to fix but at least I already seamed two of the bishops so I can be smocking them while I'm waiting on it.

Baby update for my momma friends: Does your baby make a very high pitched squeal/scream all the day long? Mine does. Cute at first...ear piercing now. She's happy while she does it and is smiling and thinks it's hilarious but everywhere we go people turn to stare and say things like "WOAH she's gonna be a talker!" It's really impressive how long she can hold that high note.....I could count to 10 during it! Her face is hysterical while she's doing it...wide eyed like "is that me?" and red from the strain of holding it. I think she's going to be a singer but her practicing makes poor Jayber so nervous. He looks at me like...please make it stop. HA! If I figure out how to post a video I'll show you. But don't be jealous that my child is a singing prodigy at 3 months old.

Acting Out

2009-04-02T10:54:00.007-05:00

So now that our sweet little baby is 2 months old, Tweedy and I finally seem to be settling in to our new schedule and the demands of our little one. I spend most of my days singing Twinkle Twinkle on repeat, rocking, diaper changing, cleaning up spit up, bathing and of course feeding our little one. This leaves me very little time for most of the hobby things I love to do and little time to spend with our first child, Jayber...who also requires feeding, bathing, watering, walking and of course love and attention. Lately poor J doesn't get taken outside until around 11am, hardly ever goes on walks (which i'll explain later) and gets his dinner late after baby goes to sleep. In spite of all this, he's doing great with the changes and periodically creeps into the nursery to peep into the bassinet while she's sleeping and always licks her toes anytime he walks by. During those late night feedings, while Tweedy is snoozing away and doesn't even notice she's woken up, Jayber always sleepily gets up, walks into the nursery with me and lays in front of the rocker while I feed her. But about the walking....I did try to take both of them a couple of times. But it's a little difficult to control a stroller not on a sidewalk and an 80 lb golden retriever on a leash who's mission in life is to chase all squirrels back into their trees. And after the near tip over the stroller and baby fall out incident...Jayber stays home during our strolls, unless a friend comes along.

I tell you all of this along with three pieces of evidence of his boredom (and Tweedy's frustration after fixing this three times)

1.

2.

3.

But perk up Jayber....this will only get easier for you and all of us as our little one gets older. Soon she'll be tossing you food over the side of her high chair and following you all over the house. And of course it could be worse....you could be our cat, Mia, who hasn't stepped foot in the house in 8 weeks.

RIP Creative Needle

2009-03-31T11:51:00.003-05:00

Everyone's talking about the recession and as we've been paying close attention and expecting to get hit with something....it hasn't really effected us that much - until now. For Christmas my mom gave me a subscription to Creative Needle magazine that I was so pumped about. I love how it always has great free smocking plates, tips, new ideas and free patterns stuffed in it. There are 6 issues a year and I waited and waited on mine to start coming....so it's April now and I'm still waiting. I decided to give them a call and a piece of my mind but when I went to their website this is what I saw:

Dear Readers,

We regret to inform you that Creative Needle ceased publication with the Nov/Dec 2008 issue. I personally filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in February 2009. The decision to close our doors after 24 years was difficult and painful....etc etc.

BOOOOO! If anyone knows of any other good sewing mags that are not cheesy that I'm not aware of please let me know. Poor mom's out $50 for year subscription that I won't get! I wish they could send me 6 past issues to make up for it.

DIY Bottle Cozy

2009-03-31T11:41:00.004-05:00

Here's a creative little knitting project for all you mommas. A fellow do it yourselfer and one of my good friends sent this to me and I had to share. I haven't tried it myself and not sure if I will but thought it was funny.

Anybody out there burn your hands on glass bottles? I hope not since that would be one way you would know that the milk inside was way too hot for your little one. But this cozy would be a great way to tell your bottles from other babies if your child goes to day care or something.

Click here for the pattern compliments of A Merry Mishap.

Little Baby Sweater

2009-01-21T17:15:00.005-06:00

I finished a project!! Finally!! And it was my first sweater. This really took no time at all. It's so tiny and I thought I would never figure out how to seam it all together but it really wasn't that bad. The pattern is from Debbie Bliss' book "Special Knits - 22 Gorgeous Handknits for Babies and Toddlers" and there's really some good stuff in there. For the yarn I used two strands of Dale Baby Ull which is 100% Merino Wool. So soft. Now I need to find 6 buttons to go on it. I'm thinking pearly.

I think Baby Girl will wear this home from the hospital over the little blue smocked dress I did as long as the sweater doesn't swallow her. Now I need to do a hat to match it. Gah! Then I will need booties to match that and some little mittens to match those...haha j/k. I hope it fits her..my mom wanted me to send her a picture of it on something um...."Like on what mom...the cat?" and she said "No..how about on a teddy bear." lol..that explains the weird pic below.

I saw this little 4 year old boy the other day in a completely knitted outfit...pants, sweater with a dog on it and hat. Tweedy could not stop laughing. It was pretty tacky. I'll try not to get too crazy with knitting clothes for her but it's fun and fast!! Quick knitting gratification.

Coupon Craze

2009-01-09T09:18:00.002-06:00

So with the new baby only 4 weeks away, the economy being in the pits and me not getting paid through my 3 month maternity leave my latest thing has been.....COUPONS! One of my friends from work was telling me that she gets upset if she goes to Publix and doesn't save at leave $40. I was like WHAT?!? How the heckoo do you save $40 at Publix? And then I was introduced into the world of coupons...now I'm obsessed. Here are some of the things I've learned:

1. Did you know that you can print off a coupon for pretty much anything just by searching the Internet? These great websites like coupons.com, coolsavings.com or the manufacturers websites all have tons of them...for Free!!

2. Publix and CVS are two of the best places to use your coupons. First, Publix will accept ANYTHING coupon wise...whether they're from Rite Aid, Wal-Mart the manufacturer or whoever, it doesn't matter. Also, they double all coupons up to $1.00. So if you have one for 50 cents...then they make it a dollar. AND my favorite thing to do there is cut out the 1 cent surprise coupon, (in their circular from the Sunday paper) take it up there Sunday or Monday, hand it to the cashier and they give you the 1 cent product of the week for only a penny! It's always Publix brand stuff but it's pretty good...so far I've gotten - a box of hot chocolate mix, a huge can of chopped pineapples and blue cheese dressing. HA! Isn't that great? We don't really eat blue cheese dressing...but it was only 1 cent and it's fun to see what the surprise is. Love it.
Next...CVS is super great. All you have to do is sign up (for free) for their CVS Extra Bucks Reward card, look through the circular every week and see what you need that will get you Extra Care bucks and buy it from there. I was a little confused about this at first and it can get pretty tricky..but for example, if they have Dove shampoo for sale for $4.00 and you get $2.00 extra care bucks for buying it, then it's like you only paid $2.00 for the shampoo AND if you come prepared with your $2.00 off Dove coupon...then you got it for FREE!! They give you a receipt for your $2.00 extra care bucks and you can bring it in next time to use for anything in the store!! (except alcohol) Pretty cool huh!?!

3. Get the Sunday paper. It has tons of great coupons in it. I get it at work on Monday for free because our receptionist said nobody ever wants the coupons and she usually throws them AWAY! That sounds really cheap of me I know...but it works and I hate to think of them being wasted like that. It usually takes me about 30 minutes with my scissors, recycle box and little baggies with "Snacks" "Dinner" or "Bathroom Products" labeled on there to go through and figure out what we like to eat/buy that there are coupons for and organize them. This is also when you would look through the circulars and find out what the Buy One Get One Free deals are at Publix and how to get Extra Care bucks. Then I make my grocery list. It makes me feel so organized...I'm sure this practice will suffer when Baby girl gets here, but hopefully not.

4. Check out the Coupon blogs!! There are all these great blogs that tell you where the good deals are, how to get them and how much you can save!! These ladies go to a lot of trouble to share this info. My favorite so far is Fiddledeedee. I love her organic Fridays where she posts printable coupons for organic products and lists places to get them on sale. Yesterday she had a great post about baby products with tons of great coupons for Huggies, Johnson and Johnson and other good stuff. Here are some links:

http://fiddledeedeeblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.couponcravings.com/
http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/
http://www.becentsable.net/
http://iheartcvs.com/

5. Sign up for coupon booklets and free clubs. While looking through the blogs listed above they'll have links to sign up for a coupon booklet or email newsletter with promotions and coupons for some of my favorite products. I have a second email address that I use for junk stuff so I just give that email and then it doesn't flood my main one. A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for one with P&G and got a booklet in the mail with $30 worth of savings in it. Racked up on the coupons! And most of them don't expire until March! Woohoo! I also joined the Publix Baby Club, which was free, and received a great book about babies, a booklet of baby product coupons and coupons for FREE products from Publix like baby wash, diapers, lotions and hand sanitizer just for joining. They are going to send baby coupons to me in the mail every month! So these are really great, but you do have to be careful that you're not signing up for "special promotions" that end up sending you one million junk mail.

Don't worry...I will not turn my crafting blog into a blog about coupons and great deals. But I just had to share this info. I'm so obsessed with it that I get super annoyed if I have to run to the store to get something and don't have a coupon for it. HA! And Tweedy is so proud of me and has gotten into it too. Before I was a clipper, I would go to the store and spend over $100 every time for all of our food for the week but now I haven't spent over $70 a single time and I'm still getting the same stuff!! The most I've saved is $30 at Publix, and I was just a grinning when I pushed my cart out into the parking lot. It's very rewarding. I just feel sorry for the person in line behind me who has to wait for the cashier to scan my 50 coupons that I hand over proudly when I check out. And for some reason I am always scared the cashier will press the total button before she remembers that I have coupons...so I annoyingly tell her a couple of times "I have coupons! Don't forget...I have coupons!" while she's scanning.

Ok I'm done...The next post will be about knitting or sewing I swear.

Gift Idea

2008-12-09T09:42:00.004-06:00

One great thing to look forward to while expecting...other than baby of course....is a baby shower! My sweet friends threw one for me about a week ago and loaded me up with all of the necessary things I never knew I needed to prepare for Baby Girl...butt paste, rattles, blankets, pajamas, a boppy?? (which I love and is the only pillow that helps me finally sleep comfortably) I wanted to do something special for the hostesses and decided to make each of them an apron! These were so much fun to do and as I went along with each one I tried not to think about topping my last one...I ended up spending 30 minutes just trying to figure out how I wanted them to look.

These are super easy and would be great presents for the holidays for homemakers you know. Or if they're not homey..they can just hang them in their kitchen to look cute. All of these were made out of Mimi material (found at grandmother's house) and each takes about 1/2 a yard I guess..but not exactly sure. I measured them all on myself before cutting. This ended up being not such a good idea on the last apron since I'm a little over 7 months pregnant now and it ended up being huge, but one of the hostesses was pregnant too so it fit her perfectly!

Another group of my girlfriends are giving me a shower next week and I wish I could do this for them too...but there are 12 of them. I think I'm going to cook them something fun instead. They're all young, beautiful, single and buck wild....so maybe something with alcohol? I'll let yall know what I come up with.

My mom was the perfect model for my aprons! (they look a little wrinkly in the pics but I ironed them right after pictures)

"Knitting Progress Report"

2008-12-02T15:57:00.003-06:00

I thought that some of you new knitters our there could relate to this poem. One of my dearest friends, whom we'll call Rice Cakes, has always been crafty and lately has decided to give the needles a try. This was actually an email she sent to me which I don't think she meant to be a poem..but she's a great writer and her emails usually come out sounding like perfect poems that describe exactly what she's feeling. I loved it. Enjoy!

Knitting progress report.

Watched videos. Repeatedly.

Watched videos the next day. Repeatedly.

Purchased "practice yarn" for $1.

Watched videos.

Begin knitting. Did pretty okay. Several do-overs.

Can't figure out the cast off.

So bought new big long needles. The kind that Oedipus used to poke out his eyes. I'm convinced.

Began to cast on. Sucked.

Watched video. Repeatedly.

Cast on like a freaking pro!

Knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two.

Listen to Terry & children chatter in the car. And Dave Matthews.

Knit two, purl two…stretch it out to check progress…

Notice 3 "button holes" where there should be no "button holes"

Cuss. Quietly. Children are present. Shove in purse.

Ride home. Slightly pouty.

Get home. Cut the pretty "for real" yarn. Light a fire.

Sacramentally or shall I say sacraficially toss that durn thing in the fire.

Big sigh. Cast on again….

Yarn is quite unforgiving, isn't it?

Pope Cap

2008-11-23T06:56:00.007-06:00

I finished the most beautiful hat ever the other day. I was knitting it for my girlfriend who lives in New York for her birthday and was so excited about it. You know how when you're making something for somebody you think about them and if they'll like it or wear it pretty much the whole time you're making it? Well I just KNEW she would loooove this one. It's the Natty Cap from Knit and Tonic and comes with a great scarf pattern to match.

I finished it in one day while watching a football game. Tweedy and I were sitting on the couch and I close off the top, give it my best TAH DAHHHHHHHHH and put it on my head only to find out that it doesn't even go past my hairline. NOOOOOOOO! I'm so mad. Tweedy looks over and starts laughing histerically and said what a beautiful pope cap I had created.

I know it's my own fault though and here's the formula: not using the right yarn + not using the right needles + not making a gauge = pope cap

Anybody know any 6 year olds with a cold head??

I just woke up so I'm not showing my face :)

Seasonal Obsession

2008-11-19T09:10:00.002-06:00

Every year when it starts getting colder I start to...

1. knit random hats for everyone i know
2. try to wear flannel pajamas (always end up being too hot and changing to a t-shirt)
3. drink Russian tea!!

The Russian tea is my favorite favorite favorite. My mom usually makes it in bulk and adds a jar of it to her holiday goody basket that she delivers around to people along with her homemade bread, cinnamon rolls and pepper jelly. She sent the recipe to me the other day and I've been drinking it like crazy every since. Below is the recipe. I left it just as my mom emailed it to me because I love how she explains things to me in recipes like I'm 10.

Russian Tea

1 Jar Tang (l lb. 2oz)
1 Jar dry lemonade dry mix (Country Time only)
3/4 cup Lipton instant tea (or 1 cup if you want stronger. I usually like a lot more of the tea)
3/4 cup sugar (or you could use tea with nutrasweet above and you dont have to put the sugar in)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix up in a big bowl and then you can put in small jars and give for Christmas presents. You really cant mess this up. If you like more cinnamon taste put in more cinnamon. Don't put a wet spoon back into your jar when you are dipping out your tea or it will make your mixture get lumpy. (I used to always catch you doing that when you were little) Happy Holidays!!! Love Mom

HA! What she doesn't know is that I wasn't using a spoon...I would lick my finger and stick it in the mix and just eat it out of the jar like fun dip.

So I send Tweedy to the store to get the goods and of course he gets all the wrong stuff and I had to go back...he came back with those little plastic packets of instant tea that you would put in a water bottle and a 12 oz jar of Tang. Errr!! But he is sweet for trying!!

Nappies and Greens

2008-10-27T09:32:00.004-05:00

This weekend went by wayyy to fast...but both Tweedy and I were pretty productive. I made the "Nappy Bag," an Amy Butler pattern, and it will be our diaper bag for Baby Girl...in case anyone doesn't know what a nappy is. lol. I was a teeny bit annoyed but overall happy with this pattern and am super happy with the outcome! The material is Amy Butler too and is so pretty!! She has some amazing fabrics to choose from. The only complaint I have about the pattern is that part of the strap I had to cut out was missing and I had to make my own. I was so confused that it was left out and when I was packing up I finally found it...of course after I'm finished. It was on a separate directions page with the second project that came with the pattern....a changing pad. But it didn't tell you it was on a different page completely!

All of the fun "bottle pockets" and other pockets on the inside are my favorite part... but I had to stuff it full of random bathroom stuff since we don't have any baby stuff yet though. HA!

One other pattern complaint is that I had to buy A LOT of fabric and had a ton left over! But the extra went to good use...My friend Marianne showed me how to make a roll up knitting bag for all of my equipment. Pics to come.

On to Tweedy's weekend of productfulness...the greenhouse has greens in it! Lots and lots of them....lettuce, kale, collards, swiss chard, broccoli etc etc.. I love love going in there now. The air feels so clean and crisp. It's getting cooler here now but the sun coming through the greenhouse warming everything is amazing.

One of our tasks yesterday was digging up worms from our backyard and transplanting them into the greenhouse to put air into the soil and make it rich....all I found were some baby snakes, which Tweedy said were harmless garden snakes but I was convinced they were rattlers and was ready to chop their heads off when he wasn't looking. They were brown and black!! I'm about to go do some research on snakes in wikipedia.

Mitten You Some?

2008-10-15T17:01:00.007-05:00

OK that doesn't work very well. HA! But these do! I found a mitten pattern somewhere online and I can't remember where...but I know it came out of this book:

It's a free pattern for the basic mittens shown below...I'll post it later when I think of it. They had them in wrist length and fingerless too! Anyway....one of those patterns that I printed, forgot about and then my friend Marianne showed me the ones she made and they were great!! So I fished out my pattern, got some Lamb's Pride Bulky and casted on. I was going to give them to my mom for her birthday but somehow when attaching the thumb...I made a little hole. I was telling my mom about them over the phone and she was like "Well if you make some for me make sure mine don't have a hole!! That would drive me cra-zay!!" Boo...so now I have to make another pair minus the hole. I like these though..I'll keep the faulty ones. She also said "Can't you just pull it out and start over?" um.....NO you can't Mom! I'd have to pull out the whole thing!

I also just finished this little hat for Girl Baby. It's the same basket weave hat that I did in blue a while ago. Click here for pattern. It's so quick and easy! I love it...Jayber loved it too. HA! (Even this fuzzy pic took multiple attempts!)

Errr I'm so ready for the weekend!! Tweedy has been doing night shift so the weekends are our hang out time. We have big plans to watch the Alabama game and are hoping our crafty couple friends will come over so Marianne and I can knit and the boys will brew the beer from the kit I gave Tweedy for his Bday. It's called No. 8 and is a dark dark beer from Belgium created by monks! mmmmmm too bad I can't have any.

In more news...Tweedy finished his green house and it looks great! I'll post pics soon. He planted a ton of greens in it so I think we're set on lettuce and such for the winter. If anyone who lives around us wants any...lemme know! Mia (our little yard cat) has decided the greenhouse is her new home, which is stressing Tweedy. Apparently cat poop is not good for plants so our job this weekend is to find ways to keep her out. But she's so feisty!! Don't let this sweet little cross eyed face fool you...so far she's left a somewhat dead bird and a half eaten snake on our doorstep along with headless roaches and grasshoppers! Yowza!!!

Day Gowns

2008-10-06T16:45:00.003-05:00

Baby clothes time! These little dresses were so fun to make. I told yall about how the smocking is pretty mindless and super addicting. The dress construction part is the complete opposite. I almost pulled my hair out on the first one trying to line up seams, attach lace, hand sew the hem and neck and put in the #$#@%^ placket strip...but when it was finished, I was so proud of it! I immediately started on the green one. I love green and little girls in green are so sweet...a nice change from pink pink pink everything. We're not going to do a lot of pink around our house. I'm sick of pink already and she's not even here yet.

Some pics...

The great thing about this bishop dress pattern is that you can change it around to a couple of different styles - bubbles, dress with angel sleeves, bigger dresses or smaller for babies, long sleeves, short sleeves, nice clothes, play clothes...etc. The next one I'm doing is the angel sleeve style and is more of a play dress for when she's a toddler.

Tie It On

2008-09-15T13:27:00.003-05:00

And the first aprons are finished! When I got the "A is for Apron" book I was telling yall about how I knew that I was going to like making them...but I didn't know I'd like it this much! They're so fun and girlie, which is pretty coincidental since we found out this weekend that we're having a GIRL! Woohoo!! (I was secretly hoping it was a girl.)

These first FOs were pretty simple, quick and painless. Just how I like it. I did get pretty annoyed with the rick rack on the pink one and would swear off rick rack forever if it didn't look so cute. The other great thing about these is that the amount of fabric it takes to make one is barely a yard of the main color and 1/2 a yard for the coordinating color! Woohoo = cheap! I found this material at our Local Sewing Store on the sale rack since there was only a tiny bit of it left. This is also a great thing to use extra material for from clothes made! (I'm one of those that likes to use every last shred of material.) I think next time I'll try one of the more complicated ones that goes across the chest and around the neck since when I cook/clean...that's usually where I get the messiest.

I really wish I had an embroidery machine though...I think the pockets need something. Maybe a big curly initial of the first name of whoever I give them to. I dug through the Mimi box of old timey sewing stuff from my grandmother's house and found some appliqués but they were all pretty corny...apples, daisies, bananas, eyeballs with one winking?? mushrooms? Definitely too 70's for these flirty aprons. I'm sure I'll find something to use them on. My favorite part is the pink apron has long ties that tie into a big pretty bow, but you can't tell from the pics!

New Projects On the Horizon

2008-08-25T12:24:00.007-05:00

Good News! I've finally started feeling better lately and have been trying to get back into the swing of things. The cooking is slowly starting again, clothes are getting washed and our house doesn't look like a train wreck with Jayber hairball, tumbleweeds all over the place anymore. Tweedy is so thankful.

So! With all of that comes new projects for me. Woohoo! I've really been into sewing lately and with that have learned how to smock. Smock You Some! It's pretty fun...kind of like knitting in that it's very addicting/portable and I think children in smocked clothes are so cute! But for some reason I feel like more of a grandma when I take my smocking places rather than my knitting. Not sure why. Maybe it's because it's obvious that I'm pregnant and I'm making baby clothes...too cliche? I don't know. I usually just do it at home since I've been embarrassed by it for some reason. But here's one little day gown I did. It's not quite finished in this picture. I lost my camera cord and can't upload a recent one. It's also not put together yet. Learning how to construct it is another class I'm signed up to take in Sept.

Sweet little baby day gown

I just bought this book on my lunch break. I loooove girlie frilly aprons and this book is packed with them. I thought making them for friends would be a good birthday/shower present or something like that. Some of the patterns in here are sooo old timey and perfect. I haven't tried one yet but I'll let yall know if the directions are good/bad.

The Jenny Cloche from Julia is my current knitting project. I'm working on it like a crazy woman trying to get it finished for my friend's birthday this weekend. I'm doing mine in a creme Jiffy yarn color and will post some pictures of it when finished. I thought it was cute and not your typical beanie with fluff ball on top knitted hat. I think she's going to love it.

Also...because Tweedy and I are so environmental lately, we're joining the bandwagon on the bring your own bags to the grocery store thing. But I keep losing/not bringing enough bags to the store! So I want to whip out a couple of these knitted ones but I can't decide which one I want to to do. Right now it's between these:

Elisa's Nest Tote (no i did not pick this one because the girl and i have something in common)

String Bag

"I want, I want, I want, I want, me, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, mine, now, now, now ,now"......this pattern. (10 points to whoever knows where that quote is from. HA!) Not crazy about the girlie goo fabric used in this picture but I found some material this weekend at a hole in the wall fabric store that's going to be soooo cute. First I have to purchase the pattern. More updates on this one later.

Woo...I have a lot of stuff I want to do!! So why do I have to sit here at work in front of the computer all day and respond to emails? Boo! It has been raining all day today too..perfect project weather!

Christmas in July!

2008-07-25T10:14:00.010-05:00

So...my mom came in town this weekend and after 4 hours of going through my grandmother's house brought me all kinds of goodies!! You have to know that my grandmother, who has 5 children...all with children, doesn't like to throw away anything!! They have lived in the same house for over 50 years so you can imagine all the fun stuff there is to find there. She still has all clothes from her lifetime (prom dress), her mothers clothes, old hats, shoes, my mom and all of her sibling's clothes and of course of all her grandchildren's clothes. Needless to say she likes to be the keeper of things. My mom went on a hunt through the rooms full of boxes in search of any salvageable baby clothes she could find...and boy did she ever find some good stuff.

These are a couple of my favorites that I've already hung in the closet:

My great grandmother was a very accomplished "Do it yourselfer" and she made most of my grandmother and mother's clothes all the way until they were adults! She was a knitter too! And while going through the baby clothes we found some of her FOs that I can't wait to use on our baby. They're in great shape too!

these are the tiniest little sweaters...

i love this baby blanket...

AND...even more fun stuff that mom found in the Mimi museum were all of my great grandmother's old patterns!! I had the best time going through these and making my own box with the ones that were still in style that I would like to try. Most of them were for adult clothes and luckily in my size, but there were some baby day gown patterns and toddler clothes too!!

thats' my keeper box on the left..woohoo!!

just a couple of my favorites...

The Word Is OUT!!

2008-07-18T15:10:00.008-05:00

And we're back! Again sorry for the delay but I promise I have a good excuse this time. Tweedy and I are expecting a baby due Feb. 5th!! We weren't quite planning on babies this soon but it's such a welcome surprise and we're pretty excited. The bad news...I've been super sick from all this pregnant stuff. I haven't been able to do anything fun without getting sick...can't cook, take Jayber on walks and haven't felt like knitting or sewing in a while. All I want to do is take naps, drink milk shakes and go to work (don't always want to do the last one..but you gotta do what you gotta do). Smells are killing me...yesterday I got sick in the shower after smelling my shampoo while I was washing my hair. It doesn't help that I can smell every little thing now like a superhero or something with my super powerful smellers.

But the good news is that I'm almost finished with my first trimester now...so 12 weeks along and it's getting better slowly but surely. Supposedly it should end early into week 14. So how did this happen you say?!? Well....Tweedy's family took us on a trip to France and Italy for 2 weeks at the end of May and it was such a great vacation and just so damn romantic over there that....as Tweedy says "We went over there with two of us and came back with three of us." (That's what he said to his parents to tell them our news...so embarrassing!)

We all know where this picture was taken...

Notre Dame was one of my favorite things...

Lake Como, Italy - Where George Clooney and Brad Pitt have villas. I looked for them everywhere but unfortunately they came the week after we left. Boo.

So now that I'm finally feeling a little better I'm gearing up my crafting into overdrive. Especially the baby stuff as you can imagine. I've signed up for a smocking class and am into week two with it. It's pretty fun! Kind of like knitting in that it's county, portable and incredibly addicting. My first project is going to be a baby blue day gown with a geometric smocking pattern at the top. I'll put up some pictures one I finish it. On the knitting front...I've been working on a top secret project for one of my friends who's also having a baby but I can't talk about it until I give it to her since she reads Knit You Some...so more on that later.

We've also been super busy after moving into our new house doing yard stuff. Tweedy has made an amazing garden and now we have eggplants, tons of cantelope, tomatoes, basil and other fun veggies all over the place.

This is from a couple of weeks ago so now the plants are overflowing the raised beds..but Tweedy made these raised beds all by himself!

Also...my dad came to visit a couple of weeks ago with plans to put a storage house in our backyard for Tweedy's yard tools and stuff. So I'm thinking a tiny little 6 ft. tall house big enough for maybe a lawn mower and some shovels, but oh no...3 days later...it turns out this "storage shed" has a front porch and is looking more like a guest house with a greenhouse attached to the side of it. Errr I was tricked!! But Tweedy's pretty pumped about it and our backyard is big so oh well. His office may have to be moved out there now that there's a baby on the way.

What a proud helper...haha!

Almost finished product...

Blah Blah Blah

2008-05-11T22:09:00.004-05:00

So...I know I have done a terrible job lately updating the blog! But Tweedy and I have been crazy busy moving to a new city and into a new house. This house moving thing is super hard and so stressful and was really an ordeal! Our first mistake was picking a Tuesday to be our move out day, which made it where it was just the two of us and our usual helpers: his parents and brothers or my parents and brothers, were all working or in school! Boo! So we ended up having to do the whole thing alone, which was really a test on our marriage, but we made it through. We are completely ridiculous and ended up finally packing everything into a 26 ft Penske truck that Tweedy drove, which could probably be considered an 18-wheeler type truck because it was so huge, and I had to pull a 16 foot Uhaul behind Tweedy's mom's fancy Mercedes SUV. We were a sight! We packed all day and finally left for our 4 hour trip at around 9 p.m. We drove 60 mph down the Interstate and talked to each other through walkie talkies using lots of "10-4. Over and out. Good buddy." the entire time. We finally get to our new hometown and crash before our big closing the next morning. We wake up and realize...ugh oh, we packed our clothes in the back of the Penske and can't get to them through all of our other stuff....so we had to wear our dirty moving clothes to the closing. We looked like such a pair of rednecks. Even with all of that moving space (the Penske we used is supposed to be able to hold a 6 bedroom house...ours was only 3 and still it wouldn't hold all of our stuff!!) We also had to make another trip to the old house for all of Tweedy's plants!! We ended up having to rent another Uhaul just for the plants, drive embarrassingly slow down the interstate again as well as stop a couple of times along the way to "open the trailer and let the plants breath." But it was all worth it because now we have all of our plants in and around the house and Tweedy's garden has already gotten started producing veggies! Long story short...we are finally moved in and I have just now, a week later, gotten everything out of boxes and into its places in the house. I think it looks pretty good around here but doesn't quite feel like home yet...maybe I need to start a new knitting project and spend some time in our den or something. I think we've been working in the house so much lately we haven't had time to enjoy it!

And while I'm giving out excuses for not updating the blog here's another one for ya...lately we've been living in the stone age around here. I think our old house was struck by lightning or something because in a span of 2 weeks: Our TV won't turn on and is being fixed so we don't have a TV, BOTH of our computers stopped working, our phones won't hold their charges anymore and then Tweedy's callers can't hear him (he's getting a new one), our Ipod has been messing up....and we don't have a microwave. Are you kidding me. If one more electronic thing in our life breaks I'm going to get rid of them all together. We finally got our computer back (the Dell customer service is wonderful) so I'll be sure to post some new pictures soon.

In knitting news...I recently found out that a couple of my girlfriends are having babies so I may start getting into knitting for babies again! I can just see the hats and blankets being whipped out! Updates soon on some good baby patterns I come across!

Oriental Knitting

2008-04-21T17:16:00.009-05:00

Now I admit that I am one of those known to exaggerate and stretch the truth a teeny weeny bit just to make the story a little better. BUT believe me when I tell you...no exaggeration involved that knitting was EVERYWHERE in China!

It was extremely popular in the smaller villages, where the women spent their days relaxing in the shade of their booths full of fake designer purses, Buddha souvenirs and weird children's toys waiting on the unsuspecting tourist to walk by so they could pounce on you screaming the contents of their booth and how they would give you a good price. You have to pass by them again and again and repeat..."No thank you. No I don't want postcards but thank you. Zai Jian. NO THANK YOU. Quit following me! I said no. RUN!" after you passed they would sit down and continue knitting like crazy. I spoke to a few of them about their knitting, most of whom were doing sweaters for children or hats for themselves, and all of whom were using double pointed needles. I told them about how I preferred to use circulars and they looked at me like I was crazy. I guess those aren't popular over there. Here's some proof below. I was embarrassed to ask these ladies if I could take their picture so I got Tweedy to sneak around and do it while they weren't looking. Hehe!

I also managed to do some knitting of my own while over there and finished my big huge cowl. Pattern courtesy of Knit Lit. I used the same hip hop berrocco yarn as Kate did, but in Justus and I am really happy with how it came out! Too bad it's 80 degrees now. I did most of the knitting on our 15 hour plane ride over, but also fit it in during our 12 hour sleeper train and during the trip home. My question is why the heckoo do people keep taking pictures of me knitting? It happened 3 times over there! Is it because I'm a young adult knitter and they think knitting is only for grandmas? Or maybe I make a funny face while knitting? It's surely not because it's complicated because this cowl was so easy...knit one row and pearl one row! Great for a plane ride.

Jayber wanted to model it too.

I also accidentally walked by a Local Yarn Store while cruising through the streets of Beijing and was so excited that I bought some. I'm not sure now why I picked out this color and style. I think I was too rushed by Tweedy and our two other travel buddies...both boys too. The store owner didn't speak English either so that complicated things when I wanted to chat about the world of knitting. But the yarn is really soft!

Anyway...I thought it was pretty cool that they are obsessed with knitting in China just like we are here! (or maybe it's just me) The difference is that they knit for necessity. They have to do it or winter clothes will be scarce. All of the women know how and learn it from a young age. Maybe I'm just old school but I thought that was awesome and maybe we should take the hint too.....That clothes made by your own hands are special and always made with love.

Back in the USA!

2008-04-15T09:36:00.013-05:00

Ni hao! We made it! All the way over to the Orient and back safely! It was a great trip but I'm so glad to be home...in my own bed, eating my own American food and using my own shower!! Things are so different over there, it's crazy. We started out in Hong Kong, flew to over to Yangshou, then to Beijing, over to Xi'an, through Shanghai and then back to Hong Kong. We spent about 3 days in each place. Total trip time = 3 weeks.

Best thing we did? Definitely the 10 K hike along the Great Wall of China. There are a lot of different places to get to it since it's 30,000 KM long. Some areas are a little touristy, but we found an entrance to it about an hour outside of Beijing that was perfect. The view from the top was amazing and it was definitely the coolest thing I've ever done. It took about 4 hours to do the total hike which was down stairs, up stairs, over some of the renovated parts and through the forgotten areas.

Other cool things we did....Riding bikes all through the country was amazing! We were in a small village called Yangshou for a couple of days and would rent bikes during the day, explore the countryside, visit the local markets and try out some local food! The rice fields are amazing as well as the karsts mountains, which surround this area. I got pretty tired from riding a bike for 2 days straight and on day 3 I told Tweedy that I could ride no more, then I requested a scooter!! So he came back with a tandem for us instead that he pedaled all day and I just cruised on the back. It was one of my favorite days.

Another fun thing to do over there is to shop till you drop in the black markets...which are everywhere! The best ones are in Beijing and you can get some pretty cheap stuff from them. We went to one of the big ones, The Pearl Market, which is 10 floors of fake designer purses, jackets and clothes, Chinese souvenirs and....REAL PEARLS! Tweedy came out with two good looking fake North Face jackets, our friend John bought some "Tom Cruise" Ray Ban sunglasses, and I came out with many Buddha souvenirs, a long pearl necklace, short pearl necklace for my mom and some pearl earrings. My mom had prepared me with all of the tricks to be sure that the pearls were real, which I tried on everything and then spent a couple of minutes haggling the price down with the dealer. If you're persistent, you can usually get them down 60% from what their starting price was. That's the fun part! Just to give you an idea of how cheap it can get...Tweedy got his North Face down to $14 US dollars and she'd started at $70. Pretty good!

Worst thing about China: Definitely the "squatters"....the toilets. Squatters + no toilet paper anywhere = not fun. Enough said.

One of Tweedy's favorite things was the Farmer's Market. It was this huge area where the locals would come to bring their home grown, picked, or raised goods to sell. They had everything from huge veggies, nuts, noodles, frogs and all kinds of meat to...DOG MEAT! I couldn't look at that part. I'm sure you all know about how they eat dogs over there...very sad. I will spare you the picture of the dead dogs for sale hanging from stations in the market.

We also visited a lot of educational and historical places such as Tienneman Square in Beijing where Chairman Mao's body is on display, The Forbidden City - Home of the Ming Dynasty, The Temple of Heaven, Hiked Mt. Hua Shan and visited the World's Largest Bronzed Seated Buddha.

About the food...it wasn't so bad. The menus were of course all in Chinese so we had to just guess what we were ordering, although they all came with pictures of the dish. Sometimes you would get something that was really really good (like peking duck or chicken curry) but sometimes you would get something that was really really bad...goose trachea or intestines. Stir fried dog was on every single menu as well as snake and sharks fin? We saw someone order the snake once which was brought out alive so the customer could hold it, then it was killed in front of their eyes and drained so you could drink it's blood (gross) then they would take it to the back to cook it. Nobody in our group wanted to get that. Sick. The places where we stayed weren't so bad but they weren't nice either. They were all hostels and about $15 a night at the most. I liked how all the hostels had a community room where all of the guests could hang out, drink Tsingtao (their huge beers) and discuss their travels. Most of the people we met were traveling alone and for months at a time! I could not be away that long. But that's just me. All in all....it was a great trip. I probably wouldn't do it again but it was a lot of fun! More to come later about the knitting over there. I'll leave you with the Hong Kong skyline....gorgeous!!

Zai Jian!

China here we come!

2008-03-20T13:11:00.009-05:00

Just to give you a little taste of what I mean by saying Tweedy and his friends are adventurous...this is a place on our list to visit. This is Mt. Huashan Hiking Trail in the Xian area of China. It is absolutely beautiful from the top. (see below)

But the road to get there is another story. Are you kidding me....

My stomach is hurting just looking at those. I would say let's just relax on the beach...but I don't think that's such a good idea in China:

So this is a little more of what I'm looking forward to doing: trying out the local cuisine, singing karaoke (they're obsessed with it over there. ha!), cruising down the Yangtze River, visiting some monasteries, riding around in those little chairs that the guy pulls you around in (can't think of the name), and visiting the smaller villages. That's what I'm pumped about. Plus getting to find some great material and maybe some porcelain planters.

Doesn't that look fun! Oh goh I can't wait...I just hope I can carry that backpack around. I promise to post some good pics when I get back. Happy knitting, sewing and whatever else you like to do while I'm gone!!

Zai Jian!! (zay je-an) - Goodbye for now!

Bad News....and Good News!

2008-03-20T12:38:00.006-05:00

As you can see by the title this post is going to let all you in blog readers in on some good news and some bad news....referring to Knit You Some. As I've said before my husband, Tweedy, is an about to be doctor, which means he just finished med school and is about to start his residency. He doesn't have to start work until June 24th and since we're having to move our location to another lovely city in Alabama...we have decided to take advantage of this time and go on some trips!! Woohoo!! Tomorrow is my last day of work and then on March 24th we are on our way to China! What the? I know you're probably thinking...random. We're going with 3 other friends who have also recently finished med school and want to travel the world with us and we're pretty pumped up!! Unfortunately that means that my blog is going to suffer for the next 3 weeks until we come back. So hopefully I won't lose what readers I have and in 3 weeks....we'll be back in business!!

I know what you're all thinking...what about Jayber?! What about Knitting?! Ok maybe you weren't thinking that, but that's what I thought when we decided to go on this venture and it's all taken care of. Jayber is going to stay with my brother who lives in T-town and attends the University of Alabama. Oh goh...he's gonna come back all crazy I know. But I thought this option was wayyy better than the vet since the last time we got him back from there he was depressed for a week. And about the knitting - I can NOT sit on an airplane from here to Hong Kong without it so I've prepared a few projects that I'm going to be working on during that torment of a trip. I found this yarn from my stash and am going to do Tweedy some socks like I promised him forever ago. He requested chunky ones to wear under his boots while "in the woods." I have it in red too, so maybe I'll do red ones for yours truly.

I have also ordered this awesome Hip Hop Berroco yarn in Justus and am planning to do the XO UO cowl from Kate at KnitLit. I thought this looked like a good pattern to do on a plane even though I probably won't use it until next winter since it's 80 degrees in Alabama now.

I am still a little in shock that we are actually going to China and I'm going to see the Great Wall (pic from above), the site in Beijing for the summer Olympics, the Imperial Palace and other crazy things that my husband and his buddies have planned for us to do. They are all VERY adventurous and we are going to be "backpacking," which as I'm told means that I can't bring a hairdryer, straightener, shoes other than tennis shoes and everything else that I would normally bring on a trip. I'm always that girl at the airport who's suitcase is overweight and has to pay extra to get it on the plane so I'm not sure how this is going to work out. But we'll see!! Tweedy has me "mock packing" tonight so I can practice packing "only things I need." I'm not so sure about this roughing it in China thing, but I think it will be fun. I'll definitely post some pics when I get back but I probably won't be in them since I won't be looking very cute on this trip with air dried hair, no makeup and tennis shoes. I'm also a little nervous about the language barrier. I've heard that not that many Chinese people speak English over there and we should be prepared with a few necessary words like "hello" "food" "bathroom" etc...So we downloaded a language program and off we went to learn some Chinese. Tweedy played the first word on the list "hello" and we tried to repeat what the voice said and were like....ugh play it again. Played it again, we attempted to repeat the word and I am not kidding it was like our mouths could NOT make that noise. I don't know what we're going to do about that...I think we're going to just take one of those pocket translators where you can type in the English word, it will say the Chinese word and we'll talk to people through that. Hopefully we'll just find some who speak ENGLISH!

So...the bad news is that there will not be any new posts for a while, but the good news is that we'll be back and I'll have some fun pics and stories from CHINA!! Woohoo!!

Cute Little Onesies

2008-03-18T12:18:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the delay of posting...I work for an advertising agency and we are doing a training session this week for a new system we're about to start using. In the conference room all day, listening, taking notes, trying not to yawn...stinks! But I have to learn this system or I'll be in big trouble. Enough office talk! I refuse to let office talk be on my blog. On to the crafting...I finished the little boy John John outfit and the second A-line dress last night and OMG...they are the cutest things ever. Now I just need a little boy and girl to put in them. I wanted to do an easy one for my first ones by myself without the class so I did them both in a size 2. Not like I'll ever have a boy and a girl that are exactly the same size...which is a shame since the outfits match. But twins don't run in my family or in Tweedy's...but you never know! I'll probably end up giving these away to some die hard Bama momma's before then anyway. They were surprisingly easy! I think once you take a class to learn the lingo, you can pretty much figure them out on your own! It took just a tad longer than an hour like the lady said, but I had mine cut out ahead of time so if you include cutting time it was probably 3 hours total work. Which is not bad compared to knitting...but we all know it's not about that. For me it's a little about the finished product and A LOT about the road to get there and the fun figuring it out. Check them out!

I was so excited and showed Tweedy last night, he was excited a little and did a good job oohing and ahhing over them. But then he said "Isn't that crotch a little short or do you just want our child to wear daisy dukes?" What the!?! I don't think the crotch is short! Is it? I haven't been around a child that size in so long that I'm not sure. But I talked to a lady at our office and she said that they don't fill out the whole outfit and there's room in them...plus their teeny little legs are so small that it won't look like daisy dukes. I made him take them both to my parents house too when he went there so my mom could oooooo and ahhhh over them too. I showed some of my girlfriends and they were not too impressed. Most of my friends are NOT crafty and aren't even thinking about having babies yet so when I showed them my cute little onesies they were like...greeeeat. But I'm gonna keep on making them! I think my next project may be something homey though like curtains or pillows. I found this great book that I'm itching to start some projects out of. It's called "Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts" and the words last minute + gifts + make them myself = something I'm all about. I'll let yall know if I come out with anything good.

1 million t-shirts

2008-03-13T08:25:00.009-05:00

I don't know about some of yall...but if you're like me, and you just got out of college not too long ago.....you probably have a t-shirt collection somewhere close to a million like mine. I mean the number that I've attained from all of our sorority's parties, events and just stuff that we had in 4 years is ridiculous. Do you really need to create a t-shirt for every single event that goes on with your sorority? The answer is yes. Especially since my best buddy designed most of them. And I'm pretty sure I have every single one....and 2 of some, from when I decided my date wasn't good/fun enough to get one. So now...2 years out of college and what the heckoo am I supposed to do with all of these t-shirts that are cramming my drawers??

MAKE PJ PANTS OUT OF THEM WITH YOUR NEW SEWING MACHINE!!

What a brilliant idea. My creative friend Knitterina showed me how to do this and they are the best things ever!! It's hard to explain how to do it..but it really is easy. Here's a link I found to some directions. The way she did them...they're shorts, but I like mine to come a little past the knee. And let me tell you what, these are the most comfy pants ever. Maybe it's because most of my shirts were so loved and washed a million times, but they are so soft!! I had to use a Large t-shirt to make mine, but you can do them bigger with an XL if you like. The tricky part is the crotch...not making it too short. But I like mine low and saggy anyway. I haven't really figured out how to make them to fit other people besides me...but I'm sure if you try to do them for yourself..you can do it!

These were my first and favorite pair. The shirt is from a party we had with another frat...I love how when you do the pattern it splits what's on the back of the shirt in half and puts it on the side of each leg...especially since this was a skull. I thought it looked cool. Knitterina likes to get the gray XL undershirts with the pocket on them from Target (4 pack of them for $5) and pins it where the pocket falls on your booty..and you have a little pocket! So great. I love pockets. Initials on them adds a nice touch too.

And....I finished Le Slouch beret! I had it too short the first time I finished it and had to redo a lot of it...which almost made me cry because I thought I was going to have to pull out the whole thing. I know that's silly because some people pull out entire sweaters without crying and hats don't really take THAT long...but I was still upset about it! I just pulled out a few rows and carefully carefully put each and every stitch back on without dropping any. Surprisingly! So in the pattern it says to do 6 inches and I did 10. I like em slouchy...or maybe I just have a big head. Jayber was none to excited about modeling it for me. It took about 10 tries just to get these two semi good shots. I keep seeing other knitting bloggers trying their FOs on their cats so I thought I'd try it on my little buddy. How do yall get them to just sit there like that. Maybe I need a cat too....

ps. sorry for the longest post ever

Recipe of the Week Part 2

2008-03-12T15:35:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the delay! But for the recipe of this week I chose desert, since I'm having to make both of these little goodies for a wedding shower on Saturday. You're thinking "gah she has a lot of showers," I know right?! They're for people I like though...so that's ok. Anywho...my mom actually wrote these directions out and emailed them to me. I love how she explains stuff to me, especially recipes. They are in great detail..as you'll see below, and written for cooking dummies like me. I think she says 3 times to make sure the chess squares aren't too brown on top. HA! And I love how at the beginning she says "Recipe says chess squares, but I call them lemon squares," when there is not even anything lemon involved in this recipe! She cracks me up.

Without further ado:

This recipe says chess squares, but I call them lemon squares. It is a little different but I think it is better than lemon squares

Chess Squares

Bottom Layer

1 Butter golden Duncan Hines Cake Mix (this is the best but if you can't find it just use a yellow cake mix)
1 egg
1 stick butter softened
2 cups chopped pecans (you can leave this out but I like pecans)

Top Layer

8 oz cream cheese
2 eggs
3/4 box confect. sugar, sifted

Cream butter and egg and add cake mix. (Do in that mix master I gave you) Add pecans. Press in 9x13 Pyrex. Then do the top layer. Cream the cream cheese, eggs and add sugar. Spread over the bottom layer. Bake at 350 for 40 min. Cook until light brown. Watch it near the end because you don't want it to get too brown on top. You could cook it at 325 and it might not cook as fast and not get brown on top as fast. You just have to know how your oven does. Start checking it at 30 min. but you want a LIGHT brown color on top. Cool completely until cold and then cut. I like it a little gooey, but sometimes I don't cook it enough. But when it cools it will harden up some.

Chocolate Icing

You can use this for cupcakes, any sheet cake or brownies. It works best on a sheet cake or a flat surface because it is runny when you make it and it gets hard when it cools. You can pour it over a bundt cake, but let it cool some and then you have to keep scooping it up and putting it back on. Anyway the flat surface works the best because when it cools it hardens and looks smooth and shiny. If you try to spread it after it cools it is not as smooth looking. You can make the regular recipe for brownies. Take them out while still hot and sprinkle mini marshmallows on top and put aluminum foil on top and let the marshmallows melt, then pour this chocolate on top while it is still warm. I make this recipe in a pot on the stove.

4 T cocoa (not hot chocolate, cocoa...It is Hersheys brand over in the flour, chocolate chip area it is a black and brown container)
6 T buttermilk
1 stick butter
1 t vanilla

Bring the first 3 ingredients to a boil. Remove the pan from the stove and add vanilla. Pour this mixture over your conf. sugar that you have sifted in another bowl. Stir immediately and pour over your brownies. Then lick the rest from the bowl until its gone. It is to die for and so easy!!

Smurf booties

2008-03-10T13:57:00.004-05:00

Knitterina was kind enough to share her sweet little smurf bootie pattern with Knit You Some! I like to call these the smurf booties because I picture them blue and that's exactly what they'd look like and you know it. She used Bernat "CottonTots" 100% cotton in white, and baby blue satin ribbon for the ties. They were precious.

Click here for pattern
Enjoy!

Not so Pippy

2008-03-10T10:54:00.005-05:00

I wanted to let you all know that the baby shower went great! My friend got so many cute things and some pretty handmade things....she loved the baby hats I knitted her and Knitterina made the cutest little bubble outfit and some knitted baby booties that were precious! I'll see if Knitterina will send the pattern for those booties so I can post them on here. They were so cute, just like little smurf shoes..but white with blue satin ribbons. One thing about the "pip hat"...didn't exactly turn out as "pippy" as I wanted it to be or as the pattern said. It should have had a long tail that hung down kind of like a Santa hat and with a ball at the end. I of course waited until the last minute Sunday morning to finish it and with the time change...I was really running late. I ended up not having enough time to finish it like the pattern said, so about 12 rows early...I binded off. I just threaded the yarn through my stitches and tied it off and attached a huge ball to the top. It was still pretty cute though. See:

And.....when I was working on the hat last Friday during my lunch break, one of my co-workers (about 60 year old lady) came in and asked me what I was working on. I told her and she said "You know babies can't wear WOOL." WHAT THE!?! Heck no I didn't know that! I don't have/know any babies!! I know a ton about dog babies!! So why the heckoo didn't my doctor husband let me know that if you put wool stuff on babies that it will give them allergies while he watched me knitting and knitting away on a wool hat for a baby shower? You got me. AND the new mommy is a doctor too so she knew about that little factoid. But when I gave it to her, I explained my mistake and she said that they can wear it after they're about a year old....if they have hair. Well I didn't have hair until I was 3 so we'll see if he can wear it or not. It's pretty stretchy so I think he'll be able to. AND they're going to be living in Cincinnati and to Alabama people like us...that degree of coldness = DEATH!! Although great for us knitters. HA!

Sew and Tell!!

2008-03-07T08:48:00.009-06:00

Being the grandma that I am...Tweedy knew to give me a sewing machine for Christmas this past year. I was soooo pumped and immediately bought all the stuff that goes with sewing, and figured out how to use my awesome machine. Those things are super complicated!! But once someone shows you what's what...it makes sense. My mother-in-law gave me a class gift certificate, and I finally used it this past week. It was a two day deal for beginners and we learned how to make a little girl's A-line dress. They let us walk around the store and pick out whatever material we wanted. THAT was the hardest part!! I picked a pink and white (I've been into pink lately haven't I...weird) gingham with white lining and white buttons. And oh my gosh..it's so cute. I made it in a size 2 and it's so teeny tiny. I think it would fit a 3 year old. I even brought it to work today to show one of the other sewing ladies in our office so she could tell me how cute it is. But she saw all my mistakes too. Boo. I thought the teacher said, "Only I would notice them." Once I figure out who to give it to I'm going to get her initials on it...or maybe a little bunny rabbit appliqué. Wouldn't that be so cute! (Gah..I'm aware I've said "cute" one too many times.) No more. Promise. Too bad I don't have a little girl. Maybe I'll save it for the next shower I go to...or maybe I'll just save it. ;)

Too bad Jayber can't fit in it. Or can he....

And then before we left last night the teacher says, "Now all of you should consider making another one on your own so you can LOCK IN how to do it." Maybe she was just trying to sell us material, but I fell for it. I bought some red and white gingham to do another A-line and I'm going to attempt the little boy's John John outfit. Supposedly since I can read the pattern now, I can do the boy one too, but we'll see. I have some good sewers in my life so if I get messed up they can help. The teacher also said that we will be able to whip these outfits out in 1 hour. I'm not so sure about that....it took me two hours just to cut out the patterns seen below! Boo. But I got to use my fun new pizza cutter/material cutter doo dah and the self healing mat thingy.

(I probably lost a reader with the hat...but I love the Tide!!)

(cut patterns = two hours)

Now back to knitting my baby pip hat! It has to be ready in 2 days. Ugh oh!

I heart Twinkle

2008-03-06T09:12:00.011-06:00

Look what came in yesterday!! Woohoooooo. This stuff feels like heaven, looks like cotton candy and I wanna lick it. Just kidding. But Jayber does and he did. He loves licking my yarn...maybe I shouldn't have told yall that since I give these knitted gifts to babies. HA! Don't worry...He's sanitary! I wouldn't let him lick the yarn if I didn't let him lick me (never on the mouth though...I hate that.) Anyway...what do yall think about the color? I was planning on doing the Balthazar Vest from Twinkle's Big City Knits...but now I'm thinking that should be in a darker color (which is what I tried to get first and they were OUT.) Should I do the Evening Shell instead? I was wanting to do something like a shell or vest since it's about to get hot down here and this yarn is SUPER chunky...maybe I'll just have to save what I make for the cold again. I thought these would look cute with a long sleeve white shirt under it. But in Alabama it won't get cold until ......November, but it may take me that long to make it. I hope not, but this is my first sweater to knit.

The yarn looks really pinky in this picture but it's called "Powder" and is very very light. Almost like an eggshell color with hints of pink if that makes sense.

I put a poll on the right side of the screen under Jayber's picture. Please vote for which one you like better. I need some help!! I'm no good at making decisions!! Thanks!

Wilco Show

2008-03-06T09:03:00.005-06:00

We went and saw Wilco the other night. They were sooooo good! Played my favorite song "Jesus Etc." and Tweedy's favorite song "Kingpin" and all of their other good ones. They really pulled out some old stuff too....so that was fun. And look how great this shirt is that I got! I'm a big concert shirt collector. My only complaint is that I waited for 45 minutes in the beer line and missed the first two opening songs. Boo. There weren't that many people in front of me to have to wait that long either...but the lady insisted on pouring each person's beer into a cup from the can. I just don't see the sense in that. It was taking forever. I could understand if it was from a bottle...but it was a can! Boo on her. And then when it was my turn they RAN OUT of beer. Not kidding. What luck huh? So by this time I was determined to get one...or maybe even two now. So I waited for the dude to go get one...that part took like 15 minutes. Anywho...I got my beer.

Now...what is it about concerts that won't let you take a clear picture. I was thinking about this during the concert. Every time I tried to take one it was fuzzy!! Is it the lights? I tried doing it with flash/without flash/slow flash...all that different stuff. Is it my camera? We weren't that far away...it looked closer from where I was sitting than it does in this pic and I zoomed in. Should I not have zoomed? Tweedy likes these fuzzy ones though...so we'll print one I guess.

All in all....a great concert!!

Stitch Buddies

2008-03-05T15:39:00.001-06:00

Here's what that man's picture probably looked like from the story in my previous post....hahahahaha

knitorious

2008-03-05T13:40:00.003-06:00

My girlfriend who we'll name "Knitterina" reminded me today about the importance of taking your knitting bag everywhere with you. You never know when you'll have some time to fill with socks, hats and unfortunately...people asking you questions about what you're making and telling me that "their grandmother knits!" Knitterina told me a story today that cracked me up and proves our theory:

"It came to me while waiting in a tiny waiting room at my gynecologists office. There was an obnoxious couple with a 2 year old boy that wouldn't stop running, screaming, and annoying everyone in the waiting room. The couple thought he was just so cute. There was nothing to read, no magazines, no nothing. I had no choice but to sit there and watch this kid. So my lesson was: always ALWAYS take your knitting to the doctors office (and bring earplugs)."

Another knitting story for yall happened to me a couple of months ago. I was in the Atlanta airport waiting on my connection flight to take me back to Alabama. My flight was of course delayed...as they have all been recently. So I was sitting there by myself knitting a cabled scarf that I gave to my "Green Sweater Gal." I looked up and this older lady (definitely in her 80s) was walking around aimlessly looking for a place to sit...about 20 minutes later I look over and noticed she was sitting next to me just knitting away on a baby blanket. Ha! I'm in my early 20s so the people around us were getting a kick out of this older lady and young lady sitting next to each other having a little knitting party. This man took a picture of us when he thought we weren't looking. (That was actually a little weird.) But oh well. I thought it was funny. We chatted away about projects until it was time to get on the plane. Good times!

For all you dog lovers....

2008-03-04T10:22:00.008-06:00

Um...does anybody else out there like to put clothes on dogs? I do. I don't know why! Too bad I have a golden retriever who's about 90 lbs and is NOT excited when his momma gets the itch to dress him up. Especially since it's very hard to find clothes in his size at the pet stores....so I like to use our clothes instead. He was none to excited with the tank top I tried on him. Doesn't he look so ashamed. hahahha. Tweedy and I laughed so hard when we put this on him. Then he just walked really slow to the door and stood there. But now...his spirits changed a little when he got to sport some manly boxers. This was way funnier than I thought it would be before I put it on him. He didn't seem to mind them at all...I love how his tail is coming through the hole. Bahahahaha!

Little Baby Hat

2008-03-04T10:11:00.003-06:00

So...the basket weave baby hat from the post "knit with it" was actually the second hat that I've knitted like that. The first one went to one of my girlfriends for her baby shower and her sweet little boy, Bennett. (They don't live in the same town so it's ok I knitted them the same baby hat...isn't it?) Anywho....It turned out so great the first time that I decided to do it again. She sent me a picture of her precious little boy wearing the hat, and he wore it HOME from the HOSPITAL! Aweeee I almost started to cry when she sent me a picture of him on my camera one day after he was born wearing the little hat! Here are some pics of him below that I had to share. This is the reason I love to knit. Click here to get the pattern from the previous post.

Furniture Hunting

2008-03-03T15:12:00.005-06:00

Check out this great bench we found at an old antique warehouse this past weekend!! We are about to move into a new house and have been looking for some comfy, den-like furniture to go in our screened in outdoor room (which tweedy is planning on making into a jungle with all of his orchids and potted plants.) I think we're going to get some old looking side tables and put lamps on them and a cool rug to make it really comfy/cozy/make you wanna read a book/jungle like. I love the great storage for our junk that needs to be hidden. I just can't decide if I want to make a cushion for it...or just have some big, fat, fun pillows on it. Maybe I could knit some pillows...hmmmmmmm. Decisions...decisions!! You can't really tell from the pictures, but that thing is huge! It fit me, Tweedy and his two big brothers on it comfortably. Cra-zay!!

Recipe of the Week

2008-03-03T11:29:00.003-06:00

I'm not a great cook. But I like cooking and I feel like I'm getting a teeny bit better. Or so says my husband...who will literally eat anything. So maybe I'm not getting better. Anyway...I thought it would be fun to do a "recipe of the week" on here. I'm thinking that will encourage me to try new ones and maybe help some ghost readers with new recipes if you're out there. So this week's recipe is Chicken and Artichoke casserole. I love casseroles because they're super easy and sooo good! I made this one for my bunko group last week and they loved it. They ate two casseroles of it!! I was hoping to have some leftovers...but nope! Those girls can eat! I had salad, saffron rice and Sister Shubert rolls as the sides and they loved those too. The Vigo saffron rice was really good with the casserole!! This recipe is from the First Methodist church in Montgomery cookbook Heavenly Delights. It's great if you like curry. I used 1/2 tsp of the curry, but if you don't like curry use 1/4t. To really fill up a 3 qt casserole I used 3 cans of artichokes and a little more chicken. Here's the recipe:

2-14-oz. Cans quartered artichokes, drained
2 2/3 cup.chopped cooked chicken
2 10 3/4-oz. Cans cream of chicken soup
1/2 -1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbs. Lemon juice
1/4-1/2 tsp.curry powder
1 1/4 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 1/4 cup crotons that you have smashed
2 Tbs. Melted butter

Layer artichokes at bottom, then chicken. Mix soup, mayonnaise, lemon juice and curry powder and put on top. Then sprinkle cheese.
Sprinkle crotons last. Bake at 350 for 25 min. Or until hot.

Crafty Spring Scarf

2008-03-03T10:55:00.004-06:00

So I was browsing through the purl bee blog and found directions to this scarf. In the description of it she says, "This soft silk lined scarf is perfect for spring. The contrast between the earthy cotton and linen Lecien Mini Waffle and the hot pink silk is beautifully surprising." That so made me want to start one up...I think I can find that material at a Local Material Store. I'll let yall know if I make it and how it turns out. It looked pretty easy and I love the quilting and the colors. I think I'd make mine longer and skinnier though. I showed it to one of my girlfriends "Lazer" to get her opinion on it and she said "oooo could you make me a bag like that?" What a great idea! I think I'd like a bag even better. Click here for the pattern.

That blog is really great! They have tips on everything crafty and tons of free patterns!! I've already printed them all out and added them to my knitting notebook.

knit with it

2008-03-02T22:53:00.011-06:00

As promised...I took some pics of what's on my needles now to share! So....I'm one of those who starts something and finishes it eventually, but then starts something else that catches my eye and then..I'm overloaded. Needless to say, I have way too many things on my needles now and I think my goal for the next week or so is going to be to FINISH something!! This first one is a great chunky scarf that I started doing a couple of weeks ago when it was really cold, (and now it's 70 degrees) that's what I get for living in Alabama. But I still love it!! The pattern is called "Wavy scarf" and said to knit in fisherman's yarn, and once I got a little through it...I saw why. It's hugely chunky (is hugely a word? when you're describing this scarf it is.)But I like the color, so I'm going to finish it one of these days. The yarn is Lions Brand Thick and Quick.

The next one is something that I actually have finished...it's a baby hat! Yay! I don't have any babies...except a dog baby, Jayber. But I did this for one of my girlfriends, who's baby shower is next weekend. This hat takes no time at all to make! It's the basket weave baby hat from bella bambina. I added a little ball to it. And it's so cute!!

I love love love this beret..and I can't wait to finish it...I just had to put it on hold while I finish the other baby stuff before the shower. (will post a picture of second baby hat once I get further along). This pattern is Le Slouche from Wendy at knit and tonic and it's great! The yarn I'm using is so soft and I love the red with the speckles in it. Hopefully it will look good on my head. I have pretty big hair...so maybe not. HA! I thought the "knit one purl one" combo would drive me crazy, switching back and forth...but it's not bad at all. I'll probably give it away though..I always end up giving away my finished projects.

And now....the socks. This is my first pair of socks and I think they (really..it) look great and will look great. But AHHH they are taking for-e-ver (say that like the kid with the glasses from the sandlot.) I will finish them and I will NOT give these away. I read somewhere that knitted socks are like a "hug for your feet" and I thought that sounded nice. I want my feet to be hugged. So I bought the "Getting Started Knitting Socks" book, the toothpick needles and the teeny yarn and away I went. I can't believe I have to do two of those buggers. Ah well..they're going to be on the back-burner now while I finish the fun baby stuff and pretty beret. Sorry feet.

Ugh...American Idol Rewind is on and it is sick. I can't stand that show. Gotta go find the remote. Peace.

My latest obsessions

2008-02-29T10:32:00.007-06:00

So.....I thought a good way to start off would be to show a couple of things I've been interested in lately. I don't have my camera with me so no pics of what's on my needles right now yet. But here are a couple of my latest obsessions:

1. this picture...cracks me up! I have a friend with one of these little dogs and they have entered her in races...she didn't win but she looks just like these! Go Margo Go!!

2. twinkle yarn - i just bought my first skeins of twinkle yarn and can't wait to try the Balthazar Vest found in the Twinkle's Big City Knits. Have read from other blogs that the sizing is funny and I'm not sure I can understand the patterns..but we'll see. I may be posting a mess of a vest on here later. Too bad our local yarn store closed and I have no one to help me...except maybe some helpful blog readers!! Here's the color I got...it was my third choice after the others were backordered for forever. But I like it and it reminds me of cotton candy.

3. The chandelier we're getting for our new house...yay!! It's an antique that my uncle is giving us for a housewarming..1800s french antique. My husband...we'll call him "Tweedy" in honor of his love for Wilco (who we're seeing in concert on Monday!! whoohoo)loved it for how "rustic" it looks:

4. Our new house!! Pics to come

5. Strawberries that Tweedy is growing in his garden...the reddest and sweetest ever.

6. Not work.

7. but many more...that's enough for now.

And so it begins

2008-02-29T10:01:00.003-06:00

I decided to start this blog after realizing how much I enjoy reading other knitter's blogs!! I'm not a great knitter...yet. But I love it, think about it all the time, teach others how to do it, and constantly look up patterns while at work. So...I think that makes me obsessed enough to blog about it too. HA! I'm not sure who's going to read this but....hopefully it will be entertaining in the least!

I actually created it yesterday, added fonts, colors, templates, posts...ect. And then when I was finished. I deleted it! Don't know why...I was just sitting in my office and got embarrassed with myself and deleted it. So hopefully I won't do this again on a whim. And with a little probing from my best girlfriend...we'll call her "green sweater gal"...I decided to give it another shot.

I promise to get better with the pictures, good stories..ect. But right now I'm working on the visuals of it...So please readers (if there are any) be patient with me and my blogging abilities!

Enough about me. More posts to come about knitting...promise!