Bliss Beyond Naptime

Blood Shot

I'm a little rusty but I use to be able to make a pretty choice "blood" with my fingas all gangsta style. Now, looking at it, it kinda reads "lool" and it's underlined. Hmm. Thank you, Edie's new, magnificent babysitter for kindly, and without judgement, taking this portrait of me for the blog. She rocks.

I was sick this weekend. Nothing nasty, just a cold. What a relief to get the gunk out though. I haven't been sick much since Edie's birth. Kinda like my psyche wouldn't allow it cuz I'm a mum now and have to tend to all the other sickies in the household. But now I'm all better and even had a chance to finish off the third, and possibly last, of the Simplicity 4111 pattern attempt. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just ready for a new challenge.

Speaking of new challenges, also since becoming a mama,  one thing I was totally stoked about was to get my baby a Waldorf doll. I took a class to make one myself before the holidays so I can have the doll ready for Christmas morning but our little class kinda dismantled and so I put the project on the back burner for a while. But, she is clearly ready for a doll and before she forms any serious attachments to one of the dolls that keep stumbling into her life, I gotta giddy up.

At this point, the doll just needs some more hair added on. This, ironically enough, is the longest part (no pun intended there either) of the project.

So, while the Tangerine dreamed, as the saying goes, I pulled out the little Edie-lette and intended to finish her. Seeing as how I was following her slow to grow hair growth, it should have only taken one nap's length, no?  OR... I can indulge with a roll of toilet paper, cup of rooibos, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and, er, Hello?

Perhaps the latter is the real reason my psyche wants to keep me sniffle-free. PS that crazy table cloth was a thrift store score this week. Needed something spring-y even though it's dumping snow again outside!

My Buddy Wendy

I've completed another Simplicity 4111 shirt of the Built by Wendy series. I tried to make this a bubble dress but as you can plainly see it came out way too short. Instead the elastic bubble making hem sits awkardly at the mudflap and rides up. Bummer! No pun intended.

Here's a close up and you can see the ruffles I went with this time (as oppose to last time). The embelishment tacked on a lot of time to the project. Please ignore the wrinkles and wool fluff. I've been felting lately too. And not ironing. I'm making a third one of these shirts and am almost done - spreading my crafting self way too thin lately. I love the coziness of my white flannel so much so that I'm making one in plaid. I was worried it might turn out to pajama-y but I saw one over at craftster in plaid and nope!

Arf, Arf

I guess I'm a dog. Thanks Craig for bringing that to my attention. So... here is my first handpainted roving based on the little colour card I made based on my apron. That was such a thrill removing the saran wrap from the bundle of wet wool. Like opening a present. I really like dyeing. I'm really liking so many things right now though it's almost stressing me out. So much to do! I decided I need to seasonalize my obsessions. This summer I will spend my Edie-free time (other than my wifely and Hempress duties of course - mumph) on learning to spin and dye and in the fall and winter pick up the needles again. And sewing machine. And felting projects. Ah, crap.

Anyway, here's a couple of other things I was able to dunk in the workshop:

I was able to make the yellow yarn a Craig-a-licous thing of beauty. Not that there's anything wrong with yellow. Just not something Craig would wear. This still is a bit on the colourful side for him but just perfectly so. Will go with all of his army-green cargo pants (he's a soldier of love). And this:

Finally a semi-room divider. A sheet of worm love to divy up some space in our cozy crib plus some left over for a play silk for Edie. A great workshop indeed!

Pig and Let Dye

First of all, I believe it's safe to say, Happy Chinese New Year! I don't mean to be a boar, but I am. It's my year despite Craig's insistance that it's not because my birthday's in January and so I'm off the pig grid. But, what's with all those Chinese restuarant disposable placemats assuring me my entire life so far that 1971 equals pig which licensed me all these choice ice-breaker jokes such as ... what do you call Kathy taking a shower? Hog wash! nyuk. Surely, they all couldn't legally be so misleading.

Oh, man, I'm being silly tonight. Must be from all the chemicals I was exposed to during my dye course weekend. The above piggy was not knitted by my little pig hooves. It belongs to a friend of mine from the course who brought it because I was blabbing about how I just bought yellow boucle to make knitted duckies for Edie so the last thing I needed was more yellow yarn.  Isn't that yarn awful-ly yellow? We were put into groups that had to decide together on a colour for the immersion bit and I joined in after they came to a consensus of yellow. I pouted for a few minutes but when we got to the handpainting part I got over the hay's for horses (not pigs) ordeal pretty quick.

We picked out a piece of art and made colour cards to guide us. I looked on my lap and based my card on my apron. Of course, once I got dabbing I was on fire and Big Bird turned into:

...Big Bob Marley Bird! This is before I steamed it. It looks gorgeous now I must say and I plan to make Craigy some arm warmers. I'll take a picture of it, the roving and silk sheets I also dyed this weekend in the morning. I'm so please with how everything turned out. Now, it is late and my little monkey (who was born in the year of the Monkey - for sure) needs her Sunday night bath. 

Heart Felt

Much love to you on this day of mushy stuff. I kinda got into Valentine's this year. Not as much as I hoped though - I had big visions of heart-shaped cookies for my yoga students last night - store bought from a pretty clean bakery instead. I had big ambitions too to make everyone I know some kind of handmade gesture of "I'm so glad I know you" but, you know, life happens. So, please consider this post a Valentine's day card to you. Please be mine. Please.

I did manage to whip up some felted soap and, inspired by a gift I received by the ever inspirational Leya, I made some Valentine brooches using felt and fabric scraps.

Much amor to  you today. Spread it around nice and thick, okay?

Scarf it Up

Yet another catagory. Yes, I took another workshop. There's an abundance of crafty classes in these parts. I love it. This one was a wet felting class and was too much fun. I'm so addicted to felting these days. Talk about instant gratification. In two hours I walked away with not one but two swanky scarves. I love 'em. They feel so good and good for you but also my hair is a horrendous mess lately and I'm tying it around my head Queen of Sheebah style and I like it like that.

Lots of silk in them fibery hills. I truly believe that that material is radioactive in a groovey, peace-love and Kraft dinner kind of way. Whenever Edie's around the stuff she's all over it. Luckily she has a nice silk scarf collection lining up.

And speaking of silk scarves and classes and such today is a run into town kind of day - as soon as the monkey wakes up. She's passed out on top of a scarf right now and can't get up. First of all, I think I left my bank card in the bank machine last time I was there (oh, Mummy) so I have to deal with that aftermath, but too I'm taking a dye class this weekend and am going to pick up some materials for that including some wool roving and silk sheets to play with. So much to learn, so little time.

Hatful of Halo

Ever have a friend that you feel compelled to feed everytime the opportunity presents itself? I have such a friend - God love him. It seems like the monkey has a similiar effect on  people except they are compelled to adorn her head with lovingly made chapeaus. Perhaps is has something to do with the "Hajduk Head". That's my maiden name (like "don't bump your head") and is a phenomena that runs in our family. Big heads. Maybe it triggers a subconscious fear that she is losing excess heat but the doctor measured her noggin and it's all good. Slightly on the larger size but not off the charts I am assured. She just needs more surface space to contain all that cute I guess.

Above she is pictured wearing another gift this time from her sweet (as in cool) babysitter, Gina. Sweet. And, funny enough made in a gorgeous green similiar to the hat that Dana sent her last week.

Speaking of Dana, if you visit her blog you will get the scoop as well as a happy update on her little neice, Lilly, aka Peapod. There is a Peapod Collection going on to help out her sister and her new family get started out after a bumpy, premature beginning.

Ugh, it is difficult to post right now, especially about a innocent newborn. Edie's getting her hair washed upstairs with Dada and sounds like she got an eyeful of shampoo. She's got big eyes too. Perhaps she will be flowed lots of goggles in her future too.

Build

First of all, thank you so much for all the comments last post. I hear ya. Edie is pretty darn tootin' cute if I do say so myself. Funny enough, she has the personality to match the cuteness factor. She melts hearts wherever she goes as you can imagine. At this moment she's being really funny trying to steal my attention away from the computer by playing me a ditty with a chopstick, breadpan and lyrics that go something like this; "Come what goes. Come what goes. Come what GOSES!"

So that image up there is of January on my calender. All last month I've been meaning to touch upon that page because it's pretty much the theme of the upcoming year for us. We have intention to start building in the spring. The beauty is our builder also happens to be our next door neighbour and he and his wife (and another knitting buddy of mine) are due baby number three in the spring  so he'll have a nice short commute to work and be close to home. This is also not to mention he is an incredibly gifted and kind person. Super nice guy.

So here is a model based on the priliminary plans we've come up with. What you see in front of you is our bedroom on the lower right of the picture, the living room to the left, in the front of both the living room and bedroom will be an outdoor terrace with grapevines growing overhead in the summer offering relief from the sun while I enjoy my morning sheep latte with grapes.

In the upper right of the photo will be Edie's room and next to that her play area and next to that (this is all upstairs) a temporary yoga room till we build possible a separate building for that business. What's not illustrated here is the walk-in basement where you, uh, walk-in, which will also house my space and Craig's office, laundry and storage. Ah! I'm so excited! Here too is the clay model. There have been many tweaks since these have been made but just to give you an idea.

Imagine this:

...here:

Ohhhh, yeahhhhh.

Blogaversary. Kinda.

Think this is stinkin' cute? Check out the top of the hat.

Awwwww.... a big juicy thank you to Dana. She sent me a surprise package in the mail with a whole whack of treats inside. Inside there was a kind note and a reminder that it's my blogiversary; which I totally forgot that I first started off with a blogger account and my first post was on February 5, 2006. But seeing as how I pretty much forgot about that site, it doesn't quite feel like I've been doing this as for a year already. I'll wait till my typepad account runs out and go with that date (sometime in May I guess?) but I'll celebrate the fact that Dana has been reading me (does that sound weird?) for a year today. Yay, Dana!

So this is what the sweet girl sent my way. Along with the little gnome hat, here I have a much needed journal, lucious teas, starry ribbonery and, not pictured because they were entertaining the munchkin so, gorgeous buttons. I'd go upstairs to get them now to photo but I'm scared I might wake up the princess. Very scant mommy time these days. Not rocking the boat. Not making waves.

On the crafting front, I picked up one of those grimy Winnie the Pooh kid's chairs from the second-hand store and refurbished it with some white faux fur for her royal tushiness.She's so pleased to finally have her very own chair it's borderline sad.

What should we put on the shopping list? How 'bout beans?!

Seesta Speensta

Sunday afternoons I'm taking a spinning class here at the local threaders guild. I like it so much, I assigned myself a new catagory. I'm learning so much from these experienced spinners and weavers on all things fibre related. I'm also signed up for the dye class that begins next month.

I'm so stoked and  looking forward to one day scoring myself a wheel. I'm thinking, due to the lack of space around here and the fact that probably the only time I'll be able to get uninterupted spinning time would be when I leave the house for knit circle or workshop, I'm going to look into aquiring a portable wheel. Perhaps a Joy. Any feedback on this would be appreciated!

Edie's teething and being Nedie Edie again. So, short posts may be the scene around here for a little while. So, until I can squeeze in ten minutes again!