30-minute pants...

I did my workout tonight (yoga, which I like, but it's 2 hours long! plus a shower, leaving me not much time to play!), and then C said he was coming home from work early (sad that midnight-ish is early, huh?), so I knew better than to start cranking on the western shirt for him...

instead, I did a little more hooky stuff:

and then I churned out 4 pairs of summer pants for D.

Dana, from MADE, has her now famous 90-minute shirt... therefore, these pants must be called the 30-minute pants... seriously, cutting and sewing, all in under half an hour (of course, at this point, I've made about 40 pairs, over 2 years, so I've gotten faster, but even my first time, probably about an hour... Nowadays I don't even use a pattern, I've memorized the proper shape, so I just have to measure down from the top to the crotch to well past the hemline, and cut my "j" to make the right shape... LOVE IT

this time around I did natural linen, black linen, white-dyed-teal linen, and loosely woven green cotton...

They all need hems, but I have to see how long my boy is first, and, as it's midnight, my 3yo is asleep and un-fit-able.

I make them reversible, no outer side seam, just a crotch seam, with cargo pockets on the hip, (not the knee, too low for little hands), simple elastic on the waist, so my 3yo can put them on and take them off all by himself. He's a RTW 6-8 now, 'cause he's so big, but he can't possibly do all the buttons and zippers expected of a 6-8yo, so I have to make ALL his pants...

luckily for me, they're super fast!

Finally asleep, time to craft!

First I got the Bean to fall asleep...

Then D...

now it's time to get busy! I have this crazy plan to work out (I'm doing P90X), and then whip up an entire western shirt, TONIGHT, before C leaves on his work trip...

We'll see how it goes...

but first, look how pretty!

I used the yarn bits I dyed on Saturday with the left over easter egg dye, and I'm LOOOOOOVING them! I used up all my natural color, cause that's what I dyed, so I can't finish the squares till I get more of that, but LOOOOK!

aren't all the blues and greens and turquoises and teals GORGEOUS!!!

I love wool and food coloring. so so so wonderful!

nightly update!

Here's my crocheted blanket so far.... 3 down, 7 in progress, 134 to go!

but hey, I'm ahead of my goal of 1/week! And I'm loving the colors/pattern. I can't wait to use up what I've dyed so far so I can dye more!

And I bordered the baby quilt...

It's a solid red, then a print, white with teeny orange petals, and red, green, brown dots, then a slightly wider orange border...

I'm in LOVE with this quilt....

here's a close up of the print/border...

I'll take better pics tomorrow, but it's 11pm right now, and I need to sleep...

I'm thinking of piecing the back, which I've actually never done before...

I was originally planning on just a plain white background, but now am considering doing a diagonal piecing of pink solids.... from palest to darkest, cause I have 4 from this.... might be cool, not sure if I have enough to go diagonally though... might just do horizontal or white...

input, anyone?

Rainy day #6...

First the baby took her morning nap, so I was able to start a granny square with one of the green yarns I dyed last night...

isn't it purdy?!?!?!?

Then I managed to get the boy-o to nap (unfortunately after his sister had already woken up), so I backpacked her, and cut out the envelopes to make this. My envelopes will be of light blue linen (left over from a pair of boy-o pants), and the linings will be different for the kiddos. (I'm making one for each.)

The cards will be linen/cotton, again, depending on the child...

right now they're just boring linen squares, so no pictures yet...

BUT, I did make my first attempt at enlarging the pants pattern for the boy-o, and cut the new pattern out of the hideously ugly sheet...

see:

another future refashion is this awesome fabric, again from my gram (LOVE HER!!!!)

the dress was HIDEOUS, but this fabric bit is sorta cool, and will make an AMAZING pair of psychedelic baby pants! (stripes will be horizontal)

I've been staring at these old baby boy onesies for a while... they're stained, so no use for hand-me-downs to friends, but too small to cut up into underpants, and pretty boring, so... not sure what to do with them right now...

must ponder longer.

Block #2!

I couldn't resist, I crocheted another block today... Bright red
center, dark teal heather middle, natural outer.
I'm loving this block pattern. I think it'll make a lovely throw.

my first block

I was SO inspired by this GORGEOUS blanket, I decided I had to have one. I don't have $990 to spend on a blanket, so I'm gonna make my own. My goal is 1 block a week. More if I can...

I got this awesome book at the library, and I made my wonderfully patient and loving husband look at ALL the blocks with me to choose the one he liked best.

He liked this one. #189 (sorry, the picture is upside down!)

It's called "Willow"

I decided to do blues, greens, browns, and cherry, with natural wool as the border on all of them... so each block will have brown/tan/cherry in the middle, and a blue/green/teal color next, then white on the outside...

like this:

I realized after wetting and pinning that I should have sewn in the ends first... oops.

oh well, given that this will take about 3 years (averaging 1/week), I think I'll have time to hide the ends and reblock it.

For my first block, I think it's quite nice!

finished teeny tiny crochet

I showed off some teeny tiny crocheted snowflakes while I was blocking them, but here they are all finished:

aren't they so pretty?

I turned the two matching ones into a pair of earrings for one of my closest friends:

I was pretty proud of them! I then made two other pairs for my sister, a cream leaf set and a blue snowflake set, but, of course, I forgot to photograph them.... I'll try to get pics next time I go to her house...

Using my Xmas presents!

I had pepsi at lunch (caffeine), and wine after dinner (poor
judgement) so instead of going to bed early I stayed up and tested one
of my Xmas books. Tasty Crochet sure offers tasty treats! My kiddos
need more play food, so I asked Santa for this book. I made the apple
tonight, and it came out rather small. More like a homegrown apple
than a store bought apple. Which is fine. I'm sure D will appreciate
it. My red is not showing up nicely here, but it is a candy apple red
rather than a fire engine red. Still appley though, not weird orangy
brown red like the picture shows.
Joanns is having a yarn sale right now, so I think I'll take the
little monster (L), and get some more colors of wool. I seem to have
oodles of blue yarn in my stash, but that's not particularly helpful
when trying to make play food...

Teeny tiny crochet

Ok, so again with the slightly blurry iPhone pictures, but I couldn't wait to show off my teeny tiny little crocheted snowflakes! aren't they so pretty!!! (or rather, isn't this one so pretty? the other one was finished after these pics were taken, but is equally pretty, trust me)

I'm starch/blocking it out, hopefully this cotton will be really well affected by the starch/blocking process.

I made the round ones on the left about a month ago, I think I blogged about it then... but I never blocked them... honestly, I forgot that blocking is magical, and was disappointed with their appearance. but now I'm LOVING them, well, at least the top one.. the bottom one is a little wonky, and will probably be tossed.

here's the good one, from crochet today magazine

and here's one of my little snowflakes. My hand is in the shot just to show how teeny tiny it is. I used Lucy's pattern from Attic24 (it's no secret that I LOVE this blog), but I used crochet cotton and a teeny tiny needle (.8mm) to make these. They're going to my sister for Xmas. I was all set to make her these bags, or an apron or something practical, and then decided, nope, just because she's a mom/my older responsible sister doesn't mean she won't appreciate something whimsical and handmade and girly. Hope she likes them! (despite not being all that old, she's completely unconnected and I doubt she even knows what a blog is, let alone read mine, so I'm not the slightest bit worried that I'm spoiling her surprise, unless of course, my Gram or one of my parents spoils the surprise...