An owl and his squirrel buddy

 

I made these for a friend's newborn baby girl. My owl skills are pretty proficient but gotta work more on my squirrels. I followed a pattern for the squirrel and really stuggled with how the eyes turned out. I'm bad with faces. Just need more practice.

 

 

Quick pillow

Back home for a two-week break, I knew I wouldn't do much crafting. My schedule would be full of catching up with people, drinking my favorite beverages, and snuggling my puppy and boyfriend. However, I could not control my crafting itch; I'm an addict.

I found a pile of clothes on the floor next to the hamper, mostly men's dress clothes. Before I went postal about clothes being on the floor, I found out that these were old clothes and should probably be thrown out. Seeing how I had a set of sheets that had just ripped, a pillow that wasn't being used, and some old shirts, I did some awesome upcycling.

I pulled out the stuffing from the old pillow. Then cut a rectangle out of the sheet, stuffed it, then sewed it closed. Finally I cut the collar, sleeves, and rounded bottom off the shirt, and sewed it shut. I kept the buttons on it and used that as a ways to take the, now pillow case, off. It worked really well. I measured and ironed nothing. Lovely. Remember kids, measure never. :)

However, I have a few more shirts to do this to and intend to make the pillow case fit more precisely. It was fun just to do something uncomplicated and see it finished. I plan on putting them in my future craft room :)

 

Knitting while away

Recently, I've been put on a project which requires traveling abroad. On my first trip, I brought some sewing projects and some yarn. I quickly learned that I was way more motivated to knit than to sew. I like doing my sewing projects in my "workshop" (aka the kitchen table). So on my second trip I filled my suit case up with yarn.

I've always been hung up on knitting a blanket because the kinds of yarn I want to use are so expensive. I try to steer clear of synthetic materials. I was also inspired by Restoration Hardware's blankets. Every time I go in the store I'm like, "I can make this."

Since I already knew I'd be spending most of my time in my hotel room, I went ahead and bought 10 skeins of DeAire, 100% merino yarn (Super Bulky - New England Night). It is super soft and warm. The picture below is after 5 skeins of yarn, I'm guessing I'm going to have add 15 more skeins to make it the proper, couch-snuggling length. (Sorry for the poor picture quality, I blame my phone).

 

I really just wanted to knit this in the stockinette stitch but knew that it would roll. So I did the border in garter stitch and knit the rest of it in k3,p1. It ended up being what I expected; it lays flat and is a little stretchy. It was nice to just knit up some swatches and make up a pattern myself, not having to look back and forth to instructions. At a knitting class, I told the instructor I like simple patterns that repeat. She scoffed and stated that was boring. As with most things in my life, keeping it simple is what I strive for. We obviously have different goals for knitting.

 

I also bought some cotton yarn called Lecco which is kind of a novelty yarn. I was really attracted to the colors, they reminded me of summer and the sea. I struggled with what to make with it because some stitches didn't show up very well. I ended up just doing a simple garter stitch which allowed the uniqueness of the yarn to show. I am obsessed with circular scarves. I plan on making nothing but those for a while. I really don't see the utility of the traditional scarf because it aways falls out of place. (Once again, terrible picture, this time I blame hotel lighting).