Craft-A-Little

I had a very productive weekend of sewing!  I made 3 things- start to finish.   2 pair of bedtime story pajamas and a knitting needle holder- I was VERY productive!! 

I made coordinating pajamas for my daughter and a friend’s daughter- aren’t they cute??

I really loved how they turned out- and they came together so quickly!!  I was able to make a whole pair in one day (during Little Helper’s nap and then after she went to bed at night).  And they turned out so cute!  I used Riley Blake Be Merry fabrics.  I ordered the fabric from an online store and when it came, A was so excited about getting snowman jammies.  Then, as I was making them, she sounded like she wasn’t going to want to wear them.  But when they girls opened their presents tonight, I was able to convince her to put them on and I am so glad that she did.  When I put her to bed, she looked up at me and said ” snowman jammies”- like she liked them and was proud of them and wanted to be wearing them.  I love her.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the knitting needle holder.    I forgot to take one.  Hopefully, my friend Athena will take one and send it to me.    Well, she did take a picutre on her phone and texted it to me, but I am hoping for better quality.    I used one of the new Sandi Henderson Meadowsweet fabrics and made one that was very similar to the one that I made for myself last winter.

Well, I am worn out after a day of Christmas partying!  And I still have to work this week.    I took too many trips this year and used up all of my vacation!  Oh well- one more week(well, 3 days)  and then I am off for a week and a half!  I can’t wait…

Little Helper turned 2 on Tuesday!  I cannot believe that she is 2 already!  I did a post on my private family blog sharing a bunch of things that she does and says now.  Here are a few of my favorites:

…calls penguins snowmen.
…hugs her babies and tells them that it is ok.
…loves to read stories and her favorite changes weekly. Right now it is Moo, Baa, La la la.
…thinks that my fabric is blankets for her to play with
…is day potty trained.
…tells me that her baby is scared of the airplane as she consoles her baby.
…LOVES babies. whether they are real or toys. She LOVES them.
…thinks that reheating food in the microwave is cooking. (it saddens me that my child thinks
this!)
…is really good at and loves doing puzzles.
…loves going to swimming lessons. Her favorite part is when she gets to jump in the water.
…goes under water in our swimming class!
…remembers that you get owies at the doctor’s office.
…will set up her babies and animals in all the chairs at her table and feeds them dinner.
…loves to paint.
…calls her gloves “gums”.
…likes to wear my shoes.
…kisses the books goodnight when we are reading them right before bed.
…pats me on the back when gives me a hug.
…holds on tightly around my shoulder when I am snuggling with her before she goes to bed.
…gives me kisses, and hugs, and nose kisses.
…loves to be tickled.

Here she is getting ready to blow out the candles- she blew them out like 9 or 10 times.  That was really fun.  We just did cupcakes on Tuesday because we had the bigger party today!  I got everyone to make party hats today for the party.  Everyone did a really nice job.  See the one all the way on the left with  a heart on it?  That one was made by my husband’s 32 year old brother.  He put nice pretty princess ribbons on it.  There were only 2 kids at the party (including the birthday girl!) and the wouldn’t wear the hats.  All 9 adults did a really nice job of participating in the hats and in wearing the polka dots that I made for everyone to put on their clothes.  The hats were made following this tutorial. 

I baked a cake.  It tasted really good, but it wasn’t very pretty.  I did polka dots on it and they melted all over the place.  And one of my layers broke before I got the cake built and it was sliding all over the place.  My guests we ok with it, but I am not sure that I can show a picture here! 

But I can show…

Oliver and S bubble dress:

Streamers for the party:  I have seen these around the internet in various places.  They were pretty quick and easy to make. 

Advent calendar:  (following this tutorial)

3 WIP finishes this weekend!!  Finally! 

Oh- and Little Helper got a pretty nice gift from my friend…

Homemade slippers!!  They also gave her the penguin boots that her daughter is wearing in the backround.  Given that Little Helper LOVES shoes- this gift was better than any toy would have been!

Almost 2 months ago I asked if I should put Little Helper in a Halloween costume or not.  You all said yes.  She disagreed. 

I had to talk her into sitting still for a minute.  And I had to put her in it while she was crying.  Every time I would ask her if she wanted to put on her costume- she said no.  She still does!  I am glad that I didn’t make it!! (and I didn’t spend to much $$ on it!)

In my last post, I promised my list for the Joy in the New Year challenge.  Here is what I have:

1. Little Helper’s Dress
2. Little Helper’s Sweater
3. Advent Calendar
4. Stripe quilt (I just have to finish the binding!)
5. Streamers for Little Helper’s party on Saturday.

I know that I have a couple more things.  Some of them I am not ready to share here…it is the holiday season, you know. 

I know that I still owe you some pictures on my last post!  I finished a lot of things!  I really need to get my electronic situation worked out!  Anyway, I have some things that I want to update you on- even though there will be no picutres in my post again. 

• First- I have joined in the Joy in the New Year Challengethat Jaquie is hosting.  I am excited!  I will put my list of what I need to accomplish up in the next couple of days.
• There is also a give away over on the Flea Market Fancy Freaks blog- this is an exciting one since this fabric has been discontinued and is really hard to find!

• I got another book from the library- this one is is Artisian Bread in 5 minutes a day.  This one is on my Christmas list already and I haven’t even baked anything out of it yet!  I did buy a dough container and yeast today at the store.  So I will put my 5 minutes in today and tomorrow I will have fresh baked bread!  I plan on making some sandwhich bread- I don’t want to buy it anymore.  It is too expensive.  Especially since I like high quality bread. 

Ok- I have some knitting that I need to  finish by next week!  I had better get some work done on that while Little Helper is napping!

The weekend is upon me.  And I am behind on things!  So it is time to catch up.  And I have a strategy!  I am doing start with a little list of the things that I need to do this weekend here on my blog.  Just as Krisitina did on a post a while ago, I will check things off with photos as I complete them.  The other part of my strategy is renegotiating my contracts.  My work offers Getting Things Done training by the David Allen company and I did that a couple of years ago.  One of the things that they teach is to renegotiate contracts.  So I am using that in some cases.  So here is my list…

• A Piece of Work B October block   Look at me go!  I already have 2 blocks done! Ok- I actually only made the first one today.  The other one has been done for a little while.   But now they are ready to mail!  I used up every last scrap that Jennie sent for these! 

• A Piece of Work B November block
• Bee Addicted October block (picture coming soon)
• Block #1 for Lorrin (and me!) (picture coming soon)
• Block #2 for Lorrin (and me!) (picture coming soon!)
• Order fabric for my mom’s Christmas Quilt (I renegotiated again and have some updates on this one)
• Choose polka dot fabric for Little Helper’s birthday dress (any suggestions??).
• MAIL ALL BLOCKS!!

Now I think that should be enough for now!  I am renegotiating a couple of contracts with myself.  The first- and biggest- is the advent calendar I wanted to do.  I really wanted to have it done for this year and I haven’t completely figured out what I want.  So, I think that I will wait until after Christmas (all the holiday fabric will be on sale then) and pick some up.  And then I will make if for next year.  Little Helper won’t know the difference.  And since I want it to be something that we keep for years, this is probably the better way to  do it.   I know that I renegotiated another, but I forget what it was.  And it isn’t in my to do list anymore,  so I guess I did a good job of renegotiating it! 

I just looked at my list- that is a lot of blocks!  And I don’t even know what I am going to do for most of them…

I have been having trouble choosing a costume for Little Helper this year.  I am leaning toward not dressing her up- even though I feel like when she is 25 she will tell me how she is emotionally scarred due to me not dressing her up for Halloween.  Maybe I will win one of these http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/10/queen-of-hearts-and-alice-in-wonderland.html costumes and then my problems will be solved!

These are really AMAZING costumes- I kind of wish the Queen of Hearts dress would fit me! 

What are your kids dressing up as?  Do you think that I should dress up my 23 month old?  Any inexpensive and easy ideas for me?

I have completed my September quilting bee blocks!  I showed you my wonky houses in my last post and her is a Christmas pinwheel block.  It is a little bit small, as I didn’t have enough fabric to do one more border.  I am waiting to see what the recipient wants me to do with it.

I have been tired and distracted this week, so I didn’t really do much sewing.  I just got fabric in the mail for my October bee blocks.  I should do them this weekend so that I don’t find myself being late again!

In other news, I have now taken Little Helper out of the house 2 times without diapers.  Both times we mostly unsuccessful, but the 2nd time did have a couple of small up sides- she told me when she was peeing and she did pee a tiny little bit on the potty at Target today.  Small victories, people!

I am a bit behind on my quilting bees, but I set out to catch up this weekend and I am halfway there!  Here is what I made for Kyra for our Bee Addicted online Bee.

Here is my first wonky house.  Not all that wonky.  Except for the earthquake that shook the roof off.  It isn’t my favorite, but it isn’t terrible either.  Kyra shared a tutorial with us that gave me a good starting point for this one.

Then I was trying to figure out what else I could do.  Mendocino inspired me.

Do you like all the mermaids?  I love mermaids these days.  Mostly because Little Helper says “me-mer”.  It is so cute.  So I like my wonky underwater castle quite a bit more than the first one.   I like it more the more I look at it.  I should stop looking at it.  I have to send it to Kyra.

I had a fabulous weekend.  My husband, daughter and I did not leave the house once for the last 2 days and it was awesome.  We were somewhat limited by our new strict budget and the beginnings of potty training of Little Helper.(She spent the last 2 days running around in no diaper and no pants!  She seems to like it.  And she is doing a GREAT job so far- thanks for asking!)

Anyway, I had an extremely relaxing weekend.  I spent most of it in the kitchen which felt like coming home.  I haven’t cooked- really cooked- in a long time.  As far as my domestic hobbies go, my first love is cooking.  Over the last few years I just haven’t felt like I have had the time to really cook the way I used to.  I haven’t been able to experiment or try things new.  Or spend the day in the kitchen if I wanted to.  And I did!  I spent 2 days in the kitchen this weekend.  It was WONDERFUL. 

I started my weekend with plans to make gnocchi for the first time.  I also wanted to make eggplant Parmesan and vegetarian chili (2 things that I have made many, many times).  This would satisfy my need for experimentation and for using up some of my CSA veggies.  And I would end up with pretty tasty food and I shouldn’t need to cook this week.  Well- I am going to.  I am going to make some ribs in my crock pot on Tuesday.  Mmmmmm…

My gnocchi recipe came from a coworker.  I made some in culinary school, but hadn’t made it since.   I originally was going to borrow the gnocchi board from my coworker as well.  When I found out that they were $4.75, I purchase one myself.  We used forks in culinary school.  The board works way better.  And they look quite a bit better too.  Check them out!

Yes- those are my hands.  I should hand model.   

This was Saturday’s work.  I put them on a sheet pan and froze them.  Now I have  bag of gnocchi waiting for me to eat it whenever I am ready!  They do not have to be defrosted before cooking, so this is an easy weeknight meal.  Nice! 

I multi-tasked when I made the gnocchi.  I made the eggplant parmesan at the same time.  I use a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated and I love it.  I have made it so many times that I don’t even need to refer to the recipe anymore.  I do make more sauce than it calls for.  I like a lot of sauce. 

I usually get 6 meals out of this.  But my eggplants were smaller this time, so it is only 4.  Well, technically 5 since Little Helper had some with us last night too.  It is nice to get more servings because this recipe is a family favorite.  I will have some for lunch on Tuesday probably. 

Today, I made my chili- also a family favorite.  This photo was taken with my iPhone, so the quality is not nearly as good.  I am pretty proud of this chili.  It is a recipe that I consider my own.  And I FINALLY had all of the veggies that I needed from my CSA to make some.  So other than the beans, chicken broth, spices, and bugar wheat- everything in here is grown on a farm here in MN.  I am excited to have this for lunch tomorrow.

Now- I am saving the best for last!  I baked a chocolate cake last night and then made frosting today.  It was seriously awesome.  As I mentioned before, I got The Cake Bible from the library and I needed to try a cake.  Chocolate is both my husbands and my favorite, so that is what I picked.  I made a triple layer devils food cake.  It recommended a chocolate butter cream frosting.  I don’t really like butter cream frosting, so I don’t usually make it.  I had never had chocolate butter cream so I thought I would give it a try.  It is delicious.  I will be using this frosting in the future!  Now I need to do some reading to figure out which cake I am going to make next.  I only have the book until the 22nd- I have a lot of cakes to make!

I did do a little sewing.  I was working on some wonky house blocks for Bee Addicted.  I have one done and one almost done.  I plan to finish tomorrow night and hopefully get some pictures up soon! 

So- my second love- knitting is calling.  Knitting is one of the most relaxing things that I do.  I am going to knit and watch some TV with my hubby.  Goodnight!

Photography credit (except for the iPhone chili photo) goe s to my husband.  He has recently picked up a new hobby- photography!  I am excited to get some good family shots one of these days if it is sunny one day before it gets cold!

Sorry that I have been away for so long!  I have been doing some sewing and some knitting and I am just about to get into some baking!  My laptop broke this month so it hasn’t been as easy for me to blog.  Having no laptop has made it really hard to upload pictures.  I will utilize my husband’s USB drive this weekend to get some pictures up here.  I finished my doll quilt and sent it off (a little late- sorry partner!).  She has it now and says that it was worth the wait, so I feel a little better about it.  I have also been knitting away on my scarf.  I feel confident that it will be completed before it is cold enough to wear it.  Although temps dropped to the 40’s this week- YUCK!  I like fall, but 40’s is a little colder than fall, I think.  Let’s see, what else have I been doing?  I made 2 buttercup bags because I needed a purse to carry with me at a wedding a couple of weeks ago.  Anyway- I have pictures of all of this stuff and I will get them up this weekend! 

I am also hoping to do some baking this weekend.  I just go the Cake Bible from the library yesterday and I am excited to give some a try!  I even bought 3 new 9 in aluminum cake pans today! Oh the excitement!!

I will leave you with a link to my DQS7 partner’s blog- she has pictures up of the quilt that I made!

Have a great weekend!