Winnie the Pooh

Years ago, I crocheted two Winnie the Pooh dolls, one for a friend, and one to keep.  I've gotten the one to keep out of storage, and it's as cute as I remembered!

 

It's also much larger than the baby.

Made from this pattern book.

Time to Return

Well hello there! 

I was gone for quite a while.  Many things have happened... Since a year ago March, my little cat, my companion for 18 years, finally passed away.  Then - as I mentioned here, in my post on hospice quilts - I spent some time at Houston Hospice, as we said goodbye to my grandfather.  I may write more on both of those topics at some point...

On a much more positive note - and the main reason I took time away from blogging - we had a baby!

She's a nice baby - Monkey Baby, we call her. (Hat available in my Etsy shop.)

She's much nicer out than in... pregnancy did not agree with me at all.  (Benefit to that - if you're sick the entire nine months, you don't have any baby weight to lose!)

I spend a lot of time just watching her make silly faces. 

The first month she was here was just spent getting to know her, so I didn't get to too much crafty work.  She's a good sleeper, though, so over the past three months I've had opportunity to make her lots of clothes - and make several more Monkey Baby hats for the shop (but not photograph them, so it's still just the generic listing) - which I hope to show you all soon!

Giveaway!

Welcome to the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway day!  (And my mother's 60th birthday!)

Today there are three options.

I'm giving away a headband, like I'm making all the (girl) cousins for Christmas.  (Knitted with a crocheted flower.)

And I'm giving away this little (4x5 ish) coptic-bound book, handy for writing things in.

And, in case you want to do it yourself, some boucle yarn, in three colors.  I tried (ignoring the label) to crochet with it (about 2 feet of the yellow), threw a fit, and decided not even to try knitting with it.  Maybe you'll have more luck!

To enter, tell me what you'd like - that's all.  Open until the 17th.  Yes, I do ship internationally (but it may take past the deadline for me to ship to you, as I can't use the automated postal unit for international shipping, and the post office is only open when I'm at work).

New Fiber Arts Shops on Hwy 290

Hello all!

We went to Austin earlier this weekend, stopping by my grandparents' place in the little town of Carmine halfway there (claim to fame: the bank was robbed by Bonnie and Clyde -- they even have a plaque commemorating it). Along with gingerbread pancakes at the Magnolia Cafe, I wanted to try out a new weaving shop in Brenham I'd heard about at Winedale a while back.

Driving up to Austin, passing through Paige, I as always looked left and saw the little sign for the Paige Historical Museum and thought it might be nice to look in... and then I looked right and for the first time ever saw a sign for a business! On the way back I had to stop, and I easily found what may be the only business in Paige:Yarnorama! I wish I had an interior picture, but had no camera this weekend (the above is from their website). It's a lovely and exciting store, with roving, weaving materials, spinning wheels, masses of sock yarn and handpainted yarn and silk yarn and anything fancy you could ever want. Friendly people, too.

Having spent all my extra money at Half Price Books in Austin, I couldn't buy anything, so I went on down to Brenham.

There, into Fibers (sorry, no picture at all). My 6th grade art teacher, Mrs. Fowler (who it turns out is nationally known as an inkle weaver and has written articles on the subject), had us all use inkle looms to make belts. I bought the loom afterwards and loved it. When I saw someone at one of the Winedale historical events with an inkle loom, I told them about Mrs. Fowler, and the weaver knew of her and told me to come to the new shop in Brenham. It's a lovely shop, very big and open. It's certainly central Texas -- there were people in there with the same accent as my grandparents' German (actually Wendish, but who's telling?) farmhand, who's been in this country for generations, so the German modified itself beyond easy recognition but left its traces in the accent. It has tons of weaving, spinning, knitting, crochet, and probably other stuff as well. (I think I saw some scrapbook supplies.) The help desk/check-out counter is made from display cases showing lovely antique tatted and other fiber arts items.

Both certainly worth a repeat visit; both like nothing we have in Houston (If we do, Houston people, please tell me -- I've heard that the nearest weaving shop is in La Porte, and I never go that direction).

Beard Hat!

I don't like buying things I can make myself, so when I saw the beard hat / beard toque for sale at various places, I figured I just needed to make one myself. I looked for patterns online, most of which were Ctulhu or crazy loosely-knit or loosely-crocheted things. My kid brother's going off to college in Colorado, and he's a good sport and also a big hat wearer, so I wanted to make him something that would be warm and hold up to a bit of wear. He's got great red hair and has in the past cultivated some very nice mutton chops, ones that make him look not like a belated hippy but like something out of Dickens, and I want him to go full-out lumberjack and get a big beard. I figured this might convince him, so I made up my own pattern, and here's the result (posed with an authentic Norwegian climbing pick):

I used a basic spiral single crochet hat pattern, then just made it the desired shape. For a moustache, I used Drea's pattern, and it was absolutely perfect. The beard, rather than being a flap, is a pocket that hooks over your chin and keeps your neck warm as well.

Does that shirt pattern look familiar? It's from a tutorial I couldn't find anywhere just now, but I know came through my blog reader sometime last fall (the best I can find is here, but the link afterwards is dead). I wasn't doing freezer paper stenciling, so I just used an iron-on transfer, which was fine.

I made four; they were Christmas presents for Himself, my brother, and both brothers-in-law.

This one's also gotten too small for the beard-wearer, as you can see, so it's mine now.

Backlog!

I still exist, I really do. Things have been a bit hectic at work (I'm on a break at the moment), as we're moving everything to a new wing. So I come home and cook dinner and fall asleep. But I've taken a few pictures of fun things, so I'm going to queue up a few posts (so there's not a glut all at once) about:
- The Beard Hat I made for my kid brother
- The sweet little sundress I made for myself
- The scarf the knitting group at work made for me
- The team of rogue road repairmen (when called, the City says they're not doing work in the area) that make it difficult to get out in the morning and think my yard's a tip
- The cable-heavy sweater I'm making Himself with scratchy yarn, and the Aran-style sweater I'm making myself with excellent yarn (not that I don't like him, I just don't trust him to actually wear it, and don't want to waste excellent yarn on something that's not getting worn!)
- The placemats I wove on the rigid heddle loom (yay!)
- The flash-drive cover for my boss
- The baby-girl-camo sweater that's nearly on its way to my hunter friend's new daughter

See you soon!

Star Blanket

Himself's cousin is having a baby, their third. I've learned a bit about babies and blankets with each one -- after the first, I learned that ribbons threaded through eyelets, while pretty, get torn out as soon as baby can manage to tear it out. After the second, I was told that baby really loves corners, so could I possibly manage a blanket with more corners?

So, from The Diva Crochets, here's a star-shaped afghan. Her pattern really pulls when you make it (although apparently, from her picture, it comes out well with lots of blocking), so I made it in a way that seemed a bit more rational (and fit with one of the two ways she explained to do it), and here's pre-blocking (because I'll never remember to photograph post-blocking):



I used Lily's Sugar and Cream, 100% cotton, which was much fun to work with. This was begun as soon as they announced, before they found out what the upcoming baby would be -- it's a boy, and I think the colors will work well. I enjoyed seeing how it pooled -- always a fun experience with variegated yarns.

I also made an Emmeline apron out of a pair of cotton saris -- they're fun, because they come with their own border material, the red with a green and gold border, and the green (which you can see at the corner) with a red and gold border. The saris are very cheap (175 Rs -- about $3), and made out of thin cotton, the kind I used to wear all the time when living in India, but that wouldn't be appropriate for the only time I wear them now, to fancy events.

And just because I was near it when taking pictures, I bought this Tudor Rose needlepoint kit at Liberty's in London (but produced by English Heritage, I believe, or some similar organization) somewhere in the early 1990s, and it took me about 10 years to finish it. Never been much of one for needlepoint! Found that such kits are no longer sold, unfortunately -- it's all dinky cross-stitches of stately homes and abbeys. Which is nice, but not what I wanted!

What's the project that's taken you longest to finish?

Red Snowflakes

Currently drying on their board (a sheet of styrofoam from some package years ago, wrapped with a full roll of masking tape, with glittery shadows of snowflakes from years past (they've occasionally been sprayed with glitter)) are ten red snowflakes for freshly{blended}'s ornament swap.

This is my first ever swap of any kind, so I'm very excited! (So excited, in fact, I lost track of time, so I made many extra snowflakes which will be going on everyone's Christmas present this year, it seems!)