Baby Booties

For Christmas my mom gave me some baby crochet books, including Little Crochet. When I saw this, I knew I had to try making the booties on the front. They're so cute!

My trusty assistant/foot warmer, Herbert, watched and hoped in vain I would drop a scrap of yarn for him.


I think they turned out well. I made the soles green to match the star. When I make them again, I think I'll start the side color one row earlier so it's better defined. Other than that, I love them :)

Herbs models them for me

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Good Times at Craft Night

Pottery

I miss throwing pots; I should take it up again. Granted, this isn't one of my best bowls ever, but I love it.




I looked at the signature line and realized I made it 11 years ago! O.O




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Delicata Squash: a score and a flop

A friend had given me two delicata squash, and I finally got around to using them last night. I had never tried them before.

One I served with dinner, and it was a hit (even if it was slightly burnt.) The other I roasted plain and blended to bake muffins. Those didn't turn out so well.

The Score - roasted squash

I found simple directions from Chez Pim to roast them with butter, brown sugar, and salt. While they were roasting I baked meatballs, and served spaghetti and meatballs with the squash as a side. I always consider it a small accomplishment to make an unplanned, successful dinner from ingredients already at the house- with leftovers or simply things I happen to have on hand.

The Flop - muffins

To be fair, I should have thought about this recipe and maybe just used it as a basic guideline. Because the idea was good, but the ratios seemed a little off. 3 cups of flour for that amount of spices and squash? They were very bland, to say the least. Next time I'll find a different recipe, or I would try to adjust this one a little bit. It made a dozen and a half muffins, which seemed like way too many for the 1/2 cup of squash.

Today they taste a little better, and the spices come through a bit stronger, but I'm still not calling it a success.

I have to say I do like these little squash so far, and I look forward to trying them again. They're a nice size when only cooking for two.

More Baby Quilts

I've been enjoying making baby quilts lately. They're the perfect size for a fun project, and not too overwhelming if I keep the pattern simple. You'll recognize some of the fabric that I used on my quilt in the last post. I had taken the extra green and brown flannel squares and made the checkerboard design. I made this for a friend who had her baby earlier this month.

 

The colors show up a little better in this photo. Again with my rushing out the door to the baby shower and trying to get some quick decent photos =)

 

Lately I've been experimenting with minimalistic wrapping. Since the quilt backing practically makes it's own wrapper, I just put a little bow on it! Easy, fast, and less waste.

 

At the baby shower, my friends had this brilliant idea of letting guests pick out appliques for little onesies to give to the new mom. I brought my sewing machine and helped by sewing around the iron-on fabrics. There's a great little tutorial at Hello Bee if you want to know more about that.

Going even further back, here is a quilt I made for another friend earlier this fall. I took some of the leftover blues from the baby quilt I made for my nephew, and paired it with a dark denim.

Speaking of the quilt for my nephew, I finally finished it and gave it to the proud new parents. Since I hadn't bound it until after he was born, I was able to embroider his initials into the corner. I got to see him enjoying it at Thanksgiving, which was very nice :)

And lastly, since I've been sitting on these photos for so long, here is some more adorableness from one of our latest foster kittens, Tipsy. I'm happy to report that Tipsy and his sister Topsy are now in wonderful homes and no doubt thoroughly enjoying life.

We're taking a break from fostering kittens to make room for the new baby! I hope one day in the not-too-distant future we'll be able to start up again, as it has been a wonderful experience.

Late Night Kool-Aid Dying

I have some wool yarn that I've been wanting to dye, so I dug out my kool-aid collection this evening.


To help me decide what colors I wanted, I looked at this handy reference chart over at Knitty. This was a great refresher on dying as well.

First I wound the wool into loose hanks around two chair backs (the cats were very interested in this step,) and then I washed it.


I had split it up into two sections, and I think I have enough for two knit scarves. I decided on doing them each with two colors in a striped pattern.

Here's the first batch just after I put it in. You can see the color is still very light.


After they'd heated up, I transferred the first one to bowls, as I only have a couple small pots.

Now you can see the purple getting darker, and the orange is very intense. I was going for fiery, after all.


I'll have to wait until tomorrow for the results. Now that the heat's off, I can go to bed and let it chill overnight.

I also got some sewing done today. I've been working on a blanket for our little one. The center squares are flannel, and the green border and dark brown backing are cotton.


Herbert loves it when I do laundry. He thinks the fresh blankets are just for him :)



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Serger!

Last weekend I pulled out my serger for the first time. It's an older-model Elna, and though it hasn't been used in awhile, it works great. I've been excited about using it, but a little nervous to get it set up for the first time.

This is pretty much how it went:

I studied the three different manuals that it came with, and then I dusted it off and learned how to properly oil it. It came to me threaded with three spools of white. No big deal, and it sewed correctly except for a minor tension adjustment. The stitch I wanted to use required 4 threads, and also black thread.

I thought for a short time about just fudging it with the threads already in it, and getting my project done... but no, I had to learn it sooner or later.

Now, I've used a serger before, but it was probably 15 years ago. It was my mom's and I only knew one basic stitch, but I could thread that thing, and could adjust the tension pretty effectively.

For anyone who hasn't used a serger before, it can be pretty intimidating. Mine has 5 possible thread slots, with varying threading positions and needle positions. I'll post pics later, but this weekend I was pretty intent on just getting to know it enough to do my project.

So anyway, there I am about an hour into it, scratching my head and trying to understand what goes where, and learning how to move the needles. The manual with the threading diagram I needed cross-referenced the other manual to show how to move the needles and how to thread the lower looping needles which are buried in the machine. I was wishing I hadn't waited until the end of the day to start into the serger, because I was getting pretty tired.

Then, finally, I was ready to sew.

It felt like the heavens parted and the angels sang. It worked! The stitch wasn't perfect, but it worked!

What's also exciting is that I was converting a pair of pants into maternity pants. That's right, we're expecting another member of the family. This time 2-legged instead of 4, and not (as) covered in fur.

I loosely followed this tutorial, except that I used stretchy fabric for the entire panel, instead of adding elastic. And I made it a little higher so it would smooth out better. I also used a cheap pair of pants, since I didn't want to ruin any of my nice ones. I found a $7 pair at Kmart, and it worked great! Once the serger was up and running, it only took me about 10 minutes to finish.

I look forward to more adventures sewing maternity clothes :)