High Chair Makeover

Nearly three years since my last post, wow! (Those koolaid hats are still a favorite past project)

If you haven’t been keeping up with me on facebook, well, H is no longer a toddler, but is in kindergarten (how did that happen so quick?), we’ve moved, adopted two dogs, and had a baby girl who is just about to start eating solid foods. Time for a high chair!

I had gotten a wooden one from a restaurant going out of business and decided to give it a makeover for baby W.

First I had to remove all the crud, which I did with help from Goo Gone, a wire brush, dish detergent, and some sandpaper. Much better already!

Then I primed and painted a pretty purple. I decided instead of washing and reinstalling the straps, I would make a fabric strap that could be easily taken off and washed. It also serves as a small cushion in the back.

It secures with snaps underneath (out of reach from baby fingers)

She loves it! And she enjoys being up on our level at dinner time

Redwood Mountain Wrapup

Ok, so I tried to post this a couple weeks ago, but was having trouble with my blogger app. Apologies for the delay!

This year was my first time as a vender at the Redwood Mountain Faire at Roaring Camp in Felton, and it was such a wonderful experience.




The faire is an amazing event designed to benefit local nonprofits and showcase many local artists and musical talents.

My booth was in the kids section, which was great since my little guy was having a blast there.




I enlisted his help to advertise my shirts :)







These earrings are now available in my shop.




A lady came by on Saturday and wanted to order my custom toddler capes for her granddaughters. She was very happy with the results.




And here's H wearing his green cape, helping me tear down my "winter section" at the end of the faire.




I can't wait to do it again next year!!


Ps- check out my Facebook page, and Like it if you want to get more up-to-the-minute updates.

Baby Backpack

Last summer I made a backpack for my little guy. He loves bright colors and rainbows, and I found this fabulous fabric on the sale table.

I used a pattern from The Green Pepper, their drawstring daypack. I made a couple modifications, and I think it turned out great. Now he's looking much more grown up, and it doesn't look quite so huge on him. He loves his backpack!

And here's a sneak peek of what I'm working on today. Bathing suit time!!

H loves the stars, and got so excited when I showed him the fabric. It's not the standard suit fabric, but it's polyester and should be great.  One of the things I don't like about boys' swim trunks is that they're made out of such stiff fabric and restrict their movement, especially for little guys.

New Shop Inventory

I'm happy to announce several new items in my shop including baby hats, catnip toys, and rainbow heart toddler shirts.

Also this lovely blue baby blanket. I've made a couple so far, and I'm just loving the pattern. One purple blanket was for my niece last year.



Crocheted Baby Blanket - Blue, Navy and White Stripe

Gumby Birthday Plush

Little baby toddler H is 2 years old! And fearless at the playground. Look at him climbing to the top of the caterpillar monkey bars!

 

A neighbor of ours had a Gumby lawn display for Christmas, and H just LOVED it. So I decided for his birthday I would sew him a Gumby doll.

 

I printed out a Gumby, and drew it onto some green fleece. I knew it would be hard to turn him inside out, but I thought it was worth a try.

The face was lots of fun! Pieces of felt and yellow stitching for the eyebrows.

Here he is on the turner tool. Wow, do I love that little tool... best thing ever.

"Nooo, stop!!" Or, the birth of Gumby. At this point I was having a hard time turning the fleece, especially since I decided to put interfacing on it to help stabilize. I called him Gumby Impossible!

I did it! I thought I was going to sew little patches onto the feet, but decided to just gather them up with thread instead.

All done! The mouth turned out a little funky, but H doesn't care.

Birthday Boy! He loves his Gumby. I also made him a cupcake shirt, complete with seed bead sprinkles. His new favorite phrase is "blow candles out!"

Besides the other new favorite, "do it myself!" :)

 

 

 

Brown Fisherman's Sweater

Happy new year!

After knitting a toddler sweater for H, I decided to make one for me. I used his sweater as a guide for gauge, and made adjustments as I went along.

Overall it's not too bad! One of my main goals was to have sleeves that aren't too short, and I definitely got those. I crocheted the edges at the wrist and neckline, and machine knit the ribbing at the lower edge.

I like how my little guy photobombs me as he's having a snack: "whatcha doing, Mom??"



It's so warm, and not too itchy if I have a shirt under it. And there's his sweater, which is a little too big, next to mine. He calls his an "owie sweater" and won't wear it. I'll make one with softer yarn next time :)

My cat Dragon, however, approves.

Koolaid yarn and more knitting adventures

Did you see the orange hat in the last post? That's one of H's favorites right now, and I made it up on my knitting machine.

I can't believe it's been two years since I dyed that wool. I found the post about it here.

I had stated some hand knitting with the orange one, and decided to pull it out for a hat. The knitting machine has it's own table now, which is awesome. I put the stone gargoyles to work holding my yarn in place :)



I managed to make a sweater for our little guy. It's all blocky and such, but I think it's cute, and I learned a lot while making it. Unfortunately it's a little scratchy and he doesn't want to wear it anymore. Good thing it's roomy, and maybe I can convince him to wear it over a long sleeve shirt again sometime.

I got a little creative trying to pin up the weighted hem. See the loopy blue stitches in the first pic? I've since figured out how to clip it correctly. The second pic is stitching the sleeves together, and the last one is before it was blocked and sewn together. It looks pretty silly there.






Soon I'll make myself a sweater, but for now I've been making more hats.



I made these for the lady that watches H when I'm at work- one for one for each of the kids there.



Self striping yarn is so fun, and I love seeing how the colors come out!

Toddler Rain Jacket

I've been looking for a rain jacket for H. We're in the middle of the biggest storm in many many months. See, the last time we had any kind of rain, (sprinkling for a day and a half) I made him a lovely little flannel-lined laminated cotton jacket. I stayed up late finishing it, but I should have checked the weather report - no more rain!

Fast forward to now, and of course it doesn't fit anymore! D'oh. I knew I didn't want a repeat, but he needed something to put over his clothes for puddle stomping.

I found this adult vinyl slicker at the thrift store for $2. It has a logo of something sporty, which got mostly cut off (you can see it under his left arm in the lower right "after" pic.)

We tested it out as-is and it was quite hilarious. The hem touched the ground and he got his boot stuck in the elastic.



Here are the steps I took to reconstruct it, and it went pretty fast as it's a pattern and shape I've sewn before. I knew it wasn't going to be 100% waterproof, but I kept the hood intact, and the back is one piece, so it should do a pretty good job.

First I cut the elastic hem off so I could see the shape. Then I cut the hood off and estimated the height (removed pull cord.) I measured his arms and I was going to use the original gathered cuffs, but decided to re-sew them without elastic, so I traced a pattern piece and made them a bit roomier. The goal was to have it go over clothes, including a warm jacket if needed. Then I cut the front, including removing the zipper and the front pouch. I traced the arm holes from a pattern, and sewed it all up with a long stitch.

Someday I'll make him a nicer one that's lined and waterproof, but this is pretty good for a quick project.



We also got our Christmas tree this last weekend, and H got to help pick it out.



And he enjoyed the spiced cider.

Craft Faire and Knitting Machine

I did it! I brought my shop In The Redwoods to a craft faire for the first time.


The first day was POURING rain, and some of the vendors opted to stay home. It was cold, but I was working on a red scarf, so I wore it to keep warm while I crocheted the edges.

One of my most popular items was the neck cozies, and a lady bought one for her dog. Isn't it cute?? All in all, it was a good experience, and I'm excited to do more, and to get more things loaded to my etsy shop.

Then I got myself a tool that I've been wanting off and on for many years. A knitting machine!


I read a bunch of reviews, good and bad, and decided to start with low expectations. I probably wouldn't get it to work smoothly right away, right? Well, I've been taking my time getting to know the basics, and other than a couple hiccups, I LOVE it.

After the sample piece I made this red hat for H. It's a little big, and he likes to pull it over his face and thinks it's hilarious. He's such a ham.


Then I made a wool blend lap blanket for the car (on the machine at top.) It's a little smaller than I expected, but works great for a toddler. He loves it :) I crocheted a border around the edge. It's about 18-19 inches, and just one skein of yarn.


This is my experiment with stripes. He was too hyper and wouldn't stand still for a picture :)


I've also made a black wool beanie that was an attempt at adult size, which H has taken possession of, and then I tried some sock yarn with the smallest plate (smallest stitches.)


Unfortunately my attempts to put heavy weight yarn in haven't been as successful, but thankfully it's the smaller yarn that is harder for me to knit or crochet by hand.

Not too bad for three evenings and a morning of knitting. I'm looking at my yarn stash in a whole new light!

Eventually I'll get around to making sweaters with it, maybe.

Hello, Fall!

Apparently there's some debate as to whether today or yesterday was the first day of fall. Either way, the season of pumpkins, spices, and Halloween is definitely here now!

 

I made these lovely little flowers from coffee filters. They were so fun to make! I had some brown basket-style filters just sitting around because I use the cone style filters now

I used Kool-Aid to dye the filters. Mostly strawberry flavor, with some petals in black cherry. It was very easy, I just soaked them in cold water and Kool-Aid mix for about 15 minutes, squeezed them out (wear gloves!) and laid them on paper towels to dry. Whenever I play with Kool-Aid dye, I like to use Knitty's handy post as a color guide. I knew the brown paper wouldn't turn out exactly the same, but it helped to have a guide anyway. And the stems are dried grape vines from our property.

For putting the flowers together, I found this great video tutorial at Two Shades of Pink. Instead of masking tape, I used scotch tape (closest thing I could grab,) and in the end I was glad it was clear. I taped them to the twigs. If you look close enough you can see the tape, but it isn't too visible.

Little H really likes the grapes. Every time we walk by he says "pick it!" and wants to go eat them.

 

H's Grandma knit these little socks for him. I love the fall colors! He's pretty excited to wear them, too. Hoping we'll get some cooler weather soon so he can.

Happy fall! Enjoy the pumpkin everything :)

Baby Doll Bottle

My son likes to pretend-feed all his stuffed animals, dolls, and even the trucks and tractors sometimes.

So I made him a play baby bottle. Look at the excitement on his face!



He knew what it was for immediately, even when I was only halfway done with it.



Of course he has to 'taste' it himself, too.

Baby booties

I wanted some warm slippers or boots for baby H, so I crocheted some. I didn't have a pattern, but I used the soles of some other shoes for a size guideline.

They're perfect for playing on the deck when it's a little chilly. Of course when I tried them on him this morning, he pointed outside and said "door!" So we put a jacket on over the jammies and took them for a test drive :)


Nice and cozy!


Hoodie time, because it's about 40 degrees. I made that jacket too, just converted a pattern with a zippered jacket into a pullover.


I used fabric paint for the grips, and ran them across every couple rows. Now that he's been wearing them a bit, they're sinking into the stitches, so next I'll try running another set of lines going up and down. Overall I'd call them a success!