WIP Wednesday...Folksy Flannels Frenzy

We're joining in on the fun....

Anna Maria Horner's Folksy Flannels collection arrived on our doorstep earlier this week, and Aurora and I are in love. This is some seriously beautiful fabric... and so, so soft!
These bundles are destined to be quilts for Aurora and Liam... with Aurora designing her own. I plan to give her the precut squares and let her decide their placement... we are both excited for this new adventure into sewing. For Liam's I'll be using the cool colors bundle and, because there's quite a bit of floral motifs, probably be sticking to a fairly modern and simple quilt design... some sort of strip quilt, I think... so it's not too, too feminine.

Aurora let out a loud gasp of awe when I opened up the package and she saw all the beautiful fabric. She asked for her picture to be take with 'her' fabric. Here she is showing it some love...
And, here, she's making sure to keep it warm with her blanket. Fabric must be kept warm, you know...
The fat quarters spent the rest of the day popping up in various play scenarios.... going to the fabric store, doing laundry, repurposed as blankets and slings for her animals, and worn as (in Aurora's words) a kerchief.

As excited as Aurora is about the quilt making, I'm a bit nervous. Either my sewing machine's not very good or I don't know how to use it properly... or, more than likely, a bit of both. But, the fabric is so inspiring, as is Aurora's enthusiasm, that I'm sure that even if it's not perfect it will be just right.

Let's see if I can remember that in a couple weeks when I'm tired, frustrated and cursing at my machine because it won't do what I want it to ;)

Oh, and there's a flickr group with some gorgeous stuff if anybody's got some time to kill (or it's 4:12 am and you're up nursing your baby, as I currently am).

WIP Wednesday and Martinmas

Happy Martinmas everyone! This is the first year we will be celebrating.... Aurora and I will be making a lantern this afternoon (she is very excited about this) and then joining some special friends for a twilight Lantern walk. I'll make sure to share the pics tomorrow.

I'll be sharing some of the stories/poems with her and following the lantern tutorial found over at Our Little Nature Nest.

Yesterday, Rory and I went to Ikea after preschool for lunch and to pick up a package of tealights for our lantern making. You should have seen my little shopper- she took the task of picking out the perfect candle very seriously and carefully sniffed each and every candle Ikea sells. It took quite a while, but she finally decided on some berry scented tea lights. Since she is so very excited about the candles, I think we will also make a table lantern of a glass jar with tissue paper glued on to have on our dining table.

And.... the incessant knitting continues (hmm... could I be nesting?!)

I've got a sweet little baby gift on the needles now for a little guy who should be making his appearance any day now (not mine!).... but since his parents occasionally check this blog--- no pics right now....

But Aurora's sweater shirt vest thing is done- and she loves it!

Halloween and Knitting

Halloween first... not too many pictures here...it's surprisingly (or maybe not so) difficult to get a three year old to stay in one place long enough for pics on Halloween. But, I did get one of her helping to carve the pumpkin:


And one with Maddie next to the jack-o-lantern just as they were about to set off trick-or-treating. Aurora was Minnie Mouse and Maddie was a beautiful princess. Rory, as you can see, was more interested in trying to rip open some candy than look at the camera.... oh, well.

And, now knitting.... I finished two hats for the babe... both with the pattern from Rory's hat... I love this pattern, it offers such great coverage around the ears and back of neck. This one was done in Malabrigo Merino in Continental and was left over from a hat I made for myself, but have yet to photograph....
and this one was done with NaturallyCaron Spa, one strand each of Ocean Spray and Green Sheen held double. The yarn is an acrylic/bamboo blend, mostly acrylic though. I don't usually like to knit with that much plastic content, but the yarn was there in my stash, pretty, soft and my fingers were needing something to knit... I made this one without the loop on the top, to see how'd it look.... I prefer the loop, I think
All this knitting for the baby has finally got Aurora interested in me knitting for her- This is my current WIP- the Girl's Cap Sleeved Shirt which is also being knit in the same bamboo yarn as above, should be easy to wash at least. I've finished more since the pic, but probably still have a good 2-3 inches to go before it's done.

~Sorry about the horrible picture... Rory's not even all in the frame- but at least she's smiling for once~

Late Night WIP Wednesday Update...

It's all done!

WIP Wednesday

It's getting there. We were headed down to the shore last weekend (that post next :)), So i cast on while in the car... and before bed that night I had gotten this far:
Then I tried it on Rory.... TOO SMALL!!!!! argh! Just barely too. I had made up a swatch... adjusted my needle size, made up another and was ready to go making the size medium to fit 1-4 yrs. I kinda forgot that Rory's always been in like the 90th %tile for head circumference. Plus, I think in the actual hat, my knitting was a little tighter than in my swatch.

So, that hat was sadly ripped out, and I'm about 60% done with the second hat, a size large to supposedly fit ages 5- young adult. Hopefully it's not too big....

But I love the way the colors in her yarn are knitting up! She's quite the little dyer, isn't she?

WIP Wednesday....on Thursday

I love looking at everybody's WIP Wednesday (WIP= work in progress), they're always so inspirational and I have gotten so many great ideas from them. However, Wednesday is not a preschool day for Aurora, and I seem to be posting primarily on the days she does have school (hmmm, wonder why?). So, while I will strive to have the actual posts on Wednesdays, I anticipate that this won't be the last WIP Thursday ;)

We've gotten a start on Aurora's winter hat. She picked out the Fae Folk Hat pattern, which I think is so cute, and Tuesday we went to our local yarn store after preschool to pick out yarn. Being my Libra girl, she went straight to the higher end yarns. She really liked a particular color way of Noro Silk Garden Lite... and as I've been looking for an excuse to give Noro a try, said yes.

But.... this yarn is so darn thick and thin! I mean really thick and thin. It's a DK weight yarn, but parts of it were more like an chunky while others were more of a lace weight. I've seen hats done in Noro, but I could tell I was going to struggle with it, and I was worried it wouldn't be warm enough with all those thin spots....

So, the Noro is now being knit up into a lacy scarf for me, which I think its much better suited for.



And, Aurora and I got started Kool-Aid rainbow dyeing some plain white wool worsted for her hat. She had a blast!! I can't wait to see how it knits up and she is so proud. Frontier Dreams has a great kool-aid dyeing tutorial for anybody who looking for one.




And, just for fun, here's the first of the baby knits. A sleep sack in the Sheepy Sack pattern knit with Marlabrigo merino yarn.... so soft and yummy.