Gratitudes

Yesterday I stopped at my favorite local coffee shop for tea and a scone. I've decided to stop going to coffee shops unless I bring my own travel mug. How many people each day get coffee and throw away that paper cup? And cardboard sleeve? And plastic lid? All of which is recyclable, but we toss them anyway? And how many travel mugs do we have sitting in our cupboards? So it's a new rule I'm going to hold myself to, at least as much as possible. Anyway, use your own cup at Starbucks and they'll give you a $0.10 discount. That's pretty cool, but $0.10 won't make a huge dent in my tea-and-a-scone outings. But yesterday, at my favorite local coffee shop, somehow the bill was noticeably smaller. I asked the cool person behind the counter what the story was, and she said the discount for bringing my own mug was a dollar. A dollar! Now that's some serious incentive right there. Obviously those paper cups probably cost more like $0.10 than $1, but I love that they're making it worth my while to create less needless trash. And then, the tea. Blueberry rooibos. My car smelled of blueberry muffins all the way to my teaching gig. Even one of my fourth graders asked about it during his lesson. Yum.



Next up, my red wool tights. Tights make my inner 4-year old really happy. They're the perfect partner to my beloved boot collection, especially during Boston winters. Wool is an added bonus. Red wool puts them over the top. These were found during my last shopping trip to Northampton, MA with Fred. They're great with the perfect black boots he got me for Christmas. And yesterday they went from fashion to function when I woke up to 11 degree weather! Happy that.



And finally, I'm making progress on my sister's wedding invitations. I might be a complete gocco novice, but I love this thing. Mass production is so gratifying in the crafting world of tiny, individual stitches and piece by piece construction. They might be simple, but I think they're going to look slick!

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Fred had pink eye and a cold last week, so naturally I have pink eye and a cold this week. I thought I would get by with just the cold, but my eye was swollen and pink and gross when I woke up this morning. It's not cute. My day has been full of tissues and eye medicine and cold medicine and tea. But look, I managed to make something in between sniffles!



I got a slick new flash recorder in the mail the other day, and decided it needed a decent bag. Given my propensity for dropping things (really, I am an amazing klutz), the flimsy pouch it came with wasn't going to cut it.



This pretty canvas fabric came from Jo-Ann's, of all places. I put on a zipper, stuffed it with batting, lined it, stitched the seams with basting tape, and it's good to go!



Next on my list - new pajamas. I need a new favorite pair to replace that old favorite pair that died. Bumming around in your pajamas all day makes it hard to hide how ratty the PJ stash has gotten. This fabric came from my last trip to Boston's best fabric store. Fresh out of the wash and ready to be cut, I'll have new PJ's by bedtime.



Alright, I'm off to go clean out my eyes and blow my nose again. Hey, it could be worse. Fred popped a blood vessel with his pink eye last week, and the whole eye was completely red for a few days. Yeah, talk about not cute. Stay well, everyone!

Gocco

I got one. I couldn't stop myself, I just had to. I've been mulling on the idea for a while, absolutely loving all the gocco projects out there, but I couldn't convince myself I needed one. Really, I don't need any more stuff. How could I justify spending nearly $200 on this thing? I send out cards once a year if I'm lucky, right? Until I finally realized that I already had the perfect excuse reason to get one. I promised my favorite sister a while back that I would make her wedding invitations. My plan, a la these kits, was to print them from my computer, cut the paper down to size, paste on individual backings, repeat the process for each insert.... wait a minute. Duh. I need a gocco!!



And now I'm in love. It wasn't love at first sight, unfortunately, and I'm glad we had those first spats on something other than my sister's invitations. No, that bit of trial and error came in the form of a hand drawn (yes, I drew something by hand, I was surprised too) valentine. The end product isn't the greatest, but it was a worthwhile learning experience. Like I've said, our families have a sense of humor, which is great since they'll all be receiving said valentine in the mail in the next few weeks. Naturally, these are in lieu of Christmas cards, which didn't make it out at all this year. More details to follow, and in the meantime, don't laugh at my poor drawing!

Again

I feel like I keep showing you these.



And it's not like I don't do anything else around here! But I seem to be cranking them out. She's the sixth one I've made, and this one's number 7.



We're off to visit my sister for a couple days, and she ordered this trio for nephews and her boss's new son.



But 7 elephants! I'm kind of proud of myself. I keep on tweaking the pattern and the process, trying to get it just right. Somewhere in the back of my head I have this daydream that I'll make a bunch and list them on Etsy. Fred and I were talking about that last night. It's not the idea of selling the elephants that has my interest, per se, although that certainly would be a perk. It's more that I'd like to share them with the world. Really, I'm quite enamored with these little guys! And I'm so pleased that the people I've made them for like them as well. Isn't it worth spreading the love? I had no idea three months ago that this would go anywhere!



So that's life in my neck of the woods! Baxter is a monster, as always. The light box I made for photographing elephants is still, indeed, a box, and I can't keep him out of it. Sammich, who is unfortunately afraid of my digital camera, slept through this photo shoot yesterday afternoon. And I leave you with a shot of my amaryllis. I swear it opens a little more every time I walk past it! Those flowers will be like dinner plates when we get back to it. Hmm, maybe next week I'll take a picture every couple of hours so we can see the time lapse. Till then, have a good long weekend!

Colors

Because everyone's doing it...

Lap Blankets

I can finally show you my biggest Christmas gifting project! (Note - that means the last recipient only just got theirs today, but that's besides the point.) You got a sneak peak earlier. I actually made two of these, one for my Dad and my step-mom, and one for my aunt and uncle.



First, major credit goes to brooklyntweed for coming up with this pattern. Please stop reading this now and go look at his blog. He makes the most amazing, jaw-dropping stuff. Really, go, you can come right back.



It's actually a doily pattern, knitted in the round, but when done in bulky yarn it turns out blanket-sized. Brilliant, seriously.



And shall we discuss blocking? These guys are between 4 and 5 feet across, and needed a decent stretching to allow the lace to open up. Enter homasote. Homasote boards are these giant slabs of recycled paper used for ceiling tiles and soundproofing. I had to get the nice Home Depot guys to cut the board into thirds so it could fit in my car. Upholster with a bit of muslin, arrange on the floor, and they're ideal for sticking pins into. They also hide nicely behind a door when not in use. And so much cheaper than commercial blocking boards!



The yarn for the brown one came from KnitPicks. This was my first time ordering yarn online, an idea I was wary of at first. Now I'm no expert, but they certainly have my seal of approval. Except that they called this color "taupe." That was clearly an oversight on someone's part, and I have since renamed it "latte."



Maybe next fall I'll break down and make one for myself. I love the idea of something afghan-y to curl up with on the couch. Or maybe my quilt will do the trick, when I get there. And the list of projects grows longer!

Commission

I'd like to announce my very first commission! (Thanks Dad!)