Gloves from self striping sock yarn

Hooray! I finally finished a pair of gloves with ample pinky room space. I always mess up the little guy, but this time it was a success! A student of mine requested I make him a pair of gloves this summer and I had this yarn laying around from a Joanne's mark down (97 cents a skein). It only took one, so I can make another set like this. I think one of my brothers might like them.

Packages and a Simple Gift

These are all the packages to send out today. A summer's worth of work! I cannot sew at all, but I needed to sew up a gift. I found this great tutorial and used some canvas I had purchased when a Joanne's near my house was going out of business. I love this fabric and was going to make curtains for my brother Andrew (don't worry Andrew, I still have enough for curtains)!

Trying to Feel at Home

Living in Southern California has been really hard for me. It has been a way more difficult transition than I thought it would be. I grew up here and lived here until I was twenty-five so you'd think I'd be at home with all the driving, fast-food restaurants and sunny mild weather. One would think...but this summer off I've been trying to make the best of it. We've visited Idyllwild and Sequoia, spent a lot of time with family and been to the beach a couple times. The girls really like seeing people and getting to take long evening walks nearly every night.

So we have a little hands-off garden in the front and two tomato bushes in the back and a lemon tree. For the girls birthday I canned lemon curd to feel a little more connected with our land base. This week I oven-dried (we axed the dehydrator when we moved down) and canned some strawberry jam from the strawberries that are grown about two miles from our home. It felt nice, a little more like home and hopefully I will remember to engage in more activities like this while we are here.

My fall hands-off garden will include potatoes, garlic, and greens. They are easy and like the cool. I will still have my glorious broccoli plants (shrubs now) and resilient chard!!

Birthday Gifts

These are two aprons I made for two adorable little ladies that are having birthdays. Packaging them was a blast. The aprons were so simple and I followed a couple tutorials online on making ruffles and the rest just sort of came together.

Enjoy!

Room Improvements and a Great Trip

Upon returning from California and having a great time, Justin decided that Lily and Lila's room needed more. He took it upon himself to frame this 'love'ly Lewis Carroll poem that Gayle made for the girls and built a beautiful mobile. He also mounted birds in the trees and throughout the room, as well as butterflies, bees and ladybugs. The tree is much fuller and looks wonderful. He bought a new overhead light fixture and just really tied the room together.

This final picture is the cake from my baby shower in California. It's amazing! It looked wonderful and tasted great. Everything was really the best AND I got my baby shower punch!!

The Sweater that took Forever!

So Justin had work today and I was completely off schedule, I talked with my Dad on the phone and missed church. I also got compulsive and FINALLY finished this sweater. I bought the yarn before I knew I was having girls and I thought it was pretty gender neutral. It's aqua with a lime trim. I hated it for many months.
Today, I love it. I still have to do the blocking, but I wanted to post pictures since drying knit wear in the winter in Olympia can take a long time. Everything is damp!

I added the hearts on impulse and decided to use red buttons. I like the contrast, but we'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Christmas Holly

I made these knitted Holly Pins for my BSF co-leaders using the free pattern on a blog titled Little Cotton Rabbits. I've linked to it before and I absolutely love the site. The pin backs are a little fiddly so getting them sewn together and on the card stock was rough. However, these were a lot of fun and I think they came out looking nice.

All packaged up and ready to go!