Baaah-rrettes

Being totally oblivious to the contents of the Girl's wardrobe, I panicked and thought she had no green to wear for Saint Patrick's Day.  So being a supremely lazy overachiever (that should be one of the types on the Myers-Briggs test, don't you think?), I decided to finally get around to making the lovely felt barrettes I saw on the purlbee and adapt them for St. Patty's day.

Here is where the lazy comes in: 

I did not trace and cut clovers from gorgeous wool felt - I bought a bag of 300 craft foam shamrocks on sale at the craft store for $1.79.  

I did not lovingly hand stitch the pieces together with silk embroidery threads and an ivory needle - I used white glue.  I didn't even use a sharp scissors to cut the slit in the bottom piece of the decorative appliqué - I just jammed the end of the hair clip through the craft foam.

And then I took really badly lit photos with my phone using a plastic bag as a backdrop to reinforce the low-rent, down-market techniques used in this project.

So I opened the girls drawer today and pulled out her blue and GREEN striped shirt.  And then I stuck the small hair clip on her two strands of hair and called it St. Patrick's Day! Oiy (said like I am a fan of the Drop Kick Murphys not like I learned how to say it in Yiddish from my grandma - hey, everyone is "Irish" today so don't judge me)!

 Oh - and Rancor says, "Happy Spring!" courtesy of the Boy for pulling the ONLY living flower out of the bed in our front yard!). Sláinte!

The Future

Somehow I think I will deal with my children in a similar fashion:



Source: http://parentsshouldnttext.com

Something Comforting

Through a link in a thread on a networking site*, I came across a tumblr (is that the right way to reference something on tumblr? Does one even say, "On tumblr?" I have no idea.  I am a tumblr Luddite.) called "hippy kitchens."  It is generally pretty cool but this particular image:



I found to be really striking.  I instantly thought of Vermeer.  It was a refreshing way to start the day.

See more cool photos of hippies and kitchens here: http://hippykitchen.tumblr.com

*This is the new, "The girl friend of the best friend of the nephew of my hairdresser's cousin . . . "


And sorry for that book thing - I clicked something and I can't figure out how to make it go away . . . ah.  

I Want To Wear A Starbucks Gift Bag

I saw this gift bag at Starbucks before the holidays and I fell in love it the buttons.  My photo there isn't very good quality so you will have to take my word on it - the buttons are pretty cool.

As the winter progressed, I was working on a sweet little short-sleeved, swingy cardigan for the Girl.  It is yellow with red buttons (see crap photo below):

I started thinking it would be sweet to make it in red with yellow button for me (even though I will have to do some math since this pattern is for kids only and, if you have read any of my posts about the Urban Aran, you know that isn't my strong suit . . . ).  Then, I couldn't stop thinking about the buttons from the Starbucks gift bags.  But no way was I going to spend that much on buttons.  From a gift bag.

Flash forward to after the holidays, sale area of Starbucks.  Giant stack of gift bags - 50% off.  I buy three.  Now I have my buttons.  I have the yarn too.  But now I want to incorporate the green from the gift bag into the design somehow.  I even have yarn that is the right color . . . this is getting crazy.  I want a sweater that looks like a holiday gift bag from a coffee shop.

I should be casting on this weekend - for real (not like the Urban Aran pipe dream/mistake).  So we shall see how it works out!

Gabba Hats!

Here's looking at you . . . 

I'm sure my readership (hardee, har, har, har) has been waiting for this post with bated breath . . . ere are some photos of the hats I made for the family to go to Yo Gabba Gabba Live! back in August of 2010.

Inside the creative process.

 Plex with fabric paint on felt for eyes.  This ended up looking awful so I re-did them in all felt and it looked AWESOME! (you have to say that in DJ Lance's voice, of course).  This was a $0.39 cent bucket hat from the craft store, black & white felt, black pipe cleaners (or chenille craft wire or whatever PC nonsense pipe cleaners are called now - I remember the old white prickly ones my dad had to clean his - wait for it - pipe!  Ah - I digress), and red craft foam.  I did have to reinforce the top of the hat with additional craft foam because it was difficult to get the antenna to stand up without otherwise causing the top of the hat to collapse.  Also, inside the bucket hat is a yellow craft foam visor (like the Foofa, below) so that the hat would fit on my 3 year-old's head and not fall in his eyes.  This hat was a big hit with the Boy and he couldn't wait to show the real Plex at the after-party!

Muno, for the Man, pre-iris.  I figured I could convince him to wear a baseball hat (craft store: $2.99) - and he did!  I traced around a glass onto the red cap and then painted two or three coats of white fabric paint.  I used a quarter to trace a circle for the iris and filled it in with a black permanent marker.  At the post-show VIP party, DJ Lance told the Man that his hat was AWESOME!

Brobee.  Cheap green bucket hat.  Black pipe cleaners.  Red craft foam.  Black marker.  Hot glue gun.  This was my least favorite of the four - poor Brobee looked alot like Oscar the Grouch with Wile E.Coyote type bumps on his head.  I would have liked to have done a happy mouth on the brim in the down position and a frown-y mouth for a flipped up brim but time was not on my side.

Nurse Foofa.  This ended up being my favorite.  White and pink craft foam visors.  Black craft foam.  White self-adhesive craft foam.  Yellow craft foam.  Figuring out how to form the flower so it looked like Foofa without covering the pink visor was the toughest part.  The eyelashes were a bit tedious to glue on as well.  I think I did a good job.  More than one person asked to buy this off my 8 month-old's head.

Brobee and Muno completed (and my messy kitchen in the background).

Plex and Foofa complete.

Greetings and Ribbit

I don't have much to say.  I haven't been to into blogging lately.  I have been very into knitting , thinking about knitting, and looking at knitting related things on ravelry!

I am overwhelming myself with knitting projects and ideas (as usual) and my brain is so swimming with thoughts and ideas that I have been making tons of mistakes - from gauge being waaay off on multiple projects, to just plain old sloppiness and missing stitches, etc. on very simple patterns.

Must focus.  FOCUS.

Hey - right here - look here - FOCUS.

Better.

Oh - and happy new year!

Photo credit: Blog*Bittersweet*Blog