Surprise Project Update

Do you remember this minkie fabric that I picked up while I was in Australia?  I crafted it into something last night.  It was AONW.  Sorry, you only get partial pics at this point because it turned into a gift for a someone and I don't want to ruin the surprise.  I had to post something so that you don't think that I'm totally slacking off with respect to my crafting!  

I will be away for a few days.  I'm off to climb Mount St. Helens and then to tour Portland, OR with the Crafting Widower and my parents. 

AONW - Tooth fairy doll

Another one night wonder (AONW).  It's been so long.  

I stopped by Chapters/Indigo books with the Crafting Widower last night.  Once we got in, I made a beeline for the knitting/craft section.  Good news.  I found some inspiration.  Enough to get me to haul out my sewing machine, start and complete a project in a couple of hours.  

I decided to give the tooth fairy doll a another try.  

Well, here she is:

She's still nameless.

Do you remember my first attempt with "Scary Glenda"?  

Does she need some wings?  

My First Harvest

Check out my first radish harvest!!!  I am sooo excited!  

And they taste yummy too!

Stitched Gift Tags

And here are a couple of my stitched gift tags!

Easy, fun & a great way to use some crafting supplies!  

Crafty Memories

I found some crafty inspiration today - some cute gift tags on Sublime Stitching’s blog.  I will try to make some of these this week.  I haven’t really done much embroidery in my crafting life… well, I can think of one very memorable embroidery project…

My mum and auntie’s were always very good at thinking of fun crafts for us to make.  Clearly this was a favourite activity for me to do, because I can still remember some of the crafts that we spent hours creating together. 

I remember one summer mum killed two birds with one crafting stone.  A fun summer crafting project, which turned into a Christmas gifts for our grandmas.  Mum is so clever!  What was it? Hand embroidered tea towels.    I’m not sure how this project came about.  Perhaps mum had visions of her children embroidering tea towels with love and that these tea towels would be cherished by our grandmother’s, or perhaps it was to teach us an important lesson about investing time and energy into making a handmade gift for someone special, or … more than likely…it was to keep us out of trouble for a little while, because how much trouble can three girls get into with some tea towels, embroidery floss and needles? I’m pretty sure that we embroidered 2 towels each. 

I remember struggling along, trying to follow the cross stitch pattern.  My stitching wasn’t very good.  

I think I churned out the first one pretty quickly and then mum likely had to hound me to finish the other (I hate to admit).  But, we finally finished and they were sent off to our Grandmas for Christmas.  I have no idea how old I was.  Maybe 8?        

Imagine my surprise when a little while ago, my Grandma W. re-gifted one of these tea towels back to me.  I wonder if she ever used it, because it seems like it's in pretty good shape.  Maybe she decided that it was too nice to use?  Well, I'm happy to report that it is now in circulation at my house!

Gardening Update: My garden grows

Check out the progress!

Back row pots: swiss chard, little marvel peas, and my fabulous Early Girl tomato plant.

Front row pot: Arugula & lettuce just started.  The first batch failed.

Topsy turvy: celebrity tomato - it seems to be doing well.  

And here are my radishes in the topsy turvy!

And finally, my beans and a few of my herbs.  The basil is looking a little sad...that one might have to be replanted.  

Crafty Coworkers

It was cake day at the office yesterday to celebrate June birthdays.  

Check out the crafty cupcakes that my coworker made (we take turns making cakes for the celebrations).  

They are so adorable!

Day 2: AM Crafting

A confession.  My alarm went off this morning and instead of immediately leaping out of bed to start crafting, I hit snooze.  The guilt started to set it.  I didn’t want to fail on my second crafting morning.  So, I dragged my butt out of bed and was into the shower before the alarm went off again.  I managed to get in about 20 mins of knitting in before going off to work.  Better than nothing.  

How to fit more crafting in?

We had the loveliest weekend – sun in Vancouver…what a shocker!  This is a problem for me, because I think that crafting is more conducive to bad weather.  

I’ve got to try to find a way to get more crafting in because this blog is really going to suffer if I don’t!    I’ve decided to try to dedicate a ½ hour to crafting first thing in the morning, before I walk to work.  

Day 1: morning crafting

I will admit that it was quite lovely to sit, listen to CBC radio, enjoy my breakfast, and do a little knitting.  Especially on a cold and rainy North Vancouver morning.  Progress was limited.  I unknit 2 rows, and knit 3, but at least I’m moving in the right direction. 

Admissions from a delinquent crafter…

I’ve been very delinquent in my crafting posts (my crafty sis has been on holidays for 2 weeks and just gave me a kick in the butt). 

I’ve hardly done any crafting in the past few weeks, with the exception of a little bit of knitting on my secret knitting project.  I don’t have the results to show though, since I had to rip out about 3+ hours of knitting the other day once I noticed a mistake that was done 3+ hours before.  I don’t think I will ever learn.  

I am really bad about not checking my knitting regularly.  This is how it goes.  I knit happily along and sometimes I try to multi task (e.g. knit while I’m watching a movie) and then every once in a while I’ll spread out my knitting and see if I can spot a mistake.  Inevitably I do and it’s usually several inches down in my work.  G-r-r-r-r!  (Grandma Elsie used to make the cutest G-r-r-r-r sound, rolling her r’s, when she was frustrated about something.  I’m pretty sure she’d use a G-r-r-r-r sound for a knitting mistake.)  At this point, I rip down my knitting to fix the mistake.     

So, progress is slow.  Here’s a cryptic photo of my secret knitting project.  

I’m not showing too much because the project still has to be a secret.  And it’ll probably be a secret for a few more weeks at the rate that I’m knitting.  I’ve got to find ways to fit more knitting in. 

Upholstery: Making progress

Slow but steady...

It's not totally finished.  I still have some stapling to do on the underside of the seat cushion.  Only 2 more backs and 2 more seats to go!