Green Tea Knitted Washcloths

I finished my knitted leaves! I was able to get four leaves out of one skein of Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Cotton. These are just so cool! Super soft and a perfect pairing with my boys' handmade soaps.

These are lovely washcloths, but it occurred to me that, if made a little smaller, they would make excellent coasters. We drink quite a bit of tea around here with out current fav being jasmine green tea. These knitted leaves would make awesome coasters for green tea served in delicate celadon cups.

Think I'll go put the kettle on and make a cup now :)

Charcoal Insanely Easy Cable Scarf

You may remember I was working on new winter scarves for my boys. I finally finished the second scarf. It turned out just beautifully in the darker charcoal color!

And here is one of me modeling it. You can see how large the cables are and how warm and fluffy it is! (Please forgive the blurriness .. it's hard to hold the camera still at arm's length to take a picture of yourself!)

As usual, you can find all the knitty details at my Ravelry page.

Scarf Pattern for Boys

Like all avid new knitters, I started with scarves. Lots and lots and lots of scarves. Very satisfying to knit back and forth on large needles with fun yarn and watch them grow and grow and look awesome!

Of course, I made my darling little boys scarves. Kids are such a joy to knit for!! And I made them matching hats on a Knifty Knitter circular loom since I didn't know how to knit in the round. But my eldest is now heading to middle school (how fast they grow!) and wanted a more "grown up" scarf. I was thrilled to find this masculine, but still fun pattern at one of my favorite knitting stores, Knitting Bee.

Knit on big needles it reminds me of those beginner scarf days. Easy pattern, grows quickly, and looks great with little effort. It does have cables, but they are insanely easy. Which is why I called this the "Insanely Easy Cable Scarf" on my Ravelry Page. I promise, even if have never done cables before, you can make this! You can find all the knitty details and a link to the pattern on my Ravelry page.

This is scarf #1, made in a lovely shale color, and I'll be making scarf#2 for my second son in charcoal. They both *love* the design .. more grown up but not boring. There is even a matching hat pattern available!


**Note: I have had an awful lot of queries about this scarf pattern. It is not my pattern. It is a pattern from Knitting Bee.

More World of Warcraft Knitting

My son's handwarmers turned out so fabulously, I made a pair for myself too.

I just adore the color shifting in this yarn. Every pair is unique. These are made in the "Violets" colorway of Lion Brand's "Amazing". Reminds me of Noro, but more affordable.

World of Warcraft Handwarmers

Yes, my son has joined the 10+ million people in the world who play World of Warcraft. If you don't know what that is, it's a massive multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. A huge shared world environment you adventure in with your avatar.

To keep my son's hands warm this winter while he plays online, I made him this cool pair of handwarmers. His fingers are free to keyboard, but his hands stay toasty! I love the color shifting in this yarn. The yarn is half wool and half acrylic so the finished handwarmers are both warm and washer friendly. My Ravely page for the handwarmers with all the knitty details is here.

Happy Teacher Washcloths & Soap

My little munchkins discovered my old soap making supplies and decided they wanted to make handcrafted soap for their end-of-year teacher thank you gifts. So the kitchen transformed into Soap Central and we had a glorious day making soap together!

They had been Mommy's soap helpers when they were much younger. Now that they were older, they were able to do almost all the steps themselves from designing and mixing, to choosing additives, pouring and unmolding. They came up with the most awesome soaps! They made:

1) chocolate expresso soap (with real chocolate!!)
2) pink plumeria flower soap
3) ginger-lime nebula soap
4) rise and shine calendula flower soap
5) green tea relaxing soap
6) french lavender soap

They worked so hard making soap, I decided to crochet some custom 100% cotton washcloths to go with them. I did two for each teacher, some with crab stitch edging and some with a more delicate, feminine, ruffled edging.

I love this shot of the washcloths. It's so hard to make washcloths look interesting in photos, but I love how they look here. Like colorful cakes with white frosting.

This yarn was multi-colored and the patterns the colors made as work progressed were very interesting! Like abstract works of art.

Mom helped wrap everything up and off the gift bags went to school. My boys were very proud of their creations and thought that making soap for their beloved teachers was a most special gift! I hope their teachers enjoy these gifts made with love!

Pittock Mansion: Visiting Local History

High above the hills of Portland, Oregon is the Pittock Mansion, an early 1900's French Renaissance-style mansion that has been restored and opened to the public. My parents recently came for a visit and we all went and toured this fabulous piece of history. Our children were fascinated by all the old-fashioned technology. A great time was had by all!!

The mansion was completed in 1914, complete with progressive features of the time, including a central vacuum system and intercoms. The Pittocks hired Oregon craftsmen and artisans, and used Northwest materials to build the house. The final estate included the mansion, a three-car garage, a greenhouse, and a gate lodge servants’ residence, all situated on 46 acres of woodland and garden 1,000 feet above bustling downtown Portland.

An old fashioned intercom installed in the wall.

This is a crocheted bedspread. What an amazing creation! Can you imagine all the hours to handcrochet this out of crochet thread? Truly an heirloom piece.

They were having a special exhibit on beaded purses while we were there. Gorgeous collection of more than 50 well-preserved purses beaded and mesh purses (two of which were owned by Pittock family members) from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This type of elaborately decorated purse peaked in popularity between 1900 and 1930 and it was fun to see all the techniques and decorations used in the creation of them. This special exhibit is on display until July 10 if you are in the area.

Cute Animals at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (OFFF)

Last week my family and I went on a mini-adventure .... we travelled to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival! It's a 3 day festival with livestock, food, fleece, yarn, classes, demonstrations .... basically everything related to the animal fiber industry.

We went Sunday morning and it was just *pouring* rain. I felt so bad for all those vendors out there in the rain, with few customers, watching all their merchandise get damp. We didn't stay long because of the bad weather, but still had a great time exploring and looking at everything. The kids *loved* spending time in the barn looking at all the goats, sheep, alpacas and llamas. Just look at this cutie!:

There were so many different breeds of sheep and goats. I got to see Cashmere goats .. where cashmere wool comes from! And then there were these fellows: Look closely, each animal has 4 horns! Two that go up and two that curl down. Really prehistoric looking. I don't remember what they were, but they were definitely interesting.

Garden Goodness!

Look at my lettuce! Wow!! My family and I have really amped up the home veggie gardening this year and this is our first "crop" of the season. What wonderful salads it will make!The kids get such joy every year out of watching and helping the plants grow and then harvesting their goodness. Such a wonderful way to get children involved in healthy eating!

We also are fortunate enough to live in an area where you can order a box of farm-fresh, local organic produce to be delivered to your doorstep. We get ours from Organic to You. We love the mystery of opening the box every week and discovering what wonders lurk inside. It's a great way to get exposed to different things you might not ordinarily cook with.
Here's a pic of the inside of this box. Yum! The upper "greens" part of many vegetables is often still attached and I have to admit, as a city girl, I am often stumped by whether you can eat those leaves in the first place and .... if you can, how do you prepare them. Anyone know some good recipes for carrot top greens??

Timberline Lodge

Yesterday was the grand opening of the Saturday Market I'm a vendor at. And wouldn't you know it? I forgot my camera!! So .. pics will have to wait until next week. It was a bit chilly, but with plenty of sunbreaks it turned out to be a really good opening day. It was so lovely to see and reconnect with fellow vendors and longtime customers, and meet some lovely new people too!

Photos from Wikipedia.

Afterwards, we had to hustle and drive out to the historic Timberline Lodge for a wedding. You may have seen pictures of it - it's the snow-covered building used for the exterior shots in the famous 1980 movie The Shining. I hadn't expected so much snow in May. It was DEEP. And way, WAY up in snow country. The lodge is a historic building created in 1936-1938 as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression. and is just a beautiful work of Art Deco. It's three stories tall, but there is so much snow that the first and second levels are often below the snowline. You could even ski off the roof there's so much snow!

Photos from Wikipedia.

The interior is warm and toasty with giant stone fireplaces and lots of warm wood and forged iron everywhere. It really retains a 1930's atmosphere and you can tell the effort that has gone into preservation and restoration. It was just enchanting to walk around and explore all the wonderful architecture and artistic details. Here's one of the many carved animal posts at the lodge.

Photos from Wikipedia.

We hadn't realized how far away the Lodge was, and we still have young children who need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, so we weren't able to stay at the wedding very long. I can see why it would have been wise to book a room there for the night, but we'll know for our next trip there!

Cute Bento Boxes

Art isn't just something you can wear or decorate your house with...it can also be something you can eat. For the past few weeks I've been following several blogs that showcase the *cutest* bento boxes! Now that both my children are old enough for grade school, I've been dying to make them cute bento boxes to take for lunch! Each lunch is like a tiny miniature work of art ... that you can eat. Just adorable.

Penguin Bento from Hapa Bento.

Purple Bunny with Carrots Bento from Happy Little Bento.

Wanna see more bento boxes? Check out these two blogs I'm just enthralled with: Hapa Bento and Happy Little Bento.

I'm hoping to hit the big Japanese Grocery store about 45 minutes north of me in a week or two to look for some cute little bento boxes. If I do find some, I also plan on ordering this inspirational book....and some metal shape cutters for stamping food out in cute shapes. I'm hoping I can even get my two little guys to try some new foods by making them look like cute little ninjas and creatures!

If you haven't entered the One World One Heart Giveaway yet, there is still time. Just scroll on down to the next post and enter!

Catastrophe!

Free wallpaper from Digital Blasphemy

It was a warm, sunny morning, the sky full of innocent puffy white clouds. I curled up on the couch nursing my Japanese mug full of steaming sencha tea, flipped the power button on my laptop and instead of the usual welcome screen there appeared nothing but wildly moving patterns of lines and abstract blocks of color. Then the words "fatal hardware error" appeared just before .... endless black. Just like that. In a heartbeat, without any warning, my beautiful computer died :(

Well, the old computer proved to be beyond resuscitation. I'm bringing the humble replacement up to speed, but it's taking quite a while (and many hours of reformatting, updating drivers, etc. Yuck!). Thank goodness for cloud computing! Email was restored quickly and Blogger and Etsy were untouched.

While I sit here reformatting this thing, I've been skimming book review blogs looking for fresh reads. I read quite a bit this summer and, on the whole, was really disappointed with the quality of what is being published these days and worse, what poor writing is getting best-seller attention. What books are you looking forward to as being good reads? Or at least different and thought-provoking! :)

Long Summer Days

The days are long and warm and filled with the kind of adventures you can only have during the commitment free summer holiday. (And how lovely to have power and working AC again on these hot days!)Last weekend we went to a Civil War re-enactment (also known as The War Between The States, the War For States Rights or the War of Northern Aggression). In Oregon. It was really interesting and something you definitely don't see too often West of the Mississippi. We timed our trip to see one of the battles. They even had firing cannons...what a lot of smoke and noise those made! The Re-enactors were awesome with the kids getting down and personal with them and teaching them all sorts of things about the Civil War. I felt really badly for the participants that the event wasn't better attended. I think partly because Oregon just isn't steeped in Civil War history like some other states and partly because the signage to get there wasn't very good. The road it gave as an address didn't show up on any of our maps and we drove around for a while until we happened to stumble upon a small festival sign. For more info click here.

I've also spent some of the long afternoons continuing the Great Spring Cleaning that was deferred this Spring for family medical reasons. I've recaulked one whole bathroom, waxed all the floors, sent tons of boxes to charity and .... (drumroll).. made my own lampshade for a poor naked hanging lightbulb! I was inspired by this post on Instructables on how to make your lampshade from an IKEA colander. But I wanted an Asian look so used a $10 Target woven basket. Looks SO COOL!!! And it took about 5 minutes max. :)

Cleaning out my studio, I'm selling off a ton of surplus supplies I unearthed. For example:These shoes are on Etsy. Here is an example of how beautifully they can be altered and customized with these supplies:So you can make some cool French shoes too if you'd like! :)

Don't forget that August 15th is the last day to take advantage of the Bloggie Friend Free Shipping coupon!

How An Average Girl Takes Awesome Firework Photos

Hope everyone had an awesome Fourth of July Holiday Weekend! And if you're not in America, I hope your weekend was excellent too! Our family quickly burned through our fireworks early in the evening and was fortunate enough to get to watch a neighbor's fabulous show later on. What a treat!
Did you know your digital camera might have a specialty selection for taking firework pictures? I was actually trying to set the camera in "night" mode to take a picture of the full moon, but I noticed an arrow at the bottom of the selection screen that said "more?". I pressed it and there were more options, including "behind glass" and "fireworks". Hmm.. newly discovered firework mode, fireworks show right in front of me..... had to try it! And look at the fabulous results!!!!
These fireworks in these photos might look impressive, but I assure you all fireworks used were legal in this state. Tip#1: take pics early on because once the smoke gets too thick, the quality of the photos diminishs. Tip#2: embrace chaos theory .. don't try to capture the perfect shot because everything changes so rapidly, just randomly click and be surprised by how the most oddball of shots can produce the most stunning results.
This is what my kids using sparklers look like! Who says there are no such thing as real magic wands! :)

P.S. my camera is nothing special, a four or five year old basic thing, so if my camera has this mode, chances are good yours does too somewhere!

A Pet's Ten Commandments

My poor baby kitty has to go under anesthesia tomorrow at the veterinarian :( I am so worried about her. She's actually a grand old lady in terms of age, but she will always be my little furry baby.

The vet had this posted in the exam room and I wanted to share it. I thought it was very thoughtful and gentle and well-put.

A Pet's Ten Commandments

1) My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Any seperation from you is likely to be painful.

2) Give me time to understand what you want of me.

3) Place your trust in me. It is crucial for my well-being.

4) Don't be angry with me for long and don't lock me up as punishment. You have your work, your friends, your entertainment, but I have only you.

5) Talk to me. Even if I don't understand your words, I do understand your voice when speaking to me.

6) Be aware that however you treat me, I will never forget it.

7) Before you hit me, before you strike me, remember that I could hurt you, and yet, I choose not to bite you.

8) Before you scold me for being lazy or uncooperative, ask yourself is something might be bothering me. Perhaps I'm not getting the right food, I have been in the sun too long, or my heart might be getting old or weak.

9) Please take care of me when I grow old. You too, will grow old.

10) On the ultimate difficult journey, go with me please. Never say you can't bear to watch. Don't make me face this alone. Everything is easier for me if you are there, because I love you so.

~~Take a moment today to thank God for your pets. Enjoy and take good take of them. Life would be a much duller, less joyful experience without God's critters.

Taking a Spring Break

It's Spring Break here! The kids and I are spending the week having some fabulous adventures! We've been playing games, reading books, and hanging out here:Is this park not fabulous? Look at the tree on the right. It's one of several that has got these weird, twisty roots all above ground. The kids are loving climbing these and imagining their fantastical root structures populated by Tolkienesque goblins and faeries! :)

See you next week when school resumes!

Posh Fingerless Gloves

I think it's finally safe to post the pictures of the handcrafted gifts I gave to my family members this Christmas. I was super late mailing things out, but they should all have their packages by now (even going erroneously to a different continent and back). This year, it was all about the functionality. Useful, you-will-use-them gifts. Everyone got a sweet multi-colored caplet or a pair of durable, washable, crocheted fingerless gloves! For the girls, I used this oh-so-soft pink organic cotton. This stuff was so soft I kept wanting to stoke my cheek with it while working. Each glove is embellished with pearlized, washable buttons. One, because then you always know which glove is for the right hand and which is for the left. Two, because buttons are just so cool being little works of art themselves. Three, because embellishments that make clothing and accessories unwashable/uncleanable are not cool.Yes, that's me modeling a pair of pink ones :) And who is that modeling one of the guy pairs? It's my DH! Who was such a good sport about playing model for the morning.For the guys, it was a rugged grey wool blend. All the warmth of wool, but you can wash them in the machine .. no felting is going to happen to this wool! And buttons here too, but plain, black or grey masculine ones. Don't want them thinking the buttons are too girly :) I've given my family a variety of handcrafted gifts over the years because to me handcrafted gifts are true expressions of love since you customize each gift just for the recipient and then spend many hours of your life meticulously crafting them. Love is crafted into them at every step. But I know some people would rather just receive gift certificates or, and this is especially true for guys, the latest electronics. What do you think?

Also, while I was working on all these pairs of fingerless gloves, I had 6 or 7 people come up to me and ask for the pattern! I do use other people's patterns occasionally, but this was one of my own designs and I was just thrilled to get this ultimate compliment! I've been trying to think of creative ways to add a few more dollars to our income during these oh-so-fun economic times, so what do you think of me starting to sell crochet PDF patterns. Good idea? Bad idea? And then of course ... I have to figure out *how* to make a downloadable PDF pattern. If anyone wants to help me get the ball rolling on this, please contact me .. I would so appreciate it!

Also .. my next blog post won't be for two weeks. I have some custom orders to do ASAP and Quickbooks stuff for taxes (joy!). Until then, feel free to visit some of my archived posts and ....... cheers!!

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Other posts you might enjoy:
Beauty on the Blog Countdown: Day 1 of 3
Who Can Never Remember to Photograph Their Swaps? Me!
Yarn Addiction
Indie Spotlight: Mohop Shoes

New Year Begins with Mopping Up the Old

Although technically the holidays are over .. not for me because of all that snow! I am still baking cookies for the neighbors,crafting little holiday gifts for my blogger friends (not going to show you these since it ruins the surprise), and finishing last minute things for gallery winter deliveries.After being literally snowed in for the 10 days before Christmas, our house looks and feels like a trans-Pacific plane after 16 hours of flight (if you've been on one of those - you know what I mean). So the house needs a really good top to bottom cleaning too. Here's what our car looked like for those 10 days, although the gap between top and bottom did eventually close leaving just a rounded mound. I lived in fear that if the mythical snowplow ever did arrive (which it never did on our street) that they would accidentally run into it:I am SO far behind on everything that I think I'll still be catching up in February! I'm also having to go in for some frightening medical tests and that's putting me even more behind :( For those of you placing orders, it's taking me an extra day or two for processing this month. Thank you so much for your understanding.

I also want to take this moment to say thank you to all my wonderful bloggy friends who did my the honor of sending me gifts! You are all an inspiration and a comfort to me each and every day and I am so happy and proud to be part of this wonderful community! I want to say a special thank you to Natalea, my bibliophile buddy, and Gracie, who makes the most beautiful cards and envelopes. Check out the yummy ones she sent me in this wonderful holiday package:I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and that 2009 is starting off just awesomely for you!!

Snowed In !!!

What a month!! First .. thank you to all who wished my son a speedy recovery. He is all better now and ready for Santa!
Next .. we got hit with a snowstorm the likes of which hasn't been seen in this area for about 40 years. We have been snowed in for 9 days now. I say snowed in because historically we get a few flakes here or there, but never any real snow. Nothing you can stuff a ruler into and be amazed at how deep it is. We don't even own boots, shovels or snow chains. Never been a need. But we haven't lost power and have plenty of food so we are good :) Last night we got 12 more inches of snow and then had freezing rain coat everything in a 1/2" thick glaze of ice. YUCK!! And this morning there are people skiing down the middle of our street!The pics are of my winter blooming camellia -- doesn't it look gorgeous dressed in snow? This was on the first day of snow. It's not looking as pretty now :(School of course has been cancelled for days. So, what have I been doing? Making ninja cities with my two little guys :)And designing new pretty jewels.I haven't been blogging since the snow. Between taking care of two little active guys at home and trying to get ready for Christmas in a snow-bound house it's been a little hectic. I didn't even know that the blog post I had scheduled to post automatically during my busy shipping weeks didn't post for some reason. So .. if you feel like reading more, read the next post down :)

And finally ... If you have kids and would like to do something cool with them, check out the NORAD SANTA TRACKER 2008. This site is a hoot! It pretends to be NORAD (military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada) tracking Santa's activities in the sky. Important: it doesn't go live until Santa takes off in his sled Christmas Eve, so there is nothing to see until then! When live, it shows a globe with present icons popping up on the cities of the Earth as Santa visits each one in real time. Select major cities get animated cut-scenes. I did it with my kids last year and they were just riveted!

*** Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and A Happy New Year to Everyone!!! ***