plans a brewin

My parents are celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary this weekend are are spending it out of town together. I'm spending the weekend at home in Austin with the house all to myself (when David isn't here of course). So how am I taking advantage of a house to myself at 3:45am?

I'm watching The Little Mermaid tv show on the disney channel. Yup. Wouldn't believe I'm almost 24, eh? Speaking of growing up, I only have two or three more classes till I graduate! Finally. What will I do with my degree? Hopefully sew, knit, and create all day long and sing all the time. Someone will pay me full time for that (and benefits of course!) right?

I have a few projects brewing. One small simple handsewing project to give as a gift. Some Easter knits to give those that are special in my life. I also want to knit a fun little shrug/croppec cardigan for Steph's wedding. My bridesmaid dress is sleeveless and has a V front and back. It looks great but I know myself and have no doubt I'll get a bit chilly with no sleeves in the outdoor evening air during the reception.

I searched all afternoon online for a good free pattern but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. So, I found something close and I'll be hacking the pattern up and pretty much creating my own. If it works out I might type it up, we'll see.

I still need to write out my little heart pattern. hmmm.

And flowers. I want to make lots and lots more flowers!

Also if anyone would like to place an order for a clutch, flower hair pin, felt bouquet, or anything else I've posted about in here let me know. I'd love to work with you on an order :)

a birthday bouquet

My dear roommate, Alyssa, is 21 today! She too is a knitter and crafty gal so I wasn't sure what to make her as a gift. I thought for a bit and had the idea to make a little bouquet of hand sewn felt flowers.


I ran to Hobby Lobby and found the perfect vase, some yellow buttons for the flowers (i know i know, i have a lot of buttons, but i oddly don't have many yellow ones...anyways), and some olive green pipecleaners.


I got back to my apartment and sat at my sewing table and just stared at my felt for a while. I wanted to limit my color palette before I just started attacking the stack with my scissors. I decided on mostly blues, greens, and yellows. I did have purple in there too but omitted it pretty early on.


It took me a couple hours while watching something on tv that I can't remember now. I made two big flowers using blue, cobalt, and turquoise, both backed in white. The little flowers make me think of dandelions or daisies. They're yellow and gold with some white stitches. The little green sprouts fill in space and add color. Those are all random green buttons from my collection. I love how each flower and sprout each has its own personality :)


I finished in the wee hours of the morning and placed them in the little blue vase. I found a perfectly matching goldenrod ribbon and tied it around the top. I left it on the dining table with a little card for her to find when she woke up. I probably won't get to see her today but I'm glad I got wish her a happy birthday this morning with these cheery flowers.


An upside to making these is I got to practice for what I hope to make my wedding bouquet out of someday. I have a small stash of special buttons set aside just for this reason. I intend to make some more of these sweet little bouquets as gifts, maybe mothers day? Mom, forget I said that :)

If you'd like some of these for your home or to give someone special shoot me an email and we can discuss colors and I can work out a good price for you.

Ok off to brave this crazy weather and go sing!

bleghdsknvsl9tjgdf

I posted a few days ago that I've started knitting a blanket. I ran out of the white homespun yarn and had to go buy more. I figured since it was white the dye lot wouldn't matter so much, which is true. But. The yarn just looks different. The newer stuff is shinier and not quite as fluffy feeling. It's weird. It's knitting up mostly the same but slightly thinner feeling. I just laid it out flat and the change is pretty obvious, maybe because I'm a knitting freak, ha.

Even though this is a stash buster project, I'm sad it's not going to be all the same. Part of me even wants to rip part of it out and see if I can find some homespun that matches better. hmmmm.

I think I'll work on my lace scarf for a while and think it over.

If you're not a knitter I'm sure this was painfully boring :)

happy st. patrick's day!

I'm not a huge freak about my heritage, but I do love that I'm mostly Irish and Scottish. I also love that's it's obvious in my freckles, fair skin and red tinted hair. My sister is all about the Irish stuff too! Her room is green, she loves shamrocks and so on and on and on. The other day she was having a blah week so I made her this lovey shamrock out of some of my hearts. She loved it!


I hope everyone remembers to wear green or else you might get pinched :)

order me!

Here's a flower hair pin I made for a girl from school. I love all the different color combos I can get with yarn and buttons (granted all three I've made have teal in them, ha). If anyone wants to order one in custom colors they're $7. I'd love to whip one up for you :) They could also look cute pinned on a purse, bag, on a sweater or anywhere else!!

lime clutch!

This post will be short with lots of pics.

I made a new clutch for myself Friday night out of some lime green vinyl I had leftover from a wallet I made. I just pulled out my bag of zippers and picked out some colors I liked with the green. I then figures a simple white lining with black gingham for the pockets and coin pocket would be good. I also dug through my button collection for some to adorn the front. I love the color combo. Oh I also added some darts to the bottom corners to make the bottom wider. It helps keep the shape better when it's full of my junk. Oh and I put some of that embroidery plastic stuff in the card pocket to keep it more stable and so far it's working great!


If anyone would like to order one of these I'm selling them for $35. The only option I have for the outside is black if you want it in vinyl, but I have lots of color options for zippers and the inside. Email me or comment and I can get on that :)

love & buttons

What a lazy day I had. David and I took a long nap from 11am till like 4pm. He was up all night working on an art project and watching Hello Dolly with me, ha. We're total night owls. After our day long siesta we went to our favorite local pizza place (I had a burger, not a big pizza fan) and enjoyed some non-rushed quality time together. I love that man :)


When he went home to Austin I started working on a sewing project I'd been thinking about for a little while. Nothing big, just a newer version of something I already made myself. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and show yall. Till then enjoy the sneak peak pics. I just love the colors!

brrr

It's cold and rainy outside. I almost skipped class today just so I wouldn't have to walk in the cold cold rain. I sucked it up and went and my feet were freezing! I survived though, so no worries.

This weather has put me in a major put-my-pajamas-on-and-stay-in-bed-all-day kind of mood. Thus, not much knitting is getting done, ah well.

I'm gonna watch Big and fall asleep :)

viva!

Viva seems to be the theme of this post. Viva colorway in red heart yarn that is. I got two skeins of it a couple years ago to make a purse and when I started knitting it up I hated it. One of those yarns that looks great in a roll but the color scheme looks funky all knit up.


So, it just sat in a basket/bag/drawer for a while. I'd pull it out every once in a while and then shove it back. Poor thing. Then in my search for fun flowers to knit I remembered my viva. I wanted some variegated yarn for the center that would go with the sungold I was using. I pulled it out and the colors went well. I knit it up and loved it. Probably because you can just see a little swirl of the colors.


Then for some reason (I didn't want to do my homework) I thought it'd be fun to start a blanket to knit when I'm bored. It's nice to have a mindless project to knit away on while watching tv or when I'm too sleepy for increases, shaping, yo's and all that fun stuff.


The only yarns a I had a lot of was the viva and some white lion brand homespun. The white has no dye lot so I knew I could easily go buy more when this runs out...and it will. It's not the softest combo but I think it will be snuggly and will soften up once I wash it.

Ok back to knitting :)

some gifts

I knit some more of my hearts up. This time I used them to decorate a gift! They're in Stephanie's wedding colors and hung on the gift I made for her bachelorette party. No, I didn't make lingerie. I don't have those kind of skills, ha.

I made her a little black vinyl clutch. I love the clutch I made myself back in the fall so I figured I'd make her one. There's a few firsts for me in this piece. I made the strap removable with a snap so it can be worn on the wrist or just thrown in a bigger bag.

I also made piping for the first time! It probably would've turned out better if I'd done it right and cut the fabric on the bias, but oh well. I really like the little splash of color it gives the clutch. I also like how it shows up a bit on the small outside zipper pocket.

The inside fabric was a great find too! I just love it. When I went to Hobby Lobby to pick it out I was on the hunt for something with blue, green or purples (her fave colors). I saw this and knew it was perfect. The green matches our bridesmaids dresses and aqua is another one of her colors.

She seemed to like it and I hope it holds up well. I enjoyed making it and intend on making myself a vinyl one soon :)

red beret

I finished this a while back but never got around to taking some good pictures of it. Granted, these aren't that great either, but it's the best I could get trying to take a picture of myself while it was cloudy outside.

I love the color of the beret. It's actually brighter than the pictures show. The red was refreshing in the dry cold weather we had this winter. I must say, I miss living in the Canadian rain forest sometimes. I hope I can go back to that area sometime in the near future.

I took pictures of all my other finished projects from the weekend but I think I'm going to space them out over the next few days so stay tuned!

two lips

I seriously love quick knits. I made this cute little flower tonight after band practice. I'd like to test it out with some different colors and maybe a leaf or two. I used a chopstick I had for the stem. I like the effect of the green coming out of the flower. (I know these pics are pretty craptastic and I'm hoping to get some better ones when the sun is up)

As much as I love these quick knits, I need something a bit bigger to work on. I've been wanting to start a cute little cardigan so maybe I can work on that over spring break. I'd love to make one to wear with my bridesmaids dress for after Stephanie's wedding ceremony (I get cold and the wedding is outside in early April..)

a life of color

As far back as I can remember I've always loved color. My room growing up had purple walls, blue shelves and a green door (all pastels). My first apartment had a hot pink living room and bright teal bedroom. My current bedroom is the same teal and my living room is grey with some purple accent walls. Love love love it! Even the candy canes hanging on my lamp are rainbow colors :)


I'm sure you've noticed most of my work is in an array of colors. Neutral and pale colors just don't do it for me.


Tonight I finished up a few small projects, all of which used a different color. I finished a new knit flower to wear in my hair. This one is black, a bit smaller, and has one of my vintage buttons from MeMaw in the center. I'm wearing it right now :)


I also found a bag of colorful wooden beads I got from church last year and decided to use a few of them. I crocheted a long chain stitch necklace in black yarn and hung two beads on the end. Very simple but the bold orange and pink really add something.


While admiring all the fun projects on one pretty thing i found a cute tissue holder tute. It's extremely simple. I used some yellow felt and sewed the edges with teal and lime green thread. I changed the original a bit by overlapping the opening edges a bit so the tissues would stay covered in my bag.


Such a productive evening (other than the fact that I did all this while not finishing up a project for class tomorrow, heh). Oh by the way, did yall know I sing in a praise/worship band? We played at a Disciple Now this weekend in Bastrop. I don't have pics of that but I got a pic of three of the guys setting up before our practice on Saturday. I love singing with them. (that's my david in the red shirt)