Malt bunny's cousins

Awhile back I showed you the malt bunny that I got for Lachlan. Well, Lachlan loved Malty Bunny so much that he decided that his cousins needed to have Bunny's cousins for Christmas (is it odd that one of Malt Bunny's cousins is a Malt Doggy?). And so that there is no mistaking which animal belongs to which cousin, they each have their own custom knit sweater with the girls' initials and made in their favorite color. They are being shipped up north today.

Now Lachlan's Malt Bunny is feeling naked, so he's going to get his own custom sweater early next year. :)

If you need your own sweatered animal, you can visit Emily at Yarn Miracle.

Malt bunny

I've been meaning to show you this adorable guy for awhile now. A few weeks ago, Emily from Yarn Miracle contacted me about getting some of my bear critter cards. She wanted to give them as thank you presents to people who were testing a bear knitting pattern for her.

Over the course of several emails back and forth, I got a real sense of what a fun woman Emily is. So out of curiousity I checked out her shop and blog and just fell in love with her animals. One thing led to another, and she got a few more cards from me and I sent one of her "Itty Bitty Buddies" to a friend who just had a baby.

Then one thing led to another again, and she got more of my cards and I got this AWESOME chocolate malt bunny.


I can't tell you how much I love him. Really. I just love him! I got him for Lachlan (because I love reading The Velveteen Rabbit to him), but I'm starting to think I'm going to keep him for myself!



If you need your own adorable companion animal or know someone who does, I can't recommend Emily enough. Act fast, though, because I noticed she has a note on her shop that her list fills up quickly for Christmas. Speaking of that, I'm heading back there now to look for some Christmas gifts!

And even if you don't plan to purchase a companion animal for someone, check out her listings anyway. They are so much fun to read! :)

Baby hat

Back in March I knit a baby hat using a pretty light green yarn called cucumber. At the time I planned to make lots of them to donate to needy mothers.



Then I found out I was pregnant and all those good intentions went out the window as I rushed to complete projects around the house. The hat and yarn was stashed in a bag and stuck in a closet and I forgot all about it until this morning!

I put it on Lachlan and was so sad to find out it's already pretty tight on him. I'm going to try to stretch it just a bit to get it to fit a little better right now. I also have plans to get some new yarn today and make some new hats for him. As I recall, it didn't take long to whip this one up.



I hope everyone has a good weekend. Tomorrow will be pretty exciting around here. Lachlan will be six weeks old tomorrow and we have something pretty special planned to celebrate. It may take a few weeks before I can show you, but hopefully it will be worth the wait. :D

Apple hat

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was pretty quiet. We're just sitting around waiting for Goober to get here.

While I wait, I've been cleaning like a maniac. Can I just say how amazed I am by how much dust and dog hair accumulates on TOP of the blades of the ceiling fans. Yikes.

I've also been accumulating more cute things for Goober. Like this hat. It was sent to me as a thank you by a client for doing her New Year's cards under such a tight deadline and unusual circumstances.



This is quite possibly one of the cutest baby hats I've seen. It is 100% wool but is SO soft and snuggly I can't believe it. It came beautifully packaged with a nice card. It's made by the Etsy shop My Market Stall, and she has lots of wonderful "veggie" hats and felted wool bowls and other cute hats. I think I may have to order the bunny hat. Seriously, how cute is that?!



If you're looking for a high-quality and unique baby gift for someone, I highly recommend this Etsy seller!

Things to do in 2010: A progress report

I was thinking this morning about the progress I've already made on my list of things to do this year. I have a list of things to specifically accomplish because I do much better if I can check things off a list rather than trying to maintain some vague resolution.

There is something about checking an item off a list that makes me so, so happy.

So here's where I'm at right now, just two full months into the year:

1. Eat a greater variety of food. I listed 10 specific foods to try. I've tried 6 of them so far: bread/pastries from scratch, fish other than salmon, buffalo, turnips, rutabagas, and quinoa. I tried this recipe for smashed rutabagas with ginger roasted pears. I didn't really care for the addition of thyme to it. The smashed rutabagas were pretty good on their own, and I could eat a bucket full of ginger roasted pears. I also included some turnips with a buffalo chuck roast I made. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. The buffalo was actually surprisingly good! It was mixed with so many other flavors, though. So the other night I prepared a buffalo rib steak with this Moroccan Beef rub from Dean and Deluca.

Wow! It was really good. If I didn't know it was buffalo I never would have guessed that it wasn't beef. And it was much more tender than the husband and I expected. I've also made some cinnamon rolls from scratch, tried a recipe for cod that was an abysmal failure, and a recipe for breakfast quinoa with blueberries that was good but a little too earthy for a breakfast in my opinon. So I'm feeling pretty good with my progress on this one.

2. Landscaping. I'm working on the plans for it. The husband is afraid. Very, very afraid.

3. Terrarium. On hold for the moment while I tend to #2.

4. Clean and maintain organization in the studio. I've had a small setback recently in this area. It's on the list of things to tackle this weekend.

5. Learn to sew and quill. These are on the list for this fall!

6. Give up soda. This should be number 1. Not only did I manage to give it up, but I have stayed straight and true. But this summer will be hard. I hate drinking hot coffee on summer mornings, and the thought of an iced coffee makes my stomach turn. Summer mornings without a cold diet coke will be a real challenge for me!

7. Take better care of my garden. I'm really making an effort in this department! I'm starting my next group of seeds today, and I'm attending all the gardening classes I can. I still need to write up all my notes, so next week look for a more complete post about the beauty and joy of composting and soil preparation. And I'll also have a new tutorial for something even more fun than making seed pots out of toilet paper rolls! (Hint: It will serve double-duty as a great chocolate-free present for Easter!)

8. Knit baby hats to donate to needy mothers. First I took a refresher knitting course, then I learned to make a big hat. This week I completed my first baby hat! The color of yarn I used is called cucumber. I bought more than double the yarn that I needed, so now I think I need to take another class so I can make some matching baby booties!



How are all of you doing on your 2010 resolutions and goals?

Two-hour hat

I attended my second knitting class on Saturday. It was for a "Two-hour hat." Mine took three hours, but let's not split hairs, OK?

Sadie graciously agreed to model it.



I love this picture. I think she's imagining herself at a sidewalk cafe somewhere in Paris.







She did good for awhile, but then got pretty bored with the whole ordeal.

Scarf model

I finished my scarf at knitting class last night. Today Sadie agreed to model it.



But she had a hard time hiding her boredom and couldn't stop yawning.







Well, I assume she was yawning and not acting like the scarf made her want to barf...

I think it was less than five minutes between when I tied the last piece of fringe onto the scarf and when I was at the counter buying new yarn. The instructor had on such a pretty loosely knitted shawl, I somehow decided I couldn't live without one.

As soon as I got home from class I started on it. I was in the middle of one of the rows when the husband came home. The moment the husband gets home is the best moment in Sadie's day. She goes beserk. They have a little routine where she sits in front of me, facing him. Then she stands up on her back legs and sort of punches the air with her front legs. She likes to have me nearby because she often loses her balance! Then she sort of runs at him and punches him in the chest with her front legs. They wrestle for a bit on the ground, she gets loose and runs to me ('cuz I got her back), and then he stays crouched down on the ground and she dives in for the "kill," which, in this case, is the mother of all wet willies. It's hysterical, and one day I'll have to figure out how to get it on video.

But I said all that to say that when the husband came home, I was knitting and I didn't want to quit in the middle of a row. So I continued knitting. Sadie was so wound up because I wasn't there as her backup that she came running over and grabbed the ball of yarn (like the yarn thief that she is!) and took off. I was running around the house after her, trying to keep the yarn from being pulled off the needles, and the husband was practically rolling on the ground laughing. He finally managed to get the yarn out of her mouth, but not before it got quite a bit of dog spit on it. Thankfully I didn't lose a stitch in the whole fiasco!

Knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...

Years ago when I took my first knitting class, a couple of brave friends were right there beside me. All of my friends are funny, but one is particularly funny and can do great voices. She used to repeat that great line from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (voice and all):

"The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting..."

Well, that's how I feel right now! I took the first part of my refresher knitting class on Tuesday, and I'm happy say that it came back to me quickly! Now I have almost 1.5 feet of my scarf finished and I'm on a roll. I can't wait to finish this project at next week's class. And my mind is already overloaded with all the projects I can do.

This post today over at design*sponge by the ladies at bbbcraft just added fuel to the fire. Seriously! How cute are these??

Totally adorable baby socks. I am obsessed with baby socks. The only thing in the world cuter than a baby sock is a puppy. But baby socks won't eat your shoes!



How do you get away with giving baby socks to a new dad? Just put it in a cigar box. Awesome idea.



And these little guys?



They're adorable. They have tails! I think I'm going to make a set for myself.



You can get the pattern for the animals at Knitting at Noon. Look how cute their animals are!! I just love the elephants' ears.

More things to do in 2010

Here it is, February already, and I still haven't completed my list of things to do this year!

So here are a few more items on my list of things to accomplish:

1. Give up soda, and diet cokes in particular (I can hear the horrified gasp of my old "diet coke break" buddy coming all the way from Michigan!). This was one of the first things on my list to do this year, but I never put it in writing because, well, frankly I didn't think I could do it! But I have done it, and I'm now entering my fourth week of diet coke-free living. There was one day last week where I was so busy and hit a mid-afternoon sleepy spell. I had a diet coke out of pure desperation for some caffeine and found that it has totally lost its charm with me. I haven't had another one since. I knew I'd still be craving something sweet to drink, so I've been drinking things like crystal light. It has really helped with the transition. The first day was the roughest, because I was SO thirsty. I drank about 120 ounces of water that day, but since then it's been fine.

2. Be better about tending to my garden this year, and also expand the variety of things I'll grow. Last year I got too busy with house projects and just didn't have time for the garden. This year will be better, and I can't wait for all my new seeds to arrive!

3. Learn to sew! Once I get reacquainted with knitting, I'm going to learn to sew. My mom gave me a very basic lesson last year. I don't want to do anything fancy, but it would be nice to be able to make simple things like curtains, pillows, and pretty summer skirts.

Speaking of knitting, I'm taking my first knitting lesson tonight! It's a beginner/refresher course and we'll be making a scarf. Later this month I'll be taking another lesson on how to make their "two-hour hat." After that I should be well on my way to my goal #4 to knit some baby hats!

I already bought my yarn for the class. The solid yarn on the left is for the scarf, and the multicolor yarn on the right is for the hat.



I forgot how much Sadie loves soft things (socks, piles of yarn, fleece blankets) and the yarn wasn't sitting on the stool more than about 30 seconds before she walked right over to thieve it!

Things to do in 2010: Part 4

I just returned from several days in sunny Tucson, Arizona.

When I'm not printing my heart out on my new press, I work as a freelance medical/technical editor. A former colleague recently contacted me about helping her organization to revise some training materials. So, I spent the last few days working with 3 midwives to revise a set of materials that are used in developing countries to help educate and train community members in basic life-saving skills for pregnant women.

I love working with midwives, particularly those who work in developing countries. They have the most amazing stories--both heart-warming stories that make you feel warm and fuzzy, and tragic stories that make you want to cry.

One of the midwives will be traveling to Ghana and Liberia in the coming weeks, and she'll be carrying with her about 250 hats for newborn babies, knitted by a group of women from a local church in Tucson.

Seeing those tiny hats reminded me that once upon a time I learned to knit and I really enjoyed it. I never had the time to learn to knit sweaters and such, so I stuck with small baby blankets and scarves. I haven't knitted at all in the past few years, and I'd really like to get back to it. I find it so relaxing. One thing that has kept me from jumping back into it is that I can only knit so many scarves... Without a specific purpose, there isn't as much incentive for me.

But now I have a purpose: Making baby hats and blankets for tiny babies in other countries. Their mothers often have nothing.

Nothing.

So I'm going to dust off my knitting needles and take a refresher course. For sure I'll be stopping in at the cute little knitting shop we have downtown called Tangle.

And I would love to make these baby hats.

It can become a hassle for the midwives and doctors I know to carry the hats with them to the countries they visit, so I'm looking for specific organizations dedicated to this cause working in other countries or even in the US. A quick search this morning produced two promising sites for donating the items: Afghans for Afghans and Algerian Action. I'll have to read more about these organizations. If any of you know of any good organizations that need some knitted baby caps or blankets, please let me know.

I still have a lot to do on the house this year, so I'm setting a (hopefully reasonable) goal of refreshing my knitting skills and then knitting 25 baby caps and/or blankets this year. Anyone care to join me?