I completely forgot that a week or so ago…
Yea! My Sampler arrived with the coolest stuff. As soon as I read about The Sampler in Bust I couldn’t wait for another subscription to come up. I feel like this is the life we lead in craft-land – making way too much stuff and not always knowing what to do with it.
It’s full of the cutest cards, buttons, soaps – everything! I just love it (and I hope to donate too)!

Odd Fellow 2, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

Baby Girl stayed home last week with a cold so I finished her Odd Fellow and gave it to her as a little cheer up.

For better or worse I make up the way I attach the limbs each time. For this one the legs kind of look like they are walking – or doing a little jig – so perfect for Baby Girl.

Gifted bingo cards, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

by the way… I work at an arts center – pretty good deal really. So everyone here makes stuff and we’re all pretty aware of each. This morning one of the potters I work with (who is also in charge of landscaping our entire 4 acre campus) brought in some bingo cards his mom found in Georgia so I could make some more bingo books. How sweet and thoughtful. I’ll have to get these made right away and send one stitched and bound back to Georgia. Maybe the other two will get posted in my etsy store.

…with blue and green. Our trip to Tucson came with some cool presents – all in spring-y colors. We must be short on color here with all the snow.

I got these cool ‘fat baby‘ boots for my birthday and my stepmom bought Baby Girl and me Spring-y aprons from Anthropologie – I just love it there!

I finally finished Kate Gilbert’s Bunny and sent it off to my friend’s new baby. The funny yarn made for a pretty, cute fluffy bunny. The pattern is genius! It’s knit in one piece and seamed up the back (essentially) – fabulous!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Tonight was the first chance we had to use the super cute heart shaped egg fry rings that my mom sent us for valentine’s day…along with tons of excellent dark chocolate!

Also waiting in the mail for me when we got home was a birthday present from my cool architect friend – she’s got a great sense of design…and good taste in gifts!
I love the mug and I’m using it right now. I used the great coffee soap in the shower this morning and the coolest is the bubbles. Everything they say on the package is true! I blew bubbles for Baby Girl’s bath last night – they are extra colorful, they do make a cool ‘pop’ sound when they pop and they are extra strong – they would bounce and land on the water. Amazing! Thanks Ru!

So – my fabulous Boy ordered me a Christmas present from France that got put on back order and never arrived…but now it’s here!
My awesome NABAZTAG has arrived. I can’t wait to plug it in. I’ll post updates when I get it working.

…so behind in posting…

We went to visit my family in Tucson for a few days. It was a really nice break from the 200″ of snow (plus 5″ this morning). The only problem with traveling is that I fall behind in reading my blogs and posting to my own blog…so I have days of posts lined up (which will include receiving 3 packages in the mail while I was gone!).

My secret pal has been great about emailing and I came home to my first package! She sent tons of cute Valentine’s Day stuff and even included a few things for Baby Girl – which was the best! She absolutley believes that all gifts are meant to be shared – specifically – that all gifts for other people are meant to be shared with her.

My secret pal included lots of candy – chocolate (which The Boy is helping me eat), Valentine’s Day SweetTarts (which I started eating at midnight), standard hearts, a heart shaped peanut butter cup and Valentine’s Mike & Ike’s. She sent Baby Girl a sweet little stuffed doggy, a bear ring and a cute ribbony hair clip. She was so excited when she came downstairs to find this whole pile of stuff! Secret Pal also included for a me the most gorgeous handmade card, a beautiful picture frame and an adorable little tape measure!

Recently I’ve come across some knit/crocheted art that I liked – or some objects that push what people think should be knit/crocheted – or just some new fun knit objects… so here’s my random post of knit links…

First, last week I saw this video of artist, Bea Camacho, crocheting herself into a cocoon as part of an installation piece. The imagery is fabulous. The day I saw this video was so cold and grey it seemed more than appropriate. (I’m sorry I can’t remember whose blog linked to the video.)

And then Jane made this fabulous little sweater for an apple – I’m in love!

And on the new blog whip up Maitreya wrote about an uprising in the crochet community on livejournal that was partly caused by crochet tampons from ohh-rissa.

“Glittery Pony needs a scarf” – so, a little side project. And the pony looks pretty good – scarf, band aid and baby dress.

And Baby Girl always has style…

A few days after my birthday is my mom’s birthday – fun!
So in my continuing effort to make little creatures from Jess Hutch’s booklet I knit her The Little Odd Fellow.

He was so fun to knit! Mostly because it didn’t take me a whole month like everything else I seem to do.
Baby Girl was sad to see the little guy go home with Bubbe to Chicago so watch for a new Little Odd Fellow in the next few days.

Note: Special thanks to my Stepdad for sending me the picture of this little guy. After taking his photo in our house we promptly erased the memory card.

Yesterday was my birthday and I was spoiled with lots of knitting goodies and other things too!

My mother-in-law (who is probably the most avid reader of my blog) sent me the Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needles set AND two books – Sensational Knitted Socks and Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. Thank you so much, Viv!!! (I’ve already been playing with the needles and they are soooo nice!)

And The Boy got me Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I’m pretty excited to get started. My SweetGeorgia yarn is just waiting.

And on the sock front, my fabulous Mom – in her own fabulous style – bought me a pair of gorgeous Oilily boot socks. (Thank goodness – I love boot socks and I’m not prepared to knit for that long.)

I’ve also got a super nice secret pal – she’s e’d me a bunch and sent a cool postcard from artist Andrew Bell.

Even though I have my own store on Etsy (cafecrafty.etsy.com) I had never bought anything – until last week. I bought some hand dyed yarn from SweetGeorgia (sweetgeorgia.etsy.com).

I purchased the Speed Demon Superwash Merino in the River colourway.


The yarn arrived yesterday. It’s so beautiful I can’t wait to start – once I get my act together to buy a book on how to knit socks and maybe some needles for knitting socks. And if I can pull all that together in the next week then just maybe I’ll join Stephanie’s Olympics.

The Boy was up first thing this morning (first chair on the lift) to get ‘first track’ shots of the foot of snow we got overnight for the SkiCo website. This was one of his 8am pics.

Then later in the day the skiing company sent out a national press release announcing that we already hit 200″ of snow for the season. The press release included 2 photos by The Boy – I’m so excited!

Check out the SkiCo website for a bunch of photos he’s taken. Something like the first 20 shots are his – yea!

So the crown from Alterknits isn’t done – but it is wearable. I have to get some ribbon to replace the waste yarn on the bottom I used to cast on. (The dark green wool kind of throws the whole thing off, don’t you think?) I’d like to add some beads to it also for a little sparkle.

Baby Girl was pretty excited to wear it though. She had me wrap her in the left over crepe paper like a dress, then find her tutu and turn on the classical music so she could dance. The whole scene was pretty fabulous.

I have to say that I never expected this – after having been a bit of a tomboy growing up – I never thought my life would be so pink and purple. She does it with such style that I’ve never had!

Knitting note: Baby Girl picked out pink and purple crepe paper for the crown so I had to increase to size 15 needles to accomodate the extra bulk. I also decreased the number of stitches around from the pattern to fit her head. It’s a little bulky so it would be fun to try again closer to the original pattern, but it’s pretty durable for knit paper which is great for an almost 3-year-old.

Squarey loves playing bingo! Who knew – maybe it’s because he looks so good while doing it.

So a couple weeks later then planned (as most knitting projects go), but completed.I’d like to think that I could knit more gifts, but with a project a month that’s tough. Some parts worked out better then others, but The Boy and Baby Girl both love him already so that’s whats important. He was already upstairs for nap time today. (He had to be stolen from the babe’s arms to get his picture taken.)

Another Jess Hutch object complete. I’d still like to make Spherey and the little odd fellow. It’s just too fun to make little creatures. I’ve started the crown from Alterknits though which I’m really excited about – maybe I’ll even finish this week – that would be some sort of record.

So when I made the dog/aardvark for Baby Girl the stuffing package had an elephant on it. So she decided I needed to knit her an elephant. I found this pattern and I had this yarn so I did.

I didn’t swatch it or really pay attention (typical) so it has crazy funny long skinny legs. He reminds me of a creature from the Yellow Submarine.

I also figured out which book the dog/aardvark pattern came from – it was Animal Knits by Zoe Mellor.

And in the world of blogging my Secret Pal wrote me to say Hi – so much fun!

I was so amazed to discover craft/knit/creative blogging because it has been inspirational seeing what other people are out there making every day. One of my other inspirational moments each day is getting to read Baby Girl books from her fabulous every growing collection. The stories and illustrations in kids book are just wonderful. For Christmas and Channukah she was lucky enough to receive a bunch of new books. These are some of my favorites…Too Loud Lily, Hondo & Fabian, The Red Book and Swamp Angel.

My absolute favorite though of course is Shall I Knit You a Hat?