around the studio

I am so proud of myself for straying from my usual neutral palette. Superwash wool doesnt equal merino wool, for some reason thats what I was thinking when I chose this yarn.

So many projects going on around here that I can't keep them straight in my head. So many things that never get finished or things that get started and take off in an entirely different direction.  Sometimes I feel like a squirrel, so much running around collecting and looking for things for certain projects that when I finally get everything that I need I either forget about what started the hunt to begin with or it evolves into something totally different that requires a million other things. Argh! Very frustrating, sometimes I wish I could just focus! I did get one thing accomplished this week, I made matching crochet scarves for my daughter and her best buddy Dog-Dog. I have made my daughter crocheted items but have had a hard time getting her to wear them. This time she asked for a scarf with red in it so I modified Stitch Nation's Taffy Pull Scarf to suit my daughter. I love Stitch Nation's Bamboo Ewe yarn and wished so much that I had used it for this project. It is so soft, inexpensive and natural.  The problem is that the standard craft shops don't sell all of the colors. Instead I chose a superwash wool yarn that I ended up hand felting a bit in hopes to get it soft and itch-less enough for my daughter to wear. It helped but it is still a bit itchy. Nothing is ever perfect, life would be alot easier if I would just embrace acrylic yarns like everyone else. They are cheap, soft, sturdy, easy to work-up, available everywhere and in every color and weight imaginable, if only it wasnt plastic. So frustrating. Anyway, here are a few items in the works or laying around the studio waiting for action...

A little crocheted knot flower. I have been working with these guys for awhile now, I keep thinking I can make necklaces, headbands or something with them. I like the idea of combining metal and crochet.

They match, almost.

The finished scarf, reminds me of a cupcake.

This is a doily stamp that I have been looking for forever! I have had an idea for a linen bird mobile since I was pregnant. I have had all of the materials and everything but I had been looking for a lace or doily pattern to stamp or stencil on it. Now I have found it, I just have no idea how to stamp on fabric, I will have to do some trial and error to decide if I need an ink pad or an acrylic paint.

Here is a gem I picked up at the resale shops, a pirate ship! I have no idea what I am going to do with it.

Awesome cribbage board that I found during my treasure troving. Definitely an item I will be selling on etsy when I get around to it.

One of four lovely walnut bowls from the resale shops. Not really certain what I am going to do with them. I was thinking of painting the insides with a really high gloss paint in fun colors, we will see.

out of the studio: Hermitage Museum & Gardens

A must see in Norfolk Va is the Hermitage Museum & Gardens. This museum is off the beaten path and tucked back along the Lafayette River in the picturesque neighborhood of Lochhaven. I discovered this museum back in art school when the head of the department got stuck teaching a drawing class over the summer. He decided that if he had to teach all summer then he was going to spend the whole semester teaching outside. So everyday we all met at the museum and while the instructor relaxed by the river reading the latest best seller, we were instructed to draw every tree on site and every architectural detail of the building, not a bad way to spend a summer. It was also a place that my husband and I were considering having a wedding, the grounds are absolutely lovely but it may have hurt our pockets a bit. So here are a few pics taken by Daniel of our rainy winter excursion to the Hermitage, only the grounds, because I have never actually seen the inside except once when I asked to use the restroom during one of those summer drawing classes. One of these days I would like to visit the actual inside.  Perhaps the spring would be a good time to return for another look around.

Bit O Irish

I have been told that I am a quarter Irish which if true would make my daughter an eighth Irish I think. Like me she most definitely has the fair skin that would be right at home in Donegal or Wicklow or dancing in the heath and boglands. We didnt do a whole lot around here for Saint Patty's day, another odd holiday that I need to get some traditions for. Perhaps Daniel and I could run the Shamrock Marathon that they hold in Virginia Beach every year, I have always wanted to say that I ran a marathon, despite the fact that the last time I ran a mile was probably in sixth grade. I dont know, it would be quite an accomplishment but I think whipping up a shephard's pie and washing it down with a pint of Guinness and an Iris coffee to finish sounds more my speed and would do the holiday more justice. For the rest of the year I will have to keep my eye out for a great recipe for Shephards pie, or perhaps a nice black pudding. This year though we just whipped up some green confectioneries and shouted Happy Saint Patty's Day to everyone we encountered. Or as Madeline called it, Happy Saint Maddy's Day!

The recipe I used for vanilla cupcakes called for room temperature eggs. I never realized how long it would take to bring eggs out of the fridge to room temp. I got quite impatient and tried to get creative. One way was to put them in the muffin papers and put them on top of the coffee maker that was brewing, it worked pretty well.

Maddie super excited to be my kitchen helper. She couldnt decide which holiday we were celebrating.

The time honored tradition of licking the beaters.

The moss in our backyard which I wish would grow more, one can never have too much moss. I swear a leprechaun would be right at home there.

Our green cupcakes! We made three different shades of green icing but they didnt turn out as green as I wanted. Thats ok, they were pretty darn tasty.

Flowers and Hearts

What a funny little day Valentine's is. Rumor has it all started with the beheading of two guys named Valentine, I don't know if that is true or not but any excuse to give flowers, chocolate and make googly eyes at each other is a good enough excuse to me. This year we baked cookies, ate chocolate, made valentines and enjoyed some flowers.

Some lovely tulips that Daniel surprised me with.

Maddie has her cookie cutters and whisk and she is ready to bake!

  Maddie loves to sing and to her anything makes a great microphone including her whisk. Here she was striking a pose after belting out "This girl is on fire!" Its an Alicia Keyes song. Thats the only words either of us know.

Maddie making a valentine.

 

The Camellia bush finally bloomed, just in time for Valentines Day. That bush has had buds on it for like two years, I didnt think it was ever going to bloom. Plus Maddie has been plucking buds off of it for the past two years and pretending it is giraffe food so I really didnt think there would be anything left to bloom. Maddie checking to see if the icing on the cookies had dried. She was quite excited, I was nervous because I have never made sugar cookie before, and I love a good sugar cookie so I had high hopes. They turned out a bit hard, I am going to have to find a different recipe/method next time.
This is Sally the Gerbil-loon. Maddie named her Sally the Gerbil-loon, but I like to call her the stalker. In the past three years since Maddie has been born, we have had alot of balloons come and go in the house, but none of them could travel around the house quite like this one. One minute Sally would be in the kitchen and the next I would see her in my peripheral vision in the dining room, totally freaking me out because a balloon in your peripheral vision in dim light can definitely be mistaken for a serial killer.  
A little vase I crocheted for Valentines day. I was totally going to put it up on Etsy for V-day but it never made it. Happy Valentine's Day! Maddie made her Valentine, she practiced writing her M's in the middle of the heart.

Cold, hot and sometimes lukewarm

Old man winter this year in Portsmouth, Va has been quite fickle. He cant decide to either dump a few inches of ice and snow on us during rush hour traffic or to give us rainy, humid sixty degree temps like today. Its hard to decide how to dress or how to spend the day. The snow was a most welcomed sight but it caught us off guard a bit. We had to completely turn the house upside down to find matching mittens for Maddie. We found these kitten mittens which were a gift two winters ago, along with the hat and we really hadnt seen the weather cold enough to warrant wearing them much. Those kitten mittens were cute but they soaked up the melting snow fast, Maddie didnt care at all. Her fingers would have fallen off before she would have asked to come in from the fun. Since the snow has melted and the winter has returned to the expected rain that never seems to stop, we have been trying to find some fun indoors. We are definitely looking forward to spring.

The cardinal above is sitting on the fence wondering where his meal is. We purchased a bird feeder this year hoping to attract more birds to the yard. It really has brought them in and to my surprise, they can good through some seed quickly. We have a lovely pair of cardinals that are pretty regular, some grackles, tons of finches and a gaggle of mourning doves. The doves taunt poor Cooper to no end. He tires himself out trying to run them off.

Our Chia pet. Maddie loves the Chia pet song when the commercial comes on, so much so she will randomly bust out in song, CH-CH-CH-CHia! Well who could resist a plant that forms the furry body of an animal, so I bought one for her. I was hoping for a sheep but all I could find was an elephant, who ever heard of a furry elephant. It was cute and fun to plant.

A grey and green wool/bamboo blanket I was working on. It was basically a test for the blanket that I want to make for Maddies bed.

Who can resist Hungry Hippos! I used to love this game as a child and I am hoping Maddie will too. Although I dont remember it being so noisy as it is. I guess I didnt notice it as a kid.

Snowy moss in the backyard.

Here is some nice merino wool that I ordered a few weeks ago. It is for a blanket for Maddies bed but I cant decide which stitch/pattern to use and I am afraid to start it in case I mess up. I will figure it out eventually, I hope. Every time I get up enough nerve to work on it, I get visions of the first blanket that I made her that completely fell apart. I hope that I have gotten better at this crochet stuff. I also think I underestimated how much yarn I will need. I have this fear that I will only be able to crochet an 18 inch blanket!

New Year

There is something so exciting about a new year. It always feels like a chance to start new and fresh, to do all the things that you want to do and to dream as big as you can. Its so fashionable nowadays to be above New Years resolutions, all the naysayers out there condemning them because they claim they never work, but not me (surprising considering I am the biggest naysayer of them all, one of my many resolutions that I am working on, must think positive!) I believe whole heartedly that a lot of us need a definitive start date to begin new habits, a day that we can look back and see how far we have come, why not make that day January first? So in light of my many new years resolutions, which I would list but there are just too many that I risk boring you to tears, I am posting some images of a few projects that I just finished. Only 16 days into the new year and I already finished a few crafty things and am brimming with a million more ideas. So here's to a New Year and lots of high hopes!

Above is a purple wool crocheted scarf. I love to take patterns off of the internet and mess them up a little bit. This is Stitch Nations Taffy Pull scarf but I changed the yarn to a chunky and left out a few steps. 

Above is a close-up of a crochet wool vase that I hand felted and then couldnt decide how to decorate. I tried my hand at french knots but that didnt work so I decided to bead it with glass beads in a starburst shape.

 Here is a green blanket that was also inspired by the stitch pattern from the same scarf as above.

Maddie on New Years Eve. She stayed up until about 11pm and then passed out, we did manage to make a lot of noise with our noise makers and wear our crowns before she fell asleep. She didnt take the crown off for about three days. Unfortunately as much as I fight it, she is in love with all things princess and she was convinced it was her princess tiara. Much to Maddie's dislike, I refuse to give into the racket of  mass marketing of princess crap out there and the idealogy behind it. Much to my dislike, Maddie is powerless to its glitzy allure. Hopefully I can steer her away before its too late:) As for New Years, Maddie didnt think it was nearly as exciting as Christmas and somehow she was convinced that New Years somehow involved catching a wild goose and putting a bread bowl on its head, I know very strange, but that is what she said she wanted to do for New Years! Maybe next year we will make that a tradition somehow.

 So much inspiration my head hurts! For both my birthday and christmas this year, I got a plethera of new craft books to oh and ah over. This Simple Crocheting book by Erika Knight is amazing. I just wish I could afford all of the lush yarns that she suggests using in the book.

 Winter in Hamptons Roads has always been crazy, growing up in Virginia Beach usually meant very hot humid summers and rainy damp chilly winters, but lately its been very unseasonably warm. This week the mercury hit over 70 degrees and the flora around here is confused. I have seen buds on trees and shrubs and clumps of this odd grass which has decided to spring up in our backyard. I long for some snow, I have my fingers crossed winter is not over yet!