Envelope Swaps rock

I just got my fantastic envelope from the envelope swap at raverly!

Everything’s so cuuuuute! And that penguin! My God! Adorable!

 

 

Quick and Colorful Apron!

I’ve meaning to make an apron since I realized that baking at random usually got some of my better clothes messed up with flour. But never fear! The internet is full of fantastic free patterns!

I searched for a while and found many free patterns (check out TipNut for a massive list of patterns). I finally decided on this one from CraftyGal  . With a title like “Dressing for Kitchen Success” I couldnt really refuse.

I chose some very loud fabrics I got for christmas about two years ago and some lace I got from Daiso, my very favorite store.

Here are the results! It was quite an easy pattern!

Lessons learned:

-When the instructions say “waist”, it’s just waist…not your “low rise jeans waist”. ‘Doh!

-Lace hides everything!

Adjustments to make:

-Make sash shorter

-Make bib shorter…apparently my torso shrunk like 5 inches in the process of making this apron.

-Cut off loose strings

Picture time!

Waist closeup…pretty lace!  (It got folded in the other pics so you cant see it as well)

Pocket closeup….more lace!

Side view

 

Pretty neat, no? It’s a great first sewing project I think, give it a try.

Envelope Swap

Yesterady I sent my envelope for my very first swap.

It’s going to a nice home in Winsconsin!

I only hope it makes it there in one piece…Fitting stuff into a standard envelope is not easy!

I’ll post a pic of the gifts inside once I know it’s been received.

I found this swap through Ravelry.com in a group called Envelope Swap: Spend $5 or less!

If this go well I’ll try lvl-ing up to another swap…

WIPs

Cream colored old timey bonnet: Hybernating and never waking up. Will be frogged probably.

Brown old timey bonnet: 5% …but this time I got the right yarn. I think.

Lotus Bag: 5%

Crocheted Teratomata: 50%

Old timey bonnet

It’s starting to get really cold in seattle so I’m in dire need for a nice hat.

I spent most of last winter walking around in this thing:

Which is nice and all, but I want a different hat for this season. I’ve started to crochet this sweet hat:

 

Free Pattern: http://paakrogen.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/vintage-bonnet.pdf

The original pattern is for a baby but the author pointed out in ravelry that if you use an E hook (3.5mm) and “fonty angora” you should end up with an adult sized hat.

I’m using a 3.25mm hook I have and some of that thrift shop yarn, so we’ll see what I end up with.

Progress so far…

Sadly, I missed a couple of stitches in that last round and have 8 shells instead of 9, so I’m re-doing that gorgeous looking round.

Lotus Flower bag

Started a new crochet project today. It’s a lovely lotus flower bag that can be found at craftbits.com .

I’m not even 1/4 done and I’m already overwhelmed with it.

The pattern is a vintage pattern someone found and posted online and the instructions are very hard to understand. I had issues with the 5th row when it said “slip stitch down to the 3rd round”…Took me a while to figure out I had to ignore the giant rose I had just finished and go back to the 3rd round. It’s nice working with crazy patterns like these though.

 

 

Yarn yarn yarn

Went to my local thrift shop and did a little shopping!

Now, I’m no yarn snob…so finding all this yarn for $5 really made my day!

 

The loot:

2 skeins of 100% DuPont Orlon Acrylic in Yellow/Green/Pink

1 skein of  100% virgin wool by Saxatones Pompadour in a light blue color

2 balls of Pingouin silk in a fantastic brown color

and 4 “balls” of  55%acrylic/37%flax/8%wool yarn  in a funky brown/green color

 

Adventures will ensue!

 

Omg, it’s complete…

I added like 10 more sc rows at the end b/c “the recipient” wanted the hat to be longer.

Washed it again and it’s nice a soft. 

Success!

Hemp Beanie

A dear friend (and stalker of this blog) and I went to the Seattle Hemp Fest a few weeks ago. It was a fun time. Not my usual scene, but I had delicious Ben & Jerry’s Brownie Ice Cream…and I even found hemp yarn! Buying the yarn was quite the adventure since the vendor was too high to tell me how many yarn balls I’d need to make a hemp beanie. I bought two , but turns out you need only one ball of hemp yarn to make a beanie.

I’m pleased…

That’s a heavy hat, maaaan….

I’m going to try washing it to see what happens. Fingers crossed!

p.s. – I used the pattern “Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae” from the lovely Wendy Squires at http://www.wendysweewoolies.com/hotfudgebrownie.html

company meeting

Yesterday I spent most of the day at my first company meeting. It was a massive event at Safeco Field and the thought of how much planning goes into that amazes me.

It was a really interesting experience and I was glad to see so many friends that work in other groups of the company.

On our way back we ended up on the weirdest 70s field trip bus. With retro orange and blue seats and everything. I should have taken pictures…boo.

While we were on I-90 I snapped a few pics of Mt. Rainier. They pictures came out terrible, but I kinda like them anyway.   Click on them to enlarge.

I like this next one the most…

 

I got this pretty shirt from one of the nice ladies at microspotting.com! : D

I saw a few other bloggers at the company meeting with this. Very nice indeed.

 

Oh hai, Seattle!  I heart you!