WIP Monday - Part 2

Okay, so I missed last week. I totally spaced it out, deal with it :-D Here are the current Works in Progress, or WIP's I am knitting right now.

This is the project I am currently the most excited about. It's a Mareeka Shawl designed by Brian Smith, who designs really beautiful shawls. My mom gave me a $50 gift certificate to a local yarn store in a nearby town, and I picked up the yarn for this beauty and another 900 yards of some alpaca lace I will probably use in the spring. Yellow and grey is one of my favorite color combinations, but it's not one I have made anything with. I threw in some black and I am thrilled with how fun this shawl is so far.

The only problem I have run in to is that I mixed up the yardages required for the black and the grey, so I have not enough black and more than enough grey. Solution: I get to go back and buy another ball of black, and then use all of the leftovers for a neat hat or some other project. Hooray for silver linings!

I am almost done with Sammy's stocking, I just have to do the finishing work. Which. I. Hate. Doing. There are so many ends to weave in! And I really did not do my best work on this stocking, I guess doing 11 of them in one year two years ago doesn't keep me in my groove, so hopefully the next one is better.

I ran out of yarn on the Shale Baby Blanket. It looks so lovely though! I have 20 repeats of it done, only 37 more to go. Oi vey, that's a lot of stitching! I picked up some Caron Simply Soft on clearance at Hobby Lobby in a beautiful blue, I think I am going to do this same pattern with it and use it as a baby blanket for our church.

Oh yeah, and the stupid rainbow socks aren't finished yet. I want to throw them out the window, hopefully I will finish them by next weekend.

That's all for this week, I probably won't get to update next week because of a big secret that you will find out about later! Have a blessed Labor Day!

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I've Been Published!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! I've been published for the very first time! I made a set of cards that reminded me of my grandparents' Hawaiin shirts in their closet from when we were kids, and on a whim I sent them to CardMaker Magazine. I never in a million years thought I would get published, I used to submit to magazines all the time and never once got picked. This time, though, they emailed me asking to publish 3 of the 6 I had sent them, and I was ecstatic! It's been a hard wait for this to come out, and I let a couple of close friends and my immediate family know, but nobody else. Today my friend Martha (who was one of the few who knew) posted a picture of the cover of the latest issue, and THERE WERE MY CARDS. ON THE COVER. OF THE FLIPPIN' MAGAZINE! I had no idea they chose them for the cover! I'm so excited right now, and I really want to pull out some more supplies and get to card making! The only problem is that shortly after I made these we put all of my papercrafting supplies in storage until the basement is done. Oh well, now I know what I am capable of, and I hope to have lots more designs show up in magazines someday! In case you were wondering,  here are the other 3 cards that didn't get chosen:

I can't wait to get my copy of the actual magazine in hand! The digital copy is now available for download, and the newsstand copy will be available June 4th. Blessings everyone!

On The Needles

Geez, I am really bad at posting my finished projects. Oh well. Her is another set of socks I have started. I have actually finished the other socks I showed earlier, and I love them! I'm even wearing them right now. Too bad there isn't a way to photograph socks on yourself without making your calves look GINORMOUS. So until that picture gets taken, enjoy this pic of my first fair isle sock:

2011 Reflections - Project Life

(pssst.... this video was featured on Becky Higgins' Blog!! Major yay for the day!)

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My Project Life kit from 2011 is finished! Well, almost. Like, 99.9% done. If I wanted to stop now and not mess with it any more, it would be perfectly okay.

I have to say that I love, love, love how it turned out. Sometimes I would get a little bit down reading all of the amazing blog posts from Becky's blog and links where people would do amazing customizations. Stamps, stickers, extra paper, and even sewing new pocket protectors were popping up all over the place, and sometimes I felt like mine was too simple. But the more I looked at it, the more I was really happy with it. I like simple and clean. I also like easy. Sometimes the pictures are sideways or even missing, and I am 100% okay with that. This is the first year of my life where I actually felt somewhat caught up on my scrapbooking. My kids love to look through the album and have me read it to them. I am amazed every time I look at it how much my family has changed. We had 3 new babies enter our family this year, along with many more all around us. My kids learned new skills and I tried new recipes. Some things didn't change, and it was actually nice to document that as well. Most of all I feel like I grew with this project. My photography and editing got better and I became a bit more bold with the products. I let myself off the hook for not having a "picture a day" and instead focused on documenting those precious times. It might sound corny, but I really think Project Life helped me grow as a person. Thank you, Becky Higgins, for "making my dreams come true." Because of you, 2011 will be a year that myself and my children will never forget.

Thinking of Christmas

Now that Halloween is over, it's officially acceptable to start thinking about Christmas. Actually, I have been thinking about Christmas since June, and I have been working on a few projects since then. Here is a preview of some things coming up for my family:

On December 1st, we wrap our television in wrapping paper. We are not allowed to unwrap it until December 26th, and for the whole month we make more of a point to spend time together. Activities we do include ice skating, making gingerbread houses and cookies, and the annual Christmas wrap at the local mall with our church. We call it our "Christmas present to Jesus." Last year we had a really rough time with our four year old, especially at school. This year we gave his teachers a heads up and we are already talking about it and how much fun we are going to have together, and he seems pretty excited.

The annual "Ugly Sweater Christmas Party" is coming up with the young adults at our church. Even though we are no longer a part of that small group, I really hope we still get invited. This is one of my favorite events every year. (PS - this is our entry in the Gingerbread House contest. It's a jail. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty gory and graphic. And it won first place.)

My great grandma made these stockings for all of her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. Last year I found the pattern and picked up where she left off 20 years ago. I finished 2 last year, this year I have finished 9 and have 2 more to go. (Like I said, I have been working since June.) I will post more pictures of these after I finish those 9.

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Welcome Baby J Party

Since Baby J is number 3 for us, I decided I didn't want to have a baby shower. I have a few reasons for this; 1) we already have tons of baby stuff, no need to add more to the mix. 2) A lot of people think it's tacky to have a shower for  a baby that's not the first, (my mom included) and I didn't want to be a subject of gossip. 3) This was a really difficult pregnancy in the emotional sense, as we were told everything from the baby having Down Syndrome or other chromosomal disorders to me having Gestational Diabetes to me eventually being diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and plans for giving birth to a very small, possibly very sick baby. None of the health issues for Baby J ended up being true and my hyperthyroidism symptoms have all but disappeared, with a visit to the endocrinologist next week. We wanted to celebrate the fact that God is good and took care of us during these nine months and now Baby J is here and she's so beautiful and perfect.

Instead of a shower I decided I wanted to throw a Welcome Baby party at our home. We had a baked potato bar (I wish I had pictures; it was AWESOME!), a sweets bar, a big tent set up outside for shade and access to the park behind our house for the kiddos. I had been planning the party for awhile but I really kicked it into gear the last two weeks before it came, cleaning the house like a mad woman and making decorations and sweets. I wish I had more pictures from that day, it was lovely.

 Here's the sugar-coma-inducing table. Complete with 3 different kinds of cupcakes, sugar cookies with royal icing (my very first attempt), seven layer bars, apple bars, and danish cookies. Lemon bars came later and filled the empty space on the platter on the left. (PS - my mom and I found all of the silver she has over the years at thrift stores and pull it out for special occasions. Even if it's only plated we buy it because it is so nice to have around for occasions like this.)

You have to remember with those cookies, they were my first time making royal icing. The cupcake toppers and the bunting were made from the Whimsy paper stack at Joann's. 

 Baby J got to wear her first dress at the party, which was also Little Miss's first dress. She pretty much slept the whole entire time.

After everyone went home she woke up to party with Mommy for a few hours. Fortunately we all still got a good night sleep!

PS - this post has been linked up!