Month: September 2010

Spider Season

Just by the monster spiders everywhere that we were already seeing in July, it was clear that this was going to be a banner year, but as we get further into the fall they continue to get more gruesome. Kevin thinks they’re amazing, and went out with the baby in the backpack to take pictures of this web strung across the path outside our kitchen window, right at face height. (ugh)

I will concede that the raindrops on the web are gorgeous, but given the number of webs I walked into today, I just can’t wait for the first frost. The massive fall spiders are one of the worst parts of the pacific northwest to me.

At least the house spiders so far seem to be at a minimum, fingers crossed.

Recent hand sewing

I feel like I’ve barely been making a dent in any of my projects recently (craft, home, or garden) but there has been a small smidgeon of sewing. 7/8ths of these pant legs are hemmed:

Yay! We’re still cloth-diapering, and so our kiddo at 13 months is a solid 2T in pants now in width and still a good four inches shy in length. Our attempts to roll things only last for minutes, so now I’ve been hemming away. I can make it through about half a pant leg before he’s up, off and away and I have to drop everything to run after him. 🙂

On a similar vein, these strawberry pieces have been cut out for three weeks, and now one of them has seeds!

The list in my head still includes kitchen curtains (have the fabric, lining and hardware to make roman blinds), a tree skirt (have great fabrics and a vague idea), a Halloween costume (a bee? He loves saying brrrrrr, which could be cute as an action costume), baby pants, baby overalls, and new wet bags for daycare, since they keep losing the ones we purchased. Plus vague aspirations for quilts, wallhangings, etc. You can’t say that I ever lack for ideas. 🙂 I’ll let you know if I make any headway.

Gift knitting

Good friends had a baby girl in May, and I finally, finally finished her sweater and hat and could send everything off in the mail.

Sadly, I don’t think there are any more DK lace baby projects for friends in my near future – what was an enjoyable month a year and a half ago now takes two seasons to finish. My knitting was never speedy, but I’m lucky to get in two rows most nights. That said, I loved this sweet little sweater. I pulled together portions of several patterns, and then made up a hat from scratch – both are ~12 month size. Henry modeled the hat for about .75 seconds (quite the speedy hat-puller-offer) before I washed it and he looked adorable. The closures are red/pink buttons over a double-loop of ribbon, and they somehow turned out exactly as I was envisioning. She’s the most well-dressed little thing I’ve ever seen, so hopefully this will be a good match for an outfit or two and get some wear. 🙂 The yarn was super soft and machine washable and dryable (funny how having your own baby TOTALLY changes your priorities yarn-wise!). Here’s the back.

I love this diamond eyelet. 🙂 Full details of the yarn and pattern are up on ravelry.

Knitting!

It’s been ages since I last had anything to share on the knitting front, but I made several inches of progress over the long weekend (enough to finally cast off the back of this 24 mos sweater!):

The yarn is such a rich, pretty blue, and I’ve been enjoying working on it even if DK gauge makes for a slow pace these days. It’s a fast pattern at least (every other row is just knit). Maybe with a bit of momentum, I’ll start burning through it. 🙂

Good thing the first photo turned out, if in a speedy and unblocked sort of way, since my “helper” was quick to come over and snatch it away.