Stackers

A friend contacted me a few weeks ago with a custom order request for a crocheted stacking rings set.  It turned out so cute!  The pattern can be found on the JoAnn website. 

I love all the little details:

the tail and wings on the dragonfly

two sizes of spots on the ladybug

the stripes, stinger, and antennae on the bee

 

the lily pads and flowers on the base

 

and the cute little frog face on the pole!

Inspiration

I've been spending time cruising Etsy lately looking for inspiration.  I thought it might be fun to share a few of the things that have been sparking my creativity. 

First, this gorgeous fabric from Cotton Threads

this fabric also from Cotton Threads is totally becoming a blanket if I find out the baby we're adopting is a boy!

EVERYTHING from Atelier Sonatine - tons of cute Japanese fabrics that remind me of the illustrations from the Richard Scarry books I read over and over again as a child.

(on a total side-note, my very very favorite book as a child was The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter.  We've got my copy of it and it is lovingly trashed from much use.  Just looked it up on Amazon and it apparently is a lot of people's favorite cause its totally expensive.  Maybe I better take care of it; I don't wanna have to replace it!)

This sweet doll pattern on Dear Madelyn

This gorgeous vintage crane pendant on My Shangri La.  I think cranes are the most beautiful bird

LOVE this little dish on The Brick Kiln

this polar bear pattern from Forever T&M has got to go in my repertoire!

 

All of the awesome wood toys at Woman Wood Worker ... I love the quality!

This is just some of what's inspiring me lately.  What's inspiring you?

ahhhhh

that's better!

The blog now has a new look.  I know I changed it about 6 months ago, but it was feeling dark and heavy to me.  Maybe its all this snow we've been having; maybe I'm tired of the endless gray; but I just needed a change!  Hope you like it as much as I do!  And if you're following on Google Reader, stop by the blog and take a look.

More V-day Pics!

Today was the kids' actual Valentine's Day parties.  After posting pics of their outfits I decided Eli's robot just didn't look finished to me.  We added on some "claw" hands and a mouth and it was just the finishing touches I was wishing were there :)  Here's a side-by-side comparison.

He was so excited to wear it today and was showing it off to anyone who would look!

Anna's shirt was cute, but I had a little of the fabric leftover and wanted to make some coordinating bottoms.  She had this old pair of jeans that matched perfectly except she had worn holes in the knees and the legs were just a smidge too short.  Anna is super tall for her age, so even though these are size 5 they're already too short.  I took some extra fabric and the Steam-A-Seam2 and ironed patches on the inside of the knees.

Then I added a little ruffle of the fabric at the base of each leg to add on the extra length she needed.  I think these will be just long enough to be useful into the summer, and if we're lucky into next fall as well!

The whole outfit turned out just right.  There is something deeply satisfying about making things for my kids!

Anna also was super excited to put on her outfit and show it off at school!  (the floor was cold, and Anna refused to have her pic taken on it unless she had something to stand on)

Unrelated, here are some photos of how beautiful it was outside this morning.  It had been warm yesterday - warm enough that our snow started melting.  Well early this morning it started getting cold, and there was fog everywhere.  The water in the air started condensing on the trees in these amazing ice crystal formations!  It literally looked like snowflakes or feathers were growing on the trees (the last two pics are worth clicking on and looking at up-close.  Seriously beautiful!) 

 

  

 

Unfortunately I had an eye doctor appointment this morning and missed my chance to take pictures once the sun came out.  It was gorgeous to see all the trees shimmering in the sunlight.  By the time I got home all of the ice crystals had melted away :(

Girls!

I think I get a few more requests for baby girl items than baby boy ones.  Not sure if that's because more people I know are having girls, or if people are just more interested in getting creative, cute gifts for baby girls.  Regardless the reason, I love making girly gifts!
This weekend I had two baby showers to attend, both for baby girls!  I decided I would give the things I used the most the first few weeks with my kids - diapers and burpcloths.  Each gift had a pack of size 2 diapers, a set of 3 burpcloths, and something cute just for fun.

My neighbor's shower was first.  You'll probably recognize this set from a post this summer, I've been saving the little blue bird for just the right recipient.  I loved that it was girly without being all pink.  My neighbor can easily remove the flower and use this for a baby boy if she has one down the road. (Not shown are the other two matching burp cloths.  I tried taking pics of them, but they were no where near as good as the photos I took this summer... sun, come back!)

The other set I made was for the same family who purchased the kangaroo.  This time it was all about the pink! 

 

I couldn't resist the matching pink super chunky yarn, so a hat was born.

 

The yarn is so thick that the hat can completely stand up on its own!

Facebook

If we aren't already friends on Facebook, you probably don't know that Knits and Knots has its own fan page there.   If you're on Facebook, click the link, visit the page, and become a fan!  I post regular updates and sneak peeks on the fan page since its much easier for me to post there than on the blog.  Hope you visit soon :)

Boys

Newborn baby hats are so much fun!  You can do tons of variety in style and craft and always come up with something unique.  Here are two examples of using the exact same yarn, exact same colors, but with different crafts and different patterns.  For each of these I used Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Cotton" yarn in chocolate brown and blue
First, I got another request for a Monkey Earflap hat, but this one for a boy.  No flower this time!  This crocheted hat works up pretty fast, and as you can see is just as cute for a boy as for a girl!

I also got another photography prop request from my friend Loree of Loree Alayne Photography (she's amazing, seriously, check out her site!).  She wanted a long stocking cap for her baby photography, so I knit up this hat late this week for her.  I simply love the way it turned out and hope to make some more of these!  I am already imagining all of the color combinations that would look good on this hat!

Valentines

Its almost time for Valentines day!  I decided to try my hand at making shirts for the kids to wear to school this year.
Now making a V-day shirt for a 6 yr old boy is not easy.  Eli and I scoured the web for cute ideas that weren't girly and came across a darling shirt on Etsy.  With that as our inspiration we designed a robot together and when Eli got on the bus Anna and I headed to the store to get materials.  That was probably the most time consuming part of the whole project!  Once we were home it went together quite fast :)

I used felt for the components of the applique and secured the pieces together with Steam-A-Seam2 (sheets of fusible webbing).  It holds on tight, and hopefully will last through washing.  I'm not going to try that until AFTER the holiday though.  If it only lasts for one season I guess that's ok, but I made it large enough that he should be able to wear it again next year!  I may still add some gray "claw" hands to the robot... it doesn't seem quite finished to me.


It was WAY easier to make anna's shirt.  I saw this shirt a week ago or so and just knew I had to do something like it for my little one.  I don't do embroidery just yet (though I'm dying to learn!) so we opted for an iron-on applique in place of the embroidery.  While she's not the girliest girl out there, Anna child loves sparkle!  We found this super cute sparkly applique for the front of her shirt.

Then we picked out some sparkly coordinating fabric for her wings and... voila! I free-handed a quick wing pattern.  I taped the pattern to the fabric, cut it out, and again I used the Steam-A-Seam2 to stick the fabric together (wrong sides together).  I did a quick stitching around the wing to accent the shape and to be certain the layers wouldn't separate (I don't think they will anyway, but just making it less likely!).  Then I stitched the center part to the shirt and was done!

Now to figure out what we're going to do with the leftover wing fabric.  I'm thinking accented jeans or maybe a skirt....

Toasty

I love sweaters.  I really do.  And I have a lot of them.  Most of them don't fit, but I just can't bear to give them away.  Today I made some progress...
This pile:

Became this:

And ended up as this:

Now I can still cuddle up with my favorite sweaters all at once!