The Great Bath

April 10, 2012 By 5 Comments
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As a Godparent, I often think about what I could give my Godchild to encourage them in their walk of faith.  A gift that they can use, don’t have to worry about breaking, and will remind them of the very special and miraculous day that the Holy Spirit claimed their wee life as His own.  Not an easy task.  I’m thinking I’m probably not alone in this conundrum each year, so if anyone has any other ideas, feel free to share in the comments!!

Seeing some inspiration somewhere in blog land, I came up with a baptism banner that is meant to be pulled out and hung up on their special day.  Sort of like a birthday banner.  (Can you tell I like banners?  I guess that cheap plastic happy birthday banner really hit a heart string when I was a little imp.)

Since I was seeing my Godchild, Kylie, at Easter it totally gave me a deadline to get the baptism banner done.  I love how it came out!  It has her name, her sponsors, date of baptism, location, and a Bible verse.

I used fusible web and fabric scraps for the block letters.  Then I used my free motion sewing machine foot to sloppy stitch around them twice.

Free motion foot was also used for all the writing.  I penciled it on first as a guide.  Really I wasn’t concerned about being perfect.  It kind of adds to the whole look to be not so perfect.  Thank goodness!

Did some hand stitching around each of the sections and a few fish near the top.  Just enough to not overwhelm me.

Added some loops at the top for a stick/dowel to hand through and it is bannerific!

So here’s hoping that this little banner will be a sweet reminder to Kylie each year that she is a girl dearly loved by a GREAT God!

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Progress

March 26, 2012 By 1 Comment
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This last weekend I spent some good quality time with my knitting needles.  (Dang those dishes that are still sitting dirty by the sink!)  Here’s my progress on my Wurm hat.  You can see the stripping of the dusty pink and light mustard.  I kind of like how it makes it look like there are two layers to the hat.

This is the inside of the hat, but you can see the mustard better.  It might sort of be reversible…

And here’s another yarn project.  Birds of a Feather.  (Free pattern.)  I thought it might be fun to make these for the kids for Easter.  I debated doing this knitted version or the crochet one.  Went with crochet since I thought it would be faster.  This guy didn’t take me too long at all.

And his backside.

All single crochet stitch so no need to be an expert–google a video if you need to.  I’m going to make a red, blue, yellow and pink one before I’m done.  The hubby just rolls his eyes and tries to control his comments about the state of the kitchen.  He’s a good man.

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On my needles…

March 23, 2012 By 5 Comments
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The knitting bug has bitten me again and once again there is just so much I want to do and not enough time!  This girl has too many interests!  I’ve got seedlings coming up, I planted lettuce/spinach, I’ve got a pile of books to read, sewing projects in my head, and now way too many knitting wants.  (And I wonder why the housework seems to be abandoned and pushed back another day.)

So here’s what’s on my knitting needles and being actively knit on.

This hat is called “Wurm” and is free on Ravelry.  It’s a slouch hat that you can decide just how slouchy.  I don’t think I really liked it the first time I saw it, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.  So it’s now on the needles.

I am doing mine stripy with the main color a dusty pink and the other color kind of a light mustard.

I’m doing a second Baby Sophisticate sweater.  Also free on Ravelry.  The original one, below, I made for Elias, and now Espen wears it all the time as well.  So fun to see handknits passed from baby to baby.

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Here’s the one I’m working on now.  Using Cascade 220 so it’s machine washable for the mama.

And my sock still gets a row worked on it every once in a while.  I’m trying to use my oldest stash sock yarn up and then I get to move on to new and more exciting stuff.   Another free pattern from The Knitmore Girls called “The Knitmore Vanilla Sock.”  You can find the pattern on the right hand side of their website.  The Knitmore Girls.

So, whenever I can grab a few minutes during the day, I am reaching for my knitting needles, not the toilet brush or the dish rag.  Ha!  In your face housework!

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Fabulousa Pork Chops

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I pulled a recipe from Midwest Living this last weekend–Cranberry Sausage Stuffed Pork Chops with Pumpkin Gravy.   It looked good and won first place out of a huge number of recipes, so I figured it had to be at least decent.  It was amazing!!  I used pork chops that were probably only about an inch thick…just trying to save a few bucks.  The pumpkin butter was very easy to make and I stuck 2 extra jars in the freezer, making next time even easier.  (I actually labeled the pumpkin butter jars, so I will know what it is when I reach into the freezer abyss.   Learned my lesson when I made pizza sauce with enchilada sauce…)  Also didn’t have Caesar dressing, so I used another white dressing I had on hand…Greek Feta, I think.   These chops were something special!  You can’t really go wrong when you stuff pork with sausage and cranberries.  Here’s the recipe.

Cranberry Sausage-Stuffed Pork Chops with Pumpkin Gravy

Only one picture from Midwest Living.  I’m terrible at taking pics of food.

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Stacked Coin Baby Quilt

March 7, 2012 By 1 Comment
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A little one is on the way for a sweet friend, so I made up a little quilt to keep the guy cozied up in.  It’s kind of a stacked coin pattern…just kind of made it up.  Very easy.

One of my favorite things in the quilting world lately is all the very simple quilting.  I quilted this with a little longer stitch length and randomly placed straight lines.  The great thing about this type of quilting is that it allows beginners who are afraid of this step or those without a big long arm quilting machine to do their own quilting.  (The quilting is the actual stitching of the backing+batting+quilt top together.)

I just used two bigger scraps for the backing.  I really hope this quilt is snuggled with by chubby hands, stepped all over with baby toes, drooled on, dirtied up…washed a million times!  You get the picture.  Loved.

I still have to put a label on the back and then throw it through the wash once to give it that timeless wrinkled look.

Blessings on your arrival little one!

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