Breeding like, well,

This is what happens when I decide to make destash Easter rabbits for my daughter's preschool class ... they take over! That's fourteen rabbits, including the two evil zombie twins there in the back row. I'm partial to the decapitated bunny heads in the front rows, and not just because they took half as long to make :)

Anyway, the pattern is loosely based on my Zombie Bunny crochet pattern, which you can find in my etsy shop here.

Another thing to do with your kid's artwork

When Lazy Kid painted some lovely watercolor fruits this summer, I knew I was going to have to do something special to preserve them for posterity. One scan, 10 minutes of editing/cutting/pasting, and less than an hour of sewing later, I've got two new placemats for our table.

I used the inkjet-ready, colorfast cotton pages you can find at most sewing and craft stores. I set my printer to print photos at the highest quality, and they turned out pretty sharp:

After I got the Lazy Kid fabric printed, I dug out some of my favorite stash, which I've used to make curtains for my last two kitchens, and which happened to coordinate perfectly with the colors of the fruit. Score!

I sewed strips onto three sides of the art to get it to be the right height for a placemat, then sewed the larger block onto the side to make it the right width. Grabbed some coordinating fabric scraps for the back, found some batting that was just large enough to work, and made myself an inside-out (quilt) sandwich. Stitched around the outside but left an opening for turning, turned it right side out, then topstitched around the edge to help it lay flat and close the turning opening. Topstitched around the Lazy Kid art to help it lay flat, and it was done!

Now, the fabric I printed at home is only "washable," not actually washable, so I'm going to have to Scotchguard the living heck out of these before I let Lazy Kid anywhere near them. But once that's done, I have hopes that these will be cheering our table for the rest of the summer!

Proud of my princess

Lazy Kid is almost 5 now, so I figured it was time for her to try her hand at embroidery. Here she is with her first piece, about half of which she completed on her own, with my only help being to hold the hoop for her while she handled the needle and thread:

We used some leftover Aida cloth I had in my stash, and some perl cotton that my mother got at a yard sale or something (because I know I didn't buy it). We used a slightly sharpened tapestry needle - basically, whatever I could find that had an eye large enough for the cotton but was still small enough to fit through the holes in the cloth.

I got her started, making the knot and showing her how to handle the needle safely and make the stitches roughly where she wanted them. I did a cross for the center of the flower, and she filled in the rest. I did one leaf, she did the rest. I started the sun, she finished it. She was patient, moving the needle around until it came out exactly where she wanted. And she knew exactly what she wanted, specifying when I had to change the thread colors for her and even asking how to take out one stitch that didn't work the way she wanted it to.

And when she was done "drawing with string," she insisted that she had to sign her work. I did the "Z" and "A" in her name, and she did the rest.

I am unbearably proud of her. Now if she'd just show any interest in doing it again ...

Finally - new merchandise!

Introducing the Play/Move/Store bag ... aka the "Stop Yelling At Your Kid To Pick Up The Legos" play mat.

Unfolded, it's a great place to spread out those toys with a billion pieces - legos, blocks, barbies, plastic tea sets, etc. It lets kids see all the pieces without having to dump the whole container in the middle of the kitchen floor. And the best part - when they're done playing, all they have to do to clean the whole mess up is grab the drawstring and pull. Voila! A very portable, very storable tote bag full of tiny pieces of plastic!

Now available in a wide range of colors and prints (which I'm listing gradually as time and LazyKid permit) on my shop at etsy.com . You can find them here. And if you have a color combination you'd like me to make up for you custom, I'd be happy to give it a try! Just contact me at lazymamadesigns@yahoo.com and we'll see what we can work out.

Fun with drink mixes

So I had this really fugly yarn that looked awful no matter what I did with it, and a couple people on Ravelry suggested I overdye it. The easiest overdye for wool is - get this - Kool-Aid drink mix. I had bought some intending to use it to dye some cotton for my etsy shop, but since Kool-Aid doesn't actually work on cotton, I decided this was a much better use for my $0.20 of food coloring and citric acid.

Before:

After one packet each of Cherry and Grape, plus about 6 ounces of vinegar to help it set, and about 8 minutes in the microwave:

Still damp, you can see the variation in the top and bottom halves of the hank. And you can see how cute my cat is.

I'm hoping it will be dry tomorrow so that I can use the ball-winder that has finally come in for my at my local yarn store. I've got a swatch left over in the "before" colors, so it will be neat to see them side-by-side.

And if it's still fugly, it's hitting the trash.

But the overdyeing was fun ... definitely will have to try that again in the future.

Look how pretty!

My Leyburn socks, which I'm knitting from the same yarn as the emergency wedding shawl (and the socks I made for my sister-in-law). Look how pretty!

And the scarf I made for Lazy Kid, which was a really fun short-row knitting project that used Soy Wool Stripes from Paton.

She wears it tied around her waist like a cummerbund. At least that way the static electricity it generates doesn't mess up her hair :)

The last of the cotton market bags

Pattern can be found here: http://cerdeb.googlepages.com/SuperSelfPouchingStringShoppingBag.pdf

The construction on this is really nice - there's a double bottom that isn't joined all the way around, so you can flip the whole thing inside out and stuff the bag into the bottom to keep it tidy when it's not in use.

I think I've got one more market bag left in me before I'm done with this for a while, and I think I'm going to combine the bottom of this bag with the sides of the sea shell tote, just to see how they work together. Wish me luck!

Looky what I made

Lazy Kid likes her Rapunzel braid so much, she wore it to the mall on Sunday, and she would have worn it to school today if I hadn't tackled her on her way out the door. It's on a ponytail elastic, and the boucle yarn is lightweight enough that it doesn't pull out immediately, even on her straight hair. I may have to invest in some extra colors of yarn and see if these will sell in the etsy shop.

Feeling all smug in a MacGyverish sort of way

Lazy Husband was just getting ready for bed and discovered a rather troubling steady drip of water that is coming from the top of our bedroom window frame and splashing loudly on our windowsill every 0.65 seconds. Aside from the hideous mold this leak is probably causing in our walls and attic, the sound is enough to drive you insane while trying to go to sleep.

Putting down a towel on the sill didn't help, it just made it into more of a splat than a plink, and at the rate the water is coming out the towel would be completely soaked before morning, anyway. Lazy Husband was about ready to give up and sleep in the guest room tonight when I had a brain flash.

I grabbed the leftover (organic, unbleached, undyed, ridiculously expensive) cotton yarn from this hat, taped one end to the wall above the leak, ran the length of it so it touched the drippy point on the frame, and stuck the other end in a plastic pitcher. Once I wetted down the yarn along its length, the water ran (silently!) down the yarn and into the pitcher.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, craft gods, for helping me get some sleep tonight. Because I'm going to need it when calling repair people tomorrow ...

Parade of socks

We exchanged presents with friends last night, and the socks I made for the kids went over well:

Let's not discuss what it takes to get a three-year-old, a six-year-old, and an eight-year-old to hold still long enough to model socks. Let's just say there were brownies involved and leave it at that, shall we?

I even managed to finish the socks I was working on for their mom, although not until late late late in the evening. Good thing we were spending the night ;)

And I totally dropped the ball on the socks for her husband, which shouldn't take very long but are only a couple of inches along at this point. So far that's the only delinquency in the Season of Sock Madness, though, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

Work and play

Yeah, so my mother's socks are in the can.

Pattern: Jaywalker, by Grumperina - sort of. I did plain feet, then jaywalkered the legs.

Yarn: Cascade Fixation Spray Dyed/Effects (a cotton sock yarn) in Colorway 9939.

Needles: US 2 dpns

It's a fun, easy pattern that yields a nice firm sock. I'm not sure how well it would work for the whole sock for those of us with giant ankles, but the leg-only approach seems to fit well.

Now, about work. I've been making little diaper bags using panels from the "Peek A Boo" line by Amy Bradley for Moda fabrics. They're super-cute, but I don't have any photos yet. Hopefully tomorrow, if LazyKid will cooperate and watch some Sesame Street for an hour or so :)

Look! Pattern development!

Yeah, so with all the mermaid tail production and sock knitting and vacationing, it's been a little while since I've introduced a new pattern to my shop. I've got a new one on the machine now, though, and once I get it written up I think it will be pretty popular. Here's a taste:

It may be a few days before it's available, though, since I have Important Things to do, like go to the observation class at Lazy Kid's dance studio.

Cowl-ly goodness

Okay, here's the cowl I finished while we were on vacation:

And here's a closeup of the stitch pattern, since nobody seems to have included that anywhere with the directions. It looks pretty cool, but since it gets all bunched up when you wear it, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
Again, that's "Abby," by Amy R. Singer, found via Ravelry on knitty.com, made using some laceweight blue alpaca that I got for free (thanks, petite!).

Also, compare the first photo background with the previous photo backgrounds, such as you'd find here ... we painted our bathroom teal! Yay! I love it, but it does make for a somewhat more cave-like photo.

Sewing for Lazy Kid

Child's Sock Pattern by Lucy H. Lee, found for free via Ravelry. Knit from Soxx Appeal by Knit One, Crochet Too, I think the colorway was Purple Haze. Fun, fast knit, even if they are done on size 2 DPNs. Gah.

Next up: A bean bag chair with a secret.


It's filled with all of Lazy Kid's stuffed animals, which she never uses for anything, anyway, but won't let me throw out. Hah! Now the kid has a place to sit when she watches videos in my studio, and I have extra room to store toys she actually uses. Not bad for coming from a free pattern and using up stash fabric ... even if I did have to use pins to sew on the bottom and top. Pins are evil, have I mentioned that recently?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just realized that I have a vacation to pack for, and NO SUITABLE KNITTING TO TAKE WITH ME. The horror! The horror! Must buy more yarn!

Attack of the (formerly) UFOs

After a brief family meeting, it was decided that I would take some time this weekend to get started on my holiday etsy shop sewing, since I've got Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all looming on the horizon. My first goal was to clear out some of the UFOs that have been hanging around, clogging up the cutting table and taking up space in my brain.




So, in roughly the order they were completed, here's the list of the FOs from this weekend:

1. SWAK blanket as a gift for a friend.
2. Two custom mermaid costumes.
3. A school bag for Lazy Kid, who starts "real" preschool tomorrow.
4. Some throw pillow covers for Christmas, made from redwork patterns I got here. Sorry for the embarrassingly bad photo, but I was in a hurry. Notice I've got two pillow covers but only one pillow? Waiting for a sale at Joanns to get another one ...
5. Two eyelet lace SWAK blankets for the shop.
6. A Halloween Hexagon quilt from stash fabric, which is all basted and ready to start quilting.
7. Three madras plaid homespun SWAK blankets for the shop.
8. A swirly wool toddler/child hat that I'm insanely proud I designed myself. See how the stripes swirl and decrease toward the top of the hat? Brilliant!
9. Pieces for the next baby quilt for the shop cut out and ready to start piecing.
10. And, if I stop typing and get my butt in gear, I may be able to finish my first pair of winter socks of the season, which are about 3/4" from the toe decreases right now.

So I'm going off to watch football (yawn) and knit furiously fast. Hope your weekend was equally productive!

Mermaid tail for dress-up

Okay, when Lazy Kid spends all morning playing with her new imaginary friend, Alice the Mermaid, you can't expect me to refrain from busting out the sequins during naptime to make a mermaid tail, can you? Didn't think so.

Not bad for freehanding the design and basing the sizing off of a pair of leggings I swiped from her room after she was asleep. The fabric choice is admirably scaly (and from my stash, so therefore both free and studio-clearing), but the edges of the sequins are scratchy and have caused Lazy Kid to collapse in hysterics at least three times (since 4pm). Of course, she collapses in hysterics at least twice a day anyway, so it's probably not so bad, but I think any future iterations of this design will be made from the softer fabric Lazy Grandma used to make the shirt.

Future versions probably won't be lined in purple silk, either, but hey - I had it in the stash, and it was exactly the right size to fit the pattern pieces, so what's not to love about that? My daughter may have the only silk-lined dress up clothes in the state (country?), but that's fine by me.

So, how much would you be willing to pay for one of these for your daughter/granddaughter/niece/friend's kid? Would $30 be too much for a reversible, shiny-on-one-side, custom-fit play skirt? Too little? What do you think?

New merchandise

Cute little lined cotton zip bags, with a strap suitable for use around a child's or adult's wrist. I made one for Lazy Kid, who had plenty of purses but none that actually closed, so when she took her change to the mall to ride on the little rides, she'd sling the purse around and quarters would go flying everywhere. The bag turned out so cute that I thought there might be a market for them. Find all four designs in the "bags" section of my etsy shop.

Serendipity

When we moved a little over a year ago, I was so excited to be back near my preferred quilt shop that I splurged and bought fabric for a bunch of different projects. Most of the projects are finished, but a couple were of the "not-such-a-great-idea" variety, and those have been sitting at the bottom of the to-do pile for months. The fabric would get used eventually, I figured, even if it wasn't in what I originally planned. But every time I looked at the fabric, I saw wasted $$. Good thing the pile kept getting deeper, so deep you could barely see the offending prints sticking out one side.

Then today I finished up a quilt top that's a prototype for a new pattern ... and also a gift for a friend who is expecting her first baby any day now. Most of my prototypes have muslin backs to save material costs, but since this is a gift, I wanted to find something a little jazzier. Most of the fabric for the front came from my stash, but I didn't think I had anything large enough left for the back ... but it was worth a try, if only to keep me from having to wake Lazy Kid to go to the fabric store before dinner.

After digging through my drawers of full-width fabric and finding nothing that wasn't too small or too ugly, I was ready to give up when I spotted one of the "not-such-a-great-idea" fabrics out of the corner of my eye. Yes, that $18 piece of red flannel was exactly the right color to coordinate with the quilt top, and it is - get this - exactly 2" larger than the top, all the way around.

For once I have exactly the right piece of fabric in my stash, exactly when I need it. Praise Jeebus and pass the ammunition, I may be able to finish this sucker after all!

Here's a sneak peek ... Kylie-Ann, don't scroll down unless you want to ruin the surprise!
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More hats

First there was the Irish Hiking Hat, made for my mother from cotton yarn I bought in Blacksburg.
She liked it so much that she asked me to make another one from the organic cotton yarn we salvaged from a really, really bagged out cardigan I made for her for Christmas last year (hint: The Fairly Easy Fair Isle doesn't translate well to thinner yarn on larger needles to get gauge). So after something like five hours of the two of us frogging and rewinding the yarn from the sweater, I got around to doing this:

Same hat as before, only now you can see the cables better. She liked THAT one so much, she decided that's what she wants me to do with all the yarn - make her enough hats so that she's not heartbroken when she loses one (which happens several times a winter). I was kinda sick of cables by then, and I didn't have enough of the next color to make the whole cable band, anyway, so I decided to practice my fair isle technique in a gauge that was a little more robust.

This hat totally kicks ass, and I think I may have to add a leash to it so she doesn't lose it the first time she wears it. Can't you just see it - an idiot hat instead of idiot mittens?

Since I came up with the pattern for this one all by myself (yay!), I can sell them if I want ... not sure I can get enough $$ for a hand-knit hat to justify the time spent making them, but they will make awesome Christmas presents for, oh, EVERYONE I'VE EVER MET.

Oh, and Laura - I totally need to teach you to knit, because these would be soooo nice in the CottonEase you like so much :)

More personal knitting

In case nobody's noticed, I'm getting a lot of personal crafting done recently, but I've been posting virtually nothing work-related. Fear not, fellow crafters! I've got a couple patterns in testing right now, and I should have them ready for you sometime in August (maybe sooner?).

In the meantime, check out what I've been up to:

Picovoli by Grumperina, in the Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy yarn I got in Blacksburg.


This is the second time I've knit this pattern, and I love love love it. I highly recommend it, as it's a fit-as-you-go, top-down, all-in-one-piece-so-there's-no-seams pattern. And the fit came out nicely both times - pretty true to the measurements given in the pattern. I'm having a bit of trouble with the picot neckline wanting to sag, and I ran out of yarn before I could do picot edging on the sleeves, but otherwise I'm super-happy with how this turned out. I even wore it out to dinner tonight, the day after I finished it!

Also, Foliage by Emilee Mooney, knit from some organic cotton I had leftover from a sweater I knit for my mother for Christmas.


I made this up as a birthday present for a friend who has beautiful long wavy red hair, and I purposely made it large so it would have plenty of ease to fit over her barrette without snagging or squishing her hair. It fits perfectly, and it's sooooo soft. I love the finished fabric this cotton makes ... just wish I could remember the manufacturer. Oh, well - I guess OOAK objects are good, too ... I'll just have to "borrow" it from her when I go to visit ;) Anyhoo, the hat pattern was a lot of fun, if a bit attention-intensive. It's the first time I've had to follow a chart as part of a project, and it went pretty well. I pulled out the magnetic board I used to use when I did a lot of cross-stitch, and it worked great to help me keep track of my place in the chart. I'll definitely have to try that again next time I use a chart.