mountain hat.

we decided to run away from home for the day on saturday, with the dog and a few projects to work on in the car in tow, and went up to the mountains for the afternoon! the fall leaves and colors are so gorgeous this time of year, i can hardly stand it. i've been trying to be better about using my time to finish up projects no matter where i am, and i've noticed that i've had lots of car time recently that is not being put to good use! so, instead of working on embroidering several quilt squares i brought with me, i finished crocheting a scarf for the shop and then got inspired to make a hat for myself.

i started off about halfway through the 2.5 hour trip, very ambitiously thinking it would be great to have a cute little new handmade hat to wear for the pictures we would be sure to take when we got up to the top of the parkway. if i hadn't been winging it on the pattern, and made it much too wide like a not-quite-right beret, and ended up pulling literally half of it apart and redoing it, i might have finished it on the way there!

as it was, i had almost finished it when we got back to the house that night, and all it needed was a finishing chain stitch around the edge. i do almost everything i can get away with in a double crochet stitch because it is twice as big, and i tell myself twice as fast, but i think a nice little chain stitch around the edge just gives it a finishing touch. i also did a darker brown stripe along the bottom to contrast the really pretty taupe of the hat.

next up is a matching scarf with the leftover yarn of both browns, and of course, some green thrown in the mix and another hat for my husband in a dark brown with a green stripe! i have no idea where the pattern originally came from, but this is the simplest hat i've ever tried to make, the same one i used to make a baby hat a few months ago (i just added the giant flower on top for fun). to make it adult sized, i just upped the thickness of the yarn and the crochet hook size.


so, if i can just hurry up and finish matt's hat, we will all three have matching hats for the winter!

these are a few of...

my inspiring things! i'm always amazed at the wealth of incredible things people are thinking up and making... what a wonderful era of great design and handmade loveliness to be living in! here are some things i've come across recently that just whet my oh*i *love*that! appetite:

(apologies for not better crediting the pictures... they came from all over the place!)

a beautiful beautiful beautiful birthday banner! i've been wanting to make one of these for a long time, and came across this one while randomly browsing around for something else. it's even in my favorite colors, pink, brown, and green, and looks to be patchworked with amy butler prints! what could be better? i also adore the look of this table in general... i think this is how i imagine K's first birthday looking next year... pink juice boxes especially!

the whipup.com website banner with so many wonderful dots, i just can't stand it! i had just seen a beautiful dot quilt in real simple magazine
and thought how cool of a design it would be, especially to use up lots
of scraps and non-matching fabrics that you can't think of what else to
do with!

i'm also really inspired, for some reason, by text and numbers and
anything nerdy such as notebooks and pencil rolls. it never occured to
me that such things could become a cool design element of your home in
the most random places! (and yes, i really would do this if we had hardwoods!) both pics thanks to red shoes!

and last but not least, pretty much all things amy butler... her prints are just so lovely, they really honestly make me happy to look at them! i've been a bit focused on the lotus quilt pattern on her website, and i envision all of the following as throw quilts on my plain tan couch!
lotus quilt:

christmas ideas.

some may say that mid-october is too late for christmas planning, and some may say too soon! but i've been bitten again by a bug that i think gets me pretty much every year... this probably being the least likely i could pull it off, with a new baby due on the last of november... a christmas with all handmade presents!

(and of course, handmade wrapping. that's most of the fun for me. my name is lindsey, and i'm a crafting overachiever).

now, for my family members that may actually read this blog, don't get too excited. the inspiration running high now, but is sure to come crashing down with the 3rd feeding at 4am with spit up all over me and when the choice becomes- create lovely handmade gifts for family or take a shower... the shower will win.

but it's still nice to plan, even though i said the same thing last year and it didn't happen. apparently this is something that must be started in january/february to be finished by christmas!

here are the ideas so far:

• roll-up crayon/pencil holder to inspire creativity on the go for little nieces or nephews.

(picture thanks to mary made me on flickr)

• notetaker/coupon/list organizer for busy ladies in the family:

(picture thanks to selmaoglinea on flickr)

ok, so there's only two, but they're simple enough and similar enough in construction that i may actually get them done (one of these days!). if nothing else, it's always fun to start thinking christmas!

baby wish quilt- part one

i'm trying to keep confident that i have not bitten off more than i can chew in attempting to make my soon-to-be-born daughter a quilt. i think a large part of my apprehension comes from the very large and impressive example that my mom set for me and that i feel, in part, that i should live up to even though i know even with the experience she had in quilting, i may never quite reach. she made her incredible works of art look so easy, and she did them for the pure enjoyment of making and giving them away, usually.

so, though much more simple than what my mom could have whipped up in her spare time, i am attempting a quilt. and i really think i can do it! the part that might not quite happen is having it done before the baby comes, although it is high on my get-done-before-she-comes list.

the quilt started with an idea... having ladies at my baby shower write a one-word prayer or blessing that would be then embroidered and pieced into a quilt, wrapping the baby in prayers.of course, being a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl, with no regard for silly things like patterns or measurements, simply blocking and putting together this really simple quilt has become a challenge!

here are the blocks i started with, written in wash-off fabric pen. you can see to the right some of the other fabrics i'll be using for the other blocks:

you can tell where i've started to machine-embroider some of the words... good thing i like my quilts a little wrinkly-looking, like they were washed and dried on the clothesline! there are several left to embroider, and i'm realizing that if i want them all to be legible, i'm going to have to do a combination of machine and hand-embroidering.

the most recent thing i've done is start adding some of the blocks, figuring out what fabrics i want to use and if i have enough of it available (i'm making it all from fabrics of my mom's, to give K a memory and connection to her nana). i ended up having to go back over and re-embroider some of the ends of some of the letters to be sure they don't unravel.

so this is the state it sits in right now, with only a little over 6 weeks to go until this baby is here! i'm also feeling a bit of pressure, because i found out about this baby quilt competition from make-baby-stuff.com, and think it would be awesome to enter. but since the deadline is november 1st, i don't see that likely to happen.

i am trying to keep it as simple as possible to get it done quickly... even though i had this fabulous quilt binding tutorial from the lovely heather bailey, it was still worrying me and i'm not sure how well i can handle that part. instead, i'm going to use an even easier turn-it-inside-out and stitch-the-edge-flat method from amy butler's lotus brick path quilt, one of the free patterns on her website!

still making progress!

believe it or not, i'm still making progress at unpacking/organizing/making something other than a mess of my craft room... both my stuff from the move and the things i inherited from my mom. i've been sort of charting how far i've come by the big bookshelf that i had earmarked for all the fabric from mom (something i've never really experienced organizing before, since mine has always been scraps or smaller pieces like fat quarters... now i have actual yardage to deal/work with!)

here's how it was a few weeks after the move:

and here it is this week with some of the fabric starting to get organized:


i moved some of the clear plastic boxes to my desk that hold the items i use regularly (stamps, adhesives, ink pads, and punches) because honestly, i got lazy and tired of having to get up and go back and forth each time i needed something! (my desk and the bookshelf are on opposite sides of the room- not that far at all, but still).

and of course, there is still a huge rubbermaid tote and a half in the garage, full of fabric and other crafty goodness, that must come out and be organized! it's still on my pre-baby to-do list, so i'd better really get to work, seeing as how i only have 6 and half weeks left!

at least all the surrounding boxes on the floor are unpacked and put away, but that's only thanks to overnight guests having to stay in this particular room (my studio doubles as a guest bedroom when need be).

back to work!

fall has fell.

(as my mom used to say).

i think more resolutions for a new year hit me around october than january, because i love the season so much. when the grass gets that little chill and the apples are crisp on the trees, everything just feels so fresh and new.

i'm also fairly convinced that this blog will be the end of me... this momma of three (with one more on the way about the same time as us) seems to be able to accomplish more making in one afternoon than i probably have listed on my 'long term crafting goals' list, buried somewhere underneath the boxes of craft things i still need to get put away from the move (mainly fabric). she simultaneously appeals to my perfectionist side by inspiring me to a new level of not only getting things done, but doing them well and so as to surround your family with handmade loveliness (everything from bathmats to handknit baby blankets)... but also makes me feel like these things can get done with out the must-get-it-done-now frenzy of a to-do list, and can calmly make my house more of a home full of cozy handmade memories.

i envision a house full of little ones making their own button and string projects while i make them each baby blankets and birthday crowns and bookbags... yet i can't even seem to use these numbered days of first baby on the way/no kids/no job to get something productive done.

so what do i do? i make a list!

things i plan to accomplish in my last 8 weeks of pre-child life:

1. make baby K's quilt of wishes from her baby shower. i have a heartbreaking stack of quilts my mom started that i don't know how to finish without potentially ruining, and i don't want to pass that on to K. i had everyone at her shower write one wish or blessing on a square of fabric, and i plan to embroider them and then quilt the squares into a crib quilt.
   


2. make the squares i have that were pre-cut by my mom into a couch snuggly blanket. this will be accomplished in the most easy fashion i can think of, and finished quickly so as to be enjoyed! (which may mean that i quilt it over an old store-bought blanket we already have. so be it).


3. the last two huge rubbermaid totes of fabric inherited from my mom will be emptied and organized onto my shelves so that when i go to make a project, i can simply stand in front of a shelf-full of fabric, make my choices, and go sew!


4. finish listing everything i currently have made into my ellebee studio etsy shop and keep things organized so that they can be sent out quickly and efficiently! i have so many lovely things that i'm excited about sharing, and i know at least a small time of some sort of maternity leave is inevitable coming... must be prepared!


5. last but not least, i'd like to finish geting things together to realize my other two shops-in-the-works studio supplies and petite bee (both coming soon!), stocked up and ready to go! this will require getting several baby projects finished for petite bee as well, so hopefully i can use some of this baby fever productively!