How To: Sew a Child's Cape

 We will try anything that makes these long days indoors fun, but we never need an excuse for more costumes! Any occasion will do. Capes make you jump higher, run faster, and spin more beautifully according to our in-house research.

I love seeing the girls zooming around in their capes because one of them is made with a play silk I was fond of as a kid. The stories we pretended with it beggar imagination, so it's great to know that its best years are ahead of it!

 
This cape project is super easy and fast, (20-30 minutes) and it's a good excuse to work on fine hemming tricky fabrics like I showed you in the last tutorial!

Supplies: 
fancy floating, silky, sparkly, or otherwise fun fabric 28.5"x 22.5" Poly organza is pictured here.
40" of 1" ribbon
safety pin
matching thread

Note: If these measurements seem random, it's because I was making do with what I had, but the measurements turned out to be a nice size for both my 2 and almost 4 year old. Feel free to improvise.

Directions:

1. Hem all 4 sides of the cape at 1/4".
2. Make a casing for the ribbon by folding one of the short sides down 1 1/2" and stitching.
3. Attach the end of the ribbon on the safety pin, and use the pin to push the ribbon through the casing. 
4. Even up the center of the cape to the center of the ribbon. Pin in the middle. 
5. Scrunch up the cape on the ribbon to 7 1/2" to each side of center, while the ribbon stays flat. 
6. Distribute the gathers approximately evenly and stitch down.  

A New Compost Box

There’s nothing that tells the neighbors “Pay us no mind, we are a normal family” like spending a cold, windy, and wet weekend building a 8' x 4' x 3.5'  timber structure and covering it with chicken wire in an urban setting. Yep, we are average like that. Daniel and I have been outside constructing a huge new compost system and I can scarcely contain my glee. 

Because it is moist here for much of the year and there are literally tons of plant matter everywhere, the art and science of hot composting isn’t very necessary in verdant Delaware unless you want to make dirt fast! People just make little piles of leaves, the earthworms and sow bugs come and eat it, and boom! Beautiful dirt. 

Still, I want to master it. The formation of top soil has to be much more intentional in the southwest where I am from. Heat, drought, and poor soil make growing conditions tough for plants and trees. Trees are what bring the moisture though. Rainforests aren’t just growing in a wetter area, the mist rises from the trees. I dream of composting and creating healthy ecosystems on a massive scale paired with plough-free farming and thoughtful construction to reverse the desertification of the southwest.  

Um. Anyway, as I said in my last compost entry I needed a new solution to handle all of our leaves and whatnot in one place, so we built a box with 2 bays and covered the frame with chicken wire. I put all of the old compostables into one side of the bay, and I am putting all new leaves and scraps I rescue off the curb in the other side, hence the bags of leaves I haven't put in yet. It didn't take long to see that the compost was active because it quickly reduced volume by half, heated in the middle, and if I dig into it it's looking a lot more like dirt. I can't tell you how exciting it is to dig in past the frozen surface and see steam rising! 
There are 2 great things about the new placement I didn't anticipate but I enjoy: 
You can't see that the new box abuts the back porch, but it is amazingly convenient to lean over the porch railing to put in scraps and stir things up. 
Also, the basement bathroom is frigid this time of year, but with compost now insulating the wall so it's much nicer to visit the loo. Maybe we should build another for the other side of the house? I'm kidding Daniel, I'm kidding. 
Unless you really want to. 
'Cause we totally could.
If you wanted.

Just like that, composting is fun again!

Why Vitamin D Reminds Me of Redemption

 This morning I woke from vivid and dark dreams into pain and... gratitude.
This is my brain. This is my brain without Vitamin D. Deprived of D I am not able to process calcium which allows me to think clearly or maintain bone and muscle integrity. Something I don't understand happens to my iron and my heart races. No amount of water quenches my thirst. I feel panicked. My skin is too sensitive. I feel like I am wearing a lead body suit. Every move wearies me.

I am so thankful.

It wasn't long ago that I thought this was normal, that everyone lived this way and I was just not as good at coping as everyone else.
I am thankful that now approximately 95% of the year I don't have to struggle with this because there are supplements I can take to stay balanced, except for around the winter solstice. I have learned many lessons from this experience and I am thankful for most of them. The others I am still working on!

Most of all I am thankful for such a graphic picture of sin and redemption.
I was born into this mess, and I didn't know the truth. People assured me I was perfectly normal, or suggested self-help techniques to elevate my mood, but the truth is that in and of myself there was nothing I could do. I didn't even know that there was a real problem because I was right in the middle of it all and I had experienced nothing else.
That's the way sin is too. I was born into it, suffering from it, but unconscious of the source of my need and the answer to it. Miraculous rescue had to come from outside of myself when all I had earned was death and destruction. Praise be to my Savior!

Since Vitamin D is a tiny little example of the grace of the incarnation to me, maybe being weak during the advent season is not such a bad thing after all.

Snow Day

Everyone loves a good snow day, except for me yesterday. What a cold front, huh? I was grumpy about lots of things yesterday, including, but by no means limited to: Finding hats, snow pants, mittens, tights, sweatshirts, and fuzzy socks. Sometimes you've just got to send everybody out to play while you take a hot bath.

Today I was ready to earn my Fun Momma badge back and we went out to play– but this time I knew where everything was!

We whipped up some snow cream, which my mom used to do when I was a kid.

Here's my recipe:

• 8 cups fresh, clean snow
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Stir vigorously.
Serves 6

This isn't the first snow of the year for us, but my family used to celebrate first snow with a day off,  a pot of hot soup, board games and a jigsaw puzzle. There was a family in our church who threw a big pot luck party the night of the first snow where all the food was white. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water for Chile Blanco!
How about you? Do you have any beloved snow traditions?

Compost Troubleshooting

You probably know by now how much I love compost, and how strangely silent I have been on the subject. That’s because I haven’t been having much success with it lately, for reasons not entirely under my control. In a funny way this is valuable experience because I knew exactly what was going wrong in each case as it was happening. Hopefully this can answer questions for the beginning enthusiast wondering “What in the world is wrong with my compost?” 

I have worked with 3 different systems since this spring: 

• A visit to my old bin left with my parents in Texas, 
• a successful, inexpensive, though messy looking cardboard box/pile situation necessitated by a medium sized home bin getting too full, and 
• the aforementioned undersized box. 

LOSS 

When I left Texas last fall I gave my parents 8 double trash bags of compost and my beloved bin. Though they weren’t full, the bags were back breakers because they were full of moist dirt in various stages of decomposition! My parents did not spread the dirt, but put it back in the bin. When I visited in September my mother asked me to move the bin to another spot. When I checked on it there was a much smaller volume of material in the box, and the compost was no longer heating for many reasons. To start off, there was a whole bunch of finished dirt in the bottom taking up valuable space. It was ready for earthworms to finish things up. Secondly, the right conditions were not maintained for heating the new compostable materials. Let’s review those conditions quickly:

1. There must be a great volume of appropriately stacked compostable materials. It’s hard to be specific about how much that is. My mental image is that our compostables need to add up to be at least the same size as a small armchair.  
2. The compost needs to be quite damp. Many people caution you not to get the compost too wet, which seems wise where I live now, but in Texas I watered my compost a little almost every day. The advice that compost should be like a wet sponge is meaningless in the southwest. If you stick a wet sponge outside, it’s dry in an hour there, whereas on the east coast it might take days! The bonus counterbalancing the water use is that the healthy dirt you are making will help retain water in the soil for your plants in the long run. 
3. “Wets” like food and fresh plant matter and “dries” like paper and leaves need to be alternated, always with wets under dry. Food scraps, grass clippings, and manure should be dug into the active part of the pile, covered with dry materials to sop up the excess liquid, and buried in older compost for a pile that smells like dirt, not rotten food. 
4. Add manure, urine, or fresh grass clippings regularly to boost the nitrogen content. Every time I add wet material I add nitrogen. The following measurements are neither precise nor scientific, I just want to convey amounts that work for me in estimates that are easy to picture. If it is manure I use a heaping handful sized amount- though I don’t use my hands! If using urine, a brimming cereal bowl full would be about right, just not in a cereal bowl! An armful of brand spankin’ new FRESH grass clippings is great. I find that burying grass clippings in the pile is most effective so they don’t dry out.    

When those conditions are not met, if you throw yard waste or food scraps in there they just sit on top going bad and luring vermin in search of a snack. I dug into the pile and was astonished panicked by the mass exodus of cockroaches of all sizes and descriptions.

It was like Men in Black II for a few long seconds. I am still a little traumatized. They flew into my hair, guys. Don’t let this happen to you!

When people advise not to throw oily, animal based, or wet food scraps into your bin lest it attract vermin this is why. This is not to say that you should not put food in your compost. You can, and it is a responsible thing to do. Nature can make mulch by heaping up leaves, but it takes water, nitrogen, and proper handling, or a whole lot of happy worms to actually make compost. Otherwise you are just feeding the local wildlife. 

I spread the compost that had been sitting for a year on a sandy bed in my parents back yard and layered the rest back into the bin with strict care instructions. I try not to dwell on how it’s going without me! 

WIN

My black plastic compost bin was overflowing for reasons I shall later state. Then our tree was in a big rush and lost all of its leaves at the end of August. I had nowhere to put them, but no way was I going to bag them up and put them on the curb! 

My best option seemed to be a compost pile, as in, pile the compost. To get a pile of anything to actually compost you need to pile it high not wide. I find that my pitchfork is essential for this. Also, I cheated. I got a big cardboard box and set it up with both ends open like a chimney on the ground. Then I filled it with whatever I needed to compost that wasn’t fitting in my other bin: food scraps, yard clippings, and newsprint sale circulars to name a few. I made sure to keep it damp. As the ‘post piled up I slid the box higher up, and everything lower down stayed in the square shape. Obviously I wasn’t turning it, and that’s okay! To keep it active I used urine or manure every time I added kitchen scraps, and... it worked!

The top of the pile was loose leaves, the middle of the pile was broken down, heat marked, and barely recognizable. The box was gone. The bottom was gorgeous, rich, black earth full of earthworm casings. It could have used several months more of sitting to decompose the leaf skeletons, but it smells like sweet success!  

LOSS

I saved the worst for last. Spoiler alert, there were rodents and carnage involved. Everything is bigger in Texas. The compost bin I purchased when we moved to this house was smaller than the one I had before. You’d think I could just look at it and tell, but it had been more than 6 months since I saw it last. I noticed the size discrepancy because the compost wasn’t heating up properly, I was starting to throw scraps in the trash can because the scraps were going septic in the bin, and then when I went to visit my old bin– oh yeah, and a few other people I love– I realized the old box dwarfed the new one. 

Then I saw a mouse. 

Then I saw mouse poop. 

Lots of it. 

A new system flew right to the top of my honey do list! 

When I dug into it there was almost dirt at the very bottom, and at about 2/3 of the way up the bin. Other than that it seemed like a great way to mummify old newspapers and cardboard. As I excavated, things I had buried months ago turned up in mint condition. 

Clearly this compost wasn't decomposing. Basically the box was just shielding all of the compostable materials from the elements so that they couldn’t compost. Brilliant. 

Also it was harboring 8-10 mice and about the same number of cockroaches. Thank goodness mice and cockroaches are also bigger in Texas! It wasn’t too alarming since I had a pretty good idea what was coming.   

I killed 2 mice by accident and 2 on purpose. The rest made their escape. By the way, may I borrow a cat? The mice had made a warm, dry little nest in there. At least they shredded some paper while they were at it! The thing is, a compost bin should be the opposite of comfortable for furry woodland creatures! It should be a damp biologically active cauldron of stuff mice don’t have any interest in. The main problem was the small size which did not allow enough volume, and somehow with the way things were layered, water wasn’t getting all the way through. 

A Third Birthday, and a "Berry Cute" Hat

 We celebrated Thacia's third birthday several times this weekend. I am so proud of how hard she is working to become the lovely person she is turning out to be. Blessings on your journey, sweet girl!

I wish I had pictures to show you, but there's this terrible habit I have of working really hard on something and then not documenting it. There are no photos of our craft: iconic conical party hats. There are no photos of the pizzas they made. There are no photos of them trying to feed the wide mouth frog puppet. The very tasty daffodil cupcakes and how they-all-had-candles-and-no-one-was-lit-on-fire went undocumented. The thing I will remember most, though, couldn't have been captured on film. The kids were so courteous to each other without prompting. It's one of those shining parenting moments where you realize you might not be launching a barbarian into the world every time you leave the house. There were so many pleases and thank yous, and eagerness all around to be good to each other.

  
Damaris is a child of many hats. She has been cheerfully borrowing other people's hats all winter, but I finally just finished one for her very own today. She loves fruit hats, so I tried the Berry Cute Hat from Fiber Trends. The toddler size was tight, so I ended up making it adult width, but toddler length. I feel like it's a little awkward, but she is loving it. What do you think?

Reclaiming Romance + Bonus Cookie Recipe

In His infinite wisdom, God brought two of the worst dates in the history of, well, ever-  through courtship without having to really date. Long distance engagement was great for us, because picture perfect romance isn't our strongest suit.
Our musical tastes and senses of humor are not the same. Our ideal restaurants could hardly be more different. Our lack of pop-culture romance is due, in part, to my "allergy" (read "skepticism") toward a certain genre of mushy-gushy stuff. The other day Daniel laughed that if he bought me something from Hallmark I would probably change my relationship status on Facebook to "It's complicated." Guilty as charged.
We have a unified front on the big stuff: Faith, children, finances, but what movie to watch on a Friday night is not exactly a foregone conclusion. All that to say Valentine’s Day is a hard holiday to get excited about in our household. I'd be more sheepish about that if I wasn't pretty sure plenty of you have this problem too!
All the hype heaps up a lot of expectation. One day a year cannot be the emblem of a life-long devotion. Daniel and I are finally, gradually, learning to let off the pressure. Here are a few resolutions we have for Valentine's Day.

We will pick our best time to celebrate- There's nothing sacred about February 14th. Racing around to book a sitter and reserve a table at a restaurant on such a high-demand night after a full day of child-wrangling or work is stressful. We try to pick a weekend afternoon when we will have time to enjoy one another at a slower pace.

We will make our expectations clear and reasonable- There's nothing like a completely avoidable let down to bring out the best in us as a couple. It needs to be very clear well in advance who is planning what, and it's good for us to check in about it. Who is getting the kids squared away? Who is heading up the itinerary? Will there be gifts? On Valentine's Day I would like an orchid. He would like chocolate chip cookies (Recipe Below!). Or, if we are trying to surprise one another we define the level of the surprise by budget or genre to avoid those tricky moments when I think the surprise is a getaway trip for 2 to NYC and he thinks the surprise is a clandestine trip to a motel, or he thinks the surprise is a splurge at our favorite lingerie boutique and I think the surprise is a nice long conversation. Completely hypothetically. Of course.

We will be ourselves... together- If dressing up and candlelight dinners are where you are at your best as a couple, by all means go for it! As much as I love dolling up and eating good food, it's not the way we feel most intimate and relaxed. For us a hike, working out together, an afternoon at home (sans kids!) to work on a project together, browsing a book store, or playing a board game at a coffee shop are all better bets for turning up the heat than squaring off over a few courses.

We will choose our own way to communicate- We are ditching cards, flowers, and chocolate in favor of frequent texts and a shared journal to write each other notes in. Everyone is a nerd in their own way. We are nerds in a lot of ways. In the interest of raising our vision beyond child rearing, we are reading a book together and enrolling together in an iTunes U class on sustainable waste management destined to start many an excited non-child-centered discussion. Classes and books on trash are probably not your gig, but think back to your most meaningful communication when you were dating. How can you continue it?

This year we aren't letting our romance be defined by movies and television. How are you making your mark on V-Day?  
Download the printable version

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. Period.
These cookies are soft yet firm, and the proportions of sugar and salt are just right. The key is to turn them at 7 1/2 minutes. Legend has it the recipe came from a box or a magazine back in the mists of time, but I got it from Daniel's mom. 

2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 t vanilla
1 cup butter, melted
2 3/4 cup flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
12 oz chocolate chips

Makes 18 large cookies or 2 1.2 dozen small ones

Mix eggs, sugars, vanilla, and butter. Add flour, soda, and salt. Stir in chips. Cover cookie sheet with waxed paper, drop dough with ice cream scoop 6 to a sheet. Bake at 325° for 15 minutes, rotating sheet half way through. They won't look done, but trust me, they are! 
Download the printable version
 


       

Lost in Living

I have to admit I am not energized right now. The space we are living in is so provisional and so very dark and closed up. I like to commit to fully being where my feet are, but this time I am really struggling to be present with my work. I don't know if the problem is that "the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s trousers to the seat of one’s chair." as Kingsley Amis said, though I am not trying to write, I am trying to make things. Or maybe the problem is that I am not getting out of my chair enough. Gray, cold winter is a confusing thing after years of sunshine. It's probably both.

Life feels like we are on the verge of something good as a family: the verge of something I should be excited about and prepared for, but I would rather roll over and go to sleep. At the same time I am dying, dying to work, but childcare is taking all of my limited energy.

All that to say I am shirking my work and sharing a preview of a movie I am excited about, Lost in Living.
Disclaimer: The language isn't suitable for the little ears in my house, so don't say I didn't warn you.
I love what the filmmaker says: "What I realized was that it was absolutely necessary for me to redefine my world by seeing it as art. In recording my daily life, choosing camera angles, lighting and subject, I was finding meaning and drama in the ordinariness of it. My little world became my palette and I could see it was limitless. This is what it means for me to express myself and it is crucial to my existence."

Now to get back to it and put some art in our world!  

Flying South

Flying South, original collage, 9"x12", 2009

Needle Felted Feathers on a Wool Coat

 Way back in October I showed you a picture of some needle felting and then left you hanging! In the early summer I picked up a few brand new wool coats at Goodwill. They still had their tags, but had been marked 50% off about 3 times.

Needle felting is very simple. Using a felting needle covered in fine barbs, you push wool into your fabric. The needles are quite sharp. You should put a block of foam behind it, and keep your free hand and all interested toddlers out of the way. I used clean undyed fleece batts for the feather motifs. I didn't plan them, I just kept punching those suckers in until it looked right.

The strings are herringbone embroidery done in DMC pearl cotton, and also executed without forethought. The centers of the feathers are back stitched.

One awesome thing about needle felting into an existing coat is that even though you punch the wool through the lining, it easily pulls away unharmed. The lining may be a little rumpled, but a blast of steam from your iron eliminates that problem.

It's a fun, fast, easy project, and it gives you a completely unique product in the end. You could do circles, flowers, stars, patterns, mix it with more embroidery... go crazy!

I fully intended to sell it in the end, but I can't let it go!

 These pictures are brought to you by Daniel Konstanski, my handsome photographer, White Clay State Park, Delaware which is free all winter, and my fairly patient children.

Scandinavian Stocking Design Process

The design process is so personal and different for everyone, but I am always really inspired by seeing people's processes. Maybe you'd like to see mine? 

The only stated goal I remember having for this year is knitting family stockings. This is the last one, and it's only September! I fully expected not to do them and freak out about it on November 15th, to be exact, so I am high-fiving myself on not procrastinating. Above are the first three stockings. 

The first and third charts were adapted from Poetry in Stitches by Solveig Hisdal. It turns out it's out of print and I could make bank if I were willing to sell it. But don't ask, because I am not. Don't go buying that book for stocking patterns either, because there aren't any in there. Nevertheless, it's been worth it's expanded price tag to me. I browse it once a month or so.

 For the middle stocking I wasn't finding anything that sang to me. I wanted a floral border with movement, so I charted it myself. The most important thing about charting intarsia designs is to remember that stitches are wider than they are high. Thus, you chart the thin man and knit what ends up looking like a gnome.

I don't know how I decided I wanted to do fireflies and firs, unless it's from this picture, in which there is a conspicuous lack of fireflies. "Why fireflies?" you ask. "Fireflies aren't a part of Christmas in your hemisphere." Do they have fireflies in other hemispheres? I don't even know! Properly speaking, pine trees have nothing to do with the first advent of Christ any more than fireflies, but no one questions them. 

So in this picture I am playing with different sizes of bugs. The originals on the right are from Lesley Stanfield and Melody Griffith's The Encyclopedia of Knitting. It's a title that sounds pretty conclusive for such a small book, but its strong point is really in design ideas rather than technique. I reach for it twice as often as the more exhaustive Vogue Knitting Book. In any case, I arrogantly thought I had it all figured out here, and just needed to chart the repeat. 

    
This is the repeat, and I started knitting and recording my steps in case I ever needed the pattern. Oops. The repeat was 2 stitches too big. How did that happen? It looked funny. 

How to get rid of 2 stitches? How how how? How to do it when I was so bleary eyed from needing a nap that I couldn't chart the simplest pine tree, much less a repeat?  

I ended up shrinking the bug more, but it decreased the pattern from 28 to 24 sts. The nature of the pattern doesn't gracefully allow a decrease of 2 sts, more's the pity. I decided to just deal with it. 

Then I knit it up, and the trees were too stubby while the areas around the fireflies were too open. The trees could be pulled in, shrinking it up more, or I could find another solution. I decided on little star pinpoints, and now I think I am on the right track. What do you think? You think it's upside down. I'll just have to ask again when I am done.

When you are making something new do you tend to plan it all out, or just dive in? Are you more inclined to seek perfection, or settle for speed?

How To: Make Your Own Felt Advent Calendar

The rush of awesome Christmas projects that flood the craft blogs in December is agony to a procrastinator such as myself. Who has time to make treasures between making treats and presents and trying to make or keep traditions? No, if anything Christmasy is to be done in my house, it had best start now! Which is why I was thrilled to receive this beautiful advent calendar from my very talented sister this Christmas. It only needed to be quilted and bound, and it took me 5 months to  get around to it  do it! I asked Anna to answer a few questions for us:

Q: Could you please tell us a little about your style?

A: "My style... I love small prints. I love needlepoint pillows. I love embroidered things... Pretty much if you find it at an estate sale for a woman in her 80's, I will like it. All of my friends refer to me as "an old soul," not because we believe in reincarnation, but more because I would fit in a lot better if I had been born at the beginning of the 20th century than at the end. I am currently obsessed with grey and white, as far my decorating goes, inspired by a fabulous shower curtain from Target."

Q: Where did you get the idea for this advent calendar? And where did you get the silhouettes from?

A: "I got the idea from a fabulous website that I discovered one day while browsing the web for free knitting patterns. I LOVE this industrious wife and mother's innovation and style. Totally me. Anyway, she had instructions for a similar calendar, and it made so much sense to me to make a reusable advent calendar, rather than the kind you throw away once the windows are all open! Her calendar can be found here. I am obsessed with felt, (Tacky Felt Projects, I call them...) and so this was right up my ally. I decided to take a different twist on it though, and instead of making the them snowing presents, I made it the best present of all... my precious Savior. I cannot draw for anything in the world, unless I have something to go off of, so I had to steal someone else's art."

Lydia's Note: Because she drew it, not printed it, it was not actually stealing. However, I searched for "free nativity scene silhouette" and came up with lots of copyright free options you could re-size and print for patterns.

Q: I love your choice of colors here, as always! But what made you think "Christmas! I think I'll use pastels!"?

A: "I'd love to say it was my idea, but it was pastels in the photo. But that is something that I loved about the photo. And of course, traditional doesn't quite come natural to me. My colors do vary from the photo... But I guess I was going for the rising dawn look? I don't know. Just took some felt and went with it!"

Q: How did you put it together? (Materials, adhesives, did you have patterns for everything or just eyeball some of it?)

A: "I just looked at the photo and freehanded the characters onto a legal pad, cut out the paper pieces and pinned them onto black felt, then cut out the felt. I'm quite sure there must have been an easier way, but the long way is therapeutic. That's what I like to tell myself. Everything came from Michael's and Hobby Lobby, as (regrettably) we do not have better stores in Odessa! The felt is from Michael's. The background is just muslin from Hobby Lobby. I used textile glue (which was kind of difficult to use, because it doesn't spread well and is a pain to squeeze out of the bottle...) to affix the felt to the muslin. If I were ever to do something like this again, I'd explore different options. If can sew, maybe that would be a good option, but I personally didn't want the stitches to show... I was going more for the flannel-graph look! The beads came from Michael's. Just seed beads and nylon bead thread. The stars each have a snap on the back to attach with each day of December leading up to Christmas. I put beads on the stars to distract from the ugly stitching for the snaps, (and because color in unexpected places is always fabulous!)"

Lydia's Note: Other options for the felt might be hot glue or a fusible web like Wonder Under or Heat n' Bond.

General Instructions to make your own calendar follow after the jump:

Romper Reality

I had pulled a slip of paper from my jar of challenges, praying that it would not say "65. Make neon tasteful." To my relief it read "4. Focus on texture," the very thing I was eager to do!
Though I was going to make this pattern to share, the textural focus made it a difficult pattern to write... so no pattern for you.

I chose a herringbone type cable for the body of the romper, sort of measured one of her pajamas as a pattern, and went for it. For the buttons I used vintage mother of pearl. They all sort of almost match each other. You may or may not have noticed that the tabs at the shoulders and the placket underneath fasten the opposite way you might an older child's clothes. That wasn't a mistake... I know. SURE. But really, this girl is a genius at taking her clothes off, so I positioned the buttons so it is harder for her to get naked. This is common practice in baby clothes, but I find it more obvious on sweater knits.

I love the color. Obviously. It's the same color as this bag, these curtains, and any other ridiculous number of things I own. Greige is dangerous for me.

I may yet apply I-cord to the back neck of the sweater. The front already has it knit in.
I went for a longer length than the popular bathing suit length. I thought it would be a little fuller on bottom than it turned out. Maybe I would add an extra pattern or two of the cables if I did it again. However, it fits and looks charming and surprisingly ungendered!

About the sticks, Thacia spends a measurable percentage of her day gathering sticks from the yard into bouquets. Such a cute phase! Will her passion for yard work last into her teens?

Romper Inspiration

Have you noticed all the great rompers floating around out there in the nether? They are being made for older girls, not just babies, and they have more of a bathing suit fit lately. These pictures are of Wovenplay rompers from the publication Selvedge. (Thanks Kelley!)



I love the hot pink paired with white, the creative use of stripes with seaming, and the ruching that gives the bottom side more of a belled fit apart from the traditional romper fitting. It's so high-end and special!



Look, she's a little ruffled fairy!
These images were rolling around in my mind all fall. It seemed to me like making a wool romper would be a great way to be able to actually knit something meaningful for Thacia that she can wear in the unpredictable Texas weather. I didn't want to knit her a big sweater she could only wear twice! With a romper I can put leggings and a turtleneck underneath, or leave her bare-legged depending on the weather. It is pretty much the same concept as when I made myself wool shorts here.



When my mother showed me a skein of natural colored greige yarn she was spinning on commission I knew that was the yarn I wanted, so I did what any daughter of a yarn store owner would: I begged shamelessly and played the grand baby card. I had to wait until New Years Day for it, but it was worth the wait. If you actually pay for it, you don't have to wait for her yarn. See it here. Oh, this yarn! It is the color of flour when you add brown sugar. It is soft and nubbly in texture as handspun should be!
I feel like I have no time to knit whatsoever. How are all these mothers of small children doing it? I've been almost done for 2 weeks now, and this post is my attempt to motivate myself into finishing before the weather gets so warm she can only wear it... twice.
In the meantime it is fabulous just to knit. Handspun wool has a texture nothing else does. So springy. So much like a hug. I love wool. I even love the smell of raw dirty wool. True story.

How To: Make a Dried Orange Wreath

Dried oranges are classic for Christmas, and your house will smell great long after you are done baking them.
Once I started making wreaths this year I just couldn’t stop. They make great gifts if you can part with them, and are charmingly inexpensive.
I made 3 options to choose from here, but I can think of more, and I am sure you can too!

The basic instructions are listed first, with additions for each wreath listed separately.

Supplies:

• knife
• wire cutter or old scissors
• cookie sheets
• hot glue gun and glue
• 1 straw wreath form
• 1 foot floral or other heavy wire
• 1/2 yd fabric
• 4 lb bag of small oranges

Instructions:


1. Slice oranges into rounds between 1/8” and 1/4” thick, and spread on cookie sheets.



2. Bake at 200˚ until the slices are golden brown and pretty dry, with no mushiness to them (about 6 hours), turning every few hours or so. The more humid your area, the more you’ll want to be certain the slices are completely dried out. If you scorch a few by accident it won’t hurt! This is not an exact science, so expect some variation. If you don’t have 6 hours at a stretch to bake oranges, you can do it a few hours at a time over a few days with no ill effects.



3. Use floral wire (mine here is actually the wire recycled off a bundle of spinach!) to make a loop at the back of the wreath for hanging. Use a dot of hot glue to keep it from rotating up.


4. Tear your fabric into 3” strips, and wrap the wreath form, leaving the wire loop exposed. Secure fabric ends by tucking them in, or with a dot of hot glue.



5. Hot glue dried orange slices to completely cover your wreath form.





Glam
This wreath has serious holiday appeal-- pun fully intended! It will take you right through Christmas into the New Year without skipping a beat. I can't think of a wreath more completely of-the-moment than this. The texture, the glitz... I'm in love!
Supplies:

• 1 spool fine gold tone wire
• 1 250 count pkg gold paillettes (small hole)
• knitting needle or barbeque skewer

Instructions:
1. Cut about 20-25 lengths of wire between 22” and 29” long.



2. Wrap each length of wire around the wreath so that the long ends face the front. Twist closed.



3. String a paillette onto one tail of the wire, and twist to hold in place. Repeat until there are 3-5 paillettes on each tail of wire. Coil the excess around the knitting needle or barbeque skewer like a spring.

4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 every 3” or so around, staggering the long ends toward the outside or inside so that they fill in the wreath.




Classic
You can't go wrong with this Christmas classic. It brings steaming gingerbread and hot cocoa to mind, not to mention how good it smells! For this wreath I really layered the orange slices to get a dimensional effect.

Supplies:

• 12 cinnamon sticks
• 2 cups fresh cranberries

Instructions:
1. Glue cinnamon sticks to the front of the wreath at different angles.

2. Glue fresh cranberries onto the wreath wherever they look right.




Crafty
Once again, a holiday wreath that is just as comfortable the rest of the winter. The prints of the ties clash charmingly!

Supplies:

• seam ripper
• iron
• pinking shears
• 3 silk neck ties

Instructions:
1. Open up each necktie with seam ripper. Remove interfacing, and iron silk flat.

2. Cut 4 strips from each tie measuring 2” x 7” and trim the ends at 45˚ with pinking shears.

3. Tie strips in knots making sure the printed side is up, and glue in place.