Eckenrode Family

DDP: Day 8

Pumpkins

This year Miles did the whole process almost all by himself. He drew the face, and tried to cut most of it. I don't think he touched any of the pulp though.
I have to be as quick as the paparazzi around this one. Lately he has refused to get his picture taken.
Striking the match to light the tea candle was their favorite part.


I sent these off yesterday to stormy New Jersey. I have a nephew timing his arrival to coincide with this devestating storm.

We are headed out to trick or treat tomorrow night. Hopefully the weather won't ruin our fun.

For Her

One of my favorite reasons to sew and knit something is the arrival of a new baby. The fact that she will be my niece makes it even sweeter. I had Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing sitting on my shelf for awhile now and have sewn several things from it but this is my first attempt at making the kimono shirt. After ripping out several seams due to my own tendency to rush through a pattern without really reading it, I think the result was super sweet. I bought the bias tape premade at my favorite fabric shop, Sew to Speak, along with the sweetest, softest purple flannel. The premade bias tape really made the project come together pretty quickly. I had to make pants to go with it and grabbed my go-to pants pattern for babies and kids, britches and bloomers by Jackie Clark. I LOVE this pattern and have made it countless times. It is quick and easy and fits newborns thru 4T.

When making a baby gift I always throw in some bibs and a knitted hat. The hat pattern has been my favorite when making baby hats lately, it's a free pattern I got from Ravelry called the Aviatrix. This is such an awesome hat to knit. It is quick and fun and easy to each one unique with a fun button or adding a flower which I did with this one. In a house with all boys I have to use a cheetah to model my hats. No baby dolls around here.

After trying for several weeks to teach myself how to crochet a flower I gave up and asked my talented friend very sweetly to felt one for the hat. I think the result is so sweet and it was fun to collaborate in this way. Thanks Megan! Check out her Etsy shop here.
Lastly, I think any handmade gift deserves a handmade bag and so as I have in the past I reached for the drawstring bag pattern in Weekend Sewing and made a bag which my sister-in-law will be able to use in her diaper bag after my niece is born. One other project I've recently made from this book are the Guest-Room Slippers. I started them a few years ago and thought they might be too small for me so the project stalled. I just recently hand sewed the felted bottom on them and while they are snug I do use them. One of the pulled on one side and would slip off my foot as I walked so I had to add some elastic to the inside which works to keep them on. I made a second pair which I have yet to finish, getting stalled once again on the hand sewing of the sole. While the end result is sweet I don't think this is a project I will do again. It was difficult to get the sizing just right and the handsewing of the sole is tedious.

Jewlery Organizer

I orgnaized my closet recently and after I saw how good that felt I couldn't stop and decided to organize my jewelry as well. I don't tend to wear a lot of jewelry and only recently started to wear earrings again after not wearing them for so many years to avoid little hands pulling on them. So, since I started wearing earrings again, I've acquired a few pairs that I love but that I forget about because they've been tucked in a jewelry box.

I began looking on pinterest and saw all of the lovely ways to display your jewelry which is how I came up with this idea. I love the fact that my jewelry along with some of my favorite fabrics are displayed on my bedroom wall as art. Making this was so simple and quick. I bought a corkboard which was mounted on a wood frame, then I sewed together some of my favorite fabrics into a square slightly bigger than the corkboard, and glued it to the corkboard using fabric glue. I tacked the jewelry onto the board using furniture tacks. I like the black antique look of these tacks.
Now my jewelry is on the wall and I don't forget about it because it's sitting in a drawer.

Here, Right Now

The morning was beautiful, feeling so much like spring.
Continuing to put a serious dent in that pile of Loulouthi fabric, I finished a table runner. I made this one two sided so that when I tire of one side, I can turn it to the other. I added a layer of flannel and bamboo batting to the center so that it could double as a hot pad.



Here's a picture from our morning drop off at school. Miles has been rocking a mohawk lately.
And here is a picture of Ben which he asked me to take. He rocked his pajamas for most the day until he went to a birthday party in the evening. Lately he's been into basketball, doing art projects and today he did a lot of hula hooping. When playing basketball out front he asked me if I knew how to do a donkey. I said 'no.' He then showed me (on a low basket) a dunk. I asked him if that was a donkey and he said yes. Then later in the day he said "Mom, I have really been into two things lately: drawing and hula hooping." Awesome.

I Will Eat Green Eggs and Ham

My view going to the coop to feed the chickens this morning.

I have been patiently awaiting the first eggs from our Ameraucana chickens so I screamed with excitement when I discovered one on Saturday morning.
It is still exciting to go out and collect the eggs from the coop. It's one of my favorite chores of the day.

I have also been slowly making a dent in the Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi fat quarters that I got from Sew to Speak. At first I toyed with the idea of making a quilt but stuck with my original plan to make a wall hanging, pillows, table runner and tea towels. With the pillows and wall hanging crossed off my list, the table runner is next up. For the pillows I followed the basic instructions for a log cabin square from Patchwork Style and used a simple envelope enclosure for the back.

Patchwork

To stave off the depressing gloom outside the window I've done two things in the last week. Since Tim was out of town, I took the boys down to listen to some live bluegrass music while we ate dinner and I've been making things. Miles loved the music and I was delighted that he unabashedly enjoyed the music. He bopped around to the music and enthusiastically clapped after every song.

Aside from live music, nothing is better for my midwinter blues that some patchwork sewing. I recently got some fat quarters of Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi line and just seeing them piled on my sewing table has brightened my mood.

I have been bothered by a large blank wall in a dark corner of our house for awhile. After trying a few things in that spot I decided to make a wall hanging and I very happy with how it turned out. I did a big log cabin square in the middle and since I didn't have enough long scraps of the fabric to continue it I did some random border pieces.

Here it is in it's dark corner.

While I was doing a patchwork project I deicded Ben needed a case for the Motorola tablet he carries around to play games on. I watched him walk around with it under his arm and knew eventually it would slip and break. So, I asked him to pick out his favorite fabrics from my scaps jars and I pieced them together along with some batting and fleece to make a padded cover.

I think we both like how it turned out which is important because I'm pretty sure I'll be the one to carry it for him when he tires of playing with it.

 

The Mudroom

A trip to my favorite fabric store inspired me to change the valance in the laundry/mudroom. This room was one of the reasons I love this house, it is a laudry room on the first floor, off of the garage and big enough to double as a mudroom. The valance that hung there was ok, but didn't add anything to the room and it was there when we moved in. So, after seeing Anna Maria Horner's new line, I chose this fabric to add some color and fun to the room.  I also added 2 poster prints by Nikki McClure. I love all of the prints from this series and wish I could cover my house in them.

The Stress Will Be Forgotten

Two projects I’d been working on were both coming close to getting finished when they simultaneously ran into problems. The yarn I’d been using to knit a cardigan had a previous life as a wantabe sweater that got frogged several times and then finally frogged and forgotten about. Then, I found the perfect project for this yarn to become a short sleeved cardigan and after twice ordering one or two more balls of yarn online I was finally rounding the finish line when the last row was being knitted and the yarn was becoming impossibly short. I have to wait on the last ball of yarn to make its way to me through the mail before this project sees it end.

Then I was working on a table runner. I liked the way the Easter runner that tim’s mom made brightened up the kitchen and added a homey feel to the room. After seeing Salt & Chocolate’s version of the table runner, I was inspired to make my own using log cabin squares. Log cabin squares are so easy and addictive. This project was getting its finishing touches when I decided the quilting was too busy to appreciate the fabrics I’d chosen and so I ripped out thousands of stitches. In the end I’m happy with the simple design.
 Its funny how crafting, which usually brings me peace and appreciation can also cause me such grief and stress. In the end the stress will be forgotten.

When Being Thrify Bites You in the Butt

Miles kindergarten class participated in a parade at their school in which they were to dress like a character from a fairy tale. Miles chose to be the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and after making some ears and recruiting my friend to paint his face, I began making his wolf tail. Looking at my fabric shelves I spotted the perfect brown fabric. Often when we no longer wear items of clothing they are added to the fabric shelf so they can find a second life as something else in a future sewing project. This brown fabric was a pair of Tim's pants that he used to work around the house. I made the tail and that night when Miles showed his dad the wolf tail I'd made Tim looked closely at them and said, "Hey, these are the pants I've been looking everywhere for!" That's when the memory of him handing them to me several weeks before came back to me. He'd given them to me to sew a button back on. Oops!