Close to my Heart

Wedding Anticipation

Almost 15 years ago, there was a wedding with the cutest little flower girl ever:

 

This was of course the day Joe and I married, and the cute little flower girl was our very special niece Rebecca.  Fast forward almost 15 years, and Rebecca is all grown up and it is her turn to be the bride.  Tomorrow she will marry her sweetheart Will. The last wedding we attended was just a few months after our own wedding, Joe's sister's day and Rebecca was the cute flower girl at that wedding as well.  With such a long wedding drought, we are both really looking forward to the big day tomorrow.  Wedding preparations for this proud auntie involved purchasing waterproof mascara today (I'm a real sap at weddings, and this is a really special one) as well as some crafting in the last month or so.

A few weeks back was the bridal shower.  I bought some lovely items from the kitchen store the bride is registered at, but of course I had to include a handmade touch as well.  Sticking with her wedding and household theme of black, white and pink, I made this card:

 

And these dishcloths:

Information about the dishcloths can be found on my Ravelry project page.

My contribution to the the wedding day itself is this crocheted garter:

And of course the card:

 

Although the Bride and Groom will not likely be reading this blog post, I'm sure they know that Uncle Joe and Auntie Brenda wish them years of joy and happiness together.

Merry Christmas!

I haven't done much papercrafting since picking up the spinning bug last spring, but did manage to make my cards again this year.  I really enjoyed making them too.  I think my favourite craft is whatever I'm doing at the time, which sometimes does make it difficult to move onto other things.  Here's this year's cards:

 

As  this will be my last post before Christmas, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish a Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate.  I wish you an enjoyable time with your friends and families, and safe journeys for those who have to travel.

Give Handmade

Tonight after work I'm going to a BBQ to celebrate the July birthdays of two girlfriends (well mine too actually).  I'm excited that their gifts from me are completely handmade, thanks to Etsy, the Farmer's Market, and my own hook and needles. 

Courtesy our local Farmer's Market, they are each getting a lovely wooden box filled with three bars of handmade soap.  I made dishcloths to go with the soaps:

(Details about the cloths can be found on my Ravelry project page, too busy lazy to link to the specific details.  If you are not on Ravelry and would like me to send you the links to the free patterns, please let me know).

I also am giving each of them one of the crochet market bags that I made a while back.  It's great having a bit of a handmade gift stash...remind me to restock it some time.

The cards were also made by me.  The first one is going to the same friend I made the dragonfly cloth for (she collects dragonfly stuff):

And rounding out the birthday git bags, each friend got a pair of earrings from one of my favourite Etsy artisans, Adornyou.  I even found a great pair of dragonfly earrings!

Gotta run now and get ready for work.  Only two more work days and I'm on vacation for  a month!

Happy Father's Day

I made this card for my FIL, the moose hunter:

And this one for my own Dad, the fisherman:

Happy Mother's Day

I'm coming to you from a different location tonight.  I had to head out of town this afternoon because I'm on a course this week.  Said course starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning, and since I'm not really into leaving home by 5:30 in the morning, I came down this afternoon.  I'm checked into a lovely B & B with wireless internet.  Unfortunately, I kind of screwed up the password, and I'm a wireless newby so after an hour of screwing around with the computer myself, I finally caved in and phoned tech support. I ended up with a rather cranky person at the other end of the line, first she told me she couldn't help me and hung up.  Well I didn't accept that and called back again.  She was still cranky and it took her a while, but she did get me back on.  Her male co-worker was much more helpful when I needed other assistance yesterday, sure wish he had been on shift tonight.  Oh well!

I did make a couple Mother's Day cards this weekend.  My MIL has received her gift and card, my own mother will receive hers when I see her later this week.  I made the same card for both Moms:

I also made a quick Anniversary Card, my parents FIFTY FIRST is next weekend:

The 1 1/2 day weekend that I had was quite busy getting ready for this trip.  I will be having spinning withdrawal, since I wasn't able to bring my wheel with me.  I did a bit of spinning last night and this morning.  Last night, I plied some more yarn from Yummy Yarn:

Obviously I did a very lousy job of winding it evenly around the bobbin! 

I also started spinning some Cherry Tree Hill fiber that I purchased last month from Fun Knits:

I just realized that I didn't take a picture of this fiber before spinning it up, unfortunately.  To me it looks like ice cream, and the picture of the single really doesn't do it justice.

Excuse the lack of links with this post, I'm not used to this laptop keyboard and want to finish this post now.  Plus I really need to do some work stuff, since that is really why I have this with me.  Have a great week!

Cards and a Meme

It's been a long time since I've posted any cards here.  I've neglected papercrafting and my Etsy shop since purchasing my spinning wheel and becoming an obsessed spinner.  The last couple cards I've made have been simple and quick. 

This card was for a dear friend's birthday a few weeks ago:

And this one, sadly was for a co-worker who lost her mother earlier this week:

Jackie tagged me for a meme, so I will close with that. Today is the first Farmer's Market of the season for my community, so I'm headed there this morning.

• I am:  who I am
• I think: I am a thoughtful, caring person
• I know: I am a homebody
• I want: to travel
• I have: lots of purses!
• I wish: I was more motivated to clean my house more
• I hate: prejudice
• I miss: My Granny who died almost 24 years ago
• I fear: loosing my loved ones
• I feel: content
• I hear: the television
• I crave: sweets
• I wonder: why people can have no compassion for people less fortunate than them
• I regret: that I didn't travel in my youth
• I love: my husband
• I ache: can't think of an answer
• I care: about children
• I always: need my morning coffee
• I am not: athletic
• I believe: in fate
• I dance: rarely but sure love it when I do!
• I sing: while listening to music in my car
• I cry: easily
• I don't always: listen as well as I should
• I fight: for what I believe in
• I write: for my blog, Ravelry forums, and lots of emails at work
  
• I win: can't think of an answer to this one
• I lose: or to this one.  I'm not a competitive person

I'm not going to tag anyone.  If you've made it this far....have a great Sunday!

Happy Easter!

A midweek post

What, a third post in less than a week?  It's certainly been a longgggg time since that has happened.  It's been a pretty good week though, some stress but overall not too bad. 

I do however think it to be rather pathetic that until now, you have not seen a newly completed sock yet in 2008.  After all, it's mid March already!  Finally though, this past weekend I finished the socks that I cast on a couple months ago.  I love these socks, cause the yarn is yummy Koigu.  Always lovely to knit with, and pretty to look at too.  Behold the Koigu socks:

The picture does not really do this gorgeous colourway justice.  And why this is only the second pair of socks I've ever knit with Koigu is way beyond me.  I definitely need more of this lovely yarn in my stash.

Here's some cards I've made recently.  First of all, with Spring break about to start here in British Columbia, a couple of my friends are taking their families on vacation.  I think it is pretty obvious where they are going:

And this card is for a niece who turned 16 yesterday.  Seems it was yesterday that I had just met my then boyfriend's family and celebrated this niece's first birthday.  I cheated a bit on her card since I was more into spinning this past weekend, and used a pre-made card background from Michael's:

Off I go to cast on a new pair of socks now.  I've enjoyed this more frequent blogging this week, sure hope I can continue!

Actual Knitting Content

I have some actual knitting content for you today.  My knitting time for the last little while has been spent on a baby shower gifts for a co-worker.  I ended up making two sweaters, two hats, and one pair of booties.  And now that the gifts have all been received, I can show them to you here.  The pattern I used for the sweaters is Lisa's Essential Baby Cardigan Pattern.  This is an awesome pattern which contains instructions for different gauge yarn as well as different sizes.  I highly recommend this pattern, and I know it is one that I will use again and again.  It is available for purchase here.  The hat pattern is from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns (Ravelry Link) and the booties are from this free pattern.  Here's the goods:

The yarn used for the blue set is Berocco Comfort DK (great yarn!) while the multi set uses Bernat Super Value (don't hate me!).  If you click on the Bernat sweater, you will be able to see the cute ducky buttons.

Interestingly, my gifts were the only handmade ones given at this shower.  There were however two handmade cards.  Here's the one I made:

I've now been in my new job for two months.  I'm enjoying it a lot, but there is definitely more stress than in my previous job.  As a result, I'm feeling a need to return to what I've always seen as my therapy, knitting.  So therefore there will be a lot more knitting content here in the next weeks.  I'm actually planning to cast on a few new projects in the next week or two.  And I'm also wanting to pick up my spindle again as well, it's been months.  I'm actually planning to do some spinning today.  I am planning to neglect my Etsy shop this weekend and not create any new listings (still have some things to relist anyway).  I do however have three cards to make for friends and family.

Have a good weekend, I hope there are beginning to be some signs of spring wherever you are.

Last Week

Last week was such a busy week, I've been meaning to blog about it for ages, and am just getting around to it now.  Better late than never, right?

Despite my negative feelings about the Ice Show last week, it went really well, and I had a lot of fun in the end.  It made me re-think the whole bored with skating thing.  I had actually been planning to skip skating on Monday night, but buoyed with some enthusiasm following the show, I attended to skate just for me.  It was okay, I left early, but it did feel good to be on the ice.  Thursday night is lesson night, and since my friend with whom I have a semi-private lesson each week was sick, I ended up having a private lesson.  Well I had an awesome lesson!  Throughout this past year, I had felt that I had made no progress whatsoever and had pretty much decided that I wasn't going to continue on in this sport.  Well my coach pointed out how I had indeed progressed in the last year, and I had the most fun on the ice I've had for months.  Now I'm thinking that rather than quit, I will just skate once a week rather than the twice that I've been skating all along.  My life has just gotten busier in the last year, and I think that this will be a good compromise.

Last week was also the monthly session of the Stampin' Up Stamp Club that I belong to.  I always look forward to these evenings as there is always a new technique to learn, and I come home with an attractive new card.  This month was no exception.  First we learned how to use bleach on a stamped image.  The white that you see on the pants and the water was created with bleach in a blender pen:

And this card is one of my favourites we have made yet:

I love the simple yet vibrant colours of this card, and the unique way it is folded.  I'm planning to order the stamp set and the papers that are used in this card.

Well it is getting late here so I'd better end for now.  Believe it or not, there is some actual knitting content coming soon!