Etsy

I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things after a nasty cold and the resulting lethargy took me out for the remainder of 2013. When I wasn’t asleep or staring like a zombie at the television, I did manage to start a new baby blanket for charity. Take a look:

I decided to make this blanket larger than my last one, but still small enough for a baby or toddler. I got the idea from one I saw on Pinterest, made by LaLaKa and found on her Etsy store. I’ll admit, what particularly interested me was that all I had to do was knit, which was the perfect mindless project for my infirmed state of the past few weeks.

For my color choices, I’m using what left of my washable wool/acrylic stash, the result of which I hope will read neither boy nor girl, though I suppose most people would consider the dark rose color more girly. You can see the color change from dark to light blue a little better in this shot:

The pattern is quite simple, I cast on 200 stitches and knit every row until the skein runs out, then I change color. My gauge is between 4.5 and 5 sts per inch on size 8 needles. After the white there’ll be a little bit of yellow, and I’ll eventually work my way back to the darker blue to give the blanket some symmetry. Here’s a closer look:

The yarns have been in my stash for quite awhile, and a couple of the skeins are missing labels, but it’s mostly Emu Superwash and Brunswick Yarns Wintuk Orlon for the darker blue. Definitely easy knit and easy care.

It’s also a perfect activity for the below-zero temps my outdoor thermometer shows today!

Here’s hoping you all had a wonderful holiday; thanks so much for stopping by.

XOXO,
Sandra

I’m a little late posting for last week or I’m early for this week, depending on how you look at it. To be honest, last week was a little rough at work. A massive deadline that can’t be missed put all of us in my office in kind of a cranky mood.

And, when I would have much preferred to be home Saturday sewing in order to have something to show you guys, I was there writing. Whine, whine, fuss, fuss, as my mother used to say.

But one of the few good things to happen was getting my new labels in the mail, which I bought from the LillaLotta shop on Etsy. Run by the very talented and kind Anna, these came all the way from the Netherlands.

I am so excited about them; I just think they look so cool, and they made the perfect header for the blog.

What’s lovely about these is that they were very reasonably priced compared to quite a few of the websites I checked for labels. And since I don’t need 1,000 of them, Anna’s handmade version works perfectly for me. I also love the idea of supporting a fellow crafter.

One of my goals for these labels is to use them on quilts/products for my own Etsy shop. Currently, the shop is work in progress (meaning I don’t have anything in there yet, it just sounds better to say you’re working on it), but hopefully a little later this summer I can get some fun items in there for you.

One of them is very likely to be this cute bag holder. I had made a larger version awhile back to hold my grocery bags, but wanted another one for produce bags, which have a ton of uses, but mostly I reuse them with my juicer.

Here it is with its bigger counterpart:

I made both of these from the wonderful tutorial on In Color Order. If you’ve never visited Jeni’s site, I highly recommend it. She has great quilt/sewing ideas and is a talented fabric designer. I hope to snag her latest line, “Nordika,” soon. Plus, there’s a cute bunny named George!