The Best Baby Shower

A couple weekends back, I had the distinct honor of attending one of the best baby showers that ever was. The shower was really just a formal component of a regular old (and very, very informal) crafting weekend and had been in the works ever since we learned at the last crafting weekend that two of our "gang of eight" were expecting their first babies within ten days of each other.(Royal babies and crafting babies this summer, oh my!) To honor the two very special mamas-to-be, we wanted to hold a baby shower that showered them with handmade baby items.

It was truly a shower where every present was even more incredible than the last. The mamas received personalized picture books, binders of their baby's genealogy, beautiful quilts and burp clothes, and of course, lots of knit goods. As for really practical things like diapers and teething rings, they'll have to wait for a shower where people actually follow a registry. ;)

Remember those sheep cardigans? Dubbed "The Dirty Lionel Cardigan" after a sheep we named while we were all in Ireland together (five of us studied abroad in Ireland during Spring 2005), the cardigans finally made it to their owners.

Let's see if they fit!

As is to be expected at an event where everyone has a bit of a flair for the creative and homemade, the food was delicious. I'm still dreaming about the lemon curd filled cupcakes, although let me tell you, the chocolate ones weren't half bad either. Even the party favors were homemade: jars of strawberry margarita jam. Oh nom nom nom.

Games and activities were kept low-key and we avoided poop themes (no baby food was wasted at this baby shower) and any "who knows the mom best" sort of games. One of the favorite activities was decorating onesies with puff paint. I'm not sure how many onesies a new mom needs, but you can rest assured that these two mamas-to-be now have onesies - mostly covered in movie quotes or inside jokes - coming out of their ears.

Of course, the baby shower, as wonderful as it was, was just one teeny bit of a four day (!!! hold the phones!) weekend that included a surprise birthday party with an Anchorman theme, s'mores, Skittles, Wimbledon (and Pimm's Cup and strawberries and cream -heaven!), playing on the playground just down the road, evening walks, Pitch Perfect, and so much noise and laughter. I'm so lucky to be part of this wonderful tribe of women!

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Knit Happens: Baby Stuff

After a wealth of wedding afghan projects in the last few years, I'm happy to announce that my friends are moving on to the next stage of adulthood: parenthood.  This is very exciting because baby items are much faster to knit than afghans. Also babies are pretty fun - especially once they're 6 mos +. (Sorry new moms, I still kind of give newborns the side eye, those infants just don't do a whole lot during those first few weeks of life, although newborns' fingers and eyelashes are undeniably adorable.) 

The sweater above is the first of two Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigans because not one, but two (two!) fellow crafters are expecting their first baby this summer. With two bundles of joy on their way, we knew the crafters had to unite for a Crafting Baby Shower in June, where all gifts are handmade. I opted for knitting two identical baby sweaters with a sheep theme since in addition to our shared "craftiness" all the crafters have spent extended periods of time in Ireland, the land of sheep. The sheep theme is also decidedly unisex which is helpful since one of the crafter is opting not to find out their baby's gender. (The other is having a baby girl - squeeeee! Since it's been baby boy after baby boy in my world lately, I'm slightly thrilled.)

The sweaters are knit in superwash 100% merino wool yarn so babies can be babies (aka: spit up) all over the sweater and frazzled, sleep deprived new parents can throw the sweaters in the wash and not worry about the sweater coming out the right size for a Barbie doll. The lack of buttons all the way down the front of the sweater also helps busy parents speed up dressing their babies without having to fuss with button after button. Besides, a floppy, open sweater gives babies a wider range of motion - perfect for letting them be their wiggly selves.

While I don't consider myself a baby person (although, I don't consider myself *not* a baby person either), it's hard not to be excited about these two little souls who will be joining the crafting circle this spring. Two pregnant crafters may have meant just a tad too much champagne was available to the remaining six crafters last New Year's Eve, but it also meant we had a designated driver on hand to drive us to Walmart when we ran out of toilet paper that same night. Class act all the way here - obviously we should totally all be in the process of becoming parents because we are super together and a awesome at "life."

 

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Happy New Year - Alternative Title: Friends Laughing Together

Happy New Year everyone!

Here we are, three days into the new year already and I've yet to even wish you all well for this new exciting year we're just embarking on. Like so many bloggers, I have a tendency to fall off the face of the earth during the holiday season. Amazingly (shockingly?) enough, the holidays are rapidly coming to a close (to me, it all ends on January 6 - Epiphany, which is my traditional "take down all Christmas decorations day") and today is my first attempt to return to a normal work schedule. Considering that I oversleep (fail), I have a feeling that today will be all about little successes and getting my head back into the work game, while tomorrow will be the first day I actually have billable hours again. Speaking of billable hours, I should really send out some invoices today. (Oh hey there Christmas credit card bill.)

There have been plenty of little, not really work related, but definitely "real" life things waiting for my attention. QuickBooks is updated, I've gotten the car in for a long overdue oil change and my annual physical appointment is scheduled. Yesterday, Andy and I did laundry for the first time in earnest since the first week in December and I'm over the moon about the prospect of clean underwear, clean socks, and clean pants!

I hope that Christmas (if that's the holiday you celebrate) was a very happy day for you and that you're looking forward to 2013 as much as I am. I really have no idea what 2013 will bring -probably just more of the same - but since 2012 was a very happy year around these parts, I say, "Bring it, 2013."

Essential items for New Year celebrating: poppers, hat, and a crazy straw for your champagne

I was lucky enough to celebrate New Year's with my crafting/Ireland/college buddies this year. We officially have way too much fun together. This year's "New Year's Crafting Weekend" spanned three nights and brought us all to the Minnesota prairie in Willmar - or as I and my fellow northern MN crafters referred to it: "Garrison's Minnesota". Willmar's a fair poke from my neck of the woods (hooray for carpooling!), but the time spent together was worth every minute in the car(s). We realized that this is the 6th crafting get-together - to date we've had three summer crafting "weekends" and three New Year celebrations.

One of our fellow crafters had gotten married this past fall and because our lives are typically not nearly as awesome as they appear during crafting weekends, most of us missed the wedding. To make up for this, we decided to throw a surprise second wedding reception.

Interestingly enough, this is the second event of this holiday season for me missing a key player of the event. There was no baby mama at the surprise baby shower last month and the groom was conspicuously absent during this "second" wedding reception.

"Wedding" cake

A major reason why we hosted a second reception was to present the bride with her wedding present - the handknit afghan that we hadn't been able to finish in time for the actual wedding.

Who am I kidding, we barely finished the afghan in time for the second wedding reception. I spent Friday evening sitting on the floor in the basement of some friends' mother's home, sewing on border. Despite my earlier moaning and groaning, the afghan turned out beautifully and I'm really happy we were able to make it happen.

 

Family photo of everyone in their "wedding" clothes

You may be noticing that there aren't too many pictures of actual crafting. That's because we were usually too busy doing this to get much crafting done:

There was some crafting accomplished though. A Civil War era ball gown skirt was worked on and there was much knitting, including my knitting 8 gazillion (okay, 12) owl cozies for the Etsy shop. Check out the new colors: tutu pink, a mustard yellow/gold, and a dark blue heather.

Braving 0 degree weather to trace a sewing pattern

It's always hard to come back to "real" life after the holiday season, but it just can't be party, party, party all day, every day, I suppose. *sigh*

So far, I'm not resolving to do anything this year other than take care of myself and live life happily and fully. Whatever your New Year resolutions, I wish you the best of luck with them and I hope 2013 goes down as one of our best to date.

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The Holi-daze

I think we can all agree that Christmases that fall in the middle of the week should be banned. I mean, what's the big idea here? All party, party, party on Monday and Tuesday and then back to work on Wednesday? I think not!

Both today and yesterday I've half-heartedly attempted to get actual paying work accomplished, but I haven't made much (any?) progress on my projects. Mostly I've just been sitting in the glow of the Christmas tree, gunking up the screen of my new iPad (thank you Andy for introducing technological sophistication into my life) and counting getting iTunes to update on my ancient workhorse of a laptop an accomplishment. I've also been hoping that this pile of afghan edging will knit itself up and attach itself to the actual afghan. (Is it too much to ask for a Christmas miracle?!)

Side note: when/if I get married I am requesting many much hand knitted afghans. This is the fifth wedding afghan I've worked on to date (three of which I knit in their entirety . . . queue smallest violin in the world) and this chick has had it. My apologies to any couples getting engaged this holiday season . . . I'm totally giving you a salad spinner.

Also, it should be noted that I'm trying out the Blogger iPad app for the first time with this post. I have absolutely no idea where the photos I selected for this post are actually being placed.

iPad app suggestions and . . . go! I don't play games (I seem to find *plenty* of other things to vie for my procrastination energy), but would love suggestions for apps related to knitting, cooking, finance, etc. etc. The most obvious apps (Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Etsy) were already installed during a very fun Christmas Day. At least it was fun for Andy and me. My parents, who spent most of the day watching us poke away at said iPad, might have a different take on the day, although we did manage to tear ourselves from the glowing bluescreen long enough for some Trivial Pursuit and dinner.

Hope you've all had a very merry holiday season so far. I'm gearing up for the great annual New Year's Eve crafting "weekend" which starts . . . tomorrow! Excitement!

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