sew sugar pie

my dear friend, nichole, has her own company called sew sugar pie. check out her etsy page here. she is so super talented and sweet. she sent a large package a while back to spoil us.

she doesn't just make baby gear either. she also has sweet scarves and headbands for the ladies. she sent me two scarves (not pictured) that i adore. i've received several compliments on them. 

go check out her store and spoil yourself or your favorite babe.

sew what? a blanket

after my last few easy crafts, i had to sew a wee blanket too. a friend has been promising a blanket, but it won't be ready in time. i sewed this one up in a few hours. it was so ridiculously easy. i sort of want to make 50.

sewing crafts

i'm not too much of a sewer. i make quilts, but that is mostly sewing in a straight line - which i have mastered. i have tried more advanced things like skirts, and sometimes they work out and other times not. sewing patterns have their own intimidating language that sometimes leaves me in tears.

however, there are lots of useful things that you can make with only straight lines and not a lot of work.

behold burp cloths

i used the purlbee's tutorial found here for oxford burp cloths. pretty simple and only took a few hours.

and also a monster laundry bag. that will surely make laundry more fun, right? well, it couldn't hurt.

aaron picked out the fabric, which i loved. i used the instructions found on the momtastic website.

both projects were so easy, cheap, and useful that i want to sew more! any other easy useful projects?

blanket 4

for the last 4 years i have made a blanket per year. i'm not sure how exactly this started to become a tradition, but it has.

in 2011 i knitted a log cabin blanket using the colors forest green, brick, heather, and chocolate brown. in 2012, i attempted my first quilt using the pinwheels in the park pattern. more on that fiasco, here. and 2013 brought us the broken stripes pattern.

are you ready for 2014's pattern? it's from modern minimal: 20 bond & graphic quilts by: alissa haight carlton. the pattern is "hot spot".

it is made up of six different shades of red solids that range from light to dark. i used robert kaufman kona cottons in oral, red, rich red, wine, crimson, and burgundy.

for me, sewing the top of the quilt is the best part. i dread actually quilting it. i just use my small sewing machine, and for me, there is a lot of pressure. i just made a really cool quilt top, i don't want to ruin it with my ineptitude at quilting. but i have to remember that that is part of the learning process.

i'm already dreaming of the 2015 blanket. i have the colors all picked up, but i think i'm going back to my roots of knitting. by then, we will have a newborn on our hands and not much sleep. i think the only thing i could muster at that point will be the garter stitch.

wee cardi

finished the cardigan for our little guy. the pattern is by kelly brooker, called newborn vertebrae. i used knitpicks stroll handpainted yarn in the color thunderhead. i loved the pattern, it was super easy to follow and did quite a bit of tv knitting with it. she also has a baby, child, and adult sized versions of the pattern for sale as well. here is my project page on ravelry. 

new knits

i had ordered new needles and yarn from knitpicks to start a new baby cardigan. it was going to be my first baby project not using scraps, so i was pretty excited. i came home everyday from work expecting they would be there, like a kid on christmas morning. finally i looked up the tracking number and saw that they got shipped to wisconsin. apparently, i hadn't used knitpicks since i moved to from new zealand. but i was positive i had changed my shipping address...

after a call and some additional shipping my new needles and yarn came and i couldn't be happier about them. the yarn is stroll tonal fingering in the color thunderhead. i am making the newborn vertebrae

on the needles

i was trying to kill time while waiting for my new yarn and needles to come in the mail. it turns out that you can make a lot of baby things with scrap yarn.