What's the Happy Haps?

HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE AND ALL!

I have been trying to find some time to do a big catch up of all the things I've been up to. It's taken me until NOW to find the space and the quiet. The kidlets are tucked up in bed and all I am in the mood for is a creative catch up. Yes, I have been knitting and sewing up a storm recently. Being the kind of all or nothing gal that I am, I decided to make my (very tall) hubble a quilt for Christmas. I haven't ever made a quilt before and my hubbles ended up being 6ft wide by 7ft long (to cover his toesies). I made it because he has been sleeping at work off and on for the last two years due to the workload. We live nearly two hours out of the city and when he is finishing at 3am it's hardly worth coming home to get up a couple of hours later to go back, so he sleeps on the floor under his coat. I know. So I am putting together a 'Work Survival Kit' so that at least he has something warm and comfy to overwork under. But this quilt (and a couple of other little bits) kept me up until 2am on Christmas Eve. I still didn't manage to finish it but here is a picture of the WIP.

Apologies for the crap picture.

It needs sewing through and binding at the ends. It's also a bit wonky but then, so am I. So there you go.

I've also been doing a little of this:

Tie onesies for a couple of friends who are pregnant. Made one for Finn too because they are so cute! I made them from this tutorial which is awesome. Try it. You'll like it.

And once the wee girl saw Finn's she wanted one. Because that's the kind of funky sister of chic I am raising. Of course, it will probably be trashed by Friday because she is a little rough on her clothes! 

I've also been knitting up a storm. I knitted up some 'sleeves' for a couple of good girlfriends (and hoped they wouldn't think it was a crap present!). Apparently they love them (though they could just be being kind). They are like long (to the elbow or upper arm) soft, silky things that look like very long fingerless gloves. You can wear them with t-shirts or tank tops etc. I think they're cool. I'll have to get photo's of the girls wearing them for my ravelry site which is here.

I have also been up to my neck 'Neck Warmers' -  the pattern is listed on my ravelry site for FREE. And it's SO easy but it looks surprisingly good. Honest. My husbands was the most muted of the one's I knitted but with all of them I used three to four balls of wool (together) and they turned out lovely for such a beginner. The buttons that you add really make a difference too. They step the project up and make it look like something you would buy. 

Nice hubby volunteered to have his photie taken wearing his neck warmer (and his pjs!)

I have finished Finn's Eastment Jacket but need to sew it up. I also have two vintage red pixie hats finished but in need of sewing up and two jumpers. I know. It's just that I don't like the sewing things up bit. I like the knitting bit. Anyway, when I get it together to finish it. I'll post and link to them, if you're interested.

What else? Hmmm... The beautiful wee boy is now 7 months old and soooo beautiful. 

7 Months and covered in solids.

The Beanie is wonderful and dreadful challenging in equal measure at the moment. She can be amazingly helpful and she LOVES her little brother but we have had an increase in the defiance and she is developing a somewhat aggressive streak in little ways. Not sure what's going on with her but I'm trying to keep my cool and find the patience to deal with it. I'm not even going to talk to you about the whole eating thing! Too traumatic. As you can see though, she's full of life and personality!

 Oh and these are some other little crafty projects I've finished recently.

 The lovely 'Bandit' - a sock monkey made for Finn while I was pregnant with him.

And this little fella is for a friends nearly 2 year old boy whose birthday is coming up. He keeps stealing 'Minty' the green and white sock monkey I made for his sister!

Well, I have another two blog posts up my (knitted) sleeves including one on my 'word for the year' (last year was 'Compassion') but this is just really a round up of the crafty goodness I've been enjoying.

Of Crafts, Creativity and Jumping from Frying Pan to Fire

Lately I have been suffering greatly from craft envy. I have found myself bemoaning my complete lack of talent in the crafty sewing stakes and have decided that instead of being such a wussy when it comes to making things from scratch, I will throw myself in at the deep end and have a bloody go. Now the problem with this enthusiastic (if terribly naive) approach to the whole business is that I am a horrible, horrible perfectionist. I have been blessed with one main talent in my life and that is that I have always been able to do pretty much anything I put my mind to without too much effort. I remember it began with ice-skating back when I was a tweenie. My mum had a friend whose daughter had had lessons and we all went to the ice rink. I sailed (literally) through my first ever experience on the ice including learning how to skate backwards, while said friends daughter clung to the side like a limpet. Same with horseriding, same with dance (for which I had a gift when I was much younger and less portly). However, this gift is not all its cracked up to be. Firstly it meant that my mum always had me (unconsciously) in competition with everyone else and that's a kind of pressure that no kid needs and secondly, it meant that I became very impatient with any personal failure. This all translates to, if I can't do it perfectly straight off, I am liable to set fire to it and myself.

Soooo, it is with cautious enthusiasm that I have set myself this project to be completed within the next 4-months in time for my daughters second birthday. Yes, its a sock monkey. I know it probably doesn't seem like much but its a huge step for me. Y'see I love crafts. I have folders at home filled with pages torn from magazines and downloaded from the internet showing me how to do everything from producing the perfect Macaroni Cheeeeze to knitting myself a Bible. I positively salivate over the perfect images with a maniacal grin on my face. I dream of curling up on my newly upholstered sofa, eating the perfect macaroni cheese, striving not to get any on my newly knitted bible with a sock monkey sitting next to me.

I truly envy these amazing creative women whose blogs I have been pouring over. DocWitch is one such being for whom I have such admiration. Anyone who can do crafty things, raise a child, hold down a full time job AND have any time at all for other things is to be worshipped for the Godess/God that they truly are. Me? I'm lucky if I can get through an average day and cook dinner. I long to be more crafty. I love the idea of handmade things, of giving thoughtful, beautiful gifts to people I love that I have taken the time and energy to create myself. There is something so special about it. (BTW thank you for my Beanie's gorgeous Crayon roll-up - she adores it and the crayons within. Many a wall in our house has been visited by her early impressionistic endeavours!). I've always had this thing, this quiet passion, for crafts and now I've discovered Family Circle magazine and completely fallen in love with it. I know. I'm so middle-aged it ain't funny. It's just that its chock full of great recipes and fantastic crafty ideas with ALL the instructions. And some of them I think I could actually do! So - having written in (blog)stone that I am going to make a sock monkey for my little monkey's birthday, I will have to go ahead and do it. Lest the shame of this post hang over my head like those dreams where you find yourself in school naked and without your homework.



As if this wasn't enough, I have also made another commitment (actually two)that started today. (I am nothing if not insanely optimistic when it comes to starting new things), I have commited to 30-days of Japa meditation. I'm not trying to manifest anything in particular, I just would like to revisit the stillness and peace I once experienced during an impromptu fire meditation and which I have written about in this blog (see post The Stillness We Seek). I need to quieten down my head for it is always so very busy in there. The third commitment I have made is to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. So this morning, after my Japa meditation, I did my morning pages and this week I will go out with myself on my very first Artists Date. I'm very excited. I hope I bring myself flowers.

And so, it is with a burning hot bum (a result of leaping from Creative Frying Pan to Meditative Fire rather than because someone is sitting under my chair with an open flame) that I leave this post. I will be recording the effects of my 30-day meditation experiment AND I will be recording how I'm going with my sock monkey. I may also mention how things are going with The Artists Way. We'll just have to see if I am still able to move under the weight of all these self-imposed obligations by next week.

PS. This post was rudely interrupted by Mother Nature plunging us into sudden darkness at around 10.30pm last night. We stumbled about in total blackness, walking into doors, tipping things over and knocking things off other things until I found a box of matches and began lighting the candles. Thank goodness for what DocWitch calls Witchypooness - my house is stuffed to the gills with candles and soon the house was lit up like Christmas. It was actually very romantic - I actually look good in candlelight. I retired to bed to read and felt very Jane Austin. Reading by candlelight, indeed brushing my teeth and washing my face by candlelight did have a very Pride and Prejudice feel to it. I almost expected a very arsy Darcy to come bursting into the room to tell me how 'ardently I admire and love you...' Well, a girl can dream can't she? Yummmm. Sadly, he wouldn't have had the time to step out of his britches as the lights suddenly came on again and life was back to its unromantic normality in seconds - though I noticed my hubby had grown a beard.