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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Do you YUDU?


Wow - I have an amazing, 9 year old boy now. Every year, I enjoy planning my kiddos' party. We've done Blues Clues, Shrek, Music/Drumming, Indiana Jones...So, what kind of birthday party does a 9 year old have?

A gaming party, of course!

And, what kind of party favors are appropriate for a bunch of 9 year olds?

Their very own PARTY SHIRT!

For Christmas, I received a YUDU - a home screen-printing machine. I'm thinking that I could use it to screen fabric for embroidery or to print some scroll-y doodles that I make. Auntie Teal created the invitation and the design for the shirt:

Here is the my first try at home screen-printing:
There is a little bit of a learning curve, but once I figured out how the emulsifying sheets worked, this really is a great little machine!

The shirts were a hit with the boys! The party was awesome - five 9 year olds running around, playing video games and then discovering that it was fun to play outside too.

And there was a little surprise bbgun gift from Aunt Jill:
Aunt Jill, you know I had to razz you a little bit. Still hearing "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"


Sunday, January 23, 2011

Finished Object: Rosey Little Bee Quilt

About a year ago, I signed up for my first online quilting bee: Rosey Little Bee. I've read books about women getting together (long ago) and working on a quilt. Well, quilting has changed a little since then. Now, with internet, women from all over the world can share their quilting hobby by way of a virtual bee. It works like this:

12-ish people agree to create blocks for one another. Each quilter is assigned a month for the year. For example, I was assigned September, so I sent out my fabric and block pattern to the 11 other girls in August.

After much sewing and cutting and thinking and thinking some more, I decided on this block:
The idea is by the end of your month, your fellow bees have made your block for you and when you get everyone's blocks sewn together, you have this:

I got a little excited about the blocks, and so I made one quilt with the blocks that were sent to me so far. I'm going to make another quilt with the other blocks.

What I liked about joining this group is that I learned to use different colors and to sew different blocks. I enjoyed this so much that I've joined another bee through flickr: 3 X 6 Bee. In this bee, you are joined with 6 other people, but this time, you make the same block 6 times, but in different colors. So at the end of the quarter, you receive 6 different blocks, but in coordinating colors. If you participate all year (optional), you will have 24 blocks to make a large quilt.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

First Finished Object: A Cowl


I show you the first finished object of 2011: The Ribbed Cowl. I hope I don't sound all "so last year" but cowls are still pretty neat. I really have to dress in layers with my job and cowls are perfect. You can dress them up or down, especially by choosing a fancier yarn.
It's from Knit Simple's Winter 2010/11 issue. I really can't believe that this pattern is so simple. It is increasing ribs from 2 knits, 2 purls all the way up to like 13 knits, 2 purls. Basically, you cast on a bunch of stitches and start an increasing rib pattern. It's not even knitted in the round, just back and forth for 34". I made it in a basic brown, so i could wear it to school with just about anything...

I know that Loops carries the magazine, not to enable anyone or anything....