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I spent a while looking for some cute hand towels for a wedding present for my friend Jewels who loves to cook. And then I remembered that I like embroidering things.
So I got some white hand towels and got to embroidering. I made three in different colors, so they can mix and match with their kitchen. Hopefully the new Mr. and Mrs. Panian can use these when they are eating dinner together! Congratulations, you two. I hope you share many wonderful meals.
Baby Girl,
Twelve years ago today a Big Bad Thing happened. It will be years before your parents tell you about it and many more years before you’ll begin to understand it.
I hope you never experience anything like we did 12 years ago. But I can’t keep bad things from happening, I can’t keep your heart from being broken, I can’t keep you from pain.
I can promise that you are loved. Me and your Auntie and your grandparents and your parents and your cousins and people you haven’t even met yet all love you so much. And if a Big Bad Thing happens, and one day something will, I hope you hold on to that love. I hope you know that despite all the bad things, you are a good thing. And love is stronger than evil. And love will last.
So, Baby Girl, I hope when you wrap yourself up in this blanket, you also feel wrapped up in love.
Love, Aunt Rae
You can see my previous knitting progress here: baby blanket progress (4 inches). And I’ll write more on how it’s going later.
This summer has gone so fast that I’ve just now caught up on Project life. I added an insert for my birthday and two pages for July.
For my birthday, I added a half page with pictures and a page protector with my post of things I’ve learned this past year printed out.
I added some pictures of flowers I got and some cards and tissue paper from gifts. I like how simple the inserts were to make and how pretty and colorful it is.
For July, I didn’t have many pictures of me and my friends, so I used the other pictures I had on hand. The large picture on the right is from getting drinks on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I also added #fatcat of course and some books I read that month. I’m really crushed I didn’t take more pictures from the Fourth of July and all the other fun times this month, but I’ll just have to do better in the future. I think the pages still look nice and I wrote some notes on my date card so I would remember the events.
My favorite was this enlarged picture and the up on the roof embellishment. I think it’s just cute. August is almost over so soon I’ll be doing pages for this month, too!
You can see my other project life updates here:
I have finally added my latest embroideries to my embroidery display!
I am slowly but steadily filling the space above my bed. I love having them in my home–I love any handmade item in my home. I think it adds originality and personality, and I’m of course also proud that I made them myself.
I’m getting quite a collection, and I’d love to keep going. I think they look lovely as a group. The whole is just as good as the parts.
I am working on a project to sew some of my favorite quotes and images from books. You can see the other quotes in my embroidery project here:
A while ago I started on the baby blanket I’m making for my niece. I am happy to say that I have made some progress. About four inches of progress!
I have finished the very first stripe of what will be many stripes of several colors. I still have a long way to go, but each row is getting easier and quicker already. I won’t kid you guys, my favorite part of any project is when it is finished and you can look at this cool thing you made.
But my next-favorite part is when you start to first see what it will become. I started with a bunch of yarn and some needles, but after several rows, I started a contrast color stripe and the Vs of the chevron started to appear. And it started to look like I was making a chevron striped baby blanket. I get this feeling when I sew or embroider, too. If you put enough pieces together or stitch enough stitches, there’s a moment you can start to see what the final image will look like. And it’s very exciting.
When I use a pattern like this, it helps me to print it out and mark off as I go. (I’m following the chevron baby blanket pattern from the Purl Bee.) Each time I finish a row, I mark a dot. And I use different color dots for different color yarn. You can also count, of course, but marking them down helps me stay on track easily. If I ever need to stop in the middle of a row, I mark down somewhere what I just finished. For example, I’ll write k10, if I just finished knitting 10 and am ready to go onto the next stitch after that. As long as I’m consistent in how I mark things off, I am able to stop and start without getting confused.
I’m thrilled with how this is looking, and I can’t wait to knit more. I was a little worried about learning two new stitches to make this blanket, but thanks to YouTube lessons and some practice it’s been going really well. More updates soon!
If you’ve read Saga (like you should!) you must love Lying Cat. She is sidekick to The Will and can tell when someone is lying. We all need some Lying Cat in our lives–but since I can’t get a hold of the original, I embroidered this. Here’s a closer look.
Continue reading “lying cat (embroidery no. 14)”
Today’s the day. The beginning of the end. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about a TV show. It actually reminds me of when Harry Potter was coming out. The midnight parties, the internet message boards (remember those?), the guessing and wondering and talking in circles about how it would end. I love this kind of thing.
So in the spirit of my embroidery project, I made a tiny tribute to Walter White as Heisenberg. I thought about embroidering “I am the one who knocks,” and I still might. But his features are so perfect and distinct for an abstract image like this that I couldn’t pass it up. And I certainly would never say Heisenberg is cute but…
Continue reading “breaking bad (embroidery no. 13)”
A few months ago we learned of the exciting announcement that my brother and his wife are expecting. And now I’ve promised my little baby niece a baby blanket. I am following the pattern for the chevron baby blanket from the Purl Bee, one of my favorite knitting/sewing blogs.
Continue reading “baby blanket”
“Seems to me,” the Lady said, “a boy’s bicycle needs to see where it’s goin’. Needs to see whether there’s a clear road or trouble ahead. Seems to me a boy’s bicycle needs some horse in it, and some deer, and maybe even a touch of reptile. For cleverness, don’t you know?”
In Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon, our hero Cory gets a brand new bike.
This isn’t just any bike. This bike is from The Lady. It’s brand new and made just for him. It’s red and had a headlight, and in the headlight it has an eye that looks out for Cory. It steers him away from danger and helps him get to adventure–fast.
“At this instant I felt at one with Rocket, as if we were of the same skin and grease, and when I grinned, a bug flew into my teeth. I didn’t care; I swallowed it because I was invincible.”
So in tribute to a book I loved, and in tribute to Rocket, a bike I wish I had, I made my own. Sort of. Mine’s a bit more two dimensional.
I started with a stencil. I traced and drew and doodled until I had a bike I liked. Then I traced it onto a transparency and used a craft knife/box cutter thing to cut out my stencil.
Continue reading “rocket, my screen-printed bike”
More project life! This time from our wonderful family vacation. #fatcat definitely likes the pages.
We had so much fun on vacation and there was no way I could include all the pictures. I chose some that I thought kept it beachy and relaxing–just like our trip.
Continue reading “project life: beach vacation”
Rae Nudson