Twirly Girly Skirt for Gracie

My beautiful niece seen below celebrated her birthday on June 24 so this blog is all about her. Elizabeth Grace Robinson was born two years ago to my brother Jason and his beautiful wife Brooke. She was born premature and so was tiny from the beginning and I remember holding her the first time a month after she was born (we live about 9 hours away from them in a different state) and I remember how precious she was, but more so, how excited I was that she was a girl and I could make her the most adorable things from scratch that she would love because she is a girl.



So as her second birthday approached I had to choose what I was going to take on as a task to make her because I knew I wanted to hand make her something. I fell upon this tutorial for a Twirly Twirly Skirt and immediately though of her. http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/02/twisty-twirly-girly-skirt.html#more. Moda Bake Shop is amazing blog that I follow and while devouring their website looking at the different things I fell upon this skirt and decided that this was what I was going to make. I made my trip to Joanns to get some fabric and found a bunch of flowers, frogs, and fruit fabrics, got it all cut up and went to the counter to pay for my goods, the total cost was only 10 dollars which I was proud of since I found a lot of good fabric on sale.

I got home and let the stuff sit for a few days and then started working on starting by cutting all the fabric (which i think took the longest) and then sewing everything together. About 5 days later and about 5 movies later, as I love to watch movies while I sew, I think its a white noise thing, I finally finished the skirt and could not be more proud. Below is the skirt and I plan on mailing it in the next few days so that my niece can twirl and swirl as she plays with her dollies and rides in her wagon up and down the hall.







Untill next time ---

Weddings and Babies

Since I have been home this summer which has been about two months now (its going by so fast and I just cant believe it) I have attended two weddings and one baby shower. I just cant believe that I am getting to that age when people I know are getting married and having children. Anyways its happening so congratulations to Julia and Chris and Sylvia and Jon on their marriages and to Rob and Meg who are expecting a little girl who they will name Aubrey. Needless to say I have been to target my fair share of times with a blue registry in hand wondering the aisles looking for gifts to give. So if you see me wondering around with blue sheets in Target just let me be as I am trying to strategically purchase a gift in time to get home and wrap it and get to the even since I am a last minute shopper.

So with that out of the way, I haven't been knitting too much. I did receive my Imagination yarn and casted on and am working (slowly) on the beanie for my friends mom and hoping that it is going to fit as it is looking a wee bit small right now, but I have faith it will fit. Below is a picture of they yarn I am using.



Since I am home and not in the dorms I am able to have an ample amount of space to do all of my hobbies which include sewing. While I lived in the dorms I would look at blog after blog and one day stumbled upon this lovely tutorial for an adorable shirt and told my room ate who was near me that I was going to be making this shirt when I got home. TUTORIAL: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=791. The people over at Sew Mama Sew gave a wonderful tutorial and it was so easy to follow and since I hadn't sewn in a while and usually didn't have the best track record for making things, I was so glad when this beauty turned out so well. I have received so many comments on it and it is something so comfortable that I am wearing it about twice a week now in the summer.




Today is Father's Day and so for my daddy I decided to scrapbook his military career which consisted of 22 years and I had a really nice scrapbook and a good amount of pictures to search through I made it in a week and crunched time in last night and this morning to get it complete. He really liked it and even though I need to add at least two more pictures it still looked really good.

That's all for now === off to more adventures.

Knitpicks.com

Since starting this whole adventure of knitting I have come to find that the kind of yarn you use and needles that you use definitely do determine the quality of product that you produce. The one who taught me to knit told me about the wonderful website Knitpicks.com and the needles and yarn that they have and how much she loved it. I decided to finally look and really consider ordering stuff of knitpicks and I did. For a background story, I have a great friend whose mom has been watching me knit since I started back in November and asked if I could knit her a hat and scarf set for winter. Of course I said yes but it helped even more that she happens to be a fabulous painter and offered to paint me a picture just for me! I have always loved her paintings and since I will be moving into the new house in just 65 days I figured it would be something great to put into my room. She had bought me some yarn to use for her set but I didn't like the feel of the yarn or any patterns that would work with that yarn so I told her I would find some yarn and get it. I came across the Imagination set of yarn on knitpicks and loved loved loved it! I found the Damsel yarn and it looked like the same color pallet of the yarn she had given me and decided that it was going to be what I was going to use. So i am expecting that in the mail very soon. I also purchased my first set of Harmony Wood circular knitting needles which have such a smooth cable (and I didn't realize there could be a difference in cables!) and I am using them to knit the imagination yarn for my friends mom.

On a finishing note, I finished my art for the art decoration andn I also started and finished a hat for a good guy friend of mine. After I knitted his brother a scarf he asked when he was going to get his knitted piece and he wanted a beanie so I started last Saturday when I was sick and just finished a few hours ago, I am really excited to give it to him. Below arae pictures of the two projects.