Whooo?

I'm a little behind on announcing a winner for my Saltwater Knits giveaway but the winner of the collection and yarn is 

Holly

Congratulations! please email me with your address and Ravelry name and I will get your winnings headed out to you. 

While I was wrapping up some sample knitting this last month, I've also been planning for Halloween. Now that I have a little dude to dress up I was feeling the itch to make something fun. After much brainstorming, and time lost to Pinterest, I settled on a great owl costume from the Martha Stewart website. No sewing was required which is right up my alley. A lot of brown felt was purchased, and even more in shades of brown.

I was starting to think how coat-effective is it really to make a costume but with the magic of coupons and sales I got all the felt for around $12. Plus some elastic and fabric glue, and the grand total was around $16. I will say, I ditched the fabric glue and opted for hot glue instead which worked like magic.

Whooo is that?

Fluffy Little Sheep

Last spring, during my annual pilgrimage back to my homeland, I happened to see the cutest baby mobile hanging in the window of Pottery Barn Kids. I quickly snapped a picture.

My first thought was that I wasn't sure if this was maybe one of those window decorations that the store uses or if it was an actual mobile I could purchase. My second thought was that I could probably just make one. Ideas began brewing.

In the next few months I would a pattern, some yarn, got some ideas for how to make a coral and boom!

This was finished in August but I just managed to get it up over the holiday with the help of my dad. My parents are pretty used to my crafting antics. My dad says when I was little I would try to put all sorts of weird things together using Scotch tape. So I doubt he was surprised when I called him asking, "do you think I could make a round coral out of balsa wood?" Anyway, you can, and he hung it up with a simple screw hook.

 

I don't know if Daniel is terribly taken with it. He does look at it but I was hoping for a more enthusiastic reaction than drooling.

Pattern: Fluffy Little Sheep - free Lion Brand pattern

Yarn: Martha Stewart Crafts Roving Wool in Snowdrift (2 skeins) and Tahki Yarns Montana in Charcoal (about 42 yards)

Needles: US 7 (4.5mm)

Began: August 1

Completed: August 17

Ravelry Link

Tie-Dye Baby

Today, my podcasting partner-in-crime and I braved the heat to head out to one of our local metro parks to take a lesson in tie-dying with natural dyes. The instructor went over how to make natural dyes (she suggested boiling 1 cup of your material with 1 quart water, then straining to make the dye), some plants that we can find in the wild to use as dye, and some things we can use from our refrigerator to make dyes. After this brief instruction we all had the opportunity to tie up our t-shirts and use the Rit dyes that were set up for us. And no, the irony was not lost on us either.

Most people brought t-shirts to dye. Mary brought some yarn (so did another woman I believe). I brought onesies. I rinsed them out with cold water when I got home and hung them out to dry but I'll definitely wash them before they're put away in the baby's dresser.