crafting this month

OK, the stars were done last month, but they look so stinkin' cute together.

The towel topper was a request from my mom. The topper prevents kitchen towels from sliding off the oven handle. I've made two towels from two different patterns. I'll give links and reviews later. Finding knitting patterns was hard. Many more crochet towel toppers patterns abound on the internet.

The last photo is G of GAIN making his birthday cake. After watching TV shows "Ace of Cakes" and "Cake Boss," he's all about fondant. We made buttercream fondant with this recipe and loved it. "I" of GAIN currently has the leftover fondant sculpted into little vegetables and fruits. They are drying inside a paper cornucopia.

Also, I made some scrapbook pages with lovely ladies Cathy and Nicole yesterday. Scrapbooking as a group just works better for me. "Lone Ranger scrapbooking" is bad. I guess that proves the idea that women NEED to talk more than men LOL.

Drew's bag

November is the month of birthdays, which adds a lot of busy-ness to my life. In my scramble for a gift for this weekend's birthday party, I made a bag for Drew. Denim, of course. Gotta repurpose those jeans. All of my kids have made a comment about this bag and my youngest is now set on having one of her own. "Then I won't have to worry about going outside and getting it dirty."

In making this, I winged it. totally. Just my brain for a resource and a pile of denim on the floor. I'm sure there was an easier and better way to make a bag, but that's what I had to work with.

blog roll updates

cosmetic changes in the next few days as i update my blogroll!

also, someone just had a baby. maybe the wonky house production will increase (at least thoughts of doing so will increase) so I can make a baby quilt.

Rethinking ornaments

I make an ornament every year for my children (look here and here). My parents decided to give us children an ornament, and their parents did likewise for us, so that when we grew up and left the house, we would have our own meaningful collection of ornaments to use at Christmas. I've been told Mr. GAIN's siblings and in-laws that it's an excellent idea that they wished had happened for them.

I recently posted my ornament idea -- patchwork stars. I had previously decided that eggs would be our ornament, and I'll tell you why I switched.

It's the eggshells. Breaking a store-bought eggshell to make a nice opening is very easy. But they are very thin and break easily _everywhere_. Breaking a farm-bought eggshell is difficult. But they are strong and do not break easily which is great for storage. Dilemma: having a strong eggshell that easily, predictably breaks into a nice opening. I want both features in one egg, and haven't been able to do so. The three ornaments that I have made are darling, and I may try to get a fourth and fifth one (my four kids plus me) done, but I won't be making 20 (cousins).

Looking back

We visited the Capitol yesterday, which reminded me of the beginning of my bloghood back in 2007. On a nice clear night almost three years ago, we visited the Capitol with Heather's family to welcome Scotty and Fiddy to Des Moines.

The west terrace was under construction, being transformed from the huge concrete parking lot into the greenspace that it is currently. We were able to walk up the steps of the building, too, and use the doors that were meant to be a main entrance. Ah, the good old days.
We had a tour guide show us the House and Senate, and I mentioned to Ella that she'd been to the Senate before. On the desk. "Scotty made me do it!"

Gabe considered a "jump shot" off a wall on the west side, similar to what we'd done three years ago, but thought it was too high. The steps were not enough challenge, but the wall was too much. What a great thing to witness the growth of my children and myself.

Wonky houses

Earlier this month, I mentioned that I had my eye on some scrappy houses. My youngest and I tested the tutorial listed at Quiltville. You can see our work to the left. Hers has the teal sky. I made the other two -- the brown and pink skies.

Assessment: I think these houses might be great stash busters, but not great scrap busters. In fact, I'm pretty sure these three houses created more scraps than I began with. I didn't really have any scraps when we started these. (gasp -- I know LOL).

Wonky houses would be great if you had a lot of (coordinating) fabrics that needed a project. If you need to clear out some space, try these. They are fun to make, and are very similar to crazy quilt squares. But you need larger pieces for the sky fabric. I really don't have many large pieces, so I'll probably make a couple more houses, cobble them all together and call it good. Wall hanging, pillow, who knows. A bunch would make an extremely quaint or cute quilt, but I won't be making one, just because it doesn't suit my current inventory of stash.

Knitted Leaves

Since I lost the leaf garland, I've slowly made more leaves using a Lion Brand pattern (can't find it on their website. The pattern came in their email newsletter.), the top leaf. I recently found a Mountain Laurel leaf pattern from Blue Peninsula and am adding it to the collection, the bottom leaf. I like it a lot. My thoughts are to eventually have another garland, a thicker one. I started looking for other leaf patterns and am considering this one.