Girly Knits

Another bib and burp cloth set made it through snail mail to baby Aaleayah, so I can finally post a picture.  Big sister Faith had a star button on her knit set, too!

Bib and burpcloth set in Sugar 'n Cream "Camo Pink"

It took me way too long to knit my second commissioned piece for the same daughter of a former co-worker who received a fuzzy purple scarf in January.  She chose a Quick & Easy Knitted Infinity Scarf pattern I found online, but in a different color yarn.  It was a fun pattern to knit, and I learned how to join my yarn with a double knot since it was too bulky to knit two strands together.  Skeeter was rather fond of this yarn, so I may have to make another one...

Infinity Scarf made with Yarn Bee's Debut yarn in "Rose Petal"

Tea Station

It's so nice to have my computer back!  The power supply died earlier in the week, and I've had five days to experience how a smartphone is not a good substitute for a good old-fashioned desktop.  Thank you to my BIL for helping Dave get it back up and running!  While the computer has been out of commission, I received a belated Christmas present from my best friend in California.  Pretty awesome for her first counted cross stitch project, don't you think?  I know exactly where I'm going to hang it, but the problem is, we don't have that space in our current living accommodations.

I found this image of a coffee station on Pinterest a while ago and decided we would make space for a tea station in our next house.  Instead of a Keurig, we'll have our electric kettle, and all of those baskets will be filled with tea.  Heather's cross stitch definitely fits in with this plan--picture it on the top shelf with several of our fancy bed & breakfast mugs!

Original Source: For the Love of Coffee

Counting My Blessings #2

This week has been a little crazy, but it's helped to be counting my blessings throughout the week to try to narrow down what will make the cut for the blog!

1. Dave didn't have to work last weekend (yipee!) because we had a family birthday party to attend for two of our nieces.  It was great to see everyone on his side of the family and to watch the girls having fun with their cousins.
2. Sunday was a monthly lunch date of a few friends from a now defunct book group (apparently we're a foodie group now).  There's nothing quite like stuffing yourself full of garlic knots and then laughing till your stomach hurts.
3. My hair appointment this week was long overdue.  It feels so good to have the cute Diane Lane haircut again!
4. Last night I attended the Thursday night cross stitch group for the first time in a few weeks.  My rear end was numb after a couple hours in those not-so-comfortable IHOP chairs, but it was nice to work on my project again.
5. My best friend's little girl turns 3 years old today!  It's hard living on the opposite side of the country, but through Facebook and text pictures, I'm still able to watch her grow up.  Happy birthday, Faith!

Aimee tries to make herself comfortable before
our lunch at Provino's.

Best Etsy Finds of 2012

Most of my lovely readers know that my BFF Heather lives across the country in California. I found the perfect present for her on Etsy a few months back and ordered it just in time for Christmas!

All incoming boxes are subject to kitty inspection...

Aren't these just too sweet?

Goodbye, Georgia mug, and safe journey to California!

Check out more cute stuff from GreySkiesBlue on Etsy!

The other awesome find on Etsy this past year--a baby black hole (with birth certificate) that shipped across the pond from the UK!

Perfect to cheer up my Georgia BFF after eye surgery!

Birthday Theme

I'm sensing a theme in (early) birthday presents from my two best friends!  Now I think I need another piece of Vera to add to the growing set of Spring's Up accessories in my purse... what do you think of the simple but cute coin purse?

P.S. Thanks for the turn lock wallet, Heather!  I'm still organizing my stuff in all the little pockets...

Monster Birthday

My middle sister, Mary, turned 30 last week and told her boyfriend that she wanted to see monster trucks for her birthday. So last night, a dozen of us got together at my baby sister's house to celebrate with pizza and cake before taking Marta to see monster trucks at the Georgia dome.

A Pinterest-inspired birthday present my BFF asked me
to make for the occasion

Make a wish! Mary made a special request for Sarah's famous rum cake

I made it my mission to capture photos of monster trucks in flight

Sarah's blog post about Mary's Monster Birthday: Rum and rednecks

Recent Knits

I went a little scarf-happy during my holiday vacation...

Mix blue/green/purple fun fur (left) with orange/yellow/green fun fur (right)
and you get a double-strand funky rainbow scarf (middle)!

More random stash yarn transformed into simple garter stitch scarves

A bag full of scarves ready to donate to a local women's charity!

Stash from a BFF Christmas care package = future scarves?
P.S. Thank you, Heather!

My unfortunate model ignores a new ruffled scarf-in-progress

Not Actual Size

My BFF saw the beautiful holiday centerpiece below on Pinterest and loved it so much that I knew I had to get her something like it for Christmas.  My wonderful baby sister pointed me toward Target.com, where I even got to choose between a couple different sizes of apothecary jars!  Of course I had to get some ornaments to go with it, and that's where I should have paid more attention because size *does* matter when it comes to filling jars...

The ideal centerpiece from Pinterest

The actual gift in Heather's winter decor colors

But another idea from Pinterest can make everything right!

What she may do with the jumbo-sized ornaments instead...

Early Christmas

My BFF got an early start to her Christmas shopping.  Before Thanksgiving, she gave me a gift certificate to spend at erincondren.com and steered me toward the personalized planners.  I ordered the Monthly Planning Notebook in "candy lace" print.

Such a pretty box!  And it's wrapped inside, too!

I even reused the box and inside wrapping for Dave's gift... hehe!

Matches my new purse perfectly!

Half of Heather's present arrived on her doorstep Monday, and the other half is scheduled to be delivered today. I can't wait for her to open it!

Too Cute

Today's turkey art is brought to you by my BFF's daughter.

Auntie Karen loves you, Miss Faith!

Only one more week until Thanksgiving!

BFF Care Package

The bestest BFF ever...

...sent a birthday/anniversary care package!

Yarn, See's candy, and tea... some of my very favorite things!

Baseball Season

Happy first day of the baseball season to my Braves fan friends
and my Cubbie fan husband!

Care Package

I had a rough week, and my BFF did an awesome job of cheering me up.  On Thursday, I got a surprise bouquet of flowers--my grandfather passed away on Wednesday, so she sent them from her family to show her love and support.  The next day, I received the care package she had mailed earlier in the week.  It was filled with lots of good noms, post-its (one of my favorite things), yarn (another favorite item), and Sees candy (the best stuff ever)!

The care package that Mom and I sent for her daughter's birthday showed up just in time for Faith's party today!  Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures before I sent it out...

It Fits!

Lil' Miss Faith

My BFF sent me a picture yesterday of her daughter modeling one of the bibs I knit for her.  I've been knitting these for almost four years, and it's good to see that they actually fit!  You may remember posts of these bibs (and the matching burp cloths) from last year around this time...

Suite Seats

Dave scored some suite tickets to the Braves v. Nationals game on Monday night. I took a bunch of gratuitous Chipper pics for my BFF Heather since she is far away in California.

Sweet seats? Definitely!

Playing Tourist

My BFF, Heather, is out here from California, so today we did a couple of tourist things down in Atlanta. First stop: The Varsity for lunch where we met up with Dave (who had to work half-day)


Next stop: Turner Field where we got to take the tour of the ballpark. We saw inside the locker room and the exclusive SunTrust club level, and then we got to go down and stand inside the Braves' dugout (and watch the lawn maintenance guys hose down the field).



Tonight, we're off to regular Thursday night trivia at Wild Wing Cafe!

In the Mail

The burp cloths made it in the mail before Faith turned 2 months old! As a bonus, I threw in two "more practical" burp cloths and a little surprise for Miss Faith's mommy...

All Done!

I finished the second burp cloth tonight at The Stitch Store and hand washed them both when I got home. They're drying on my beach towel now, and hopefully they'll be dry in the morning to mail them tomorrow afternoon!

Now everyone (myself included) can stop making jokes about how Faith is going to be driving by the time I finish and send them out to California!

Motivation

Baby Faith's birth announcement came in the mail today, so I convinced myself that I should leave my cross stitch bag at home and take my knitting instead for Tuesday night stitching at The Stitch Store. Fortunately the cross stitchers are pretty accepting of other forms of stitching, so hopefully I'll finish the second burp cloth well before Faith starts kindergarten!

In creating this post, I learned how to fix pictures that are upload sideways onto Blogger from my old digital camera. It didn't take long to get Faith facing the correct direction, and in the process I learned that you can use Paint to convert .jpg files to .png files!

Anti-March Madness

There is this "Madness," and it only comes in March... and my fiance has it. It's the only time he really pays any attention to basketball, and it consumes the entirety of his free time while it's on. Yesterday, I dealt with the madness of Dave and his best friend ogling over their brackets and yelling at the TV by retreating upstairs with my mp3 player, a book, and a knitting project.


How appropriate that I'm reading a book about American flags while knitting with a yarn named "Early American Ombre."

Yes, this burp cloth is the correct number of stitches... I've checked several times! And don't you like how I'm knitting directly from the "wrong" cloth instead of frogging the whole thing and having to wind it into a ball?