Another day...

... another shiny.  :)  I really am easily distracted lately.  Yesterday I took my oldest to the orthodontist to have his braces put on, and brought several projects with me for the trip.  Of course, I brought my embroidery, and I finished the final hand, the pink one, but since i haven't laid out the lettering for their names or the date, and I didn't have the will to figure out the applique's, so instead I worked on a hat I'm making for a friend's husband.  It was all-in-all a fairly simple day.  Of course sitting in a doctor's office waiting for my kid to have hardware installed in his mouth isn't exactly a fun use of my time, but since i really couldn't do anything else, so it passed the time well.  lol  I'm hoping to figure out the layout for the lettering tonight after they go to bed, but I'm in very easily distracted lately, so I may end up NOT doing it until this week while the kids are in school.  Not really much else to report today.  At least, not on the crafting front!  :)

SHINY!!!

So I finally finished all of the blue embroidery on the second child's hand.  Looks pretty good, though I have to say, I think I traced his hand  a bit off.  Some parts looked bumpy where they shouldn't have been and some looked smoother than they should have been.  Ah well, could be worse, right?  So I've started working on the pink hand for the third child, and she decides to tell me that she doesn't LIKE pink anymore, because a friend of hers doesn't like pink!  I told her to deal with it, I had already started and I was NOT going to pull out all that stitching!  But I did a good bit of work on it last night, and it's probably more than halfway done now.  Actually, the pink hand would have been completely finished had I not forgotten to grab my embroidery projects bag when we went to the DR today, but my brain went "Glub" and it was left at home, but since I _DID_ remember to grab my yarn projects bag, I spent the time at the doctor's office working on a baby afghan for a pregnant friend of mine.  Since she doesn't know what she's having yet, it's a very basic green, white and yellow, but she's hoping for a girl.  Oh well, hope the kid likes green, white and yellow too!  lol  I'll probably make a little baby hat for the child as well, but I'll need to get a smaller hook for that.  Really not much going on with my crafting today.  Kinda not even worth putting up a post about it, honestly.  But I figured it wouldn't hurt.  Tomorrow I plan to get the felt that I'll need for each of the applique's.  I'm thinking pink and red for the hearts, golden yellow for the star, but I'm kinda stuck on what colour to make the flower.  The centre will be yellow, but I'm not sure what colour to make the petals.  Must think about it.  I'll probably stitch her name in some shade of violet, so it'll have to coordinate.  Also, I'm tossed up between green and black for the red-handed-child's name.  I think green will make it look Christmas-y, but black will just be too stark and make it look like I don't like him, which I really do.  There's no question about the Blue-handed-child's name, it will be stitched in a lighter shade of blue, since that is his all-time favourite colour.  :)  I'm contemplating blanket-stitching the edges of the pieces before I attach them to the pillow, but I'm not sure I'm *quite* that ambitious.  But rest assured I will let you know when I know!  :)  Gotta go to bed though, since the husband has to work early as HELL tomorrow so I have to get up with the kids.  'Night!

Still working on it...

Yesterday I managed to finish embroidering my oldest's hand onto the pillow cover.  I accomplished this shortly after he came home from school, so I called him out of his bedroom (trying to sound really angry when I did) and exclaimed loudly, "I caught you!  I caught you (flips embroidery around) RED-HANDED!!!"  He started to LAUGH, and said, while walking into the kitchen and toward the pantry, "Ooh, OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH, no, you did NOT just do that!  Oh, man mom, that's just so... (grabs a can off the shelf, jumps and turns at the same time, exposing the label of a can of corn at me as he turns) CORNY!"  Needless to say, we both collapsed into absolute FITS of giggles, to the point that I had trouble breathing.  It was one of those moments that makes me really glad to be his mom, and there are few enough of those since he hit the teenage years!

So last night I started on the blue hand, my middle child's hand.  I figure I'll hold off on the names until I finish all of the hands, just to make sure I have the room for them.  It's not like my kids' names are long or anything, but the pillow cover really isn't that big.  But I'm about halfway through my middle child's hand, and I'm hoping to have it finished and be started on my youngest's hand by this evening.  Then I can try to get the layout for lettering the names done before bed tonight, since the husband is off tomorrow and I usually get almost nothing done when he's home.  Guess he throws off my rhythm somehow.

So I'm trying to decide what my next project will be...  I'm thinking, since I got caught by one of those Facebook things and have to make one thing each for five different friends, that I'll start on those.  I may us this as an excuse to start using up my yarn collection and make the majority of them crocheted hats, maybe scarves if I have enough yarn of that specific colour.  But one friend is getting a baby blanket and hat set.  She's about 14-weeks pregnant (possibly with a girl, she said all the "old wives tale signs" point to that distinct possibility!) but since she hasn't found out the baby's sex yet, I have this beautiful and soft white, green and yellow baby weight yarn that I'll use to make that.  Ooh, I can't wait to finish it and get it mailed out!  Actually, if I time finishing them properly, I might be able to hand-deliver them all when I go to down that way next.  Hmm, must think about that for a bit, since it will probably be within the next month that we head down there.  But it would be neat to have it all finished and be able to meet everyone and hand them out.  Gotta think about that a bit longer...  Anyway, time to get the kids to school, so I gotta go!

An introduction, of sorts.

Okay, so this is the deal.  I don't really write much anymore, but I try.  So here's a DISCLAIMER.  I'll probably ramble, because I'm good at it.  I might go off-topic (if I even HAVE a topic, of course!) and will frequently use foul language.  It's how I am, and I won't change that for anyone.  Though I do try to moderate around other people's children.  lol


So this is going to be about craft projects that I work on.  My crafting skills run the gamut, because I really don't have a great attention span these days.  I see a shiny, I get distracted, and that is how it is.  I won't apologize for how things are here.  Though I don't even think I'll need to, since it's unlikely I'll even have any readers!  lol  See, a SHINY!!!  Okay, anyway, my crafting skills.  To begin with, they are VERY varied.  I crochet, cross stitch, embroider, paint, and sew.  I will put down one project in the middle of working on it, then start on another because I get bored with it.But I shall endeavour to try to keep on topic and finish projects, possibly even post pictures when/ if I ever get my camera fixed.

So now on to the project I'm working on currently.  Last year, I got the idea to make a pillow cover for my mother for Christmas.  It was to be a 22" square pillow cover with a 2-inch flange around the edge, and on the front, embroidered outlines of each of my kids hands with an applique in the "palm" of each, and their names embroidered under/ near each hand, with the year in the center.  However, none of it actually happened last year except the sewing together, and I only did THAT so that I could wash it because *someone* (though not one of my kids!) spilled red freaking Kool-Aid on it, but only on the back of it, so it wasn't that bad.  So anyway, it sat around and sat around, and then yesterday, I went into my sewing machine case, and there it was, staring at me, waiting for me to pick it up and work on it.

So last night, I did just that.  Got each of my kids to come over and traced their hands onto the cover, though I decided to skip the flange.  Ooh, hope I can find an insert big enough to fit it now!  Ah well, my mother will figure something out, she's good like that.  So anyway, this is the plan.  Once each child's hand is embroidered on, they will have a personalized applique applied to the empty area in the center "palm" area.  So Child "A"s handprint will be embroidered in red and the applique will be a star, Child "B"s will be embroidered in blue and have two hearts, and Child "C"s hand will be embroidered in a yet-to-be-determined colour (her favourite colour changes as often as the WIND these days!) and she gets a flower.  Each applique will be made out of felt, since I'm not sure what else would hold up well as a free-floating applique.  I'll definitely post pictures when/ if I get my camera fixed/ replaced and figure out how to post pictures, but until then, it'll have to wait.

So that's it, my first entry.  Rather boring, huh?  Eh, but what do you expect?  :)