love. from our heart to yours.

happy valentines day (evening) ♥

i only have a few minutes before i completely pass out after our crazy flu-bug valentine's day... and before the sick husband beside me starts really complaining about the light still being on and me tapping away (he wouldn't ever do that)... but while i'm still vertical i would like wish all of my friends, family, and all of the visitors to my little piece of the web a very happy heart day. and more than that, i wish that we all continue to be thankful for the love present in our lives (in every form) and remain constantly open and giving of our love in return.

i am so thankful each and every day for my little family... my incredibly supportive, encouraging, and loving husband and best friend who works so hard to give us an amazing life (and to allow me to stay home with my little miss, such a gift!) and my little girl who makes every day an adventure and gives the best hugs and kisses ever! 

goodnight. and as always...

love.

p.s. the cute little lopsided pop heart i whipped up was a free ravelry pattern from MyGurumi that you can find here...  it was pretty quick and is so cute. i might do a million of these for next vday. (or close to a million.)

hooks and needles: an owl for valentine's day

hi there!

i'm so happy to introduce a new owl friend for little miss! i'm calling her val for now (really original i know, but nothing else has sounded right so far...)

i really love this little cuddly cutie and i can't wait for little miss to get her arms around her on valentine's day morning. i've asked joe three times this weekend if i could give it to her early, but i've been good and for now she's hiding...

this owl pattern was created by Stacey Trock of Fresh Stitches and i absolutely love it. Stacey is a phenomenal amigurumi designer and sells the cutest little animals and monsters in her etsy shop. she also sells patterns and kits to create your own amigurumi and has joined the new Craftsy.com team teaching great workshops and classes online.

i took the Nelson the Owl Workshop on Craftsy and let me tell you it was more than worth it! i highly recommend checking it out... it was very reasonably priced and it was so nice to be able to chat with the designer, ask questions about the pattern, and to share with others making the owls. the directions were easy to follow and very well explained.

now my little val...

she's actually not so 'little' - she measures almost 11" !! i made her using stash yarn left over from little miss's newborn blanket... her body, wings, and eyes were made with Lion Brand Baby's First which is a chunky weight. i didn't have any yellow in the Baby's First so for the beak and feet i used a double strand of some Lion Brand Baby Wool, also from my stash scraps. (yay for using up some of my stash, yarn shopping time!)

my owl follows the pattern exactly except for the wing construction and the addition of the cross-stitch heart...

for the wings i had to come up with a plan that would accommodate one wing's worth of pink yarn, cuz that's all i had. i obviously had a bit less than a full skein of my main color to start out with and the wing is where it caught up with me, not bad. i basically split the original wing pattern in half and crocheted it flat, 2 in each color, and then whip-stitched the two pairs together (right sides facing each other, then turned right-side out).

i have been wanting to do cross-stitch on crochet for awhile but hadn't quite found the right project... i thought this would be the perfect opportunity (and it was an easy peasy way to make it a special ♥ day owl!) i sketched out a quick grid and used some more leftovers bits.

overall i'm quite happy with how she turned out and am eager to make a few more. i think a snuggly owl would go great with a matching quick knit baby blanket as a go to newborn set. i'm so excited to see abby's reaction to it... tuesday morning is going to be so much fun!

be sure to check out Stacey's workshops, classes, and patterns available at craftsy.com - i really like everything i've seen on craftsy so far and i look forward to what's in store for the site. if you haven't checked it out, you should. there is something for everyone! i just signed up for Amigurumi: Design Your Own Monster class taught by Stacey and can't wait to start (hopefully this week after i've gotten a little more work on this done...)

love.

what i'm working on.

hey there.

checking in.

i'm currently writing (and rewriting) a catch up post... but i thought while i have a tiny bit of time i'd share what i'm currently stitching up over here. 

one of my main goals this year is to really develop my crochet skills. last year i taught myself the basics of how to crochet and completed a few things... mostly in sc, dc, clusters, granny squares, etc. but i've really only scratched the surface. 

so to that end i decided to get some of my fall stash used up and looked for a sampler pattern so i could learn a few more stitch combos... i decided to try this Sampler Throw by Lion Brand because it called for a worsted weight yarn (which is what i had in stash), and i wanted to practice making "popcorn".

i'm taking my time with these squares. i'm trying to work on getting the gauge just right and keeping a consistent tension during the "special" stitches. must. stop. pulling. so. tight. i really like the zig zag surface pattern... it would make a nice texture for a baby blanket. 

i love the colors for this sampler throw. they are all Lion Brand Wool-Ease worsted weight yarns in random colors that i picked up over the past year for separate projects. i ended up not using them and together i think they make a really bold color combo. i need one more color because the pattern has 5 different squares, i'm debating between a white-ish that i already have in stash or something else totally new.

i paused on that project this week to work on valentine's stuff. while valentine's day isn't my favorite of holidays... i'll admit that i do, kinda, love each and every holiday in a totally new way since having little miss. really any excuse for me to get her stuff, give her a cupcake, and make her cute things works for me. 

so one of the things i'm working on for her this valentine's day is this little friend...

i don't know her name yet. she's almost finished. i'll post more when she's all done. for now if you'd like to check out the really great and super easy pattern you can find it at Craftsy from designer Stacey Trock (FreshStitches): Nelson the Owl Pattern 

so that's a bit of what i'm working on for the moment... it's nice to be getting back to the blog again!

love.

use it or lose it: love pennant garland.

good morning.
over the past two years i've been doing some major purging of my scrapbooking supplies. i still have so much and there are lots of things i've kept with the intention to use it in 2011 or to pass it on to someone who will.

i probably have 5 years worth of valentine's day/love themed paper and cannot let myself buy any more until i use up my stash... so i made this pennant garland for my little corner!

it's simple, and was pretty quick to make. i was able to do at least one pennant per naptime along with my other mommy duties. i left plain pennants in what is probably my favorite love themed paper that i've ever collected... it's from the sei jolie chocolat line. i love the text layers + it allows me some room to add in photos as our family grows.

some other "oldies" i used are: making memories 'love notes' 8x8 pad, ki memories 'wild thing' & paper + embellishments from their valentine's day holiday collection (must be from 2006-ish??) and grungeboard.

i barely used up any of my valentine's day stash but the little dent i did make to create something sweet and simple for my space makes me very happy!

love.

p.s. turntable tuesday coming up a little later today, little miss and i need to decide what kind of music mood we are in...

catching up: some be-lated love.

happy president's day + happy belated valentine's day.
my apologies for the late wishes of love... we had a beautiful busy week and since joe had today off this weekend was our holiday time to be together. which means i finally have several minutes in a row to catch the blog up.

our valentines day was very quiet. joe was able to be home before abby's bedtime so we had a nice evening together. dinner and our favorite new thing... going to bed. we are such night owls so we are trying to resist the urge to stay up all night during the week, it's hard. we talk a lot.

mid-week i finished up my valentine's day banner. a closer look at it is coming. it's nice to have my new little corner decorated. especially after a week where keeping it clean was a challenge...

little miss spent her week practicing her crawling, helping mommy + daddy do laundry, playing with her new favorite toys (a pixar character set from grandma + grandpa), teething on everything, and generally being a cute goofball.

by thursday spring started teasing us. the sun shone and it was 70 on friday afternoon when we went into the city to see joe. it was nice to be across the hudson, we hadn't been over since just before christmas. so good to see abby enjoy the city in a whole new way... she was awake the whole trip and was smiling at people and looking all over the place. i'm setting us a full city activity schedule the moment the weather warms up for good...

it was so cold again by the weekend but it's been nice having joe home and the extra day today has been perfect. joe changed our tire this weekend, and we did a lot of grocery shopping...

little miss was beginning to get low on a few things so i went a little crazy with the produce. joe was such a trouper and went to several different stores with us to get the organics we needed to stock up on. blueberries, bananas, kiwi, avocado, mango (abby's most favorite), pears, sweet potato, plums, carrots, zucchini, papaya (on joe's insistence although it's not the prettiest papaya i've ever seen), and a gorgeous butternut squash. we bought tofu for her for the first time which will be an adventure for later this week.

today we woke up to snow! ugh. i love snow, and i even had a moment of happiness today when i thought we might be able to get abby into her snowsuit to enjoy what might be the last snow of the year, but it was just a dusting and enough to make everything wet, cold, and gross. so instead we get to enjoy a cozy day inside and hope that today was just winter's last hurrah.

well, i think that catches me up for a week of no blog time. to say i have a lot of pureeing to do this evening is an understatement so i'm off to the kitchen.

happy monday!
love.

tgi-thursday + a few valentine's day fails.

thursday is almost over.
the little one is long in bed... and making her dreaming noises.
i swear she dreams SO MUCH. and i'm not sure what makes her so sad in her dreams but her little cries pull at my heartstrings whenever i hear them. shouldn't babies dream of care bears, and furry puppies, and fluffy clouds...

today little miss and i finished putting away her laundry and cleaned her room. she played in her crib the whole time and every once in awhile she'd get really quiet. i'd turn around to check on her and poof... a little flutter of her bumper flipping back into place and a giggle. she was spying on me! peek-a-boo is currently one of her favorite games, although she much prefers to call it 'where's abby,' and she came up with a new way to play all on her own.


it took me forever to snap a few photos... camera ready, folding clothes on her changing table, then i'd hear a little giggle so i'd turn around quick to catch her and she'd pull back laughing. she only let her guard down for a second when during one round of the game she thought she'd try out the bumper as a teether.

the rest of the day was spent playing + napping (by the little one), and stitching, finger knitting, and a little frantic brainstorming as i came up with several valentine's day fails.

first ditched project...


meet the hugbot. now this little guy is not an altogether fail. i'm sure i'll use him for something else at a later date. but as a stitched valentine's day card for the great-grandparents etc. i'm way over him. he may look great sitting in the bin but in reality he's messy and his eyes are torn... just an altogether hot mess. it's ok. my other stitched valentines are great (also patterns by sublime stitching but you'll have to wait to see them!) and i found some leftover valentine's that i never sent a few years ago that i still love and will work great for the ones i had to ditch. besides, the important part are the sweet photos i'm sending off to the family of abby.

my other fail was actually yesterday's failed garland... i was attempting to make a garland out of some cheap cheap foam conversation hearts that i found in the michaels $1 bin years and years ago. in theory my idea was great... in practice, not so much.

panic? nope. back to the drawing board. and i decided on a project that i have been wanting to do for awhile. i chose to do a finger knitted garland...


i love finger knitting. my grandma cisowski taught me to finger knit when i was young (i think probably to make up for not wanting/not having the patience to teach a lefty to crochet, but i digress). i used 3 chunky lion brand skeins that i had on hand... i'll give the specs and more info tomorrow when i do the real post on it.

after i finished the finger knitted garland i knew it wasn't enough so i'm actually working on a pennant garland to hang with it as well. i swear i'll have all of my decorations up by the 14th. maybe.


now it's just about friday... so happy.
less than 24hours and it's the weekend.
daddy time!

(and some mommy scrapbooking time too... it's long overdue!)

love.

in the queue: valentine's day ♥

happy monday!

this week i'm working on a few valentine's day projects and i'll be sharing them throughout. i am about 75% done with my cards that i'm sending out to a few friends + family members. i have to redo one of the designs because it was pretty much a fail from the start. i have some diy decorations to share and i'm working on the perfect pattern for a dress/jumper for abby. it's going to be a great week!

love.