Painting - see one, paint one

I met some friends for dinner at Ken's Artisan Pizza - it was fantastic, by the way - and saw these paintings on the wall. I thought 1. that they looked pretty cool, and B) that I could do something similar with watercolors.  

This is my much, much, much smaller version.  I tried a larger one, too, but it was less successful so I'm going to have to revise my methods for that one.  But I very much like the end product.  

Hat!

Purl Soho came out with this really great, easy, fun, and fast hat pattern made with their lovely cashmere yarn and I can't stop making them.  Tiny stripes, larger stripes, block colors, and one color are some of the options I've made.  I asked the kid pose in one so I could show off how cute they are. 

Purl Soho KAL, Prism Blanket

I finished the blanket a couple weeks ago but I so love the process - there's no sewing! - that I'm using the scraps from this blanket and a bunch of other knitting projects to make a baby blanket with smaller squares.  I hope to find cute flannel fabric to sew onto the back to make it super cozy.  Here's what it's looking like so far...

You guys, there's no sewing!

Monsieur Elliott Allan

There's a new baby in the family!  Darren's cousin's wife had a baby boy and that gave me an opportunity to knit a new hat.  Luckily, I had this lovely "Hue of the Moment" skein of Madelinetosh yarn called Road Less Traveled on hand.  As soon as the cute little Tea Collection shirt comes in that I ordered to include in our package of goodies we're sending north for the baby, this lil' human will be sporting the hat below.

UPDATE: The package is ready to ship!

I remembered I had a completed baby blanket ready to go so I'm sending that along with two board books, a toy, and a very cute long-sleeve t-shirt from Tea Collection because, apparently, I am not quite done buying things from that store.  

Project: Arbor Blanket

This picture was taken a couple months ago near the start of the Arbor Blanket project.  It took me three months working intermittently to finish.  There was only the one cone of organic cotton fiber and I got to watch it s l o w l y reduce in size, but there's a surprising amount left.  Perhaps I can make a cotton hand towel for the kitchen?  Anyway, the final stitch count is 96,782.  It is by far the highest stitch count of any project to date.  

Shrinky Dink Christmas Ornaments

Featuring characters from some of our favorite picture books

(from left to right) Hippos Go Berserk, The Duckling Gets a Cookie, and The Adventures of Beekle

 

LEGO minifigures!

Black Ribba frame $15
Paper Source paper $6
LEGO bricks $8

Pottering Around hat

Black Trillium Fibres came out with a Harry Potter-inspired set of colors in a Merino and Mulberry silk blend that I so enjoyed working with. There is the slightest hint of sheen and it is super soft. It just felt good having it run through your fingers. So, I made my own little ribbed striped hat for Monsieur Henry, going heavy on the Gryffindor and using the tiniest amount of Slytherin. Two things I learned since I looked before starting on ways to effectively change colors without that noticeable jog and to keep the purl stitches from having that tiny bit of new color showing through. For the former, take the right-most ladder and move it on the left needle to knit it together with the first stitch. For the latter, knit the entire first round. It surprisingly does not show at all. All this to say that I am quite happy with the end result and will now commence lots of striped and ribbed projects to utilize these tips. The most challenging aspect was figuring out how to decrease, not only because I couldn't find a good pattern for the 1x1 rib I was using to illustrate how to do it and I was running out of the color I wanted to finish it with. That self-imposed constraint meant I had to find a way that would work quickly and not destroy the pattern. Luckily, I finally stumbled upon a pattern with a stitch count that was close enough to mine that I could do one round and reduce the number of stitches and then follow those instructions. I tied it off early because I really was down to the last little bit of yarn.

Perler bead bowl

With an oven-safe bowl, cooking oil, a paper towel, perler beads, and an oven, you can make yourself a fun bowl on a weekend afternoon when your little one is bored. 

Hats for twins

I was completely inspired to knit up very basic hats (using Purl Soho Super Soft Merino Hats for Everyone! pattern) for the twins after picking up these buttons at a craft store. They'll be mailed out along with a few other gifts for the girls this week. The twins are six!

Lovey, take one

Ms. Neitzel and I hit Fabric Depot today. I went specifically to look for fabric for a new apron for Mia and to see if there were any good prints for the bedspread I'd like to make for Henry. I came home with fleece for a blanket for Hen along with two types of super soft fabric to make some loveys. The holiday bazaar season is almost upon us and I'd love to participate so I can unload the knitted items I made for last year's bazaar that I ended up missing after winning tickets to the MLS Cup final. (RCTID, ya'll!) This first lovey is so cute I might have to make several to try and sell them, too!

The non-smartphone version of Pokemon Go

Pokemon go is all the craze right now but I don't have a smartphone. We found out today that with a box of chalk and a book filled with pictures of Pokemon characters we can absolutely make up our own game that is almost as good.

Of course, there are pictures... (and there will be even more once we walk to the store and pick up more chalk so we can keep drawing.)

I did go to Africa, but the boy didn't

The morning I left for Africa I walked into Hen's room one last time to make sure stuff was relatively picked up and his plants had been watered. As I turned to go out I was struck by an idea. I quickly selected four tiny toys to take with me on the trip - Bob, a little creation Hen made when his cousin Mia was over, diamond-armor Steve (from Minecraft), Unikitty (of The LEGO Movie fame), and a baby ankylosaurus. I stuffed them into a Ziploc bag and into my purse and made my way to the airport.

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the stowaways in Africa. I'd document their experiences in photos and later write a story to share with Hen since he couldn't be there with me to see it for himself. The first shot was taken of them from above while they stood on the PDX carpet (a must for everyone traveling through Portland) and later I snapped one of them attached to my bag. On the plane, I caught the stowaways trying to watch Deadpool and made them watch Zootopia instead. Our guides, Ole and Moses, and spotters, Blackie and David, likely thought I was nuts when they first saw me do it but it didn't take long before they were making suggestions for stowaway photos. The stowaways sat on the roof of our safari vehicle, checked out giraffes, posed with Sudan, the world's last remaining Northern White Rhino, sat on the equator, straddled the border between Tanzania and Kenya, and a whole lot more.

I still have photo editing to complete and need to proofread the story but I'm already super excited to see the finished product and share it with Henry.

Since the stowaways remain tucked in my purse, I was able to snap this shot of them at Frog Lake the other day. These little rascals are troublemakers for sure.

Knitting: PTFC elf hat

new hat for the season - I just might have to find a gold star to add to it

When Nat Borchers' beard and Shrinky Dink material meet

You get a new ornament for the Christmas tree...

A photo posted by @justchristieglynn on Dec 16, 2015 at 12:49pm PST

Brought to you by the Better Late Than Never posting committee.

Stop Motion Animation project 2 underway

This one involves a cool toy Hen's papa let him buy that screams out the word, "NO!" And has a gathering of star power not seen since Band Aid got together to record "Do They Know It's Christmas" in 1984. It's gonna be big, people. Huge.

And what a long slow process it is...

Ah, the ignorant me of three weeks ago, claiming we'd be up and running with our stop motion project that weekend. How crazy was that prediction? (Answer: Very, extremely, a lot.)

Alas, we persevered and today began filming. The Boinx iStopMotion software is super user-friendly. In a perfect world I'd have more control over lighting but, as Hen occasionally says, "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

Shooting went well, I think. Open the app, point the camera, and click many, many times. A box at the bottom right of the screen reminds you that 12 frames per second is what you should aim for. Every shot is tagged. You can edit out the frames you don't like. Today, we took 296 frames creating 24.08 seconds of awesome movie footage. I am hopeful our second day of shooting will be more successful now that we have a better understanding of how the process works.

You can add music and/or sound to the video. We plan on adding the Plants vs Zombies theme music to the video once we're done. I should probably note that per Hen's request we listened to that three-minute piece while we worked today. On repeat. Over and over and over again. The entire time.

We have to make a few more Shrinky Dink pieces so we can show the explosion when the zombie steps on the Potato Mine and for when we roll the credits.

For future reference, I originally tried to shoot against the north-facing wall but the light coming from the west created shadows that were way too dark so I had to shift our working area to the east. Also, we built a little stand out of LEGOs to hold the iPad Mini in place. Of course there were pictures...

at the beginning

our zombies

action shot of director hen

a preview

zombie heads

jalapeño and its row of fire

our studio is where the magic happens

Nautilus in the house

I finally got around to making a stuffed toy using Hen's drawing of a nautilus as my pattern. I am so happy with the results it might become my new hobby. The stitching by hand took forever but it was totally worth it.

Soon-to-be stop animation creation

A couple of weeks ago Hen and I made this: 

After replacement Shrinky Dink material arrived, for fun we did this:

Which created a spark of imagination that lead to this:

And this:

So we can shoot our first stop motion film this coming weekend. 

Woot!

Crafts: More knitting!

Purl Bee's Boyfriend Hat and Super Soft Merino Hand Warmers