It’s almost Valentine’s Day!
While I’ve never been a huge fan of the holiday, I’ve admittedly put more effort into it this year than past years mainly because of all the festive ideas happening on pinterest and other blogs.
Music Monday is another Ingrid Michaelson song, but its perfect for the “season.” Whether you love V-day or absolutely despise it, the song is just happy, so enoy!
Brandon and I are both sort of super nerds, so I thought this pillow was more than appropriate to celebrate my new found love of blogging and Brandon’s longtime love of all things web.
I started this pillow in the middle of the felted loops pillow and worked on it when I was especially frustrated with the other. I got the idea from DIY Maven’s crochet and cross stitch pillow. But rather than cross stitch the second color, I used the pdf she made as a color guide for knitting.
I learned a new knitting technique while making this: Intarsia Knitting, which allows you to knit with two colors without getting holes in between them. (good video tutorial, actually, the whole website is full of great videos for different knitting techniques…check it out if you’re stumped on something!)
The back is constructed in a similar fashion as the felted loops pillow with two halves buttoned together.
I figure I should make the back cute enough so if we ever need to hide our nerdiness we can just flip the pillow over.
The knitting was loose enough that I didn’t need to knit button holes, the buttons just fit through the stitches.
I can’t believe it’s already Friday! Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for stopping by!
At least once a year my college roommates have a “Roomie Reunion” where we all get together, eat good food, and catch up with everybody and their families. It seems each time we get together there is a new addition to the group. This time there were two new members to the “roomie” group. Both boys, born 3 days apart. They’re almost 6 months old now, but I hadn’t met them yet, and this was my welcome-to-the-roomie-group present for them.
You may remember seeing a snippet of this from my preview post a few weeks ago. This was part of the craft extravaganza weekend. Where I also made the yarn rope for the felted loops pillow, and the baby gift to go with the knit berry hat.
The appliques were done on the head honchos of embroidery machines. If you remember I got my new toy because my mom got a new embroidery machine which bumped her old embroidery machine into her regular sewing machine, which made her regular sewing machine mine! (that’s a pretty good deal…what else could we apply this too?)
I remember I won my iPad around the same time my mom got her new machine. (I won it in a raffle…what a great thing to win, right? The only other thing I ever won in raffles were oversized sponsor sweatshirts, this was definitely a step up) I was visiting shortly after and brought my new gadget with me to show off and when I went down into the craft dream world basement to see my mom’s new toy lo and behold she had a sewing machine with a freaking iPad attached to it.
Look at that touch screen on that monster! Ok, so it’s not really an iPad, but its as big as one! This thing does everything…it even cuts the threads for you as it moves around. It was definitely fun to play with over the weekend.
We made the appliques out of the same fabric, just different parts of it, so the letters looked different and put them on standard pre-made bibs. Here’s some photo documentation:
If you’re going to get into applique things, these scissors are where it’s at. They make it so easy to cut close to the stitching.
I like the fun stitch detail around the E.
and Voila! two fun bibs for two adorable babies!
Finally! I finished it!
It ended up being a little lopsided and not quite as even and perfect as the picture in the pattern, but that just gives it character, right? I was also expecting to make an 18×18 inch pillow like the pattern said, but ended up with 12×12. I even had a couple extra feet of yarn rope, I don’t know how you would get an 18″ square pillow out of this! The loops would have to be so much smaller…
There was actually a lot of handsewing I had to do post felting. Looking back on it, I don’t think the “lattice” strategy of sewing the loops together was very effective. I ended up sewing most, if not all, of the inbetween spaces after it felted. Also for some reason, I made bigger loops in the corners, so they kind of stick out further than the rest.
I also bought some fabric the same color as the yarn and lined the pillow form with it to help camouflage specs of pillow showing through the loops. The back of the pillow is two felted pieces buttoned together. To make the buttonholes I simply cut small holes into the felted fabric.
Now I just need to find the perfect place to put it.
missed part I? check it out here
See that tasty goodness in that picture? That means I turned my Kitchen Fail (see this post here) into a Kitchen Triumph! This cake is super moist, not too sweet, and awesome with some Cool Whip on top (but what dessert isn’t better with Cool Whip?!)
I didn’t change the recipe too much from the source recipe but I’ll give you what I did so that you don’t have a giant failing mess in your oven on the first try.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour two 9×5 loaf pans
Combine the Guinness and molasses in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Turn off the heat and add the baking soda. Allow to sit until the foam dissapates.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together eggs and both sugars. Whisk in the oil.
In a separate, larger bowl, whisk together the flour, ground ginger, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom.
Combine the stout mixture with the egg mixture, then whisk this liquid into the flour mixture, half at a time. Add the fresh ginger and stir to combine.
Pour evenly into the two pans and bake for around 35 mins. I had it in for 30, then checked on it and it needed a few more minutes.
Take it out, let it cool, cover in cool whip and devour! Other comments in the reviews suggested topping it with a lemon glaze or powdered sugar. I’m sure the options are endless!
