Love. I wanted to make this hat when I was pregnant, but then hesitated, because it wasn’t particularly practical. Well, it still isn’t, but I made it anyway, and I love it. There are so few occasions that call for a Yoda hat outside of Halloween, but really, where isn’t a yoda hat appropriate?? I’ve felted it lightly, but will wait to finish the felting in the fall, when I anticipate her wearing it more often. I don’t want to make it too small.

Here’s the Ravelry project page.

Birth-day

3 days, first trip to Menards

5 days

1 week, at Jive Junction

2 weeks

1st Birthday

And today he is Five. I can hardly believe it.

So I’ve updated my In Progress List to show what I’m currently working on and what will be up next. I have a hard time with the In Progress List, to be honest. I tend to finish projects in one fell swoop. For example, I will start and finish Genna’s dress in one sitting. I will start and finish the Batman pants in one sitting, same with Wally’s new bag. So the In Progress list is really more of a What’s Up Next and What I’ve Recently Finished list. Ah, well.

I finally got my Eragon socks cast on. The yarn is just lovely - the nicest sock yarn I’ve worked with yet (OK, and the third sock yarn I’ve worked with, but it IS lovely.) It’s from Monkeypal at Etsy. The pattern is nice, it’s the pattern that my Eragon Gauntlets were based on, so I’m pretty familiar with it. I’m just not feeling the love, though, for some reason.

Maundy Thursday seemed like a good day to finish up (and, really, start) my Little Dresses for Africa project.
I made seven little dresses, which isn’t a whole lot, but it was all the decent-looking pillowcases I could find at Goodwill when I went!

I enjoyed whipping up these little dresses, and will be sending them this weekend, along with prayers and good wishes, to the project coordinator.

Anyone interested in sewing some little dresses, they’re super easy, and you can read more about this project here.

If you live in Des Moines and you were hoping to send some dresses along with my package, please let me know asap!!

Incidentally, this gets part of one of my 101 projects in 1001 days items checked off!!

I’ve never dyed Easter Eggs before, but Wally had been asking this year after seeing pictures of beautifully-painted eggs at the library. I think he was a bit disappointed that ours were not quite as fancy, but it was a fun project nonetheless.

We started with glasses partially full of water (we used cold, I hear hot would have been better) and a splash of vinegar. Then we added food coloring drops. Incidentally, this was a great opportunity to talk a bit more about mixing colors.

Add eggs. Let soak. I think we let them soak for about 15-20 minutes. Wally couldn’t handle waiting any longer.

And voila! Then we ate them, but I didn’t take pictures of that part.

Done! I love them! And I finally got the pattern memorized about 2 pattern repeats from the end of the last one, lol.

They nicely keep my arms warm on those days I insist on wearing a Tshirt even though it’s still cold and, um, snowing. But they do unfortunately look, at first glimpse, like casts, like I broke my arms. ha.

I have, so far, managed to avoid the siren song of cheap yarn from secondhand sweaters. For one, I use secondhand sweaters for other things (longies, shorties, pants, and skirts). For two, I inherited so much yarn from my mom, I really don’t have room for more. For three, it seems problematic from a “once I get started, I won’t be able to stop” perspective.

But I was at the thrift store for another purpose, and this sweater leaped off the rack and into my cart. Literally. And it was whatever color was $1.99 that week. It had good seams and a loose weave, so I bought it to try this unraveling thing. It was oddly pleasing to rip the sweater apart, but by the end, I was bored and my forearm muscles were tired.

I have a few ideas for the yarn - it’s 100% cotton, and somewhat thinner than I’m used to cotton yarn being, but I think it’ll work nicely for the projects I have in mind…

There is an excellent tutorial on unraveling sweaters here. As long as you get one with good seams, it’s pretty easy!

I really enjoyed making these. I had a TON of these shirts from when Wally was a baby. He really never wore them, and Genna didn’t wear them, so I didn’t want to put them back in the Newborn Clothes bin. Instead, Wally and I low water immersion dyed them (in little cups). I’ll be taking them to Oh, Baby tomorrow (Methodist Hospital, be there!) and then, if they don’t sell there, listing them at Etsy.

Hey, I wanted to take a minute to let you all know about my new project, to be documented at anepicjourney.wordpress.com  It’s called the Day Zero Project. Essentially, you list 101 things to be done in 1001 days. I just started on April 1. You can see my list at over there, and I’ll update there as progress is made. Should be interesting.