I’m finding some posts I left in Drafts for some reason, so I’m posting them now! This is a bunting I knit up a while back for Genna for summer. Yes, a wool gown for summer. It’s for camping, really. Waterproof and warm, because it gets chilly most nights.

The yarn is from my first delivery from the Willow Ridge fiber CSA. It’s single ply, but I doubled it as I knit. The pattern is from the awesome Knitty, and here is the Ravelry page for this project.

Star Trek, Triforce (Legend of Zelda), Stargate, and the Alliance Symbol (Star Wars)

I don’t know, man, one day I got a gumption to knit some geeky washcloths. And here you go. They’re all gifts. The Star Trek and Star Gate are already off to my brother in law, and the Star Wars and Triforce are headed to a friend.

The X-Man cloth and the W cloth, I made for Wally. He actually completely loves them. The G is for Genna, obviously. She doesn’t care that much.

Some of these were patterns I improvised from charts I found online, some were patterns I found on Ravelry. All details at Ravelry.

Remember these knit wraps? I hate them. They just don’t work very well. The Gusset design is flawed somehow, and even on the ones I adjusted to make the gussets bigger and the covers themselves more generously sized, they’re still just ill-fitting. I think wraps just need elastic to work right.

Does anyone else get depressed reading their favorite craft-related blogs? Or even just regular parenting blogs?

Some of the bloggers I read seem to have such perfect lives. You know, after they make all the beds in their adorable, clean, and uncluttered houses, they serve their children a nutritious breakfast of made-from-scratch biscuits served with fruit preserves they canned themselves using fruit they grew, herbs they harvested wild, and locally-grown sweetener. After breakfast, the whole family spends the morning engaging in creative endeavors - sewing, or playing with capes and helmets, or painting, or whatever. After their made-from-scratch and nutritionally-balanced lunches eaten on a handmade quilt under the tree in the backyard, they spend some time learning about the parts of plants while they work together in their spacious and well-weeded gardens. (Their lawn is, incidentally, mowed.) Some time, and I’m not sure when, they also have an opportunity to make wonderful things for their Etsy shop. Evenings are spent with their spouse after, of course, a made from scratch dinner.

Their kids are always really good, and when they’re naughty, they’re naughty in funny ways. The parents never lose their tempers, and always have the right answer. Nobody has bad habits, or does anything like let their kid have frozen pot stickers for lunch 5 days in a row.

Sigh.

I wouldn’t turn down a life like that.

But it’s not my life. And, truly, I do not think that that is what THEIR lives are like, either. It’s just what they appear to be, because I, as the reader, only see glimpses of their lives. Highly controlled glimpses, at that.

So, in an effort to make you feel better about yourself, here is OUR typical Monday.

Get up. Lounge in bed until everyone is good and awake. Get out of bed, make bed, make breakfast. Breakfast choices are the same every day: oatmeal, cereal, toast with peanut butter, toast with cinnamon sugar, eggs. Some days we add pancakes to the list, some days we have bacon. wahoo. Get dressed. (We always get dressed on Mondays!) Wash dishes, clean in Zone. Homeschool, starting no later than 9:15, preferably 9. Story time is at 10:15. (except tomorrow, there is no story time.) After story time, grab a snack and head down to my office (or my apartment, as Wally calls it). Work. Process orders, process shipping, sew, cut, whatever.

While I work, Wally can watch a movie (2 times a week), play games on the computer, draw, paint, playdough, or do whatever strikes his fancy. He will spend a significant amount of this time asking to watch a movie. Genna will sleep for an hour if I’m lucky, and be happy playing with toys for another half hour, and will fuss or need to be held the rest of the time. Sewing with a 6 month old presents some challenges!!

Finish up work as soon as humanly possible, but no later than 2. I aim for 1 every day, but don’t usually make it. Eat lunch. Lunch is usually sandwiches, leftovers, soup, or spaghetti. Soup is usually chicken noodle. From a can about half the time, though I’m trying to cut back on canned soups. I have never served us from-scratch rustic country breads with fresh-from-the-garden vegetable soups for lunch.

After lunch, mommy wants to rest, but usually ends up doing crafts or playing games with Wally. We always plan to read books after lunch, but usually forget. (We read books during homeschool time and in the evenings, so it’s not a huge deal.) Playing games usually means on the Wii, but with the return of nice weather, we’re heading outside more and more often.

Daddy comes home in the evening, and at least usually offers some books or other one on one activity with Wally. (this helps prevent obnoxious begging for attention later in the evening.) Monday is rehearsal night, so we eat dinner and then have dance team practice at our house for an hour or so before bed. Wally watches a movie while we practice.

So there you have it. If I ever give the impression that our life is more glamorous than this, well, I’m sorry.

Hm, I’m a little disturbed by the fact that most of my projects these days are knitting. ALL of my sewing time is going to customers. Hm.

At any rate, I made this adorable little hat for Genna for this summer, mainly for camping. She has outgrown all of her warm hats from the winter, but will need something for camping when the nights get cool. This little hat is so easy to make, too. It’s mostly a rectangle. Here’s the pattern and my Ravelry page on this project.

As you might be aware, I have a slight book problem. As in, I buy them obsessively. In the last few years, I’ve started buying (or rescuing from the garbage) those pathetic, scribbled on, falling apart children’s books left at the end of used book sales. Then I make new things out of them.

Bubble magnets are apparently the world’s easiest craft project, but I’ve never made them. They were pretty simple to make, and super fun, too. The ones pictured here are spoken for, but I have some listed over at Etsy if they strike your fancy. (Jungle Book, Sesame Street. more to come.)

And you can read more about who these magnets are headed to over at An Epic Journey (my 101 in 1001 project).

On a whim, I ordered molds to make awareness ribbon soaps, hoping it would arrive before my friends left for the ICAN National Conference. The molds got here on time, and I whipped up some ICAN/C-Section Awareness soaps for the auction at the conference, which is a fundraiser for ICAN. These were fun to make. I have some listed over at Etsy, and a portion of each sale is going to ICAN of Central Iowa.

In the trunk of your SUV, with a baby and girl scout cookies, on a beautiful day, while your preschooler snoozes in his carseat.

“Hey, could you make _____ for me?”

How many times do you hear this in the course of the average month? I know I hear it at least 5 times monthly, from friends, family, acquaintances, and sometimes even nearly complete strangers.

My mother in law wants me to reupholster her dining room chairs.

My sister in law asked me to fix the misspelled name of one of her kids on an item made by another relative.

A friend asked me to make her a duplicate of a commercially available item.

An acquaintance asked me to make a duplicate of an item I’d made for my son.

And it’s not that I can’t do it. And it’s not that I don’t want to do it. But the requesters very rarely understand what they’re really asking, and therefore also don’t understand the reasons that I really ought to turn them down.

First, I really lack the time. I’m carving out one week out of every four to work on projects for me (in other words, not for either shop and not for customers). But the amount of time that week represents is very small - usually only a few hours of incredibly interrupted work time. That’s not much. However, this rarely deters me from turning down anything but very large projects.

More than just the time involved in fulfilling everyone’s personal wish lists is the lack of follow-through, and this is possibly the biggest problem.

My sister in law, for example, asked me to fix the aforementioned item. I agreed. I told her to drop it by and I’d see what I could do. That was eight years ago. Every once in a while, I still feel bad that I didn’t fix it for her, but the fact is - I couldn’t very well fix it while it was at her house 30 miles away.

A friend asked me to make her something similar to an already-existing item. I agreed, and told her several things I’d need to know before I could work on it. (color, size, etc.) It hasn’t come up since.

Finally, what many non-crafters, non-sewers, etc. do not understand is that just because a person is good at a few facets of craftiness doesn’t make them professionals at all aspects. I’ve turned down so many friends asking me to do tailoring work for them. A few have seemed a little hurt over it. But what they didn’t understand (despite my attempts at explaining) is that I’m really not a tailor. I can adjust a pattern to fit my body better - on the second time around. I can adjust my own ready-made clothes to fit me better - but I really only do it on the simplest of clothing items.

I’m also not skilled at developing complex patterns. I can do basic pattern drafting. But I can’t draft a pattern for a fitted slipcover for your couch (MIL again).

And I can make things from wood like simple cabinets and furniture, but if you want something that looks like it came from a store and not from my basement… go buy it from a store.

This isn’t being mean, this is doing you a favor. And doing my family a favor, because they don’t deserve to have to live with me while I’m working on a project for which I am ill suited. (I get a wee bit grouchy.)

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And you know my MIL, with the dining room chairs? I told her no, even though it’s an easy project and I could totally do it. Why? Because she can do it herself. No, she doesn’t know how. Or, rather, she didn’t know how. I walked her through it. (remove seats from chair frame. remove old fabric. remove old padding if it’s overly worn. Buy new padding, buy new fabric. Cut padding to size. Cut fabric. Pull fabric over padding. Staple to underneath side of seat. Replace.) Now she knows. She can do it herself.