J is for:

Jaguar!

Originally a custom order, I loved the finished result of this cute Jaguar so much that I decided to make him a permanent animal in my shop. He is one of two letter J options (the other being the original 'J is for Jellyfish').

Enjoy!

Flickr Favorites - The Weekend

1. African Flower blanket, 2. indie chic wrist cuff, 3. Moe cosy, 4. mini golf... flickr style :)

Being that it was Easter Weekend, we headed north on Thursday evening for a nice visit with my family. The weather was beyond beautiful. It was bright and sunny, and I was able to wear skirts every single day (yay!)

I busted out the clubs and brushed up on my (not so fantastic) golf skills. When my arms no longer wanted to swing back and forth I headed to my mom's house for hours and hours of sewing. We made about half a dozen of these adorable wrist cuffs, as well as two tote bags, a couple zippered pouches, and lots of embroidered felt brooches to adorn said pouches and totes. She did the sewing, I did the embroidering and fabric picking!

I also spent some time working on a crocheted floral blanket which is part of a crochet-a-long on ravelry. Right now the look of the blanket is secret, but when it's time I will certainly share pictures. It is my favorite crocheted project to date!

And of course, Easter would not have been complete with a little Easter Egg hunt (even if my brother, husband, and I are well into our 20's) complete with candy and 3 gift cards to a coffee shop (of which I was the only person to not find a single card).

I had a wonderful weekend, and hope you did too!
Tomorrow you can be on the look out for a new animal in the shop :)

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Flickr Favorites - Sock Yarn

1. Clothilde modeled 1, 2. Child's First Socks, 3. Swallowtail 7, 4. ishbel

When I first started knitting I couldn't imagine using sock yarn and the tiny needles that went with it. I was happiest with super bulky yarn, or at the very least, bulky. At that time tiny needles only equated to a seemingly tedious project in my eyes.

As time went on I got over the super bulky phase of my early knitting days (none to soon either) and fell comfortably in with the DK and Worsted weight yarns. But still, I thought about all those knitters out there who seemed to be in love with sock yarn, sock knitting, and yes, there seemed to be people out there who enjoyed knitting with lace weight yarn too!

During a sunny September day 2.5 years ago my grandmother (and only fellow family knitter) and I decided to go to a local Fiber Festival, and see what yarns were around. To our surprise the majority of yarns for sale were the dreaded fingering weight yarns. She had I had talked before about the possibility of knitting a pair of socks, just to see what all the fuss was about, and at that moment it seemed like a great idea to buy some sock yarn. In the end we each purchased about 4 skeins of yarn and regretted it by the time we got home.

The yarn lay untouched until the following spring when I declared that she and I were going to have a "Summer - of - Sockathon" whether she liked it or not! I picked out some patterns on ravelry and off we went. It was a simple cuff down pattern, and both of us were mildly interested enough to continue. Not being able to wrap our heads around toe-up socks (and for the record, I still can't) we searched high and low for fun looking cuff down sock patterns to fill our spring and summer knitting.

I quickly got bored with socks though, as I am not one to want to knit the same thing twice. (proof of this lies in my special basket of single knit socks) I looked around for alternative uses for sock yarn, and that is when I discovered shawls.

Oh how I love to knit shawls!

The lacier the better in my opinion. At the top of my list of favorite knits are the Swallowtail, Ishbel, and Forest Canopy Shawls. At the moment I am working on the Clothilde and Arabella shawls with plans to make another Swallowtail down the road.

Next up on my list of things to learn?

Garment knitting. (eek)

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Flickr Favorites - It Started With a Tree

1. Last Spring, 2. Night-caps, 3. lLemon Cucumber, 4. Green Bean Harvest, 5. " LOVE" Zinnia in Wat Phra Kaew :-).., 6. white, 7. Colorful Spade, 8. Gardening Gloves, 9. IT IS SNOWING AGAIN, 10. Crocuses, 11. Lettuce, 12. Home-Grown, 13. b6976 Poppies A-Popping14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

Not too long ago I decided I wanted to plant a tree in front of our house.

When we moved in all we had were overgrown mismatched shrubs planted here and there, and I hated it. The weekend was warm and sunny so I decided to rip out every shrub and make way for a garden and tree.

The tree will be a dogwood, with white blooms (a gift from my grandparents)

Around the tree will be white tulips and miniature daffodils (a gift from my mom)

We are going to make a little stamped concrete path to where we house the bicycles, and plant little yellow crocuses on either side of the concrete.

In front of our little porch will be Zinnia's and Poppy's in bright summery colors.

I can't wait!

Out back we are building a raised bed vegetable garden that will (hopefully) provide us with green beans, cherry tomatoes, bib lettuce, and cucumber lemons. This garden has been a long time planning. When you live in row houses, unfortunately, you can't just put anything in the ground that you want. Thankfully, in our "backyard" they don't mind gardens.

When it is all complete I will be sure to post proud pictures. They will be my first real flower and vegetable gardens after all! (And I should be getting back to them right now)

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Thad

There's a new member to the monster crew.

His name is Thadeus, and he likes to be called Thad for short.

He's definitely a special crew member as he is the first, and only current member to have "fingers."

Enjoy!

Flickr Favorites -Self Portrait

1. Whit's Knits: Tulip Socks, 2. New craft studio - WIP, 3. 'specially in the back, 4. Help me, please!, 5. Henry Sausage Dog Plush Toy, 6. Saturday Night Fun, 7. Yellow dress, 8. Ranunculus Bouquet, 9. handmade mugs

Last week Mitsy challenged us to come up with a flickr favorites self portrait. I thought the idea was great and was excited to give it a go. So here we go, a flickr favorites about me:

1) Yarn.

Knitting and Crocheting is something that I do when I need to de-stress. The past 2 years in particular have been more stressful than I could have ever imagined, and letting the fibers run through my hands while I hum along through projects has been the best relaxing hobby I have ever picked up. I'm a knitter/crocheter for life!

2) Crafting.

I am a huge do-it-yourself fan! Whenever I see something I immediately ask myself, "could I make it?" and 9 times out of 10 I usually do :)

3) Travel.

My parents always took my brother and I on small trips when we were growing up. And in college I took my first big trip to France and England. I had just transfered schools and changed majors. I didn't know anyone in my class that was going on the trip, save for one person, but the trip changed my life. 8 countries (and one amazing trip to Alaska) later I'm happy to announce that this year I'll be visiting my 9th new country, Ireland!

4) I like to help.
By nature I like to plan things and offer assistance whenever I can. But, on the flip side, I seem to have a very hard time asking for help when I know I need it.

5) I'm an Animal Lover.
In particular, I love dogs. We have a 7 year old Lhasa Apso mix, named Nicholi (who is a rescue) and a 2 year old Cockapoo named Piper. I am biased, and I do think I have the best dogs in the world. :)

6) I love games.

I learned how to play my first game with my grandma and my mom when I was 3 years old. I love card games, board games, outdoor games, etc. My very favorite game is pinochle, and I've been playing it since I was 8 or 9.

7) I love dresses.
I don't actually wear many dresses, but I love them. I wish there was a store that made dresses specifically for short people so I could wear more of them. (and by short I mean someone who is 5'1")

8) I love flowers.

I think a vase full of tulips has to be one of the cheeriest sites sitting on a kitchen table. I love visiting botanical gardens, and am SO lucky to live near a pretty awesome one. I highly recommend visiting during their Orchid Extravaganza. It's beautiful!

9) My first love: Handmade Pottery

The first ever art class I took in college was a beginners ceramics class. I fell in love with the medium and ended up getting a dual degree in that and digital media. I long for the day that I can take another pottery class, and am a huge admirer and collector of handmade pottery.

Well that is quite a bit right there!
I'm sure I could've added more, but perhaps Mitsy will one day make a "self portrait 2" challenge, and I can continue then :)

If you'd like to play along head on over to Mitsy's blog and sign up!

Under the Sea - Update!

It's been quite some time since I have done any more work on my 'Under the Sea' series of animals. I had a customer looking for some interesting underwater animals starting with the letter 'M' and I ended up doing this:

This Manatee is the 13th addition to the 'Under the Sea' family:

I really like how he came out, and hope you do too! You can find him here.