Whitniffic Whatnots

Ok... I was a tad ambitious when I so confidently claimed that I'd have my niece's quilt done by the end of August. In reality, I just finished it this past week. I had the whole week off for Thanksgiving because I somehow had a bunch of vacation time to burn, so I made sure the adorable pink and grey quilt was on the top of my to-do list. And here it is! Still playing with straight lines for top stitching. Not boring yet! Cute binding detail... like usual. :) Of course, it needed my signature matching tote bag too! I took better process pictures of how I construct the simple box totes this time. Here's a quick picture tutorial: Cut strips to piece front and back. Sew strips together in pretty pattern. Top stitch with batting to match quilt. Whip up a simple lining (the exact same, but 1/8" smaller than outer bag). Leave one bottom corner open to turn right-side-out. Sew sides to face pieces. What I do when my bat...

Remember those cute knitted booties I made last fall? Well, my friend Jamie loved the cable pattern, and asked me to see if I could translate that pattern into some leg warmers for her. She's a personal trainer, so she wears a lot of fitness leggings (like... all the time. They're all really cute too), and thus would like a pair of legwarmers for winter. This conversation happened last fall... and I'm finally getting around to finishing them up... a year later. They're actually pretty simple. I'm knitting them flat on straight needles, and plan to secure them up the sides with a bunch of cool buttons. I started by casting on 60 stitches and knitting a 2x2 rib for about 1.5 inches, or 8 rows. I then increased to 66 stitches (increasing in the center of  each cable). It took me forever to figure out what the heck I had done on the first one when it came time to making the second one... so I ended up unraveling a good three pieces of ribbing because nothing was t...

Holy cow! I just realized that I never posted finished pictures of the Truffula Tree quilt! Silly me... I got this little quilt finished up just in time for my last hair appointment (like, literally the night before) so I didn't have a whole lot of time to photograph it before giving it to my stylist for her sweet little girl. I brought it to work with me hoping to get some time over lunch to bring it out and find some cute places to set up some pictures, but that didn't happen. I had to run around like crazy after work and snap a few here and there... so pardon the lameness of my photos! At least I got a few of the whole thing, front and back, and some of the detailed stitching.   I'll see if I can get a few photos of it in the baby's room tonight! We're having another craft night, and I guess that would be an ideal time to do it! 

November is Men's Health Month... also known as "Movember". Sometimes life is just really unfair. One of the kindest, most generous people I know was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer-- the founder and shareholder of the company I work for. All of us who work in his family of businesses are saddened to hear the news. He truly is a great man, and we're all sure he'll pull through this fight just fine. After all... karma is definitely on his side. I had the idea to round up anyone at my company who can crochet to make him a blanket or something for Christmas, and present it to him at our annual holiday party. I was able to find five ladies, and we decided to do granny squares (or "grandpa squares" I guess... he's only 57, but he is technically a grandpa). Originally, I thought we'd just make up a bunch of 8" squares in random patterns and stitch them all together, but as a group we decided that an image of a blue ribbon would be ki...

A few friends and I have decided to meet up for craft night on random Mondays. Our first session was Halloween-themed! I had been scouring Pinterest for cute ideas for weeks, and I finally decided on some string art, a giant googly-eye wreath and some beaded spiders... kind of like these: I knew the string art would take the most amount of time (I decided on four different ones... doh!), so I prepped the wood pieces the week prior to craft night. There were a bunch of pieces of 1x12" board hanging out in my basement for a while, which I probably bought to make something else out of but forgot about, so I grabbed those and brought them to work to cut into manageable pieces. After impressing some male coworkers with my table saw skills, I sanded the pieces up nice and smooth. Next step: color. I had decided on four different shaped objects for my string art: a pumpkin, a cat against a full moon, a ghost in a circle, and some bats. The pumpkin was obviously destine...