Bits and Bobs and a Ripple

Good morning! How are you today? Im excited because guess what?! Elliott bought me a new phone for my birthday and I now know how to link to websites on my blog from my phone!! Yay! Apparently the app I use has the ability to do it but my old phone was very outdated and didn't function properly in order for that feature to work. Thank you technology for being wonderful again!


Instragram is also really fun, as are a bunch of other games I couldn't get and/or play with my other phone. It was the 3G iPhone which was very old, and it was starting to be a real drag because I couldn't do hardly anything the iPhone is capable of doing. Now I can view blogs AND comment on them, open things with one touch instead of the press and hold then press the open button. Ah, easy again. Anyway, enough of that.


Are you having a fun weekend? We're not doing much this weekend, just cleaning. Earlier, Amelia and I were laying in bed and she was whispering furiously in my ear, "I'm just gonna help you..." as she probed her freezing fingers into my face and stuck her freezing feet on my arm. Then she ran away and threw Barbie at me. It was all pretty unpleasant but I loved it none the less.


Alyssa got a new car seat because my big girl out grew her infant seat. I would be sad about it but she was so heavy in her infant seat to carry around plus she hated that seat.


Sorry her face is kinda whited out, it was really bright out. But she loves it. It's bigger and more roomy for her. Plus she really likes to ride in the carts at places instead of being in her car seat. It's the end of an era. But it's better this way. Still no crawling from the babe yet, though she's taking 3-4 "steps" and then falls down to army crawl her way to where she's going. For a non-mobile baby, she's pretty mobile.


Amelia and I have been playing with the camera on my phone. She loves to see herself when we take pictures. She's such a ham!


Big ham! I put her in the Mai tei just to see what she would do and she actually liked it and she was pretty weightless in it.


I put Alyssa in it while we cleaned the kitchen yesterday morning and she put her head down on my back. She was so sleepy. Speaking of sleepy! If you have children, have you noticed their sleeping habits being crazy because of the weather changing (or other unknown factors)? Amelia has been sleeping so weird lately. Alyssa's sleep problems stem from regular baby things though.


How's it going on your crafty home front? I've done nothing more but love my new ripple blanket. Elliott and I decided it should be for one of the girls. Probably Amelia, and the little hexagon blanket will be made for Alyssa. Especially since Amelia is always trying to steal mine and Elliott's blankets.


I am loving the neons from ILTY. They're thicker than the regular ILTY but still very soft. I started the blanket last weekend and I'm already (or just however you look at it) 21 rows in with a starting chain of 210. So it's wide and will be 140ish rows long. Hopefully she'll be using it for forever because she'll grow into it, but I know her tastes will change once she's older.


Oh, I do love a lovely ripple blanket. I hope you have/had a wonderful weekend! Have a great week! ☺

Fiber Adventures

Hello! Are you enjoying this lovely Sunday in your neck of the woods? I am very much! My dad, Amelia, and I went to fund raiser and we got our fingernails painted. Yep, my dad let Amelia pick out two colors for him and he got his thumbnails painted. Before he came over, Elliott and I cleaned up our bedroom. Not that it was so dirty or is that big, we just did a deep clean. And before that I got to sleep in until 8! How awesome! Now everyone is quieted down and the two A's are taking naps. And I'm here talking to you! I have a few things to show you. Sorry it's been so long, but I was having severe blanket crochet withdrawals. You think I'm kidding but I'm not! I actually went a few days without picking up my hooks at all. But in that time I did make something super neat.




It's called a mai tei. I got the tutorial HERE:
My sister gave me my birthday present a little early, a gift card to hobby lobby, and I bought duck canvas and minky in pink and the hot pink calico plus some other little odds and ends and made myself this carrier. The pocket was my own add on. Just a simple envelope pocket.




Alyssa loves it. She loves to be worn.




I love it because with this carrier I can wear her on my back. So with Amelia running around when we go out, and especially if I'm by myself, this feature is so helpful. Just the other day, I took the girls to the park on and put Alyssa on my back...




She fell asleep. Haha! I asked a stranger if she looked ok, he said she looked as comfortable as could be. When we left some high schoolers laughed at me for the way I had to take her off my back. I wasn't worried about it, I know I'm super cool, don't need no high schoolers to tell me! But I keep the Mai tei in my car and I get butterflies when I get into the car because the fabric makes it smell like Hobby Lobby. I love that store.




But with the rest of my gift card I bought new yarn for a new blanket! It's I Love This Yarn's neon colors and grey. The grey is called greybeard! How fun!




And here's my inspiration for the blanket, A sock! Elliott got these socks for me last Christmas and Amelia has been wearing them on her hands like mittens. I ran into ILTY neon when I had to pick up a skein of brown to finish a project and Amelia picked up the fuchsia and we both fell in love with it.




It's another ripple with no specific purpose except to make me happy while I make it. I might make it for one of the girls or just toss it over one of the couches. But it's bringing the joy of crochet back to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm still working on the granny square blanket, Amelia's hexagon blanket, an everything else I'm working on, but as I've said before I really missed the gentle flow of a larger blanket.




I made Alyssa a hat out of the fuchsia, so I need to make Amelia one now instead of the periwinkle.




If you remember this one. I got the pattern from HERE.
And for Amelia's hat I chained 42 and doing what Barb has written for the pattern for 60 rows. Amelia's head is 19 1/2 inches. For Alyssa's (her head is 17 inches) hat I chained 38 and did Barb's pattern for a total of 52 rows. I wish I would have made Alyssa's a few rows longer but this pattern has fantastic stretch. I hope you try it!




Besides all that, we've just been doing our thing.




Alyssa is sitting up all on her own in the middle of the floor. And she's growing so much! She's in the 92% for her height and 80th for her weight.




And Amelia is just an amazing big sister. She helps me so much, and for awhile I tried not to ask her to help because of Alfred Adler's birth order theory (I was a psychology major in college and he says that the first born is basically a little mother/father. I didn't want to out that one her trying not to set her up for that role, but she was born into it. No pun intended!) But she just wanted to help and be a part of it all. She's my right hand sometimes. And Elliott's back is much better now, thanks for asking! Also, because of my lack of drive for crochet, I'm behind on my crochet along. Oops! I'll catch up soon, I promise myself.




And I got my hair cut! My hair is naturally curly but my hair dresser/one of my closest friends, always flat irons it when she cuts it. I LOVE it! That's about it for now, I hope you're outside enjoying the beautiful weather! Happy Fall beginnings!

Crochet is Crochet is Crochet

Apparently it is not!
Good morning! How are you this beautiful day? I'm well, not really looking forward to later today because my poor Alyssa has to get shots.


This little girl is six months 4 days ago. Still no crawling but why would you need to crawl when you can roll and spin in circles like a helicopter all day?


She is doing the splits, some baby downward facing dogs, and definitely scooting backward, mostly to end up under things.


Eating rice cereal like a big girl, but not oatmeal. We, I mean I, find this out the hard way while wearing Alyssa in the ring sling on a walk after breakfast one day. She threw up all over the inside of the sling. Not spit up. This involved the reflexes and included the sounds of actual vomit. Don't worry, I'm not scared of any kind of throw up. But I was worried she was sick. I placed her in her bouncy seat and she threw up some more. At one point I walked away to get Amelia something, because at that time she hadn't thrown up for a few minutes and came back shortly to find her red faced and choking. Mama bear instincts and reflexes kicked in and I grabbed her, flipped her face down on my arm and patted her back firmly with my other hand. She moaned softly and spit on the floor, going a little soft in my arms. I rubbed her back and talked to her and she started to squirm not too long after. I squeezed her and told her I loved her and she was ok. That's the scariest thing I've gone through with Alyssa. The scariest thing with Amelia was when she fell down the back deck stairs about 7-8 months because she went through the doggy door when we still had it. Then another day we tried oatmeal again. Same result without the choking so we've stayed away from oatmeal.


Besides all that jazz, I haven't been up to much hooking lately. I made Amelia this hat from a new pattern I was trying I'll link up to it in my next post because I'm planning to make Alyssa one too. But it's easy and fast. I was just hooking along with the hat when some dark yarn showed up woven in the periwinkle I was using. I thought it looked pretty neat so instead of cutting it out I left it. By the way, Amelia is wearing underwear in the picture. I cannot keep clothes on my child. Not since she's been potty trained. Oh yeah! She's been potty trained for awhile now and she is amazing at it! She'll stop doing something sometimes and say, "oh! I gotta go pee!" and run off to do her business. I still have to bribe her to poop sometimes but she's good at that too.


Alyssa likes the hat too so she's definitely getting a matching one. But my hooks have sadly been very quiet lately because I have been crocheting hats and squares but I really miss the smooth, relaxing movement of a blanket. Long chain, double crochet, turn, double crochet again to end. I miss blanketing. But I'm gonna get one started again soon. But not soon enough for my hooks.