Strawberry Tootcake and the Zombie Bears

Hi everyone!

Halloween isn't a huge deal around our house BUT Toot loves to dress up so she ended up with about three different costumes this year. (What? I can't help it if she looks cute in everything! :P) But by far her favorite was her Strawberry Shortcake costume. She is obsessed with Miss Shortcake and her friends which thrills me to no end since I was obsessed with them myself when I was young.

We got her all dressed up yesterday and took her to the mall for some trick or treating around the stores. There was about 3 other Shortcakes there but Toot of course was the strawberry-est, the short-est and the cake-est.

We waited in a huge line for an hour before discovering that the line was for little goodie bags and entering the mall's giveaway. Booooo! So we grabbed our goodie bag, entered the giveaway (You owe me, Mall!) and then started off to invade the stores and demand our candy...uh, I mean politely say "Trick or Treat!" and act like Toot would be the only one eating candy when we got home.

Afterwards we had lunch and I discovered Toot playing with her food. It looked like some sort of zombie bear march...

Four zombie bears?  That's not so bad...

They're multiplying! RUN!!!!!!!!

Happy Halloween everyone! Or if it's not your thing, Happy Monday! :D

Hooking It Up

Hi everyone!

I've been hooking up a storm here to try and get some things done before the holiday hits me...anyone else feeling the rush already???

So far I've hooked this lapghan:

This beret and scarf:

And this hooded scarf:

I'm still hooking away as October draws to a close and November barrels down on me....

A Wiggly Birthday

Hi everyone!

For Toot's birthday party last week we did a Wiggles theme. Luckily my mum-in-law and father-in-law recently retired to Australia and were able to send us some party things. My mom also created this four layer cake, each layer colored to match a Wiggle.

This 3rd birthday of Toot's also marks the first year that 1. She blew out her own candles and 2. She didn't scream and cry as we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Win win!

Toot's Renaissance

Hi everyone!
 
The Renaissance Festival was a lot of fun and Toot had a blast! A highlight for her was meeting Twig the Fairy:

Twig played a song for Toot:

She was selling her book, Twig the Fairy and the Curious Land of Real so of course I had to grab a copy and she even autographed it for Toot:

Toot rode every ride, talked to everyone and loved wearing her "fancy dress". On our way out, some Royals were dancing and Toot ran right over to join in. They loved her dancing with them and actually did another song just so Toot could run around. lol



And to answer your question, no she did not wear the cape I crocheted for her, it was just too hot. *face palm*

Toot Tis Three Today

Hi everyone!

Well it finally happened, Toot turned three. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! I mean don't get me wrong, I want her to grow up to be a beautiful, sweet, functioning member of society but I also want her to remain my little baby who thinks I hung the moon. Your kids never stop thinking that about you, right? :P

Today, at 1:42 AM three years ago my Toot was born and my life was changed forever. Unlike my Zippy who earned her nickname by being born in under 30 minutes, Toot took her sweet time getting here and holy crap it took FOREVER! But she was worth the wait...

More Toot after the jump...

The Cape is Finished, Huzzah!

Hi everyone!

Well, I did it! The dreaded cape I spoke about in this post is complete! Or at least as complete as I'm going to get it. lol

More pics after the jump!

Friday Night Fab Five Plus One Is Six Hookers

Hi everyone!

Obey Crochet is an awesome hooker site, dedicated to the humorous side of crochet. And I love it. They've put out a call for Hooker pictures for their Hooktopia and I, of course, had to answer it. The call I mean. You can send in any sort of crochet pictures really but they also suggested holding a sign that says, "My name is ______. I am a hooker!" And since I'm pretty good at filling in blanks and I know my own name, I decided to go in that direction.

But which hooker should I submit? We hookers contain many layers, nuances and sides to our effervescent personalities....So I took a bunch and will let the hooks fall where they may...

Serious Hooker

Happy Hooker

Angry Hooker

Sad Hooker

Crazy Hooker

Hunka Hunka Elivs Hooker

As an added bonus, here's a new vlog! I made it when I couldn't sleep the other night so I apologize in advance for it making no sense whatsoever. I talk about the horrible hood I'm making for Toot and my sad half knitted dishcloth that will probably never see a dish. After viewing the video myself I realized how ugly this cape yarn really is. Really. But then I remembered that cameras add 10 pounds of ugly.



Have a great weekend everyone!

This Canvas is None of Your Beeswax

Hi everyone!

I've got a new project to share with you today that I made for Gauche Alchemy. It's a mini canvas and includes my first foray into the world of beeswax. I've always admired other people's projects that utilize beeswax and have been wanting to try it for a while. I finally took the plunge and was very satisfied with the end result, even if it took me a while to get there. But let's start at the end, shall we? Here's my mini canvas!

Read my sad sack attempt at a step by step after the jump...

Hook, Line and Stinker

It's no secret that I love crochet.  And when I say I *love* crochet, I mean everything about, pertaining to, alluding to or otherwise concerning crochet.  I love the yarn, the hooks, the patterns, the magazines, the books, the designers, the online communities like Ravelry and Crochetville and the hooker blogs like Crochetbug. I'm so obsessed with it that I even stalk super awesome sites like KnitPurlGurl and Tiny Owl Knits that are mostly about knitting (which I'm still not very good at, cut to picture of half knitted dishcloth currently collecting dust beside me) just because I love the fiber arts that much.

I love finding new projects to start and finishing them is even better (which happens less often than the starting of them I admit).  We're heading off to the Renaissance Faire this weekend (we always go the month of my birthday) and I've decided that Toot MUST have a hooded cape to wear with her fancy dress.  And of course nothing would do but that I should crochet said hooded cape that said Toot needs by said weekend.  Said.

So I started a pattern from Linda Permann's book Little Crochet and....well...it wasn't working for me. So I started again, this time using a pattern from the September/October 2011 issue of Crochet Today and...well...that wasn't sparking my hook either. SO I started AGAIN today using a little bit from BOTH patterns and now...well...

Okay, I admit it.  I'm sitting here blogging (hiding behind my blog might be more accurate), right this very minute, because I don't want to keep crocheting this thing. (Added sidenote: Toot is currently standing beside me, taking off her clothes.  She just, right this very minute, declared, "Mama...I'm nakeneed!") I want to quit. I want to set my hooks down and work on something more fun because this hooded cape is bo-RING. Don't get me wrong, the patterns are great but dude, I so want to be hooking something else right now.  Or finish reading "Sweater Quest" by Adrienne Martini to see if she got her Fair Isle sweater done even though I sneaked over to her blog and saw that she *spoiler alert* did. (And it's amazing BTW)

Normally I would tell myself, "Take a step back. Take a break, work on something else and then come back to it."  (Hey Mind Maggi, why don't you mind your own business?)  But with a dun dun DUN "THIS WEEKEND"  deadline looming, I don't have the luxury of quitting.  Boo-urns!  So I've decided that Toot is going to the Faire in this thing whether it's finished or she just ends up carrying a skein of yarn around with a sign that says, "<----Hooded Cape".

Alright, well...I can't think of anything else to write so that must be my inner crafter's guilt goading me back to the hook.  Wait, the phone's ringing!  I better answer that first, I'm sure it's important...

The Feet Eaters

Hi everyone!

So here's a question: where did I get such limber babies? I took this picture of Toot when she was 8 months old and scrapped it because I thought 1. That she was a genius for being able to eat her foot and 2. She's eating her foot, what the heck?!

 
Little did I know that a few (very few) years later, Toot would have a sister just as well versed in astounding feats of limber-ness as she is:

Seriously, I've never been able to do that! Actually, that's probably a good thing otherwise there might be more babies eating their feet around here. :P