Feeling Felty

While in Eugene I picked up this nice wool sweater at Value Village with the intention of felting it. (I picked up a few others but I like them so much I can't bring myself to felt them!) And so I made my boy a pair of mittens and matching hat today. I will admit to bribing him with Christmas chocolate in exchange for posing for these pictures. Is that bad?? All week I've been tempted to go back to Value Village to scout out some more sweaters but I'm trying to downsize over here (to make room for the new babe) and so I've been good. But I tried on this hat myself and it fits and the pattern is so cute and easy that I think a trip is in order! So keep watching you might see a set for me in the near future. Happy New Year to All!!

Funky Chickens

I know most of you aren't as obsessed with chickens as I, but I just can't help myself. Today to my delight I found that both of my production reds had started laying and had been sitting on a half a dozen eggs (which they wouldn't let me see yesterday since they were sitting on them). And so I'm sharing a picture of the beautiful brown eggs that I got this morning.

Chocolate Madelines

Look at me getting in one more post before the end of the year. Aren't you proud? See - I told you I'd try to be better. Ok, I don't have anything super exciting to post but after returning from our trip to Eugene to visit my parents I was inspired to bake some madelines and dip them in chocolate. My grandmother in France sent a little package with some madelines in them and although I had a few, I didn't quite get my fill. So I made more. Here they are:

December...Already??

Hi, I'm back, or at least I hope so. Sadly it's been over a month since I last posted. I will try to be more diligent about posting. It's not like I haven't been busy making and creating over here it's more like I've been spacey about taking pictures and blogging. So let's see here... we had Thanksgiving at our house this year and it was a hit. We went and cut our Christmas tree in the Olympics the day after Thanksgiving (which was gorgeous) and had a great time. Although I think next year I won't do it quite so early since our tree is really DRY! But here are a few pictures to share: Oh yea - I just remembered why I haven't been blogging. I actually worked a lot this month. I helped out at the Farm Kitchen for about 3 weeks wrapping all the goodies they were selling at various sales, baking gingerbread, making gingerbread house and working at the gingerbread house parties. So I've been busy. I did however find a little bit of time to make a few Christmas gifts including aprons, skirts, hats, and oven mitts. I didn't however remember to take any pictures! So if any of you out there received one of these and wouldn't mind - I'd love a picture! I'm signing off for now because I desperately need to clean my house before the festivities begin but I promise I'll be back!

Bread Perfection

For my birthday I received a Le Creuset French oven and ever since I've been working on the perfect no-knead bread baked in the french oven. I think I may have reached perfection last night. The bread was nice and crusty on the outside and warm and soft on the inside and oh so good with a little butter dipped in soup. Mmmmmm.... Does this picture make you hungry?

Crafty Tuesday

Since we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house again this year I decided to do a little holiday decorating. It's amazing what a little bit of paper will do. See for yourself:

Lucy's Scarf

My good friend Lucy is turning 50, so I decided to make her something since I know how much she likes handcrafted things. I settled on this scarf in these beautiful blues and greens that look oh so good on her. It's a super bulky yarn and a nice loose pattern. I love the way it came together. Expect to see a few more of these (I'm currently working on an orange one for myself). Happy Birthday Lucy!! Hope you have a fabulous year.

Halloween

I know I''m a little late, but here are some pictures of my little pirate on Halloween. Pirate and Peguin: Argh!!! Say CANDY!!!

Pumpkin Carving

I'm excited that Wyatt is old enough to participate in activities like pumpkin carving. We spent the afternoon carving our pumpkins and had a great time. For the first time I tried doing a little stencil on mine and I love the way it turned out. Here are a few pictures from our day.

Bad bad blogger and a new hat

Ok, I know, I'm a horrible blogger. But I do have a good excuse. Or at least I think it's a good one. If you haven't heard yet - we are having another baby due at the end of March. So please excuse my infrequent blog posts. Maybe someday I'll post something everyday but it probably won't be until my children move out of the house, so don't cross your fingers or anything. On to the reason for my post. I finished a hat for Wyatt. A cute little hat called Toasty Toppers (find it on Ravelry). It was a little hard for me but I finally finished it and was so excited about it. So I ask Wyatt to try it on and he refuses. And so what do I do?? Well, being pumped full of pregnancy hormones, I burst into tears! Yes, that's right. Tears because my 2 year old won't try on the hat I knit for him. I know, it's completely ridiculous. Anyway - enough about that. I was thrilled when he tried it on for me another day and then actually posed for a few pictures. Here they are:

Cabinet Full

For those of you wondering what I am going to fill my new cabinet with - here it is, full and organized. Just as I had imagined!

Owl Quilt

So if you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember back at the beginning of the summer when I posted a picture of some cute owl fabric and promised to do something with it. Well.... I've finally finished. I decided to make a baby quilt for a friend who is having a little boy. I thought I had plenty of time to finish - then I got the invite to the baby shower next week! Yikes! Lucky for me, it was an easy project and I'm done. All I have to do is give it a quick wash, then wrap it up and send it away!

First Day of Preschool

We decided to start Wyatt in a Coop Preschool this year. Yesterday was his first day of school. He was super excited and so of course I had to take some pictures. It all went really well. I think it will be a great year for him. Check out our big boy:

The Ranch

Last weekend we made a trip out to Eastern Washington to visit our friends that own a ranch. We all had a really great time playing cowgirl/ cowboy. Wyatt got to ride a horse with daddy, I got to ride my own horse and we all got to help move some cows on horseback. Wyatt made some new friends and we came back with lots of fruit and a box of the best tomatoes I've ever tasted. So I've got lots of canning to do... Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Cabinet complete!!

This post is not to show off some crafty thing that I made, but rather to showcase the wonderful talents of my awesome husband. He's been working on this for quite some time and I'm sure that I've been nagging him for quite some time to finish it. He finally brought it home complete this week and I'm tickled! Now I just need him to bolt it down (so no toddler tries to climb it only to find it toppled over on him!) and I can start filling it up. This is super exciting because 1) I love to organize and 2) I feel like it's giving me more space to put stuff, which is often a problem here. So here it is, my new cabinet:

Beets and Tomatoes

So I finally harvested all the beets from our garden and canned them. I got a fabulous new canning book boasting 400 new recipes for me to try. So I made some sweet pickled beets. Here are the beets freshly harvested from the garden: And here they are canned. Don't you love the color of beets? I also decided to try and can some of the tomatoes from our garden. I'm not sure that I'll be doing it the same way again since it was a lot of work for a mere 2 pint jars! But I bet they will taste delicious!

Weekend Away Bag

I finally, finally got back to my sewing machine. And this time I actually made something for myself. Again, it was out of my Heather Ross "Weekend Sewing" book. Have I mentioned how much I love that book?? There are so many fabulous projects in there. But back to the bag. I had bought the fabric to make this back in June... and well, never got to it until last week. I'm loving the results. It's nice to have a new make-up bag, big enough for all my stuff and so nice and clean too. It doesn't hurt that there are some cute little fishies inside!

Baby Bird

I made this cute little outfit for my cousin's baby shower. She is having a baby girl and I was informed that there was to be no pink. So I thought this would work. Isn't it cute?? Don't you just love those little birdies??

Bad me

Dear Readers: I've been a bad, bad blogger. I'm sorry that I've been so absent for so long. Perhaps it's because I really haven't done anything creative lately and I've been enjoying my summer. Or I've just been really lazy. Or maybe a combination of both. A lot has happened since I last blogged, I just never got around to blogging about it. My husband and I celebrated 3 wonderful years together, we've been on 2 camping trips, completed a 20 mile bike ride and I've canned peaches and blackberry jam. Surely that counts for something, right? Anywho... thought I'd take the time to catch you all up on my garden. Oh and if you live near-by and you want some squash, cucumbers or kale - let me know. I've got plenty. Let's start with the tomatoes. They look out of control, oh wait, they are out of control. Next year I won't plant so many so close. But they taste really yummy. The only beef I have with tomatoes is that they don't all ripen together so I can't ever can them. But on the plus side I have a little bit of tomatoes for a longer period of time and did I mention they are yummy?! For the first time in 3 years, our Asian pear tree has produced pears. I'm so excited and they are so delicious. Wyatt quickly figured out how to pluck his own pear from the tree, so most of the time we are outside he has a pear in hand. My dahlia garden has done ok. I got some "surprise" bulbs at one of the plant sales I visited and was happy to see my surprise was not more pink dahlias. I got plenty of those. The rest of my garden is doing well. I've got tons of squash and like I said before - I'm willing to share. I'm still waiting on my butternut squash to ripen as I have plans to freeze it for the winter. And last but not least, my cabbage. I'm hoping to get back into a creative mode soon. Does anyone remember that owl I posted way back?? We'll I've started a quilt with it. I told you I was going to do something. Goodbye for now. I'll be back soon. Promise.